Sam Harris On The Trump Threat, Harris, Wokeness

He’s back for our pre-election appraisal and anguish.

Sam is a neuroscientist, philosopher, bestselling author, host of the Making Sense podcast, and creator of the Waking Up App. He’s also an old friend, jousting partner, meditation role model, and all round wonderful man. His recent work helped me reassess my views on the Gaza war. This week we had our third consecutive talk on the eve of the election — the first on his pod in 2016, the second on the Dishcast in 2020.

You can listen to the episode in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app). For three clips of our convo — on Trump’s insane deportation plan, the depth of his cult, and what Harris should do in the final stretch — head to our YouTube page.

Other topics: what Harris has done well in this campaign; her downplaying of identity politics; her deft debate with Trump and great convention speech; her stylistic — if not substantive — shift toward the center; her lack of Sister Souljah moments; her role as an establishment figure; the lack of a real primary; debating whether she’s a woke Manchurian candidate; the “nepo baby” running her campaign; understanding Trump’s enduring appeal; his zero-sum worldview; calling the neocons’ bluff; the Iraq War; the withdrawal from Afghanistan; Harris campaigning with the Cheneys; Trump’s tariffs; his humor; the lawfare against him; the overblown Russiagate; not seizing dictatorial power during Covid or the 2020 riots; the vast majority of his own Cabinet now opposing him; his denigration of the military; his relationship with Israel; Hamas; Ukraine; Taiwan; the border crisis; sex changes for minors; trans prisoners; Harris’ pitch to black men; “Project Fear” during Brexit; January 6th; Bob Woodward’s reporting; Project 2025; Vance; the growing gender gap in politics; the growing support of non-whites for Trump; his felonies; the McDonald’s stunt; Harris’ extreme caution with media; the Al Smith dinner; X’s appalling algorithm of racial violence; the sinister Musk; the woke onslaught; Rahm Emanuel; and the risk of violence after Election Day.

Browse the Dishcast archive for an episode you might enjoy (the first 102 are free in their entirety — subscribe to get everything else). Coming up: the return of the great John Gray, Damon Linker on the election results, Anderson Cooper on grief, Christine Rosen on humanness in a digital world, and Mary Matalin on anything but politics. Please send any guest recs, dissents, and other comments to dish@andrewsullivan.com.

From a fan of last week’s pod:

I just finished listening to your talk with Tina Brown and was enchanted. Not to gush, but I honestly love both of you. I felt like I was hearing two smart, psychologically heathy people having a real conversation about this election.

Aww shucks. Another listener:

I enjoyed your talk with Tina Brown and learned much about a person I knew so little about, other than her credentials. I was worried for a moment that when you asked her what her compatriots understand about people who are voting for Trump, worried that she and you might be slipping down the slope that you always point out about the “libs” — that they put everyone on the right in one pot. And while you both did differentiate the Trump voters somewhat, I think it deserves a more in-depth look.

My view is that there are those affected by the globalization and the loss of industrial jobs (though as one of your readers from Montana reported, his relative — an anesthesiologist and not similarly affected — is nevertheless voting for Trump). Let’s not forget the many rich people who are dropping millions of dollars to support Trump’s campaign (or pay for his legal bills). And then there are some who are racist (let us not forget Charlottesville), and those whose evangelical ministers have suggested that he is either the Second Coming or a reincarnation of Cyrus.

So, all I’m saying is that there seems to be a very mixed bag of supporters, and no simple answer to the question. I’m sure the topic will come up when you talk to Sam Harris and I look forward to his perspective.

Another turns to the UK portion of the pod:

There’s no question that PM’s Question Time is a tremendous institution that keeps politicians in check. And it has led to some memorable exchanges, which display a level of erudition well in excess of what one sees in the US Congress. The exchanges between Denis Healey and Sir Geoffrey Howe spring to mind as immediate classics. Can you imagine any American politician being as clever as Healey when he compared debating Geoffrey as “like being savaged by a dead sheep”?

