When the Military Is in the Streets w Gen. Stan McChrystal
How To Citizen with Baratunde
iHeartPodcasts
4.4 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2025
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Baratunde returns to the How To Citizen feed with a conversation that sits right at the intersection of character, democracy, and what it means to citizen in this moment.
This episode features Baratunde in a live discussion with retired U.S. General Stanley McChrystal at the 2025 Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco. The two dig into the responsibility of leaders in a time of democratic crisis, the historic norms around deploying the U.S. military inside American cities, and why character is not something we simply “have” but something we practice.
They talk about the pressures facing the country, the role of national service, and how AI is changing the speed and stakes of decision-making in military and civic life. Stan shares candid reflections from his own experiences, including moments when he fell short of the character he expected from himself, and what it takes to recover and stay aligned with one’s convictions.
This conversation originally aired on the Rapid Response podcast from the Masters of Scale network. Special thanks to their team for allowing it to run here.
Baratunde closes with reflections on the polycrisis we’re living through, the people who continue to speak up for what’s right, and the power we still have to shape the next chapter of this country.
For more from Baratunde, see his substack newsletter.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, it is me, Baratunde, back in your ears after a few months of silence. |
| 0:11.0 | So we are going to be reusing this feed for things related to How to Citizen. |
| 0:17.9 | If this is just auto playing in your ears, by the way, hi, I'm Baratunde. |
| 0:21.9 | You at some point pressed subscribe or follow to the How to Citizen podcast where we believe |
| 0:29.5 | that Citizen is a verb. |
| 0:31.4 | Democracy is something we do, not just something we have. |
| 0:34.9 | And we're going to keep the feed going. |
| 0:37.1 | The formal show called How to Citizen |
| 0:39.2 | still doesn't quite exist yet, but the world needs these messages now more than ever. And we |
| 0:45.9 | stay connected to people doing good work and will bring that to you as we can. So I just want to |
| 0:52.5 | bring you slices of my world that still connect deeply with this |
| 0:57.1 | mission, which drives a lot of what I'm doing out in the world, including the podcast that I have |
| 1:03.1 | that is active, life with machines. So if you've been missing my voice on a regular basis, |
| 1:08.3 | just showing up in your ears every week or so. |
| 1:11.5 | