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I'm your host Sarah Isger joined today by David French and his friend, Professor and writer, Yasha Monk.

And their new project, Persuasion.

A little about Yasha, he's an associate professor of practice at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies

and a lecture on government at Harvard University, a fellow in the political reform program at New America,

as well as a fellow at the Transatlantic Academy of the German Marshall Fund.

And that's only the stuff that made it to the very top.

Plenty more about him that you can find.

But I want to read for a second something he wrote this week as he launched their Persuasion project.

At the very moment when it would be most important for those who oppose an emboldened far right to speak with confidence and conviction,

these same values are losing their luster among significant parts of the left.

Companies and cultural institutions fire innocent people for imaginary offenses, prominent voices alternate between defending cancel culture and denying its existence,

and an astonishing number of academics and journalists proudly proclaim that it is time to abandon values like due process and free speech.

This is what we're going to talk about today.

Let's dive in.

Yasha, I'd like to start at the very beginning with folks.

How did you get here?

Where did you come from?

What brings you here today?

No, tell us a little bit about how you started Persuasion and what your vision for it is.

Yeah, absolutely.

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