The Wright Show

Angie's new book, The Long Southern Strategy ... Angie: It wasn't inevitable that civil rights would become a wedge issue ... The Equal Rights Amendment, Phyllis Schlafly, and anti-feminist backlash ... The subtler replacements for overt racism and sexism ... How the Southern style of politics took over the GOP ... Abortion and the migration of Southern Baptists to the GOP ... Did Republicans take advantage of Billy Graham? ... Trump's failed party realignment ... Which Democrat has the best chance of beating Trump? ...

Why Agnes once lay down on the yellow line in the middle of the road ... What explains "akrasia," or weakness of will? ... Agnes's book, Aspiration: The Agency of Becoming ... How Agnes views free will and self-creation ... How do you become the "you" that you want to be? ... Aspiration and the divine ... Agnes's forthcoming book on how Socrates changed the rules ...

Bhaskar's new book, The Socialist Manifesto ... Where Sanders, Warren, and Corbyn fit on the socialist spectrum ... Trump as radicalizer of the left ... Why Marxism failed in Russia and the Third World ... Bhaskar: My objection to capitalism isn’t about the market per se ... Can NAFTA and other trade agreements be made to work for workers? ... Why do socialists tend to be anti-war? ...

Eric's new book on populism and immigration, Whiteshift ... Why it's counterproductive to call Trump supporters racist ... Eric's vision of an American ethnic nationalism ... Bob: Ideally, shouldn't we get past ethnicity? ... Will mixed-race children of the future identify as white? ... Debating whether a purely civic nationalism is viable ... The real reasons most white voters backed Trump ... The two Democrats who Eric thinks would do best against Trump ... Is ethnic affinity in our genes? ...

Nina's research on how we understand the self ... The traits that make your self yourself ... Buddhism and the continuity of self through time ... The link between egocentrism and an equanimous attitude toward death ... Bob: Not-self is hard to experience and very hard to understand ... Asian Buddhists vs. "white boy Buddhists" ... Does a happy life require virtuous behavior? ...

Glenn wrestles with the problem of self-regard as he writes his memoir ... "I was a liberal before I was a conservative before I was a liberal before I was a conservative" ... The secret life Glenn led while at Harvard ... Glenn wonders whether his support of affirmative action was just virtue signaling ... The racial issues pushing Glenn back toward the right in recent years ... Glenn reflects on becoming a Bloggingheads star ... How Glenn gained and lost his Christian faith ...

Why Alex shifted from international relations to quantum physics ... Alex: "We are walking wave functions" ... Do the origins of consciousness and free will lie in the wave collapse? ... Quantum decision theory and human irrationality ... The advantage of viewing humanity as quantum rather than classical ... How a nation-state is like a quantum state ... Alex: Language is best understood quantumly ... The possibility of collective consciousness ...

The origins of Kat and Phoebe's podcast, Feminine Chaos ... The various strands of contemporary feminism ... Are all elite women feminists now? ... The three waves of feminism ... Has #MeToo infantilized women? ... Have the rules between men and women really changed? ... Are gender differences biologically based? ... Is the NYT making sexist assumptions about Liz Warren? ...

Revisiting Frank's famous essay "The End of History?" 30 years later ... The connection among dignity, identity, and population density ... Frank: All forms of identity are socially constructed ... Complicating the "race vs. economics" debate about Trump's appeal ... Criticizing the way the Democratic contenders have framed identity ... Does the backlash against identity politics fuel Trumpism? ... Illiberal democracy and America ... Opportunities and obstacles for global governance ...

Mickey reviews the many Epstein conspiracy theories ... Was Epstein an Israeli intelligence asset? ... Are Millennials killing the New York Times? ... Mickey: Trump has been a failure on immigration ... Is there a link between Trump's "invasion" rhetoric and the El Paso shooting? ... The Joe Rogan experience ... Mickey tells Elizabeth Warren the secret to victory: a hard line on immigration ... Bob weighs whether to come out for BDS ... Can paid newsletters save journalism? ...

Building the ideal Democratic candidate ... Who has the best chance of beating Trump? ... Brink: On health care, Democrats have picked the wrong bad guy ... Why the Niskanen Center is pro-government and pro-market ... The kind of universal basic income that Brink would like to see ... How to defeat populism ... Why we need a non-college track in high school ...

Did Jeffrey Epstein die by conspiracy or by incompetence? ... Epstein and the corrupting influence of money in academia ... What drove Epstein to suicide? ... Is there such a thing as a true friend? ... Are all mass shooters mentally ill? ... Paul: Video games do not cause violence ... Would it be better not to care what others think about you? ... Paul’s New Yorker piece on why we do perverse things ... Is Biden losing his wits? ...

Ron's new book, McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality ... A brief history of mindfulness in America ... Ron's critique of the corporate teaching of mindfulness ... A tool vs. a path ... Ron: The mindfulness industry individualizes social problems ... A call for civic mindfulness ... Can capitalism and spirituality be reconciled? ...

Yael’s new book, Why Nationalism ... What is nationalism? ... Yael: US liberals need to focus their messaging on the social contract ... How to demilitarize the language of nationalism ... Will the workers of the world ever unite? ... Is Israel an avowedly ethno-nationalist state? ... Yael: The lines between right and left are blurring ...

Is Boris Johnson like Trump but in on the joke? ... Eli says it was dumb for Trump to pick a fight with the Squad ... The Mueller report and liberal xenophobia ... Was Ilhan Omar’s "Benjamins" comment anti-Semitic? ... Is the left unduly obsessed with Israel? ... Eli: The MAGA people who hate Omar probably hate Jews too ... Bob worries about the weakness of the Democratic presidential field ... Bob vs. Eli on America vs. Iran ... Eli: Dictatorships are inherently unstable ...