Another gets personal:

I was just listening to your extremely entertaining conversation with Tina Brown. I actually have a recommendation for her — or, more accurately, for her son Georgie. It was moving hearing her talk about the loneliness that autistic adults feel because they don’t have a workplace or friends. I may have a lead for her, if Georgie is interested.

I work for a company that puts veterans to work in manufacturing. That industry is facing a huge workforce shortage — three million jobs within a decade. So as you can imagine, a large amount of money is being put into creative solutions to solve this problem. One growing area is investment in overlooked talent pools such as the neurodiverse. It turns out manufacturing — with its clear, repetitive tasks — turns out to be an excellent fit for many neurodiverse adults. Plant managers are surprisingly supportive, not least because neurodiverse workers are brutally honest and bring unique perspectives to their jobs more than other workers. They also tend to love their jobs.

There is now a national coalition to support them. Here is their website.

I hope Tina’s son can find his community. Thanks for a great pod as always. You two are helping me survive the worst election of my lifetime!

Here’s another tip for Tina and other parents of adult children with special needs:

An enjoyable Dishcast, as always. I have a quick lead that you might think worth sharing with your friend Tina. At 45:50-47:10, she mentioned seeking a new model of assisted living for young adults with needs. The town of Darien, CT has created just such a model and it might be a good resource for her.

Here’s a listener on our episode from two weeks ago:

The Walter Kirn show was excellent. Ok, I already subscribe to Racket News and County Highway, but the key to your episode was the good chemistry between you two. You understood each other and were friendly but not fawning.

I’m sure your Harris-Walz fans are terribly offended by Walter’s take on Walz, but it strikes me as dead accurate: putting on a ridiculous performance as a rural Midwesterner.

Also, did you see the White Man Tacos discussion with Kamala? The pheasant hunting? The commercial where he’s working on a car engine? Oh please!

Another on Kirn:

He had one of the best explanations of the Trump phenomenon that I have heard. I don’t agree with all of his points, but I could see where he was coming from, especially when he was talking about people losing their jobs at good American companies and not wanting to retrain, leave an aging relative, or abandon their beloved fishing holes.

At the same time, it’s hard for me not to feel like similar and much worse fates have befallen countless individuals throughout history who’ve had to adapt, move, or suffer due to circumstances beyond their control. And would it not have taken some major government intervention of an anti-free-market kind to preserve the communities Kirn describes? This is something conservatives have traditionally opposed. So it feels a little like the pot calling the kettle black. The unsympathetic side of me sees a lot of angling for sympathy from the “F your feelings” crowd, so I ask, “Why should your particular community/culture be immune from a changing world?”

Which was, in part, the message of Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy. A long-time listener writes about the whole Dishcast venture:

I am probably an aberrant listener who first came across you many years ago, watching YouTube debates with Christopher Hitchens, then through the Sam Harris podcast. I was totally unfamiliar with your extraordinary career as a journalist and activist in the ‘90s. I wanted to write and thank you and your team (a team of you and one other?) and merely say, I don’t think a podcast has moved me quite so much and cause me to well up so many times.

First, listening to your conversation with Michael Lewis talking about the loss of his daughter Dixie (I literally had to pull over as I was sobbing so much). Second, listening to your conversation with David Frum about the passing of his daughter, and you talking intimately about the pain and loss in the passing of your mother. And today, I was doing some work at my computer with your conversation with Tina Brown on in the background, and the parts about her son, your families, and your grandmother were deeply moving.

The Dishcast is an intimate conversation with some big beasts of journalism and culture. It’s both outrageously funny and sad, and it’s strange to hear such intimacy and humour that your guests lay bare. It’s also a great education on the plight of America for ill-informed listeners like myself, but also a wonderful look back through events in our own increasingly parochial island back here in Great Britain.

Overall I think you’re an optimist, and I come away feeling thoroughly restored and refreshed after hearing that clever people like your guests are out there doing their thing. I just wanted to write and say thank you from a weird corner of Willesden Junction / Harlesden in West London.

I’m chuffed beyond measure. Thank you. Another is looking forward to next week’s pod:

I’m stoked to hear you‘re giving Professor Gray more Dish light. His thinking is a soothing and indispensable antidote to the over-reasonableness that our spirits keep paying the price for.

