Zooming In at The UnPopulist

The UnPopulist
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Zooming In at The UnPopulist

Exploring the ideas, and interviewing the writers, featured at The UnPopulist. www.theunpopulist.net

  1. 4D AGO

    Why DOGE Should Scare Even Advocates of Small Government: A Conversation with Julian Sanchez and Noah Kunin

    The executive branch is currently being run by an aspiring autocrat who neither respects institutional safeguards nor accepts the separation of powers. As part of his project to subsume all governmental authority under his control, he has empowered a tech billionaire to reshape and repurpose government agencies—through what they’ve called the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE—so that those agencies and their information can be weaponized for his purposes. To explain how all this is unfolding, Zooming In host Aaron Ross Powell sits down with Julian Sanchez and Noah Kunin, the co-hosts of Watch Cats, a new podcast dedicated to critically covering DOGE. They discuss what DOGE actually is and what it is doing, and assess what its impact is likely to be on future attempts to pursue government reforms. We hope you enjoy. © The UnPopulist, 2025 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. We welcome your reactions and replies. Please adhere to our comments policy. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    46 min

  2. MAY 4

    Only Moral Leadership Can Stop America From Giving in to Authoritarianism: A Conversation with David French

    In a post on Truth Social on May 2, President Trump promised to “[take] away Harvard's Tax Exempt Status,” because, “it's what they deserve!" While Trump may succeed in initiating such an action, our guest today doubts it will last, due to a long history of Supreme Court precedence regarding the tax code’s application to private institutions. Speaking with the director of Executive Watch, Rob Tracinski is New York Times columnist David French. They discuss the Trump administration’s hypocritical implementation of viewpoint diversity, the rushed and indiscriminate defunding of scientific research, and whether to consider if the social compact of government is based on the honors system of mutually assured destruction. We hope you enjoy. © The UnPopulist, 2025 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    49 min

  3. APR 26

    Can Trump Really Deport 10 Million People? A Conversation with Dara Lind

    Immigration policy has long been a battlefield for ideological disputes. But what we’re witnessing during Trump’s second term isn't just a debate over border security or visa policy. It’s an attempt to reconfigure the U.S. immigration system into a tool for authoritarian governance—an assault not only on due process, but on the foundational belief that laws must constrain power. Joining Shikha Dalmia is immigration expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council Dara Lind. Together, they explore how Trump’s second term has differed from his first in his weaponization of obscure legal tools and administrative procedures—many of them relics from the Cold War and even the John Adams era—to strip people of legal status, bypass the courts, and normalize practices once considered unthinkable. Tune in for an informative but chilling discussion. © The UnPopulist, 2025 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    48 min

  4. APR 2

    Trump Wants to Deny Legal Representation to Opponents He Targets: A Conversation with Walter Olson

    In a piece for our new project Executive Watch, Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, clarified the dangers of a recent presidential memo from the Trump administration, which accuses prominent law firms of “grossly unethical misconduct” and threatens them with severe penalties—such as revoking security clearances and cutting off federal contracts Speaking with the director of Executive Watch, Rob Tracinski, Olson explains how, under the guise of promoting “accountability” for “frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation,” this move threatens the current means of accountability relied on by judges and undermines the independence of the entire legal profession. We hope you enjoy. © The UnPopulist, 2025 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    35 min

  5. MAR 24

    A Revival of True Christianity Would Also Revive American Liberal Democracy: A Conversation with Jonathan Rauch

    For much of American history, Christianity has played a crucial role in shaping the nation’s moral framework. But as political and religious identities become more entangled, has the church strayed from its traditional role as a moral anchor? And can it find its way back? To explore these pressing questions, Berny Belvedere sits down with Jonathan Rauch, author of the new book, Cross Purposes: Christianity’s Broken Bargain with Democracy. Together, they examine how the historic relationship between Christianity and America’s liberal democracy has fractured—and what that means for the future of both. We hope you enjoy. © The UnPopulist, 2025 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    1h 1m

  6. FEB 23

    How the Right Uses Social Media to Create a Powerful Propaganda Machine: A Conversation with Renée DiResta

    For years, traditional media—newspapers, cable news, and radio—dominated the political conversation. These were the institutions that shaped public discourse, set the agenda, and determined which ideas gained traction. But as the digital ecosystem evolved, a parallel and sometimes overlapping infrastructure emerged—one where influencers, niche content creators, and algorithmically curated feeds have redefined how people engage with information. To understand this evolution, host Aaron Ross Powell sits down with Renee DiResta, an Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown and author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies Into Reality. Together they unpack how this shift has upended not just how news spreads but also how political identities are formed, narratives take hold, and, ultimately, how power operates. We hope you enjoy. © The UnPopulist, 2025 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    44 min

  7. JAN 26

    Zooming In: What Does an Unchecked Trump Mean for Freedom?

    We have entered another Trump term, and the political landscape has shifted in ways that challenge the very foundations of our liberal democracy. With unprecedented executive power and a growing ecosystem of loyalists surrounding the president, we must ask: What happens when political institutions are no longer able to constrain a populist authoritarian president’s ambitions? And how do institutions, the media, and civil society respond? Today, The UnPopulist’s editor-in-chief Shikha Dalmia is joined by senior editor Berny Belvedere and contributor Andy Craig. They explore the risks of an unchecked executive, the breakdown of institutional safeguards, the chilling effect on dissent in both politics and culture, —and whether libertarians, who put checking abusive state authority at the heart of their political project, will stand up to Trump in his second term, which is already shaping up to be far worse than his first. We hope you find the discussion interesting, if depressing. © The UnPopulist, 2025 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    53 min

  8. 12/22/2024

    MAGA Evangelicals' Un-Christian Quest for Political Power: A Conversation with Russell Moore

    Does Christianity, or the Christian Bible, endorse a particular social configuration? What happens when faith communities tie their identity to political power? And can liberalism, with its emphasis on individual liberty and mutual respect, offer a path forward in a time of heightened polarization? Today, Berny Belvedere, The UnPopulist’s senior editor, is joined by Russell Moore, who is editor-in-chief at Christianity Today, to discuss all of this and more. Whether you’re a believer, a skeptic about matters of faith, or simply curious about the interplay between religion and politics, this episode raises questions that resonate far beyond any single election cycle. We hope you enjoy. *** © The UnPopulist, 2024 Follow us on Bluesky, Threads, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theunpopulist.net

    47 min
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Exploring the ideas, and interviewing the writers, featured at The UnPopulist. www.theunpopulist.net

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