\n<\/p>\n
Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube<\/em><\/p>\n On this week\u2019s episode of The David Frum Show<\/em>, The Atlantic\u2019<\/em>s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He examines the many actions President Donald Trump has taken that run counter to the ideals articulated in 1776, and considers how the Founders\u2019 constitutional genius may ultimately be what frustrates Trump\u2019s attempt to consolidate power.<\/p>\n David is then joined by his Atlantic <\/em>colleague Charlie Warzel, a staff writer and the host of the Galaxy Brain<\/em> podcast, to discuss the temptations that come with launching a new podcast and the challenge of serving an audience that often rewards extreme content. Together, they talk about the responsibility that comes with hosting a podcast in a media environment that prizes clicks over truth. They also explore how conspiracy theorists have come to function as an alternate reality of \u201cmainstream media,\u201d and why the fight for truth may not yet be lost.<\/p>\n Finally, David closes with a discussion of Edward Berenson\u2019s The Trial of Madame Caillaux<\/em> and what it reveals about how future generations may come to view our own beliefs.<\/p>\n [YOUTUBE LINK]<\/p>\n The following is a transcript of the episode: <\/em><\/p>\n David Frum:<\/strong> Hello, and welcome to The David Frum Show<\/em>. I\u2019m David Frum, a staff writer at The Atlantic<\/em>. My guest this week will be my Atlantic<\/em> colleague, Charlie Warzel, the host of the Galaxy Brain<\/em> podcast, and we\u2019ll be talking about our experiences as new podcast hosts. We both launched podcasts this year. Some of the temptations, some of the dangers, and some of the lessons that we have learned from this year in podcasting. My book this week will be a 1992 history book, The Trial of Madame Caillaux<\/em>, a study of a sensational sex and murder trial in pre\u2013<\/em>World War I France. But before getting to either of those things, I want to open with some end-of-year thoughts as we conclude 2025 and move into 2026. 2026, of course, is the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, in 1776, and is a powerful anniversary symbol in the American mind. As we move into this year, there are so many things that are going to be memorable and important and wonderful to celebrate. There are also some things happening that are really weird. One of the weirdest of them is a press release by the U.S. Mint just a few weeks ago. They are considering honoring the 250th anniversary of American independence with a set of commemorative, or dollar coins, featuring the image of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019\u2019s not literally unprecedented for the United States to put living people on the coinage. It\u2019s not even totally unprecedented for them to put living politicians on the coinage. The first dollar bill had the face of Salman Chase, Secretary of the Treasury in Lincoln\u2019\u2019s Cabinet, on the dollar bill. Salman Chase was a famous egomaniac. One of his contemporary colleagues in the Republican Party said, He\u2019s an excellent man<\/em>. I think that\u2019s the quote. He\u2019s an excellent man, but he\u2019s got the delusion that the Christian Trinity has four persons in it instead of three<\/em>, the fourth being Salman Chase himself. So it\u2019\u2019s not unprecedented. There may be other examples as well, but it is strange and shocking at any time for a living person, and especially a living president, to propose to put himself on the coinage of the money of the United States. And if a Founding Father saw that, I think they would be kind of startled. They would be more startled, however, at some more serious things that are happening.<\/p>\n Some things that actually, unlike the dollar coin, which is just a project, have already happened in the year 2025. We have seen the president of the United States impose taxes at his sole volition. The Trump Treasury Department issued a release a few days ago that boasted that they had collected $200 billion in tariffs over the year 2025. That\u2019s $200 billion of taxes not authorized by Congress and a flagrant violation of the ideas and literal language of Article 1 of the Constitution, which puts both taxes and tariffs in the hands of Congress. The president and his team are proposing to spend that $200 billion. They\u2019ve had many ideas about how to spend it. Maybe they should give the money to the farmers. Maybe there should be a tax rebate. Maybe they should do something else. But all of those ideas for spending or tax rebates, again, all of those are congressional authority that the president is arrogating to himself\u2014something else that would have startled the founders of the country all those 250 years ago.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve seen the growth of an enormous federal police force, ICE, which has recruited and seems to take orders not from any kind of institution of law but from, again, a small team around the president, an almost personal police force of a kind that the United States has not seen before, certainly not on such a scale. And carrying out actions that, again, would have seemed unimaginable only a little while ago. Mass roundups without any kind of due process; mass deportations. Deportation, of course, is a total presidential authority, but usually there\u2019s some kind of hearing. And, of course, until now, you almost always\u2014the deported person is sent back to the place the deported person came from, not to a third country to which they had no contact, and not under conditions that are tantamount to torture or at least serious human-rights abuse. You would send them home. It\u2019s not a crime to be illegally present in the United States. It\u2019s a violation of the law, but it\u2019s not something that you should be tortured for. You should be put on a plane, given a hot meal, and warned, Don\u2019t come back, you\u2019re breaking the rules<\/em>. We\u2019ve seen the rise of presidential retaliation against media institutions using the regulatory apparatus of the state, regulatory apparatus that belongs to everybody, not just to him. And then using those same grants of threats, grants of regulatory favors or threats of the withholding of regulatory favors, to rearrange or redirect existing media companies to be more favorable to him, sometimes successfully, sometimes less so, but always with a kind of intent that would have seemed very sinister from the point of view of the founders of the American Republic. And we have seen, maybe most disturbing of all, the use of presidential war powers without any involvement of any kind of legal authority, any kind of congressional authority. We\u2019re on the cusp, apparently, of some kind of military action against Venezuela\u2014maybe airstrikes, maybe clandestine strikes of commandos, maybe something more. There\u2019s no pretense that there\u2019s any congressional authorization of that. And over the Christmas holiday, the president fired missiles into Nigeria, intervening in Nigerian civil strife, again, with no pretense of any kind of authorization by anyone other than the president at his own whim. So the big question for the year 2026 is: How far has the country drifted from those ideals of 1776 as formalized in the Constitution of 1787 and all the amendments afterwards? And how does the United States move back to the country it intended to be at the beginning, that Americans believed it to be until very recently, and that I think most Americans still want it to be.