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The Gray Area with Sean Illing

The end of world order as we know it

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Politics, News, News Commentary, Philosophy, Society & Culture

4.511.1K Ratings

🗓️ 13 March 2026

⏱️ 37 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Venezuela. Greenland. Iran. Things have been moving so quickly that we weren't even at war with Iran when we recorded this episode of The Gray Area with Sean Illing. It’s only March, but it’s been a long year.  The war in Iran is only the latest sign that something deep is shifting in our global politics.  Alliances fraying. Norms weakening. Democracies wobbling. So what exactly is happening? Is the liberal international order slowly eroding? Is it just going through a particularly turbulent chapter? Or are we watching it all collapse? Sean talks with Zack Beauchamp, author of Vox’s On the Right newsletter, about the global democratic backslide and whether the American-led liberal order is slipping, imploding, or just going through a rough patch. Their conversation, which was recorded before the conflict in Iran, digs into the Greenland saga, alliance politics, and why democratic decay can be both obvious and hard to see at the same time.  Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling) Guest: Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp) We would love to hear from you. To tell us what you thought of this episode, email us at thegrayarea@vox.com or leave us a voicemail at 1-800-214-5749. Your comments and questions help us make a better show.  And you can watch new episodes of The Gray Area on YouTube. New episodes drop every Monday and Friday.Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Megan Rompino here. This week on a touch more,

0:02.8

Juju Watkins joins us to talk about her year off of the court,

0:06.7

but definitely not on the sidelines.

0:09.1

We're also looking at the upsets coming out of the SEC tournament

0:12.7

and how that might impact selection Sunday

0:15.7

and the intergenerational span of U.S. players on display at the She Believes Cup.

0:21.7

Plus, we have a surprise guest.

0:23.5

You won't want to miss it.

0:24.4

Check out the latest episode of our podcast, a touch more wherever you get your podcast and on YouTube.

0:32.0

How can we understand the decisions facing the United States and Israel and Iran as they weigh next moves in this war.

0:39.1

War that was meant to prevent from reaching a bomb eventually might push them beyond the Rubicon

0:44.7

and to have that war. I'm John Feiner. And I'm Jake Sullivan. And we're the hosts of The Long

0:50.3

Game, a weekly national security podcast. This week, former Israeli Defense Intelligence Officer Danny Sintrinoids joins us from Israel to discuss the war against Iran.

1:00.6

The episode's out now. Search for and follow The Long Game, wherever you get your podcasts. My guest today is my friend and Vox colleague Zach Beecham.

1:25.2

Zach covers a lot of things. He covers ideology, particularly the political right, both here and abroad,

1:32.3

and just sort of reports on the state of democracy around the world.

1:37.3

And he's also one of the most reliable guests in the history of this show.

1:40.3

He's the only person, I think, who I can count on to not forget to turn on his

1:47.2

recorder and to not slap his microphone right off the mount mid-sentence disrupting the recording.

1:56.9

Zach, how would you describe what you do?

2:00.5

Well, I will neither confirm nor deny that any of those things have happened during recordings that we've done, Sean, and I certainly have never forgotten to bring a water glass with me.

2:10.0

But, yeah, look, I describe my job in sort of two parts.

...

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