Here’s a guest rec:

It may be too late for the election, but I would relish a conversation between you and Martin Gurri about the current state of party politics. He is voting for Trump, but his opinion is a kind of mirror image of your own, as I understand it. He is voting for Trump, but only because he feels the elite class has gone too far in its efforts to control public discourse, and this represents the greater risk to our body politic than the Republican Party’s chaos. It’s a fascinating argument, and I would love to hear how the two of you resolve the nuances between your positions!

I’m not indifferent to the critique. I just can’t enable a malignant, delusional maniac to run the free world.

A frequent dissenter recommends a guest that Sam Harris just had on his pod:

I try not to bog down your inbox unless I am writing a snarky response that might make it to press the following week, but here I am with a normal reader email. I don’t listen to many podcasts that are “interview with a guy who has opinions about stuff,” but this one is well worth your time: “Yuval Noah Harari on AI & the Future of Information,” on Kara Swisher’s podcast:

I’ve never heard of either of these people, but a DC wonk forwarded it to me in the context of a conversation about misinformation, and it’s quite good. It gets into the topic of how the printing press facilitated the spread of misinformation, the subsequent witch trials and religious wars, and considers how social media and generative AI is similar to that. And, unlike most “whine about shit” podcasts, there are actually some ideas of how to improve things. It’s very refreshing.

However, I want to make clear I don’t agree with everything on the pod and I could easily clap back at some of the hand-wavey, dot-commy, capitalist, futurist, tech-bro nonsense that’s in there. But just from the point of view of taking on misinformation, it says stuff I wish I had come up with as pithy reader responses to recent Dish obsessions. I am so tired of the modern-day witch hunts that are targeted directly at me: a trans person and a migrant.

Hope all is well. I am still sitting here in Taiwan encircled by Chinese gunboats and just living my life like everyone else. It’s a very relaxing country where nobody really gives much of a crap about culture-war topics. I should get my permanent residence in a year or two, so I’m looking forward to taking a break from work and sitting under a banana tree for a couple months.

I’ve tried to get Harari on the Dishcast long before this new book. His people turned us down. Maybe this might get his attention.

Next up, a reader has a “dissent over the ‘transing children’ issue, but not because I disagree with anything you’re saying about it”:

I’m assuming you’ve checked your facts. So, I stipulate to all your points about Rachel Levine, WPATH, the shocking deceptions and violations of the Hippocratic Oath, etc. Yes, there should be lawsuits, and some people should lose their jobs or licenses. I agree that the shock is greater when the victims are children, and when government officials are guilty of not protecting them. I, too, strongly object to children being harmed.

What I don’t get is your crashing indifference to the bigger picture. Is this really about children’s health and safety?

You cite the fact that 14,000 minors were surgically or chemically “transed” in the last five years. That’s an average of 2,800 per year. Let’s grant that that was a harm in every case. Not good! But do you remember Michelle Obama’s campaign against childhood obesity? That addressed a problem that harms — wait for it — an estimated 14.7 million kids. Fourteen million: more than five thousand times as many. Yet you now say you might consider not voting for the only party that has ever cared about that.

And then, of course, firearms: 5,000 children and adolescents killed or injured each year. The US is the only wealthy country where this is a leading cause of death in that age group. The GOP’s answer is just better locks on school doors.

But let’s take a closer comparison. You are horrified that some surgical transing includes amputations. Do you know what the leading cause of amputations is in young children? Lawn-mower accidents! I’m not kidding. About 10,000 kids are injured every year in lawn-mower accidents, or about three times the number that are “transed.” Often these accidents involve the mower’s driver backing into an approaching child whom he can’t see or hear. Same with cars: children are injured about 2,600 times per year in back-over accidents, about the same as your transing number, and close to one-third of the deaths in such accidents are kids under 5. Deaths, not just horrible injuries.

