Podcast Club ONLINE: Fareed Zakaria on the U.S. and World Today

This week's podcast is The Ezra Klein Show with guest Fareed Zakaria, a journalist, political commentator, author, and the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. In this episode, Zakaria and Klein discuss concepts in Zakaria's 2024 book Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash From 1600 to the Present -- but the interview is far from a historical retrospective. Instead, the discussion focuses on Zakaria's take on how the United States and the world got to the place where they are now: where, among other things, populism reigns large and ideology is fractured. What caused the upheaval we're experiencing? Why did the Republican Party shift such that it no longer resembles its former self? These and other questions are addressed as the podcast delves into topics including culture, inequality, economics, immigration, and the side-effects of modernity and meritocracy. Zakaria compares and contrasts the U.S. to other countries in making his points. In addition, he shares what he believes would be a winning message for Democrats going forward.

More on podcast guest Fareed Zakaria: Currently a weekly columnist for The Washington Post, Zakaria has also been a columnist for Newsweek, editor of Newsweek International, and an editor at large ofTime. Zakaria's list of credits is enormous. Some highlights include that he is the author of at least three New York Times bestsellers and recipient of numerous awards including the National Magazine Award, Peabody Award, three Emmy nominations, and was listed as one of Foreign Policy's "Top 10 Global Thinker of the Last 10 Years."

PLEASE NOTE: We require that attendees listen to the podcast below before attending the meeting to optimize discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc0oOW___qs&list=PL4n3AtGdRxJgywUZQYUk3k2-HXIQ_fIHE&index=1
(As of the time of this posting, the NYT site has neither posted the podcast nor the podcast transcript. These may be available by the time you want to listen to the podcast.)

or

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447?i=1000737767926

(1 hr., 8 min.)

What's a podcast club?
It's like a book club for podcasts. Each week we discuss an interesting and currently-relevant episode from podcasters like Ezra Klein, Michael Shermer, or Russ Roberts. We start off as a large group and spend most of the time talking in small break-out groups, which we remix 3 times during the course of the evening. Our conversations are casual and open. We ask that everyone speak respectfully at all times, and we encourage free and concise discussion relevant to the week's podcast topic. To do this, we try to adhere to Grice's Maxims: https://bit.ly/2p4uSQm

Ultimately, the idea is to help each other think a little differently, learn a thing or two and have some fun.