<\/p>\n Now, here\u2019s some good news. It does seem like over the course of 2025, that these lawless actions have lost some of their impact and power. The bad guys seem to be losing a little political altitude as we move into 2026. I don\u2019t want to be overconfident about that. I don\u2019t want to issue false promises. But it does seem like the ebb and flow of political power is not favoring those who want to use arbitrary power in the way they\u2019ve used it. Some examples: There does seem to be, in this second Trump term, a real loss of focus, an inability to keep the main thing the main thing. The battle over renaming the Kennedy Center the Trump Kennedy Center: That seems like a perfect example of something that any serious authoritarian president would not waste energy over. What does he care? He\u2019s staffed it with his cronies. They\u2019re going to do the shows that he likes; he\u2019s gonna be able to blackball the people he doesn\u2019t like. Does he really need to put his name on it? Does he need to host the Kennedy Honors on prime-time television? Is that really something that he needs to invest energy in? And even the dollar coins, that just makes enemies. Why are you doing that? What is the petty, pathetic need that makes you trade the substance of political power for these childish shows? But that need is there and it\u2019s a political fact, and it\u2019s an expensive political fact\u2014and therefore for those who oppose the authoritarian project, a hopeful political fact.<\/p>\n But more substantially, two other things are happening that are really changing the political calculus as we move into the year 2026. One is the weakening of the American economy. One of the things that any successful authoritarian knows is you have to get the economy right. People will put up with a lot if they\u2019re feeling prosperous. As they enter 2026, fewer and fewer Americans are feeling prosperous. Prices are rising; job creation is stalling. The center of energy in the American economy is the artificial-intelligence-investment boom. That may continue, it may not, but through the rest of the economy, it\u2019s trouble. Everywhere there\u2019s signs of trouble: rising corporate bankruptcies, defaults on automobile loans. Americans are not feeling like Trump is thinking of them as he thinks of himself. Trump 1, the theory seemed to be that the public would forgive Trump\u2019s actions if he provided economic prosperity. Trump 2, the president is actually actively attacking prosperity through his taxes and tariffs, through his immigration policy, shrinking the American population, shrinking the American workforce. And it seems like that\u2019s his agenda. So what do you get for putting up with it? Nothing, just a kick in the head.<\/p>\n But the last thing, and Michael Waldman and I discussed this earlier this year in an important podcast discussion: Trump has lost much of his bet to centralize the management of elections in his own hands. Not all of the bet. He\u2019s still got tricks up his sleeve. There are many things he\u2019s trying to do. But through the genius of American federalism, which is part of the genius of 1776 and 1787, election management is left in the hands of the state, of the several states.<\/p>\n And while it\u2019s not impossible for a president to squeeze and coax and coerce and rig those elections, there are limits to his ability to do it. In the end, it is a state power governed by the actions of the states and administered by officials of the states. And there is a limit to how much the president can successfully intervene to corrupt or distort that process. Now, if the election is close, those interventions and distortions may be enough.<\/p>\n But when you have, through bad economic policy, you\u2019ve stoked so much discontent as this administration has, you may have moved the whole political temperature\u2014the whole political balance of political forces\u2014beyond the margin of successful manipulation. And that means that the corrective response, that the genius of the system always anticipated as the ultimate answer to abuses, that corrective response may be coming, and 2026 may be the year that we feel it.<\/p>\n And now, my dialogue with Charlie Warzel.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> So The Atlantic <\/em>is, today, presenting something a little different. I will interview today my colleague Charlie Warzel, who has launched his own new podcast on the Atlantic<\/em> channel, Galaxy Brain<\/em>. We\u2019ll be talking back and forth. Since the Galaxy Brain<\/em> podcast is quite new, I\u2019m going to read a little introduction for those of you who don\u2019t know Charlie.<\/p>\n He joined The Atlantic<\/em> in 2021 and became a staff writer in 2022. This year, he launched his new podcast, Galaxy Brain<\/em>. Charlie is a graduate of Hamilton College and he\u2019s the author of the 2021 book Out of Office: Unlocking the Power and Potential of Hybrid Work<\/em>. And we\u2019re gonna talk about some of the experiences, challenges, temptations of doing a podcast in this day and age, especially for The Atlantic<\/em>.<\/p>\n And I\u2019m happy to welcome Charlie. Charlie, congratulations on the new podcast.<\/p>\n Charlie Warzel:<\/strong> Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is great.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> All right, so we\u2019re both kind of newbies. I\u2019m like a grizzled veteran with like a three or four month head start ahead of you, so that makes me a frontline soldier.<\/p>\n But we\u2019re both familiar with being guests on podcasts, but new to hosting.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Yes. And it\u2019s very different. Right? It is a whole different, at least I\u2019ve found, it\u2019s a completely different animal being on the other side.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> If I\u2019d known how hard it was, I would\u2019ve been nicer to my hosts.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Exactly. Exactly. Yes. It\u2019s very difficult to construct a conversation and have a flow and end up in the right place and follow the tributaries of a guest\u2019s meandering mind. It\u2019s\u2014definitely, it\u2019s fascinating.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, so here\u2019s this thing. In order to avoid meandering, here\u2019s how I propose to channel the conversation so that we achieve something that\u2019s I hope useful and interesting for our listeners and viewers, and maybe something we both ourselves will learn from. Because one of the things we\u2019ve had to confront as we enter this is: Unlike old-fashioned book writing, or text based or even print journalism, where you don\u2019t know exactly what your readers want and what they read, you know a lot about the podcast audience, both video and audio.<\/p>\n And we also have the contrasting examples of other people in the space who demonstrate what viewers and listeners want and don\u2019t want. And one of the things we\u2019ve had to confront is the tremendous appetite, or apparent appetite, for extreme content, which flies in the face of what The Atlantic<\/em> is always trying to provide, which is balanced content.<\/p>\n How do we make sense of that? How do we respond to that? I mean, I think you get a lot of response to if you do a show on Was Hitler good? Yes.<\/em> But we\u2019re not going to do the Was Hitler good? Yes <\/em>show. But how do you cope with the massive incentives to do a show on Was Hitler good? Yes.<\/em><\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> I see this as part of a bigger struggle, right? I write a lot about technology, about media, media ecology, the ways that social media has warped or changed or transformed society. It\u2019s a lot of what the podcast is about. And so there\u2019s always like a meta element to everything that I am both doing in my actual work and what I am reporting on.