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Podcast: Defending truth. Advancing knowledge.

Podcast: Defending truth. Advancing knowledge.

Democracies around the world are under threat from populist movements, demagogues and dogmatic extremists who use disinformation, conspiracy theories, cancel culture and shaming to weaponize social media and challenge our ability to distinguish truth from falsehood.

Most recently, the Russian government has used lies and fake news to justify its attempted land grab in Ukraine. In "The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth", best-selling author, journalist, and public intellectual, Jonathan Rauch, offers a stirring defense of the social system of checks and balances that is crucial for turning disagreement into verifiable facts.


In this episode of "How Do We Fix It?", Jonathan arms listeners and advocates of truth with a clear understanding of what they must protect, and how to do it. He makes a clear and moving argument for how all of us can help defend truth and free inquiry from threats that come from as far away as Russia and as close as our cellphones.

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This really may be the political end for Trump

President Donald Trump attends a Cabinet meeting at the White House on Dec. 2, 2025, in Washington, D.C.

(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/TCA)

This really may be the political end for Trump

Over years and years of covering politics, the last decade of which has been spent covering Donald Trump specifically, I’ve learned you can never really count him out.

It’s been a painful, exhausting, and deeply disappointing lesson, but an important one nonetheless. He keeps on keeping on. The things I find disturbing, revolting, and utterly disqualifying are inexplicably the same exact things that a not small number of Americans find appealing. Racism, incompetence, corruption, to name a few.

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People draped in an American flag and a Ukrainian flag.
People draped in an American flag and a Ukrainian flag join a march toward the United Nations.
Alexi Rosenfeld/Getty Images

Ukraine Kept Its Word. The World Did Not.

In my work as a homeowner advocate and civic voice, I’ve come to believe that honesty and integrity aren’t just personal virtues—they’re the foundation of every meaningful relationship, every credible institution, and every lasting peace. When those values are compromised, trust erodes—and with it, so does the social fabric that holds communities and nations together.

This isn’t just a local lesson. It’s a global one.

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You can’t hide from war crimes by calling them ‘fake news’

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks during a cabinet meeting hosted by President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Dec. 2, 2025.

(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)

You can’t hide from war crimes by calling them ‘fake news’

Since September of this year, the United States military has been blowing up boats allegedly trafficking drugs in the Caribbean.

Whether these attacks are legal is hotly debated. Congress hasn’t declared war or even authorized the use of force against “narco-terrorists” or against Venezuela, the apparent real target of a massive U.S. military build-up off its coast.

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Mount Vernon

Mount Vernon is located on the banks of the Potomac River in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Getty Images, Bogdan Okhremchuk

What Washington’s Humble Grave Reveals About American Exceptionalism and the Rule of Law

If you want to understand what makes the United States exceptional on an emotional level, take an in-person or virtual trip to both Mt. Vernon, Virginia, and Paris, France. At Mt. Vernon, you can tour the preserved and reconstructed plantation of George Washington, viewing what the tour claims is the first compost bin in the nation and reading about the particular way he organized his gardens.

The most important part, though, is his grave. The first President of the most powerful nation on Earth rests in a modest brick mausoleum about ten feet high, built into a hillside. The plain white room containing the sarcophagi of Washington and his wife is barely larger than the two coffins themselves.

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