Has the New Political Order Already Begun? (with Gary Gerstle), Part 1

The Home Front

Reed Galen

Government, News, News Commentary, Politics

5.0 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Host Reed Galen is joined by Gary Gerstle, renowned historian, author, and Paul Mellon Professor of American History Emeritus at the University of Cambridge, for a sweeping conversation about the past, present, and future of American politics. They explore how the old political orders…from FDR’s New Deal to Reagan’s neoliberal revolution…shaped the last century, and whether Donald Trump is on the verge of establishing a new political order of his own. Gerstle traces the intellectual roots of Trumpism, including figures like Pat Buchanan and Viktor Orbán, and explains how the theory of the “unitary executive” is reshaping America’s institutions. Plus, the Democratic Party’s response (or lack thereof), and what it would take to rebuild confidence in democracy for the next generation. For more from Gary Gerstle, pick up “The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era” wherever fine books are sold. For more from Reed Galen subscribe to⁠⁠ The Home Front⁠⁠, check out⁠⁠ Sez Us⁠⁠ for a new social media platform for sane people, and if you want to personally join the fight to save our nation’s democracy, visit ⁠⁠JoinTheUnion.us⁠⁠ and sign up today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, everyone, it's Reed. Before we get started, some good news of victory for the pro-democracy
0:04.2	movement. Here in Utah, of all places, a judge has ruled that the legislature illegally
0:09.7	gerrymandered the congressional districts after Prop 4's passage, which I helped work on in 2018,
0:17.1	that required a citizens redistricting commission to be in place.
0:24.5	A judge has now said that the legislature cannot do that,
0:26.3	that they must redraw the lines,
0:31.4	and we could have an extra seat for a pro-democracy candidate in 2026.
0:40.6	I hope you'll go to join the union.us and find out more about small but huge victories in this fight. And now on with the show.
0:47.5	Welcome back to the home front. I'm your host, Reed Galen. Today, I'm once again joined by Gary Girstle,
0:53.0	the Paul Mellon Professor of American History, Emeritus, at the University of Cambridge. He was also a Joy Foundation Fellow for 2024 and 2025 at Harvard University's Harvard Ratcliffe Institute. Gary is a historian of modern America and has written extensively on the intersection of economics and politics and the tangled relationship between race and nationality. He's written a fascinating catalog of books,
1:11.2	including his most recent, the rise and fall of the neoliberal order, America and the
1:15.8	world in the free market era, available wherever fine books are sold. He's also working on a new
1:20.9	book, Politics in Our Time, Authoritarian Peril, and Democratic Hope in the 21st Century.
1:26.7	Today, he's coming to us from beautiful
1:28.7	Martha's Vineyard. Gary, welcome to the show. It's good to be back. Thank you for having me.
1:33.4	It's been a couple of years, maybe three years since we've seen each other, so I really do
1:36.7	appreciate you making the time. The reason why you came back to the top of my list was that I was
1:42.6	actually listening to your latest book. And maybe
1:44.9	I probably read it a couple of years ago, but it seemed topical again about the rise and fall of
1:49.8	the neoliberal order. And just based on what we've seen in the first seven months of this
1:56.0	latest Trump administration and somewhat in the first Trump administration and then the Biden administration,
2:02.1	if the neoliberal order wasn't already past due, then it certainly seems like it's running out
	...

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