<\/p>\n And, they tend to feed each other, right? So I look at this as. I look at podcasting, especially video podcasting and the regular, traditional podcasting as, in many ways, almost the traditional problems with internet based or digital media on steroids, right? We are now, because of the issues of discovery, because of, you know, the advent of everything from generative AI to social networks, to declining readership because a lot of the social platforms have given up on news to some degree. We don\u2019t get that same bump from Google. We don\u2019t get that same bump from Facebook, et cetera. It has pushed everything to be so much more algorithmically driven. Right. We try to make the best journalistic products that we can, the most responsible ones, but at the end of the day, we are also people who are interested in having that have an impact in the world, to reach as many people as possible, and these algorithms are tailored more and more and more to be, to promote, the most sensational thing. The thing that outrages, the thing that shocks, the thing that elicits the greatest response, and the greatest response of all of those emotional reactions is outrage, is fear, is shock, is anger. Right? And so I look at what we\u2019re doing right now as having to chase this type of viewership.<\/p>\n We are in this attention economy. We are basically forced to, if we want people to interact with the thing that we have spent all this time laboring over. We have to find a way to frame it, right? I think a lot of this is like a marketplace. And every vendor is out there needing to, you know, get people and attract people.<\/p>\n And so you\u2019re constantly reaching there. And it\u2019s difficult, because it pushes people to be the worst versions of themselves. And we have to guard against that. We can\u2019t, you know, succumb to that, like, say, a random person on Twitter or X might.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Yeah. Now you\u2019re blaming the algorithm a lot here, which is a non-sentient collection of digits. And that\u2019s convenient because it has no feelings. Maybe the user, the listener, the reader is a little bit to blame?<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Well, so there\u2019s a very interesting issue that I have always seen, right? I hate to blame the reader, because the reader is also in some sense\u2014<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> the customer, and no one ever got anywhere by disrespecting the customer, at least not in public. But let\u2019s pretend we\u2019re in private for a minute.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Absolutely. I think that this is a problem. People\u2019s actual preference and their stated preference is always very different, in all consumerism but especially with the news. You see a lot of people both online and in reader surveys of all kinds of different places where I\u2019ve worked, and they say that they want to read more about the vegetables, right, like eat-your-vegetables-type stuff. They want to read about climate change more. Anyone who has worked in digital media, in any case, and has access to the metrics, can see that stories about climate change, very broadly speaking, do not perform as well as stories about, say, Donald Trump or somebody who is constantly stoking outrage.<\/p>\n So there is this real reader preference: stated versus actual, right. People are clicking on the outrageous things, the thumbnails with people\u2019s eyes that are, you know, bulging out and stuff like that, and not spending time with that really nuanced headline that is actually, quote unquote, you know, boring, butinside is a very nutritional and dense and smart story.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, this is not a new thing. This has been true as long as there is media. I mean, I remember a passage in Proust\u2019s great novel Remembrance of Things Past <\/em>where a character says, who has a beautiful library full of hand-tooled volumes, which he never opens, and he thinks, What if every morning they were delivered to my front door in sheet paper, a copy of Pascal\u2019s Pens\u00e9es<\/em>. And in that leather-bound edition up there, which I open once every 10 years, there was a description of the dress worn by the duchess of so-and-so at the party last night.<\/em> So media is always sensational, but here\u2019s to my mind, the difference. In1975, there probably were as many people in the United States who wanted to read, or proportionally as many people, who wanted to read or consume Nazi-based content as there were today, or anti-Semitic content as there are today.<\/p>\n But either silently or even explicitly, the heads of CBS, ABC, NBC, The<\/em> New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek,<\/em> that was the media, said, You know what? They want Nazi content; they want anti-Semitic content. They\u2019re not going to get it. We\u2019re not going to give it to them.<\/em><\/p>\n And if we 10 people agree we\u2019re not going to give them Nazi content, then they have to get it from pretty obscure places. But there was always that market. There was money waiting. There was a hundred-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk and no one picked it up. And we have a more competitive marketplace, and somebody picks it up.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> This is a little bit, though, why I blame the algorithms so fully, right? Because the algorithms are also very powerful in terms of broadcasting and boosting the people who are willing to do that thing, right? These people don\u2019t just come out of nowhere. You know, I think very broadly of the ecosystem that you and I are now a part of, which is YouTube. <\/em>YouTube\u2019s great innovation, greatest success, the thing that has driven it to be a place where people are ingesting hundreds of millions of hours daily of video content, is the recommendation algorithm\u2014the \u201cup next\u201d part of YouTube, where, on the right side of your page, it feeds you another video after.<\/p>\n That recommendation algorithm, as my reporting and other people\u2019s reporting has shown over the years, brings people into\u2014people call it the rabbit hole, right? Where you watch something, let\u2019s say it\u2019s just a World War II explanation video, right? A history podcast of World War II that\u2019s not racist or anti-Semitic at all, but they\u2019re talking about Hitler a lot. They\u2019re talking about difficult subjects, maybe the Holocaust, something like that. And then you get another video, and that video is maybe just one-tenth of 1 percent, a little more extreme right? Or someone who\u2019s coming from a little bit more of a far-right perspective.<\/p>\n Fast forward, you can get people down into this funnel, and that is an algorithmic boost, and that\u2019s why I think this is important.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Okay, I sometimes do go down World War II rabbit holes. I\u2019m interested in the subject like every Baby Boomer. And I find that as I keep going, what the algorithm serves me is increasingly technical content. Well, what was the difference between a 16-inch and a 14-inch naval gun in World War II? Was the 16-inch gun, in fact, better? It gets more technical, more specific, more wonky. And I think I\u2019m telling the algorithm, you know, that\u2019s what I want.<\/p>\n So there is the kind of thing where we say, Ah, we\u2019re making it a little more Hitlery<\/em>. Yes, that\u2019s the algorithm, but that\u2019s the algorithm knowing you, your real self. And it used to be that in, like in 1975, CBS would say, You know what? You want stuff that\u2019s a little more Hitlery than we\u2019re serving, but you\u2019re not going to get it.<\/em><\/p>\n And now the consumer is driving things. Isn\u2019t he or she? He. I think in World War II, Hitler\u2014<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> I think we\u2019re safe to say he\u2014watching the World War II videos. I agree with that, in part. But I think that there are other elements here. I was looking a little bit into\u2014and we talked a bit about discussing\u2014this new media ecosystem and the extremism that it can go towards.<\/p>\n And I\u2019ve been following her career somewhat closely, but looking a little bit more into Candace Owens and listening to a couple of popular things that she has put out. She\u2019s obviously a very extreme voice on the right, very conspiratorial. And there\u2019s a great column, a week ago in The<\/em> New York Times<\/em> by Michelle Goldberg about Candace Owens and how she has played into the conspiracy theory that Charlie Kirk was not killed by the man who was arrested. And actually had a media summit with Charlie Kirk\u2019s widow, Erica Kirk.<\/p>\n But something that Michelle notices in that piece, and I think is very apt, is that she, Candace Owens, draws a lot from the true-crime genre, which is an extremely popular genre of podcast and media now, and plays a little bit towards the digital sleuths on the internet.<\/p>\n So these are people who are, you know, vigilante investigators, right? They\u2019re taking all the information available on the internet, trying to follow the lead like they\u2019re a detective pursuing a cold case. And she does a very good job at that, at bringing people along for the hunt of information and giving them these breadcrumbs and telling them, you know, This story\u2019s not right<\/em>. And I think that that is a part of why people who are looking for that, who are looking to play this role of detective, or who feel that we don\u2019t have the full story. there\u2019s information out there; I can piece it together because I have the ability.<\/em> That is where I think the algorithm can intersect with a creator who is trying to manipulate. And then it can lead you into a path that gets you into a place that\u2019s a little more, as you put it, Hitlery, because I don\u2019t think people are necessarily, broadly speaking, just saying, Yeah, that was good about World War II. I want some Hitler<\/em> now<\/em>. Right? I think what it is, is they believe there\u2019s a conspiracy.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Explain something that baffles me. So if I go on the internet, if I\u2019m having trouble getting the little disc battery into my key fob, my car-key fob, and I\u2019m flummoxed and the written instructions aren\u2019t helpful, and I go online to find a YouTube video\u2014say, how do I get the disc battery into the key fob?<\/p>\n If there\u2019s someone there saying, Leave it on the doorstep and the leprechaun overnight with a little bit of milk, and the leprechauns will come and fix the key fob for you<\/em>\u2014you know what? I\u2019m skipping that one. That doesn\u2019t sound like it\u2019s gonna work.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Right.<\/p>\n Frum: <\/strong>So why don\u2019t people have that response?<\/p>\n Like, there\u2019s a killing. The police have arrested somebody. There is a suspect. It may not be that person, but the idea that there\u2019s some global conspiracy of leprechauns who did it instead, that\u2019s pretty unlikely. As it is, they will save my key fob for me. Yes, I take the point about the digital-sleuth thing, but at some level, people have to have, like, a common-sense meter, don\u2019t they?<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> But what if, instead, right, it was someone who is making a video who was saying, You\u2019re getting screwed by your car company. Your car company nickels-and-dimes you on all of the things when you take it in for service. They overcharge you. They\u2019re this big corporation, you know. They\u2019re owned by whatever shadowy people, right, who have their own agendas in whatever, who are using your money. And, you know, they\u2019re funding their indulgent lifestyles, and who knows what they\u2019re doing, right,when they take their private planes, X, Y, and Z?<\/em> A<\/p>\n And this battery thing, right, is actually a manifestation of this broader thing. There\u2019s something bigger about the fact that your battery dies too early, right, on your key fob. And that\u2019s the thing. Because it opens up this world to people where they say, Okay, now, now I understand.<\/em><\/p>\n The unlock in my brain for why conspiracy theories are so popular now in, in culture\u2014they\u2019ve always been popular; obviously the paranoid mind is a fixture in all of history, but especially American history. These theories, however strange or stupid or completely implausible they might be on a given subject: They give people an understanding of why the world feels unfair or wrong or bad, right?<\/p>\n And in a moment where there are a lot of people who are struggling, who are very disenchanted, who feel that there is no predictable pathway to success or that the American dream is out of reach for them\u2014even something as small as the key-fob conspiracy explains one small bit of why they feel like crap all the time.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> One of the things I have taken from the past, from this Trump era, the past decade of discussion, is\u2014it\u2019s a trope. It\u2019s something we are supposed to say, that things are increasingly difficult for people. It\u2019s understandable that there\u2019s a lot of resentment and anger.<\/p>\n I find myself, maybe I\u2019m just becoming crankier, less and less patient with that. I mean, we live, if you\u2019re an American in the year 2026, you live at the apex, the summit of civilization. Never so much material prosperity, never so much medical prosperity. And in particular the science of preserving life and health has never been better, never approached what you have today.<\/p>\n So when you see people saying, My conspiracy theory is to reject the gifts of modern medical science and to subject my child to measles.<\/em> So you know what? I don\u2019t believe it, that you\u2019re having such a tough time. All right? Anyway, if you are having such a tough time, I think that doesn\u2019t excuse you.<\/p>\n And if your response to having a tough time is to deny your child the measles vaccine, then your tough time may be a result of your own deficiencies, not something that society is doing. If you\u2019re gonna do something that callous, negligent, potentially homicidal to your child\u2014you\u2019re to blame. You are the problem.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not the bankers; it\u2019s not deindustrialization; it\u2019s not the crisis of modernity. It\u2019s you, dumb head. It\u2019s you. Vaccinate your child.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Well, first off, I fully agree that if you are denying your child vaccines or things like that, that is on you. I understand that there is this fatigue, right, with trying to rationalize the reasons why people are falling down these rabbit holes or doing ridiculous things. I kind of hold it in my mind slightly differently, which is that I\u2019m not seeing everyone as just these absolutely passive observers, but I do see people as being relatively easily manipulated.<\/p>\n When you combine this idea of I am frustrated; I feel bad; I can\u2019t see the progress of modernity<\/em> in this way<\/em>\u2014when you combine that with really savvy manipulators and then a culture that forms around all of that, a tribalism that forms around this, that, okay, it\u2019s not only that I\u2019m denying, I don\u2019t believe in vaccines, I\u2019m denying this; it becomes a group, a team, a thing, a cohort, a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n And that is a very strong psychological bond. And so it\u2019s not necessarily that I\u2019m saying these people don\u2019t have any agency, or that they can\u2019t be blamed for, you know, essentially endangering the lives of their children or doing whatever awful thing. But I see this as like all of these systems making it very hard for people to break out of that mold, to do the right thing, to go against the grain of those people.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> So while we\u2019re talking about agency, what are we going to do? So here we are, we\u2019re now co-manufacturers of this reality in a very modest way, but there we are. We\u2019re part of it. What do we do? How do we be forces for good and effective forces for good rather than forces for ill or ineffective forces for good?