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On the show
From 10 epsHost
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Recent episodes
Strongmen Can Fail if We Act with Joyce Vance
Jun 23, 2026
36m 33s
Iran, Ukraine, and Freedom with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer
Jun 22, 2026
31m 52s
Strongmen, Oligarchs, & Fascists: Thinking Live with Ruth Ben-Ghiat
Jun 15, 2026
44m 25s
Trump's Military Dictatorship Budget
Jun 4, 2026
6m 59s
The Era of the Superlosers
May 21, 2026
13m 41s
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| Date | Episode | Topics | Guests | Brands | Places | Keywords | Sponsor | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6/23/26 | ![]() Strongmen Can Fail if We Act with Joyce Vance | Dear readers: Hope you have a cup of coffee in hand for this one. Tim joined Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney during the Obama Administration and host of Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance on Substack, to talk about what language to describe our moment, democracy, and civic participation look like today. Tim and Joyce started off by talking about how “sugarcoating” political realities can become a form of collaboration, because it delays the public response necessary to defend democratic institutions. They both also reject the idea that democracy inevitably self-corrects, stressing that there is no political “pendulum” that guarantees a return to normalcy. Tim also emphasized that democracies survive only when citizens actively participate in shaping their future.The rest of the discussion explored everything from the aftermath of the Iran war to threats against democratic norms at home, including debates over executive power, habeas corpus, voting rights, and the Supreme Court. Tim mentioned, regarding Iran, that authoritarian movements are often fueled by the illusion that force can solve complex problems, while history repeatedly shows that violence creates consequences its architects cannot control, which he writes about in his recent essays on Iran. To me, the most striking part of the conversation focused on what comes next. Tim and Joyce both urged Democrats and democracy advocates to think beyond simply winning the next election. Success, as Tim said, requires a broad coalition, a compelling vision of the future, and a willingness to pursue ambitious democratic reforms—from voting rights and anti-corruption measures to structural changes that will strengthen democratic institutions.Throughout the conversation, both Tim and Joyce returned to a common theme that has helped guide me as I try to navigate these times: history is not a script. There is no singular arc of the universe. The future remains unwritten. Whether America emerges stronger from this moment depends not on inevitability, but on the deliberate choices and actions citizens make now—and with each other. As Tim and Joyce put it in their closing messages, the answer is always action.Until next time, -VictorThinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 36m 33s | ||||||
| 6/22/26 | ![]() Iran, Ukraine, and Freedom with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer | Dear thinkers: Earlier today, Tim talked with Jake Sullivan and Jon Finer, two former senior national security aides to President Biden on their new show, “The Long Game.: They began with Iran — and, specifically, the power the United States has effectively surrendered through this war. As Tim put it during the conversation: “We’ve lost this war, and we lost it a long time ago.” The deeper question, he argued, is not simply how leaders can be so incompetent, but how we build institutions and a political culture that make radically incompetent leadership impossible. If you'd like to read more on this theme, Tim explored it further in his recent essays, Utopias of Violence and Capitulation Day. The conversation then turned to Ukraine: where the war stands today, why Russia is failing to achieve its objectives, the remarkable technological innovations Ukraine has developed under pressure, and what the Trump administration continues to misunderstand about the conflict. Tim also highlighted two organizations doing vital work in support of Ukraine: United24 and Razom. They concluded with a discussion of freedom — a subject Tim examines at length in his book On Freedom. One of the central ideas is that freedom cannot simply be freedom from something. We must also strive for freedom to, creating the conditions and world that will lead to true freedom. It was a thoughtful and wide-ranging conversation, and one that speaks directly to many of the challenges facing democracies today.Until next time, VictorThinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 31m 52s | ||||||
| 6/15/26 | ![]() Strongmen, Oligarchs, & Fascists: Thinking Live with Ruth Ben-Ghiat | Dear Thinkers,This afternoon, Tim sat down with Ruth Ben-Ghiat for a conversation I think many of you will want to watch with a notebook in hand. Ruth is one of the foremost scholars of strongmen and authoritarianism — she teaches at NYU and has spent her career studying exactly the kind of moment we find ourselves in now. Together, she and Tim covered a lot of ground, from strongmen to oligarchs, to fascism, but the heart of the conversation was about how to make sense of what’s happening around us.One concept that stood out to me: the distinction between Superpower Suicide and Superpower Murder — a framework Tim has written about before, but which takes on new dimensions in conversation with Ruth. They also explored other ways of naming and framing this moment, and, crucially, what each of us can practically do in response.As Tim put it near the end, getting the language right isn’t just an intellectual exercise. It’s clarifying. It’s even enabling.Hope you find it as illuminating as I did.More Thinking Live conversations are on the way — stay tuned!— VictorThinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 44m 25s | ||||||
| 6/4/26 | ![]() Trump's Military Dictatorship Budget✨ | military budgetpolitics+3 | — | PentagonThinking about... | — | Trumpmilitary budget+5 | — | 6m 59s | |
| 5/21/26 | ![]() The Era of the Superlosers✨ | superloserswar+3 | — | — | United StatesRussia+3 | superloserUnited States+7 | — | 13m 41s | |
| 5/12/26 | ![]() Copycat Tyranny✨ | authoritarianismdemocracy+3 | — | — | PolandHungary+1 | Zbigniew ZiobroViktor Orbán+6 | — | 3m 16s | |
| 4/30/26 | ![]() Thinking Live with Lawrence Lessig on the End of Dark Money✨ | dark moneypolitics+3 | Lawrence Lessig | EqualCitizens.US | — | dark moneySuper PACs+3 | — | 48m 34s | |
| 4/21/26 | ![]() Superpower Suicide✨ | American powerTrump regime+4 | — | Trump regime | AmericaUS | Superpower SuicideTrump regime+4 | — | 6m 35s | |
| 4/13/26 | ![]() Thinking Live with Journalist Terry Moran✨ | journalismcurrent events+3 | Terry Moran | ABC News | — | Terry Moranjournalism+4 | — | 58m 59s | |
| 4/12/26 | ![]() Thinking Live with Phillips O'Brien on War in Iran and Ukraine✨ | warforeign affairs+4 | Phillips O’Brien | Come Back Alive | IranUkraine | Iran WarUkraine War+5 | — | 54m 20s | |
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| 3/27/26 | ![]() No Kings in Cincinnati✨ | protestactivism+3 | — | — | Cincinnati | protestCincinnati+3 | — | 1m 16s | |
| 3/26/26 | ![]() Thinking Live with Heather Cox Richardson✨ | historyfreedom+3 | Heather Cox Richardson | Thinking Live | — | historyfreedom+3 | — | 41m 03s | |
| 3/18/26 | ![]() The Crackup of the Trump Elite (video)✨ | Trump elitepolitical scandal+3 | — | National Counterterrorism Center | — | Joe KentTrump+5 | — | 2m 11s | |
| 3/9/26 | ![]() Thinking Live with David Pepper on Ohio, Elections, and the Future | We have an unusually interesting Democratic ticket in Ohio in he gubernatorial elections — and they could very well win. I spoke back in November to the amazing Dr. Amy Acton, who is running for governor. Joining her on the ticket is David Pepper, whom I know mainly as the author of fine books of political analysis and strategy. If you want a break from war news, and want to consider something very good that good happen this fall, please tune in to this conversation, which was live a couple of weeks ago, but which is still very much on my mind today. Thank you Jason Stanley, Brian Page CFT™ AFC® Fair Play, Carol Johnston, Michael Scarmack, Kathleen Moss, and many others for tuning into my live video with David Pepper! Please subscribe and please share.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 49m 34s | ||||||
| 3/7/26 | ![]() Thinking Live on Iran with Janice Stein | Professor Janice Stein is a leading authority on negotiation and war as well as a regional specialist on the Middle East. Our conversation covers the origins of the Iran war, its meaning for the region and the world, and its possible trajectories. Throughout Professor Stein offers her characteristic wit and sharpness. I recommend that you have a listen.Thank you Michael Barclay, Mona Mona, Another Essay, Mangrove Valley, Shulamit Elson, and many others for tuning into my live video with Janice Stein! Join me for my next live video in the app.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 52m 57s | ||||||
| 3/5/26 | ![]() Thinking Live with Ruth Ben-Ghiat on Iran, Strongmen, and more | Earlier this week, I sat down with historian and author of “Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present” Ruth Ben-Ghiat for a conversation about the war in Iran, how history can inform us about our moment, and what we can all do. We also discussed how ritual humiliation functions as a political tool, why this war is unlikely to produce the rally-around-the-flag effect Trump may have hoped for, and what it will actually take — from elites, from citizens, from all of us — to turn this moment into a political turning point.As Ruth and I agreed on, disasters don’t become turning points on their own. They need people willing to name what’s happening, hold the line on institutions, and act — nonviolently, persistently — in the name of something better. The conversation is available in full above.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 49m 33s | ||||||
| 2/28/26 | ![]() Making Sense of Iran War | This post contains my conversation with military historian Phillips O’Brien about the U.S. strikes on Iran. Phillips walked us through what air power can and can’t do — it can devastate a regime, but it can’t replace one, and what we’ve likely unleashed is a chaotic internal struggle with no clear plan for what comes next.The deeper question is why this is really happening. The answer, we agreed, has less to do with Iran than with Trump’s domestic troubles, his financial entanglements with the Gulf states who stand to benefit most, and his eye on the 2026 midterms. Whatever happens on the ground in Iran, we shouldn’t let the fog of war stop us from asking those questions clearly.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 46m 37s | ||||||
| 2/24/26 | ![]() Thinking Live with Paul Krugman: Ukraine, Economics, and Our Political Moment | I spoke with Paul Krugman about Ukraine, economics, and the political moment we are living through in the United States. We discussed the dangers to democracy that come from within, especially in an age of oligarchy and extreme inequality, and we talked about what the war in Ukraine reveals about civil society and reconstruction.We ended with a simple point: democracy depends on citizens who participate, not spectators who wait. I hope you’ll watch and enjoy our discussion.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 57m 08s | ||||||
| 1/30/26 | ![]() My Conversation with Ava DuVernay about Don Lemon & Georgia Fort & How we Respond to Our Current Times | This afternoon, I had the pleasure of a long and wide-ranging conversation with Ava DuVernay—a producer and director whose work has consistently helped Americans see themselves and their history more clearly.We spoke about many things: where we are as a country, what history can still teach us, and what democratic coalitions have looked like when they have succeeded—and when they have failed. But we also spoke about the present moment, which has a way of intruding on even the most reflective conversations.In particular, we discussed the arrest of journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort while they were doing their jobs—documenting events of public importance. These arrests are not isolated incidents. They are signals. And history teaches us that when journalists, especially African American journalists, are treated as criminals for observing power, democracy itself is being tested.Ava and I talked about responsibility. History does not move on its own. It moves when people decide to act within it. The First Amendment does not enforce itself. It survives because citizens insist that it matters—not only when their own speech is threatened, but when someone else’s is.Today is a good day to talk about the First Amendment. Not abstractly, and not nostalgically, but concretely. Who is being prevented from speaking? Who is being punished for witnessing? Who benefits when journalists are made afraid?It is also a good day to celebrate journalists. Not because they are perfect—they are not—but because their work makes self-government possible. Journalism is how power becomes visible. It is how facts enter public life. It is how a society argues with itself without tearing itself apart.Ava reminded me, in her own way, that storytelling is a form of civic care. Journalists practice that care every day, often at personal risk. When we defend them, we are not taking sides in a culture war. We are taking sides with democracy.So I encourage you to talk about the First Amendment today. Talk about it with friends, students, colleagues. Ask what it requires of us now—not in theory, but in practice. And take a moment to thank a journalist.Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 37m 58s | ||||||
| 1/28/26 | ![]() Conversation with Misha Collins and Emily Farallon | We talked about a wide range of topics today — from the happenings in Minnesota to what people can do to push back to Ukraine. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 35m 49s | ||||||
| 1/13/26 | ![]() My Conversation with Stacey Abrams | Watch my conversation with Stacey Abrams. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 31m 11s | ||||||
| 12/21/25 | ![]() Can the Russo-Ukrainian war end? | In this second part of the conversation, we turn to the current state of the Russo-Ukrainian war, and discuss American diplomatic antics as well as European shortcomings. We also juxtapose the current narratives around diplomacy, which are often very misleading, with the state of the battlefield.Please watch and share! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 33m 17s | ||||||
| 12/20/25 | ![]() How wars are won | I had a wide-ranging conversation with the distinguished historian of war Philipps O’Brien, who has been an important voice on the Russo-Ukrainian war. In part one, we discuss the structural reasons for victory and defeat in war, and assess the first critical year (2022) of Russia’s current full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Please watch and share! Part two coming tomorrow. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 17m 54s | ||||||
| 11/25/25 | ![]() Oligarchs and Diplomats (video with Michael Weiss) | Greetings all! These past few days were some of the weirdest in American diplomatic history, and I was lucky to have a special guest to help explain what happened and why it matters.This was a wonderful and timely conversation with the reporter Michael Weiss on the diplomatic imbroglio that followed when the United States allowed its position on Ukrainian to be dictated by a Russian leaker who happens to be a rather singular figure in Russian politics. There are facts, contexts and analysis here you will not find elsewhere. The conversation helps us to consider about all that would be lost if Ukraine were lost, and about just how American foreign policy is and should be made. Reading:Please support Michael Weiss and his colleagues at The Insider: Michael Weiss on the origins of the leak here; the home page of The Insider here. Here also is my post from yesterday where I analyse at some length the 28 points of the Russian wish list that suddenly became the official American position.If you enjoyed this please subscribe and share. Thinking about... is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 52m 29s | ||||||
| 11/20/25 | ![]() The Putin-Witkoff Plan Worsens the War | Among all the other things that are happening, we have a US administration trying to bully Ukrainians into accepting Russia’s proposal that their sovereignty be undone. Aside from the naked injustice of this, there are five basic practical reasons why it would make the world far more dangerous. I summarize them here; you will find more writing on this subject elsewhere on my Substack, “Thinking about…” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit snyder.substack.com/subscribe | 3m 57s | ||||||
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