#433 — How Did We Get Here?

Making Sense with Sam Harris

Waking Up with Sam Harris

Samharris, Currentevents, Politics, Ethics, Religion, Neuroscience, Science, Society & Culture, Philosophy

4.6 • 29.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 September 2025

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sam Harris speaks with Dan Carlin about the decades-long buildup to our current political moment. They discuss the growing powers of the presidency, executive orders, different factions within the Republican Party, the fragmentation of our society, Libertarianism, the growing prospect of political violence, racism and scapegoating, foreign interference in American politics, immigration, global trends towards autocracy, whether "gatekeepers" in the media are necessary, holocaust denialism, and other topics.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Making Sense podcast. This is Sam Harris. Just a note to say that if you're hearing this, you're not currently on our subscriber feed, and we'll only be hearing the first part of this conversation. In order to access full episodes of the Making Sense podcast, you'll need to subscribe
0:21.9	at samharris.org. We don't run ads on the podcast, and therefore it's made possible entirely
0:27.3	through the support of our subscribers. So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider
0:31.7	becoming one. I am here with Dan Carlin.
0:38.0	Dan, how the hell are you?
0:39.5	Good, man.
0:40.1	How are you?
0:40.7	Long time no hear from.
0:42.1	Yeah, it's been too long.
0:43.8	It's been years, years upon years, I think.
0:46.2	Yeah, a lot of water under the bridge.
0:47.5	I didn't look back, but it seems like we were probably talking in a different era.
0:52.6	A different reality, yeah, for sure.
0:54.9	So let me just introduce you for those who,
0:58.2	those few people who might not recognize you.
1:00.8	You are a, you're one of the first podcasters.
1:03.5	You really are the OG podcaster,
1:06.7	and many of us believe the best who has ever lived thus far.
1:13.7	I mean, you have several.
1:15.1	Disarming at the start right there, say.
1:16.9	I usually, I mean, anyone who's heard this podcast knows I don't tend to butter up my guest with a ton of praise.
1:24.7	But honestly, you have several series of the hardcore history podcast
	...

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