<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s really difficult. Something that our boss, Adrienne LaFrance, who\u2019s the executive editor of The Atlantic<\/em>, said on a podcast I did with her recently, which was about\u2014we were covering the Epstein files, the first dump of all this.<\/p>\n And at the very end of the podcast, I asked, Well, what the heck did we learn here?<\/em> There\u2019s all this information. And one thing that she said about this, the durability of the Epstein conspiracy theory is that people still want the truth, right? That is also at the heart of all of this conspiratorial crap that we are dealing with.<\/p>\n There are a lot of people who have this impulse, who want the truth, who believe they\u2019re not getting the truth, and that leads them down these difficult paths. But that is actually our job, right? We are purveyors of, in an ideal world, of that. We are trying to harness this; we are trying to do that.<\/p>\n So, you know, I almost think in some ways that the, whatever you want to call it, the mainstream media, you and me, whatever it is\u2014we need to take that back, I think, more strongly than we do. We can be a little milquetoast about this. I think we need to say that if you\u2019re on the hunt, if you\u2019re trying to be a digital vigilante investigator, then you need to be looking here for the truth, which is here, and we are the people who are going to, you know, do that job.<\/p>\n Frum: <\/strong>One of my New Year\u2019s resolutions is I\u2019m going to not only refrain from using, but actually actively object, to the phrase mainstream media<\/em>. Because if many times more people watched Candace Owens or Joe Rogan than CNN or the PBS NewsHour<\/em>. If conspiracy media get much bigger views than The Atlantic<\/em> or even The New York Times<\/em>, they\u2019re the mainstream.<\/p>\n The crackpots are the mainstream. And so one of the great unlearnings we have\u2014there is a kind of tepidity, lukewarmness, that pervades what I would call the people who are trying to be honest, and a great passion that animates those who are, either consciously or unwittingly or gullibly, dishonest.<\/p>\n So one of the things I think we need to embrace, and this is what I\u2019m trying to do, is an idea\u2014you know, there\u2019s something a little countercultural about what we\u2019re doing. We\u2019re doing what in 1975 would\u2019ve been considered mainstream. We\u2019re fact-checking. We\u2019re running things past lawyers.<\/p>\n If we make a mistake, we correct them. Two weeks ago, I made a mistake on air. I said something based on the information we had available at the time about the Bondi Beach killing, that there were eyewitness reports that the police had been slow. And I quoted those, or referenced those.<\/p>\n And a week later, when that turned out not to have been correct, I corrected myself. But those habits\u2014we need to understand that those are not the mainstream. The mainstream is paranoia, conspiracy, deception, and it is a countercultural act to stand up for integrity and truth and self-correction.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> I love this because I fully do agree, and I think that this posture of having to apologize because you\u2019re a part of an institution or something like that\u2014I like the idea of reversing that, quite a bit. I think it\u2019s very strong. I think, too\u2014something that I have noticed that has been very, very frustrating to me, and I\u2019ve talked about this on a past episode a little bit, is this idea that so many of the things inside, let\u2019s just call them media institutions or professionalized media, right, that are there in order to build trust among readers and viewers or credibility, right?The idea of fact-checking. The ideas of editing. Those things have been truly weaponized against\u2014something I\u2019ve also found about the right-wing media as it\u2019s built up in the Trump era that\u2019s fascinating, is the absolute lack of editing. You know, they will do livestreams that are, you know, three, four hours long.<\/p>\n There\u2019s Joe Rogan\u2019s, not explicitly the right-wing media, but, like, his podcast as a template. You know, those episodes are often three hours\u2013plus long. There\u2019s this idea of no editing, of no fact-checking, of no polish in any sense. And the idea that behind it from them is we\u2019re giving you everything unvarnished.<\/p>\n Look at all these other people who are editing things. What are they hiding?<\/em> Where actually that\u2019s, you know, that\u2019s BS. That\u2019s just quality control.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Not to be pedantic, but this is not a problem just for right-wing media. There are left-wing versions of this.<\/p>\n And there will be more. The extreme right got a certain head start. And I think that will not endure if this is the future. You know, one of the things, but you may raise this point, and it makes me think\u2014and this is something that again, that The Atlantic<\/em> can really contribute.<\/p>\n So when modern buildings begin to be constructed in the late 19th century, you start with a steel frame and then you put on around it all this limestone and woodwork, to conceal the steel frame. And the modernist architecture\u2014you know, let\u2019s take all that limestone off and show people the steel frame.<\/p>\n We\u2019ll have the steel frame with the glass and they can see the integrity and honesty of the building and realize why the building stands up to all these many stories. I think that\u2019s a little bit the way professionalized media, that\u2019s a good term, responded. The steel frame was the structure of reporting and research and editing and fact-checking and legal checking.<\/p>\n And then it was hidden behind the writing. That was the limestone. And maybe we need to take the limestone off and show people a little bit more how the building works and bring people into the process and how we think, why we choose stories the way we do, why we choose not to do certain stories, and how we do our method.<\/p>\n Maybe that\u2019s one of the things that we\u2019re doing this very day, to talk a little bit about\u2014you know, every time we invite somebody, we\u2019re making a selection. Who do we choose? Who do we not choose? And in the podcast world, there are people who are, you know, that, well, such and such a person when he or she appeared on such and such a show got so many hits. And this other person who I\u2019m thinking of inviting has never been on a show, or when they were on a show, they got many fewer hits. Nonetheless, I\u2019m going with person No. 2, and maybe I need to talk more with my audience about why I\u2019ve chosen this person who is credible and knowledgeable, and whom I believe has something worth saying and not the other.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Yeah. This is always the tension here, right? And this is a little bit, too, where I bring the algorithms into play here. I think that the algorithms are optimized for this, like, illiberalism, this sensationalism. And I think right now that is something that is far more prevalent on the right.<\/p>\n These algorithms are helping them in an outsized way. So that\u2019s why I don\u2019t always know, when you say we\u2019re gonna be seeing a lot more of this type of content from, you know, from the left. I think that that\u2019s true, that, that the left is going to try to build out an ecosystem like this.<\/p>\n But it feels far less like it has a very specific political valence and much more of a valence of a kind of nihilism. And I, and that\u2019s obviously, it can be, you know, just as dangerous as anything.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, it\u2019s not nihilism. It\u2019s anti-institutional of a different kind. And one of the things that\u2014when you and I talked in advance about what we were going to do, and I\u2019m showing the cladding, we did talk in advance about what the show would be\u2014some of the lessons we\u2019ve learned from doing this.