logo
episode-header-image
Sep 2025
22m 6s

#433 — How Did We Get Here?

SAM HARRIS
About this episode

Sam Harris speaks with Dan Carlin about the decades-long buildup to our current political moment. They discuss the growing powers of the presidency, executive orders, different factions within the Republican Party, the fragmentation of our society, Libertarianism, the growing prospect of political violence, racism and scapegoating, foreign interference in American politics, immigration, global trends towards autocracy, whether "gatekeepers" in the media are necessary, holocaust denialism, and other topics.

If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Up next
Jan 21
#454 — More From Sam: Minnesota, Greenland, Iran, S**thole Countries, and More
In this latest episode of the More From Sam series, Sam and Jaron dive into the chaotic start to 2026. They discuss the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, the Trump administration's response and rhetoric, the "evil Chauncey Gardiner" approach to acquiring Greenland, the potent ... Show More
17m 3s
Jan 16
#453 — AI and the New Face of Antisemitism
Sam Harris speaks with Judea Pearl about causality, AI, and antisemitism. They discuss why LLMs won't spawn AGI, alignment concerns in the race for AGI, Pearl's public life after the murder of his son Daniel, the post-October 7th shift toward open anti-Zionism, the overlap betwee ... Show More
21m 50s
Jan 7
#452 — Is Wokeness Finally Dead?
Sam Harris speaks with John McWhorter about language, ideology, and moral certainty. They discuss the rise and persistence of "wokeness" and DEI, the legacy of George Floyd's death, the role of social media in amplifying moral panic, how identity shapes perceptions of Israel-Pale ... Show More
21m 23s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2024
Can America come together after the Trump assassination attempt? | Ian Bremmer
In this urgent conversation, president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media Ian Bremmer joins TED’s Helen Walters to discuss the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and its profound implications for American politics and democracy. Listen for the latest ... Show More
37m 29s
Dec 2024
Paul Pierson and Eric Schickler, "Partisan Nation: The Dangerous New Logic of American Politics in a Nationalized Era" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
American democracy is in trouble. At the heart of the contemporary crisis is a mismatch between America's Constitution and today's nationalized, partisan politics. Although American political institutions remain federated and fragmented, the ground beneath them has moved, with th ... Show More
32m 14s
Jun 2024
The Biggest Political Divide Is Not Left vs. Right
<p>The biggest divide in our politics isn’t between Democrats and Republicans, or even left and right. It’s between people who follow politics closely, and those who pay almost no attention to it. If you’re in the former camp — and if you’re reading this, you probably are — the l ... Show More
1h 10m
Oct 15
On Politics: The Online Right (and Left)
For the best part of a decade, a new type of anti-systemic, nationalist politics has been emerging from different corners of the online world. In Britain, this has united with older forms of cultural conservatism to propel Nigel Farage and Reform UK to within touching distance of ... Show More
1h 15m
Sep 2025
STATE OF THE NATION | What now America? | After Kirk with Chis Hedges and Jackson Hinkle
<p> After the shocking killing of Charlie Kirk, is America heading toward civil war? With political violence escalating and divisions deepening, the question of what comes next is more urgent than ever. On The Mother of All Talk Shows, George Galloway brings together two of the s ... Show More
1h 41m
Oct 2024
Musa al-Gharbi on Elite Wokeness, Islam, and Social Movements
tail spinning
49m 3s
Nov 2024
Herbert Hoover gave us Woody Guthrie (with David Cunningham)
Welcome to the final episode of What Just Happened, a Recall This Book experiment. In it you will hear three friends of RTB reacting to the 2024 election and discussing the coming four years. David Cunningham, chair of Sociology at Washington University in St Louis, is author of  ... Show More
24m 27s
Sep 2025
The President’s Path: The killing of Charlie Kirk
The killing of Charlie Kirk triggers shockwaves through the US, sparking grief, anger, and debate over politics, political violence and America’s future.On this live episode, Caitríona Perry, Courtney Subramanian, and Bernd Debusmann Jr discuss the killing of Charlie Kirk, reacti ... Show More
25m 37s
Sep 2025
Trump Administration Interpretation Of Civil Rights Act Reshapes Public Schools
President Trump pledged to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, but his administration is also using the department’s Office for Civil Rights to pressure local school districts to adhere to Trump’s political views. We discuss these tactics and how they fit into a broader c ... Show More
25m 8s