I know you’re not innumerate, so I’m wondering if lawn mowers have ever even crossed your radar — or, if the fact that they’re not a culture-war issue means they lack some kind of “wow” factor you crave. I’m guessing you might say, well, the trans issue is different because no one favors lawn-mower accidents — they’re just random acts of God — while there are interest groups ideologically pushing trans treatments as quack medicine, and the government is conniving with this. Sorry, but that’s wrong. All these issues involve ideology and government dereliction (or blockage). Gun rights are obviously intensely ideological and culture-war-ish. Childhood obesity is promoted by the many corporate interests of Big Snack, which lobby and buy off governments to prevent further regulation.

And because no one argues they’re good, the accidents I’m citing would be even easier to prevent than trans surgeries. It would be a fairly simple fix for the government to require that all motor vehicles, including lawn mowers, cars and (especially) SUVs, be equipped with proximity-sensing devices that don’t just beep at you, like now, but stop the vehicle or the rotor blades if a body is in the way or approaching during backup. But I suspect that if we investigated, we would find a situation like that of the Ford Pinto in the 1970s: manufacturers know there are low-cost, lifesaving fixes, but are calculating that it’s even cheaper to just let some people suffer and die, and they’re under no pressure from the government to calculate otherwise.

I’m not saying you have to become a lawn-mower activist. But you tied your concern about transing to the election, supposedly in defense of children. So let’s say a GOP victory would stop all trans surgeries on minors and save all 2,800 per year that you’re concerned about. Meanwhile, how many federal judges will the GOP produce to block the many other safety measures that come from regulatory agencies? What will it do to halt further progress against global heating, and what will be the impact of that for today’s young people over the course of their lives? How much longer will sensible gun-safety measures be delayed? And so on down a long list.

In short: Yes, vote to protect children. But do not deceive yourself and imagine that a Democratic defeat will mean fewer injured and dead kids in future years; it will mean more.

I take all these points. But getting clinical trials for children with gender dysphoria is not mutually exclusive with preventing lawn-mower deaths and other child safety issues. And the federal government is not insisting that lawn-mowers are “life-saving” and essential for children. My own peculiar concern here is with gay children. They are being bombarded with deeply dangerous propaganda, told in ways they never were before that the reason for their anxieties could be their biological sex, and transed because they are gay. This is not speculation. The vast majority of detransitioners are gay and lesbian. The transqueer movement has no interest in defending them. It is not about defending homosexuality. It’s about abolishing the sex binary through tracing the bodies of children.

Another reader sends a big assent:

Thank you for covering the WPATH and Levine scandal on Friday. Please do not listen to any haters who may have complained about “too much trans.” I implore you, keep the scathing gender-critical & sex-realist criticism flowing.

I am a lifelong liberal Democrat. I am horrified and enraged by my party’s disastrous turn into this profoundly regressive, anti-science, homophobic, and misogynist ideology, and its open celebration of the medicalization of kids’ and teens’ perfectly healthy bodies. We used to pathologize the minds of gender non-conforming young people. Now it’s not their minds but their bodies that are pathologized and mutilated, all with a smile. It’s Trans Joy, you see!

And liberals wonder why Trump may win?? FFS, this medical category of “trans youth” — allegedly in desperate need of what is in fact severe medical harm — is a reactionary social construct. This is a medical scandal on the order of lobotomy. The “liberal” flagship news media is actively covering it up. So thank you for your own-going rhetorical blow-torching of these monsters, and please don’t give up.

On the Harris-Trump battle, another writes:

I’m looking forward to seeing if you follow up on your tease from last week about having doubts on your vote for Kamala. I thought I might run this argument by you, even though you’ve probably heard it many times before. Let’s just say you’re right about the threat to constitutional order that Trump poses. That threat is at least a frontal assault which makes it easy to identify and defeat. This is essentially what happened on January 6.

The threat posed by Harris, on the other hand, is covert and comes with a smile. They attack the First Amendment to protect you from harmful misinformation. They weaponize the judiciary because their opponents break the law — like no dictator ever thought of that excuse. They want to “reform” the Supreme Court because it is so “extremist”. They expand the power of the executive and its bureaucracy because the deep state is so awesome. Try not to think of democracy as rule by the people; best to turn your decisions over to the “experts” like Rachel Levine.