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve tried some things that haven\u2019t worked, and one of the things I\u2019ve learned about this medium is it\u2019s not television. It looks like television, but it\u2019s not. So the way television interviews went or go, to the extent there is still television, is there would be somebody who is important, who had something they didn\u2019t want to say on television, and there would be a professional questioner whose job was to get the person who didn\u2019t want to say the thing to say that thing.<\/p>\n And if you watch, like, the Sunday-morning shows, this is the game in its most classic form.<\/p>\n And afterwards, the politician can congratulate himself because he went on TV, took 11 minutes of everybody\u2019s time, and said nothing of interest, and that\u2019s a win for him. And I thought, You know what? That doesn\u2019t work anymore.<\/em> If you don\u2019t want to say something interesting, I don\u2019t know why I\u2019m asking people to spend 11 minutes, or in my case, 40 minutes with you.<\/p>\n I\u2019m only going to ask you if you are going to play the game, if you say, You know what? I\u2019m here to communicate.<\/em> So I\u2019ve learned, invite fewer politicians because they\u2019re still in that mode of the value to them is what they don\u2019t say. And I\u2019ve also sort of stumbled along, and I didn\u2019t intend this, but I don\u2019t know that\u2014there\u2019s a lot of video that is about producing the 92nd clip where the people explode and yell at each other. And if you watch the whole thing, it\u2019s all like a ritualized performance of building up to the moment of confrontation, and the confrontation produces the viral video.<\/p>\n And I realized, You know what? I don\u2019t find that tremendously useful either.<\/em> What I\u2019m increasingly looking for is: People have something they want to say; they agree with me that it should be said. We\u2019re not fighting each other about whether to say it. And we\u2019re also not looking to have a confrontation.<\/p>\n We\u2019re looking at this as a kind of cumulative, iterative building process that leaves the user, maybe not shocked at the end, but knowing something more than the user did when the user started.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> This is why I\u2019ve always, in my career, I, rarely\u2014my version of this is rarely wanting to interview CEOs.<\/p>\n You have them on the thing. They have everything to lose in this situation. As you said, they\u2019re playing a prevent, defense, they\u2019re running out the clock, whatever you wanna call it, right? Yeah. On the whole interview. I agree with that. One thing I\u2019m curious about, since you have more experience in this realm.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Weeks and weeks of it!<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Weeks, yeah. I know. Hey, on the internet, though, we\u2019re talking dog years here, right? Do you think about the parasocial relationship? Like, are you thinking about building a relationship with audience members, people who are interested in coming for your thoughts, but also just, like, investing in that relationship with them and bringing them into your world, into your mind, into how you think? Do you look at it that way or do you say, Nope, today, like, this is the subject I want people to learn about<\/em>\u2014and I just think about it on that, on that very granular, episodic basis<\/em>?<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Very much the former, very much the former. Because when I think of this as being countercultural, I\u2019m saying, This is a person you probably have never heard of I\u2019m going to talk to today.<\/em> But I think they\u2019re important; I think more important, they\u2019re a good-faith actor.<\/p>\n So even if we end up having some disagreements, I don\u2019t think they\u2019re going to lie to you. If I did, they wouldn\u2019t be here, and I\u2019m not here to fight with them. People I fight with, I don\u2019t want. This is my actual office. This is where I write. These are my actual books. These are my actual personal souvenirs.<\/p>\n If I weren\u2019t doing a show, the souvenirs would be arranged a little differently in the office than they are now. I wouldn\u2019t have them all behind my head where I can\u2019t look at them. I would have them in front of me where I can look at them. Yeah. But they\u2019d still, they\u2019d be in a different location in this actual room.<\/p>\n These are my actual paintings on the walls, and the books behind me are not chosen because I\u2019m trying to\u2014they\u2019re not my books or something I\u2019m trying to endorse. My books are arranged by alphabetical order and you\u2019re getting, you know, the m<\/em>s \u2019cause we\u2019re in the middle of this.<\/p>\n So, and I do try to be quite expressive. I talk about what I think; I talk about the books I\u2019m reading. Because what I have to accept is that the days of Walter Cronkite are gone. The people who are imitating Walter Cronkite don\u2019t have his ethic. The people who are being watched are people who are building relationships.<\/p>\n And I think some of these relationships may leap the bound. I mean, I have many relationships that are not\u2014that began as parasocial that are now real. People I may not see very often, but whom I correspond with in a candid way. And I just think that\u2019s the way it\u2019s going to have to be, because we can\u2019t leave the most powerful tools in modern media only in the hands of the devil\u2019s servants.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> I fully agree. I mean, those are my friends there. I mean, it\u2019s a window. It\u2019s a window into this. What I have found as a challenge, though, is trying to play the game a little bit with the platforms while also trying to do what you are talking about, right?<\/p>\n Because the game\u2014not only does it reward the sensationalism, all this different stuff; it rewards having people on who have good YouTube channels already. Right? I mean, if you bring on\u2014I brought on my first episode this YouTuber Hank Green, right? And now YouTube allows you to have a little collaboration thing so you guys can share your audiences with each other.<\/p>\n And it incentivizes that game of\u2014instead of bringing on the person who no one\u2019s ever heard of, who\u2019s actually way smarter than everyone else here and can give you the conversation that is much more enriching, you have to sort of try to play this game. And similarly, trying to have a conversation about something that people might not think is that interesting\u2014it\u2019s not necessarily going to do as well as, Hold on, let us jump on the Epstein news right after<\/em>. That is, you know, my most successful episode is chasing the news, is chasing the thing that YouTube\u2019s algorithm already knows is sticky. And I\u2019ve watched\u2014I would love to know if you\u2019ve seen this, because I cover this stuff. I\u2019m really interested in the dynamic, what I call platform dynamics, how the different content spreads around.<\/p>\n And I have watched us upload some of these videos to YouTube, and I\u2019ve watched them start to move in a really interesting, like, up into the right direction on the graph and then stall immediately. And it\u2019s, you\u2019re watching an algorithmic\u2014not suppression, because that\u2019s kind of ridiculous to say, but you\u2019re watching something happen, right?<\/p>\n It is moving and then it kind of stops. Either it\u2019s reached the audience of people that care in that sense, or\u2014I find that really hard because when we\u2019re talking about trying to do the work that we want to do in this good-faith way, in a way that is hopefully giving people some responsible tools to actually learn about the world in a way that we feel is credible and true, I think it makes me very frustrated to have to work against these powerful other forces that are goading you into being the worst version of yourself.