Episode
Laura Field On Trump's Intellectuals
- Published
- Jan 2, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 3084
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/episodes/laura-field-on-trump-s-intellectuals/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/laura-field-on-trump-s-intellectuals.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com Laura Field is a writer and political theorist who specializes in far-right populist intellectualism in the US. She’s currently a Scholar in Residence at American University, a Senior Advisor for the Illiberalism Studies Program at GW, and a nonresident fellow with Brookings. Her new book is Furious Minds : The Making of the MAGA New Right . We bonded over some of the right’s wackier innovations, and differed over how far the left has also slid into illiberalism. An auto-transcript is available above (just click “Transcript” while logged into Substack). For two clips of our convo — on the New Right’s “post-constitutional moment,” and the war on the civil service — head to our YouTube page . Other topics: growing up in Alberta; losing a parent at a very young age; Plato an early inspiration; growing tired of the Straussians; the decline of religion under liberalism; Locke; Rousseau; Nietzsche; Fukuyama; the resurgence of the illiberal left and illiberal right; the Claremont Institute and Harry Jaffa; Jaffa’s extreme homophobia and hatred of divorce; Allan Bloom; Lincoln fulfilling the Founding; Hobbes; the role of virtue in a republic; Machiavelli; Michael Anton’s “Flight 93 Election”; John Eastman and “Stop the Steal”; Curtis Yarvin and The Cathedral; Adrian Vermeule’s Common Good Constitutionalism ; Catholic conversion; Pope Leo; Obergefell , debating Harvey Mansfield over marriage; Woodrow Wilson’s expansion of the state; Thatcher and Reagan slimming it down; the pros and cons of technocratic experts; DOGE vs federal workers; “queer” curricula and the 1619 Project; edge-lords; Bronze Age Pervert and pagan masculinity; Fuentes and Carlson; and debating the dangers of wokeness. Br…