Episode 27 - EU Parliament Member Johan Van Overtveldt on The Icarus Curse

It isn’t every day you get to talk to one of the 720 members of the European Parliament, one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union. For me, it has happened once: a week ago, when I spoke to Johan Van Overtveldt, now in his second five-year term representing Belgium in the Parliament and serving as chair of the Parliament’s budget committee. Van Overtveldt, who previously served as Belgium’s Minister of Finance, their version of America’s Secretary of the Treasury, is a conservative: at home, he’s a member of the New Flemish Alliance, and in Parliament, a member of the European Conservatives and Reformists Group.

European and American conservatives have their similarities, but the match isn’t perfect. I asked Member Van Overtveldt how he would categorize himself in American terms and I’ll let him speak for himself, but for now, think a generous Reagan, but supportive of gay marriage and concerned about climate change.

Prior to transitioning into politics, Van Overtveldt worked in banking, he worked in finance, and he spent decades as an economic journalist. There’s a reason he was minister of finance and is now chair of the budgetary committee—he really knows his stuff, and he has the industry connections and pragmatic approach you’d expect of someone who spent a career outside politics.

Van Overtveldt has also written a number of books. His first came from his dissertation—he received his PhD in applied economics from the University of Antwerp—which he wrote on the Chicago School of Economics—Milton Friedman, George Stigler, Ronald Coase, and so forth.

I spoke to him about his most recent book, The Icarus Curse: How Western Democracies Derailed and How to Get Back on Track. The basic premise is that western democracies, very much including the United States, have been living beyond their means for generations, and are reaching a point of true policy exhaustion. What started as John Maynard Keynes’s innovation of deficit spending to stimulate aggregate demand when demand fell—like during a financial crisis—became an excuse for politicians to make promise after promise after promise—without, it should be noted, ever fully delivering what people have now come to expect of their government. In 1964, 77% of Americans trusted their government to do the right thing just about always or most of the time; by 1979, that was 27%, and it hasn’t exceeded 24% since before President Obama took office. Only part of that is about the mismatch between what people have come to expect of their government and what the government can actually deliver, but it’s a real part.

This isn’t one party’s fault. On the one hand you have Democrats: happy to spend, but ultimately uncomfortable with raising taxes; on the other, you have Republicans: happy to cut taxes, but less good at actually cutting spending, and there’s a strong argument to be made that what they are trying to cut—it’s not just fraud, waste, and abuse—is exactly the sort of public investment spending you shouldn’t be cutting. President Trump and congressional Republicans argue that the Big Beautiful Bill will stimulate the economy so much that tax revenues will eventually wipe out what the Congressional Budget Office projects as an additional $2.4 trillion on the deficit side of the ledger over the next ten years, but how confident are you that’s actually the case? I’m not an economist, I’m not an actuary, and I’m not a politician, but it sounds more like wishful thinking than real math.

Ultimately, the pied piper is going to come calling. There will come a financial meltdown, or a war, or a series of natural disasters that we don’t have the borrowing capacity to simply paper over. So what do we do? How do we gird ourselves against the unpredictable crises to come? Well, those questions are why I wanted to talk to Johan Van Overtveldt.

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Episode 26 - Ben Connelly on Traditional Conservatism and Why It Matters

What does “traditional conservatism” mean to you? How has conservatism changed since President Trump came on the scene? Did it need to change?

One of the downsides of having just two mainstream parties, one of which has permanently claimed the mantle of conservatism and the other that of liberalism, is that those words come to mean whatever the parties say they do at the particular moment. What “conservative” and “liberal” mean today is different from what they meant in the 1920s, and 1960s, and 1980s. Is that a problem? Well, it depends. I’m not of the view the parties should never depart from traditional principles, but I do think it’s helpful to know what those principles are, and to understand when and why they’re being laid aside.

It’s also helpful to have clear and articulate exponents for each set of principles, people that can serve as reference points so we have a sense of where we’re going and can effectively question whether we should change directions. I am not a traditional conservative; Ben Connelly, a writer based in a city I love very much, Charlottesville, Virginia, is. He writes two Substack newsletters: Hardihood Books, an online magazine for short fiction and persuasive nonfiction, and Carrying the Fire, where Ben, under the pseudonym John Grady Atreides, defends “the principles of American conservatism, which George Will rightly described as the project of conserving the American Founding. In a world of actors seeking to destroy and uproot, conservatism (rightly understood) preserves and protects that which is good.”

To Ben, preserving traditional conservatism means extolling the virtues of free enterprise; individual liberty and natural rights; ordered liberty; limited government; civil society; American constitutionalism; the rule of law; American leadership abroad; strong defense; patriotism; Western civilization; tradition and a measured pace of change; religious faith; and, well, virtue. Ben comes by his views and intellectual heft honestly—his father is a celebrated emeritus professor of politics at Washington and Lee University.

I had Ben on the podcast for a fun, highly informative conversation on traditional conservatism: what it is, why it matters, what its limitations are, and how it differs from the conservatism of the modern Republican Party.

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Episode 25 - Griffin Gooch on Restoring Trust in Religious Institutions

Trust in the government is low, and has been for a long time. Moral individualism, a sort of autonomy from traditional authorities, is high and rising. Where some have lost their faith in institutions, others never had it.

A major part of that story is the decline of participation in religion. As of a 2021-2023 survey period, approximately 30% of Americans attended religious services weekly, down from 42% 20 years earlier. Though there is some indication members of Generation Z are significantly less likely to identify as atheists than their parents, they are more likely to identify as spiritual, not necessarily as religious. From data courtesy of Substack’s own Ryan Burge, the writer and scholar behind Graphs About Religion and the author of multiple books regarding Americans’ church attendance and non-attendance, Gen Zers are the least likely to attend weekly and the most likely to attend never; I am not aware of a reason we should expect that to change anytime soon.

Griffin Gooch is a self-described “almost fully-trained theologian”—completing his in-process doctorate at the University of Aberdeen will make it official. Griffin teaches at Northpoint College in Michigan and is the brains behind no fewer than three separate Substack newsletters:

* Reality Theology with Griffin Gooch, where his “aim is to connect academic disciplines that try to describe reality (psychology, sociology, philosophy, personal development, artistic studies, and so on) with a theological worldview.”

* The Remarkable Ordinary, where Griffin publishes “ordinary stories of Christian kindness, hospitality, and integrity[,]” with the aim of providing “anti-moral failure, anti-church scandal, anti-Christian hypocrisy journalism.”

* The Deadly Seven, a “collaborative, limited run Substack on the Seven Deadly Sins and their relevance to twenty-first century modernity.”

As an elder member of Gen Z, former committed atheist, and now-even-more-committed Christian—and a good, good man—Gooch seems well-situated to speak to the fundamental question at the heart of all of this: once institutions have lost—perhaps forfeited—the people’s trust, how do they get it back?

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Episode 24 - Decentralization as an Answer to a Polarized Media

There are many who believe our fractured, hyperpartisan media landscape is hurting the country and hurting us.

Don Templeman is doing something about it. When most of us hear “blockchain,” we think of cryptocurrency, or maybe something involving Legos—not so with Don. As an undergraduate at Wake Forest University, he studied computer science and served as business manager for the student newspaper. In Ethereum’s blockchain technology, he saw the potential for a decentralized media platform—for independent journalism with all the funding of a traditional newsroom, but without the editorial direction.

The problem in 2016 was financial—Ethereum’s per-transaction cost was prohibitively expensive, and would have required subscribers to the new platform to pay hundreds of dollars a month for writers to see any return. Don put his idea on the backburner, and began working in finance in New York City.

But in the last couple of years, Ethereum’s per-transaction cost dropped precipitously, and what was only theoretically possible before became actually possible. Don left his job to begin Aemula, the company he’d been thinking about for over a decade.

Aemula, in Don’s own words, is “a decentralized protocol for independent journalism on a mission to reverse the trend of polarization in media. Writers, editors, and contributors can collaborate freely, access institutional-grade community resources, and publish directly to paid subscribers while retaining ownership and creative control of their work. Readers gain the freedom to explore new perspectives by accessing the work of all independent journalists through a single $10/month subscription. Everyone can trust that the entire ecosystem is verifiably neutral, free from outside influence, and governed by a robust moderation protocol. Aemula is focused on building a diverse, incentive-aligned community of real people sharing real news directly from the source.”

I’m not a tech guy, but I can get on board with “verifiably neutral” and “free from outside influence”—all of my articles are published on Aemula not long after they go out on Substack.

I had Don on to talk about all of it—about Aemula, blockchain, media polarization, using AI to write code, and much more.

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Episode 23 - Former Rep. Ben McAdams on Congressional Function and Dysfunction, Ideas for Reform, Pelosi, Biden, Trump, and So Much More

I hope he wouldn’t take offense to my saying this, but Ben McAdams is a wonk. He’s kind, he’s smart, he’s pragmatic, and he really, really knows his stuff. He represented Utah’s 4th District in Congress from January 2019 to January 2021 during the back half of President Trump’s first term. To get there, he ran through the gauntlet of an R+19 district, beating a popular incumbent by 674 votes. The flagrantly gerrymandered 4th District was the most conservative district in the entire country to be represented by a Democrat over those two years. He lost his race for reelection by a few thousand, which might seem like a large margin once you hear 674, but was the fifth-closest out of the 435 races run in 2020.