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Well, I share that feeling. It\u2019s true, of course, but you still have to lean against the wind. And one of the things I think a lot about, I don\u2019t want to make this a too-partisan political point, but I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m going to invoke Trump not to make a point specifically here about him\u2014but I think a lot of people look at the politics of the past decade and say, you know, Above all, it was a giant waste of time.<\/em> So in 2015, the United States had a series of very serious enduring problems: climate change, we mentioned; public debt; the educational performance of children from the least advantaged backgrounds; the problem of bringing China peacefully into the world of commerce and applauding that they\u2019re raising so many people out of poverty, not letting them push the rest of the world around, but also trying to stay out of a war with them, too; many, many more.<\/p>\n And 10 years later, we\u2019ve made zero progress on any of them. It\u2019s just been a giant waste of time. We\u2019re fighting about whether or not one egomaniac actually put his name on the front of the nation\u2019s leading concert hall. What a stupid way for the world\u2019s greatest power to spend a decade.<\/p>\n So I think that. But what I also think is this: For those of us who have been through this experience, we\u2019ve made no progress over the past 10 years on these important, enduring chance questions. But we\u2019ve also learned something about defending things that are important. And it\u2019s made many people better people.<\/p>\n Many people become better versions of themselves. Many people have discovered things that were important that they didn\u2019t know. And a lot of us have had the experience of saying, you know\u2014I know for myself, I\u2019ll speak very personally. I was on my way out. Out of politics. I had reached a certain age; I\u2019d had certain personal reverses.<\/p>\n I wanted out, and it pulled me back. And I\u2019m not entirely happy to be back in that world. But I do have this feeling of, to some, and without being a megalomaniac with this, because it\u2019s very small, but it\u2019s true. If everybody in each of our small degree\u2014we\u2019re needed; we\u2019re doing something that\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n And in pushing back against the algorithmic machine on this platform, we\u2019re also doing something that\u2019s needed. And that\u2019s a very valuable human experience. And even if it fails, it\u2019s still valuable.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> I\u2019m just, I\u2019m stuck on the idea of the non-apologetic, countercultural, we-are-the-underdog, in some sense, mentality that you\u2019ve noted here.<\/p>\n And just very candidly, it\u2019s very empowering. Because I think that there has been so much apologizing or trying to remain overly deferential to people who are trying to tear the world down because it\u2019s our job to be the rational, cool heads in the room.<\/p>\n And I think that coming from the perspective of\u2014these other places are outperforming. They have the bigger audiences\u2014and not trying to take the worst from them, but trying to take that kind of scrappiness, that mantle of being an insurgent, trying to be an insurgent force.<\/p>\n And I think that\u2019s really powerful. I would love for more stewards of, let\u2019s call it, again, professional or institutional media to look at it that way, because I think it\u2019s much more hardheaded. It\u2019s much more combative, it\u2019s much more\u2014it feels like it gives a purpose, right?<\/p>\n I feel like in the second Trump administration\u2014in the first Trump administration, the media seemed to have a pretty explicit purpose. Let\u2019s shine a light on this thing. Hopefully it will restore the pillars of democracy, or gird everyone, in that way.<\/p>\n And I think that there\u2019s been for the most part, broadly, a kind of lost-at-sea nature. Okay, this guy won a second time. What is our function? What do we do? Does what we do have any effect? And I think there\u2019s been this grasping, trying to find the purpose. And I think that that is something of a purpose that people can use, right?<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> There have been so many human beings in so many historical situations, some of them so much more terrible and dangerous than anything we face\u2014soldiers and seemingly lost causes and metaphorical soldiers and metaphorically seemingly lost causes\u2014who just kept going with one thought: I\u2019m not gonna let the bastards win. And sometimes that\u2019s all you need.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> I think that should be, that should be the new motto, right? Get rid of \u201cDemocracy dies in darkness.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m not gonna let the bastards win.\u201d<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> I. I. Emphasize on the I. And anyone who\u2019s watching, you\u2019re the I.<\/p>\n Yeah. One of the things I often point out, if you have one of these [David holds up his smartphone], and we all do, you have more communication power in your hand than Walter Cronkite ever commanded. So we all have to use it wisely. Think about what you share, think about what you trust, think about whom you believe, and encourage others to do the same.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s why we\u2019re also gonna encourage you to share what you do believe, which is this program, and Charlie\u2019s, and to join us in being co-publisher because that\u2019s what we all are. We\u2019re all co-publishers.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> And I think, one, I have to say, when this is invoked\u2014you have all that communication power, and one of the best things you can do both for yourself but also for others is to know when not to use it. Yes. To know when to step away from it, you know?<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Yes, very true.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> \u2019Cause that is a huge problem.<\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong> Charlie, thanks so much for making the time for me today and congratulations on the new show.<\/p>\n We\u2019re co-publishing this. This is an interesting experiment, and may it flourish. Thank you.<\/p>\n Warzel:<\/strong> Absolutely. Thank you.<\/p>\n [Music<\/em>]<\/strong><\/p>\n Frum:<\/strong><\/p>\n Thanks so much to my Atlantic colleague Charlie Warzel for joining me this week. As I mentioned at the beginning of the show, my book of this week is a history: The Trial of Madame Caillaux<\/em>. Caillaux, by the way, is spelled C<\/em>–A<\/em>–I<\/em>–L<\/em>–L<\/em>–A<\/em>–U<\/em>–X<\/em> for those unfamiliar with the peculiarities of French pronunciation. The Trial of Madame Caillaux<\/em> was published in 1992. It\u2019s written by the historian Edward Berenson. And it is the story of the most sensational sex and murder trial in pre\u2013World War I France. So I\u2019m going to just take you through the basics of the facts before getting on to why I thought this book was interesting and relevant now. Joseph Caillaux, the husband of Madame Caillaux, was an important politician in pre\u2013World War I France. He was associated with the secular left in the highly complex politics of the Third Republic. At that time, the most important newspaper of the right was a paper called Figaro<\/em>.<\/p>\n Right, in France, means pro-Catholic, pro-militarist. Left means more skeptical of militarism, more secular. Joseph Caillaux, Madame Caillaux\u2019s husband, had led a very checkered life, many affairs with many different women. Although financially, he was quite above board, sexually, he was very public in his flamboyant personal life. Madame Caillaux was his second wife. Both the women he married were divorced women.