{"podcast":{"title":"The Dishcast with Andrew Sullivan","slug":"the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188","podcast_index_feed_id":1371188,"rss_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/61371.rss","website_url":"https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/podcast","image_url":"https://substackcdn.com/feed/podcast/61371/b8169094491d87e5c919fbbc549287ca.jpg","author":"Andrew Sullivan","episode_count":276,"summary":"\"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle,\" - George Orwell.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-25T06:17:14.708828+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188"},"episode":{"title":"George Packer On Our Post-Liberal World","slug":"george-packer-on-our-post-liberal-world","published_at":"2025-12-05T17:23:59+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/george-packer-on-our-post-liberal-world","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188","url":"https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/george-packer-on-our-post-liberal","audio_url":"https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/180152783/e15c750dd6ec5c89ce9a7886510f0e44.mp3","summary":"This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com George is a journalist and novelist. He was a long-time staff writer at The New Yorker , now a staff writer at The Atlantic . He’s the author of 10 books, including The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America — which won the National Book Award — and Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century . His new novel is called The Emergency . It’s a parable of our polarized times — and a deeply unsettling one. We had this conversation the afternoon after I finished the book, and, as you’ll see, it really affected me emotionally. For two clips of our convo — on the clarity of Orwell’s writing, and the savior complex of the woke — head to our YouTube page . Other topics: raised by two Stanford professors; his dad accused of fascism by his leftist students and red-baited by the right; his dad’s stroke and subsequent suicide at a young age; George’s time in the Peace Corps; how Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia “saved me”; entering journalism at 40; reporting in Iraq; Orwell’s contempt for elites; Auden and Spender; the ideologies of intellectuals; the young turning on their elders; the summer of 2020; Camus’ La Peste ; January 6; Orwell’s bigotries; his love for the countryside and common decency; Animal Farm ; Nineteen Eighty-Four ; Hitchens; utopianism; Nietzsche and slave morality; Fukuyama and boredom; the collapse of religion; intra-elite competition; Mamdani; the Gaza protests; virtue signaling; struggle sessions; mobs on social media; the loss of gatekeepers; the queer takeover of the gay rights movement; the brutality of meritocracy; Nick Fuentes; Trump’s multi-racial win; his Cabinet picks as trolling; the utter capitulation of Vance; Haidt and smartphones; and…","meta_description":"This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit andrewsullivan.substack.com George is a journalist and novelist. He was a long-time staff wr…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":3210,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/episodes/george-packer-on-our-post-liberal-world/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-dishcast-with-andrew-sullivan-1371188/george-packer-on-our-post-liberal-world.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}