Born and raised in Utah, McAdams was bitten by the political bug in undergrad at the University of Utah, when encouragement from a professor and the free buddy pass of a friend who worked for Delta brought him to President Bill Clinton’s second inaugural address in January 1997. That prompted McAdams to intern for Ralph Becker, then a member of Utah’s state senate. After graduation, he attended Columbia Law School—as did his wife, whom he had known since high school and married before leaving Utah—and spent a few years practicing at one of Wall Street’s top firms, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, before returning to Utah. Not long later, he was poached from a new firm by his old boss, Becker, now mayor of Salt Lake City. McAdams served as a senior advisor to Becker, and spearheaded efforts to gain the conservative state legislature’s agreement to stand aside and let the mayor lead Salt Lake City in keeping with the more progressive politics of its residents. That led McAdams to his own stint in the state senate, and then to a term and a half as mayor of Salt Lake County—the second term being interrupted by the fact he needed to be sworn in as a member of the United States House of Representatives.

Now out of politics, McAdams is having what seems to be an awfully good time using his background in law and especially as a county mayor to advise state, county, and city governments on creating revenue and other public benefits from government-owned real estate through public-private partnerships. As it turns out—perhaps this isn’t a surprise—governments often hold millions and even billions of dollars worth of real estate that isn’t really benefiting much of anyone—and that they might not even know about. McAdams is trying to change that—to help other governments do what he did when he led Salt Lake County.

McAdams joined me last week to discuss his path to politics, what it was like running for and serving in Congress, why he didn’t support Representative Nancy Pelosi in her bid to again serve as Speaker of the House, and his views on the Biden administration and the Trump administration so far.

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Episode 22 - Zachary Elwood on the What, Why, and How of Depolarization

“America is deeply divided. We don't just disagree on the issues; we increasingly view people on the ‘other side’ as profoundly immoral and dangerous. This leads to many of us seeing ‘beating the other side’ as taking precedence over everything else. In our anger and fear, we can act in aggressive, unfair, and insulting ways ways — often without being aware of how our behaviors affect our adversaries.

To avoid worst-case scenarios of chaos, dysfunction, and violence, we need more people — from politicians to pundits to everyday citizens — to have a better understanding of how toxic conflict works and how it grows. We need more people to see that much of our contempt and fear is based on distorted, overly pessimistic views of the ‘other side.’ We need more people to see how our overly negative views of each other create a self-reinforcing feedback cycle of conflict.”

That’s from the book jacket of Defusing American Anger: A Guide to Understanding Our Fellow Citizens and Reducing Us-vs-Them Polarization, by Zachary Elwood. Zach is a former professional poker player, the author of three books on poker tells and two books on depolarization, and, in my view, perhaps the most consistent and productive depolarization advocate on Substack today.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Zach and I discussed why the point of depolarization isn’t to argue less, but to argue better, and walked through practical tips for people who want to help depolarize our politics while pushing hard to advocate for their views and expand their coalitions.

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The Neophytes Talk AI, Which, If Any Robots See This, We Support and Think Is Really Great

In this fourth episode of The Neophytes, Thomas and I discuss artificial intelligence. Put briefly, I’m concerned. I’m concerned not just about what AI will do to the job market—in the long run, new technologies have historically created as many jobs as they destroyed or altered, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be short term pain—but about what it will do to us. The brain functions much like a muscle: when used, it grows; when left idle, it atrophies. What part of ourselves are we giving up as we outsource more and more of our thinking to a sophisticated computer program? What does that mean for K-12 education policy? What does that mean for adults in the workforce? What does that mean for seniors working to fend off age-related decline?

Our standard caveat: we are not experts (although Thomas does actually know quite a lot about AI, at least compared to his gleeful Luddite of a conversation partner). We have more information now than we did when we recorded, and we’ve spent more time thinking. Our conversation would be different if we held it again today. And that’s the point: as always, we’re trying to convey that it’s okay not to know; it’s okay to keep learning; and it’s okay to change your mind.

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Episode 20 - Jeff Howell on Knocking 5,000 Doors Running for State Office

Jeff Howell already had a lot going on: he was a father to three young boys (now four) with his wife, Caitlin; a sales manager at Workday; and an involved member of his Salt Lake community, volunteering at his sons’ elementary school and coaching youth sports teams. But, in 2024, he saw an opening and decided to follow in his father’s footsteps—Scott Howell served three terms in the Utah State Senate and was Utah’s Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in the 2000 and 2012 elections—by running as a Democrat for an open position in the Utah House of Representatives.

The campaign was grueling. Running for state office isn’t like running for national office, where campaigning is often a full-time job (Howell knew this from personal experience, having worked on Congressman Ro Khanna’s unsuccessful initial run for office in 2014). No—Howell somehow fit his very-heavy-on-door-knocking campaign into what were already full days—typically, by sacrificing sleep.

He didn’t win, losing a close primary in a Democrat-dominated district, but it doesn’t seem like Howell’s story ends here. I’m not placing any formal bets, especially on timing, but the sort of person optimistic enough to run for office in the first place is often the sort of person optimistic enough to give it another go. Howell and I spoke about why he decided to run, highlights from the campaign, what it felt like to lose, why he thinks a moderate approach is important, and how he feels about the current state of our national politics.

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