<\/p>\n Figaro<\/em> went on a campaign against him because of his political views, but they used his personal life. And they got hold of a cache, a group of personal letters that made it clear that Joseph Caillaux and his second wife, Henrietta Caillaux, had started their relationship while Joseph Caillaux was still married to his previous wife and while Henrietta Caillaux was still married to her previous husband. In other words, they hadn\u2019t divorced people and then married. They had started an extramarital affair, then divorced, then remarried.<\/p>\n Now, this kind of thing did happen, but it was never to be spoken of, and if it were brought into the light of day, it would be a tremendously shameful thing. And Henrietta Caillaux was indeed shamed. And so one day in March of 1914, she goes to a gun shop, buys a gun, tucks it into her muff, gets in her chauffeur-driven car, goes to the offices of the editor of Le Figaro<\/em>, waits for him to emerge from his appointment, meets with him, shoots him dead, gets back into a chauffeur-driven car, and drives to the police station. That\u2019s March of 1914. In July, all of this goes on trial in a sensational, sensational case.<\/p>\n Now, it\u2019s a case that involves many complex and mysterious attitudes of the time. And this is why I thought it would be interesting to talk about today. Madame Caillaux argues that what happened to her was that she, a mere woman, unable to control her emotions, was so overcome by shame and rage over the exposure of her personal life in the pages of Le Figaro<\/em>, that as in a kind of mental out-of-control state, a state of total uncontrollable passion, she went to a gun store, bought a gun, drove to the office of Le Figaro<\/em>, waited for an hour, and shot the editor dead and then drove in the same car to the police station. She just couldn\u2019t control herself. And the jury bought it. The all-male jury bought it.<\/p>\n An all-male trial\u2014there was almost no woman present in the courtroom. They bought it, that she was so overcome by her emotions. And so the reason this book is interesting is because, the reason that this trial was worth resurfacing in 1992 was because of what it showed about this very different mentality of a very different time. The prosecution didn\u2019t fight the idea that if a woman were so overcome by emotion, she would be justified in shooting a man dead.<\/p>\n Instead, they tried to argue that she had acted in cold blood. In order to make the point that the Caillauxs were not behaving in a proper gendered male-female relationship, one of the things they pointed out was what really should have happened here, what really should have happened was Mr. Caillaux should have challenged the editor of Le Figaro<\/em> to a duel and fought him instead of letting his wife do his dirty work for him. Somebody should have\u2014no problem with killing somebody or at least attempting to kill them, but it should have been the man, not the woman, who did it.<\/p>\n But the woman, because she did it, she was able to fall back on this excuse that she was overcome by passion. Now, as you read this book from this distance in time\u2014and of course, 1992 is now some distance in time as 1992 was from 1914 when all of these events happened\u2014you\u2019re struck by the strangeness and alienness of the mental atmosphere that is described in this trial of a world in which women were regarded as totally the playthings of their emotions, in which male honor required that this kind of private vengeance and that the sin here was not that there was private vengeance, but that the wife did it instead of the husband. And one way you can react to that is by reading the history of this bygone time and saying, Weren\u2019t they foolish? Aren\u2019t we wiser?<\/em><\/p>\n But another thing that might happen, and this is why I found the book so interesting to read at the turn of the year 2025, is that also looking back at a time where people believed things that we would regard as pretty crazy, pretty irresponsible, pretty wicked, actually\u2014it makes you a little humble and think, What do we believe that is going to look as crazy 100 years from now?<\/em> Maybe it\u2019s not that they were dumb and we\u2019re smarter. Oh, that\u2019s not impossible; maybe that\u2019s true. But maybe it\u2019s also true: They had a set of delusions that we can see through, and we hold a set of delusions that future generations will see through. Maybe we should have more awareness of the ways in which we might be wrong and understand that it\u2019s precisely those views of which we are most certain\u2014because one thing that everybody in the trial agreed upon was that if you were gripped by overwhelming passion then you were entitled to kill somebody who had insulted you. They all agreed on that. They just disagreed about who should have done it, the husband or the wife.<\/p>\n Maybe the things we are most certain about are exactly the things where we are most likely to be led astray. We talked a little bit in our conversation today about the rabbit holes of World War II history. One of the reasons to study history is to study things other than World War II. It\u2019s not just D-Day and Midway all the time. It\u2019s entering into the mentalities of a time that looked pretty close to our own. Pre-1914 France, they had the telephone, they had the motor car\u2014kind of clumsy versions of both, but they had them. They had revolvers, they had the mass press, but they also had ways of thinking that to us seemed completely strange. And how will we look to our grandchildren, and our great-grandchildren?<\/p>\n That\u2019s it for this week\u2019s and this year\u2019s edition of The David Frum Show<\/em>. Happy New Year to all who are observing the passage of time from 2025 to 2026. The show will post on December 31st, but some of you may be watching it in the 250th anniversary year of American independence. So as we discussed at the opening of the show, whatever qualms and doubts and anxieties I expressed then, I hope this is a deeply meaningful quarter-millennium event for all Americans.<\/p>\n Thanks so much for watching. Remember, the best way to support the work of this podcast is to subscribe to The Atlantic<\/em>. That way, you support all of my colleagues, including Charlie as well. Follow us on social-media platforms: X, @DavidFrum; Instagram, @DavidFrum. And please, if you can, share and subscribe to this content. It does do the work that we talked about today of bringing something that\u2019s more honest to the attention of more people.<\/p>\n That\u2019s it for this week. That\u2019s it for this year. See you in 2026 on The David Frum Show<\/em>.<\/p>\n [Music]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Frum: <\/strong>This episode of The David Frum Show<\/em> was produced by Nathaniel Frum and edited by Andrea Valdez. It was engineered by Dave Grein. Our theme is by Andrew M. Edwards. Claudine Ebeid is the executive producer of Atlantic<\/em> audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.<\/p>\n I\u2019m David Frum. Thank you for listening.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Subscribe here: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube On this week\u2019s episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic\u2019s David Frum opens with his thoughts on the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. He examines the many actions President Donald Trump has taken that run counter to the ideals articulated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39790,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[5663,15465,4228,12778,15916],"class_list":{"0":"post-39789","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-algorithms","9":"tag-clicks","10":"tag-extremism","11":"tag-facts","12":"tag-reward"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39789\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/39790"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}