Another attempt to sway my vote:

I’m surprised to be writing to you eight years after I sent this email, right after Trump was elected:

The country needs you. You were the only one who knew Trump would win, and who can analyze him like he is, a high school bully. Have you thought about blogging, or at least leading the resistance?

Today I am asking you to reconsider your vote for Harris. I voted for Clinton, and I felt the day after the 2016 election like I did after the 9/11 attacks. Then I voted for Biden, so I was glad to see him win!

But this election I’m going to vote for Trump. Here’s why: I’m a college professor who has watched the country become woke, the faculty in my university even more so, the grad students even worse. I can’t say anything or disagree with the mainstream without being judged a fascist or feeling that I will be cancelled by my colleagues. No one here thinks anymore; they only pride themselves on following the mainstream ideology. It is starting to corrupt the intellectual integrity of academia, and sadly they don’t even know how corrupted they have become, and intellectually slothful. Even anti-woke professors won’t use the word “woke” because they don’t want to be considered in league with MAGA or “those people.”

I’m sick of the intellectual rot, so I am silently voting for Trump, and not telling anyone. I’m surely not the only one.

I know his imperfections, but this election is the only way to cast a protest vote against the way the country has been slipping, in so many ways. I’m also a Catholic, and Harris herself said this week that those who believe that “Christ is King” need to hit the road and go with Trump. That was said just days after her “time” at the Al Smith dinner was given over to an unfunny woman in a Catholic schoolgirl uniform who thought it appropriate to sniff her own armpits:

Also, I know of a growing number of people who are moving to my town in a blue state because their state is putting restrictions on how much they can trans their probably-gay kids.

Trump will be over in four years, so the philosophy of Harris has to be taken down, since it will grow and become worse. You are more public and less constrained than most, and I hope you will reconsider.

One more Trump supporter:

Each week, I read with interest the various readers outlining their voting choices, so I wanted to share a point that I haven’t seen emphasized. (I’ll state upfront that I’m voting for Trump, being of the cohort that Bill Maher describes as “people who think, with all of his flaws, that Trump is better than far-left insanity” — an insanity that Harris has abjectly failed to distance herself from in any meaningful way.)

The broad-based coverup of Biden’s evident infirmities gave us not one, but two poor choices. Obviously we’re stuck with Harris as the late-game substitution on the Democratic ticket, but Biden’s initial decision to run all but ensured Trump’s nomination too. Although Biden didn’t formally announce his candidacy until April 2023, it had long been clear that he was planning to vie for a second term.  This kneecapped Trump’s primary opponents, whose only viable path to the nomination was to convince diehard Trump fans that he (Trump) was too old to be effective — a case that’s impossible to make with an even-older Biden as the opponent. Furthermore, Trump’s base already knew Biden was failing and saw little reason to consider alternatives. Why bother switching horses when the other horse is at the door of the glue factory?

Dem institutions, your own “big lie” gave us both Harris and Trump. No matter what happens, you’ll be sleeping in a bed you made.

Another looks to the Middle East:

I just wanted to say thanks for writing the following line last week in response to Sinwar’s elimination: “I don’t know where we go from here, but I do know that, according to the doctrine of proportionality, the moral defense of Israel’s year-long war just got a lot stronger.”

As you know, I often write in to dissent about your Israel-related opinions. And whenever I share the Dish with friends and family, I always note that I agree with you on just about everything … except Israel. Last week’s main column was no exception. The transgender activist crusade that is unforgivably harming children and discriminating against women (sports a big one for me) is something we must fight however we can — writing about it, litigation, legislation, buying Abigail Shrier’s books, retweeting J.K. Rowling (my queen!), etc.

With respect to Israel, all I want to say is that I deeply admire and respect that you are willing to reconsider your viewpoint. I’ve been so disheartened (for many years, but especially since 10/7/23) at the pervasive lack of nuance and critical thinking when it comes to the Middle East (in the news, on college campuses, with former friends, etc). When someone with a platform like yours is open to publicly reevaluating your opinion, it goes a long way.

I know this is what the Dish community is all about, but it helps me feel sane that there are other readers who stay subscribed because you are genuinely honest and open-minded. There is so much partisan nonsense, division, and ignorance out there, and I’m appreciative that every Friday I can read something that makes me smarter — either because I agree, or because your take helps me sharpen my own views by thinking/writing about why I dissent.

