This is the Unregistered Podcast, and I'm Thaddeus Russell.

This is a show about ideas, people, and behaviors that are considered inappropriate, out of bounds, or beyond the pale.

The things you're not supposed to talk about if you're a schoolteacher, a college professor, a businessman, a politician,

a parent, a neighbor, or even a podcast host. These are the things you're not supposed to say

or even think if you're a good liberal, a good conservative, or a good citizen. Each week,

I'll interview a person who has something bad to say. They might be a

journalist or a professor. They might be a porn star or a drug dealer. They might just be an

ordinary person with an ordinary job who doesn't care about the rules of polite society.

I'm not interested in breaking the rules just to be a troublemaker.

I'm interested in people who break the rules of conventional thought

and to expand the scope of what is possible to say in our society.

I'm interested in people who make me think.

My guest this week argues that the American unipolar moment is indeed over, but the era of American global hegemony is not.

This is my interview with Daniel Bessner.

I am joined from Seattle, Washington, by Daniel Bessner, who was actually on unregistered,

my goodness, like six years ago, I think, 2019, I believe it was earlier.

This is when people actually talk to each other face-to-face.

I actually came to your house in Seattle and sat with you, and we'd like, you know, shared spittle.

I mean, it was quite, I missed those days.

And that was, I think, before you had your new position, which is very fancy.

In fact, I think you weren't even tenured then.

I was either in the process of or becoming.

...