#444 — America's Zombie Democracy

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

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sam Harris speaks with George Packer about American democracy and authoritarianism. They discuss Packer's article "America's Zombie Democracy," the erosion of democratic institutions, the Justice Department's independence, Congressional dysfunction, the weaponization of the military, Trump's unprecedented corruption, the public's failure to recognize democratic collapse, shamelessness as political superpower, the role of hypocrisy, potential threats to the 2026 midterm elections, hyperpartisanship and the loss of shared reality, the mainstreaming of white nationalism on the right, the damage done by wokeness and identity politics on the left, the Epstein files as a potential breaking point for MAGA, the post-Trump Republican landscape, wealth inequality and economic pain as catalysts for change, the role of status in American politics, social media's toxic effects on discourse, and other topics.

If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

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
0:31.8	becoming one. I'm here with George Packer. George, thanks for joining me.
0:38.7	Thanks for having me, Sam.
0:40.2	Great to see you.
0:40.8	I'm a huge fan of your work.
0:42.1	I'm an avid reader of everything you write in The Atlantic.
0:45.6	I'm also now a reader of your latest novel, which is titled The Emergency, which I
0:51.1	haven't yet finished.
0:51.9	I actually wasn't planning to talk about it, but I can just say that
0:55.9	it's extraordinarily good and alarming. You've done something very Orwellian, and it's just a very
1:05.0	unnerving fable you have written here, which I'm deep into, and it really grabbed me from the first page.
1:10.8	So I just encourage people to read it, whether we talk about it or not, you're a very
1:14.6	talented writer, both in fiction and nonfiction. So congratulations.
1:18.6	Thank you, Sam.
1:19.7	Yeah, yeah, it's actually beautifully published. FSG still produces a nice book. I love the cover.
1:25.7	And even the texture of it. Yeah. It's special.
1:28.0	Yeah, it's got a very good hand feel, which in these dark digital times, I have,
1:33.4	I take more and more pleasure in now. There was a time where I was reading at least half of
1:38.2	what I was reading on Kindle and or an iPad, but that's behind me now. I, I still listen to
1:43.9	audio, but now I really love to get back
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Waking Up with Sam Harris, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Waking Up with Sam Harris and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.