Thank you. I talk about this some more with Sam in the new pod. October 7 made me see Hamas more clearly, and perhaps made me more sympathetic to the conundrum. I still am adamantly against the settlements. From another regular dissenter over Israel:

As an Israeli displaced with my kids by the war in Gaza and Lebanon, I hope you can understand if this particular issue is too close to home for me to be as objective as I normally am, but still, I strive in the direction of objectivity because I think it’s important and because I recognize there is another group of people just as involved in this war, with a radically different perspective than mine, whose voices should also be heard. I also think the IDF is full of humans subject to all the moral failings of human nature, and when they err, they should be criticized and held accountable.

That being said, I sincerely hope that you will have John Spencer on your podcast to discuss Israel’s strategy and tactics in Gaza. I know many other people have recommended him and I imagine he’s in high demand right now. I listen to his podcast and other podcasts that provide analysis of military history, and there seems to be wide agreement that the war in Gaza is not only unprecedented in terms of the challenges Israel faces, but that Israel’s efforts to protect civilians, while not perfect, is unprecedented as well — not just in modern warfare, but throughout all of human history. It’s an important perspective to hear, especially if a large part of your audience is skeptical of Israel’s actions in Gaza over the last year.

I imagine we are in complete agreement when I say that I sincerely hope this round of the conflict will be over soon and that I can take my twin toddlers home to my husband, and that all the other displaced people in every part of this war can go home (except for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, of course). I am sure the next round with Iran is in the not-so-distant future, and that some amount of war will continue until the Ayatollah regime is dismantled, but Israel has done such a good job kneecapping both Hamas and Hezbollah that I hope the worst of the threat is, for now, vanquished.

One more email for the week:

I appreciate the ongoing discussion related to happiness. In last week’s edition, a reader states: “Granted, I miss things about being younger … but on balance I think I’m happier now. I can’t figure it out; the question fascinates me.“

I’m not saying anything terribly new here, but a great deal of our happiness depends on our own state of mind. This is an ancient truism, but one that every generation apparently needs to be reminded of. And I just happen to be currently reading a short collection of Arthur Schopenhauer’s writings, The Wisdom of Life, in which he makes this point with concise eloquence: “It is not what things are objectively and in themselves, but what they are for us, in our way of looking at them, that makes us happy or the reverse.”

I suspect that, in at least some cases, this sort of discriminatory faculty develops with age. If so, that may help to explain an increase in happiness as we get older. We respond to the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to with less distress and more discernment.

But these points are not just theoretical. They are of such practical and immediate import that they apply even to another topic from last week’s edition. You wrote:

Wokeness is far from over. It has in fact consolidated itself in most American institutions, and is destroying our universities. It remains rampant in journalism and publishing; and is central to the Biden administration’s domestic policies. Just because it has become relatively unpopular makes no difference. These fanatics are true believers. If they can’t discriminate against members of oppressor classes openly, they will do so covertly.

I basically agree with this sentiment, though I personally would not frame the situation in such dire terms. But let’s just say that your critique is correct. Tremendous damage has been done, of course. At this point, that’s just a given to accept and move on from. But how do we look at a tragedy like this with an attitude that helps us to maintain if not actively promote our own happiness?

The answers are probably different for each individual. But, in my own case, it helps to look at what is unquestionably an era of extremism as an opportunity. This situation cries out for as brave, insightful, and eloquent a response as we can muster. I am probably not up to the challenge. But I am happy to give it my best effort. And the key word there is happy.

We can, if we choose this perspective, appreciate the well-disguised blessing of a challenge that demands the very best we can offer in response. And how many others are so lucky?

One thing I’m very lucky for is Truman — the happiest dog there is, and the ultimate Mental Health Break. Here he is getting picked up from doggy daycare — one of his many happy places:

Even as I have been struggling with resilient bronchitis, he’s been patient and life-giving. Dogs FTW.

See you next Friday, and keep the emails coming: dish@andrewsullivan.com.

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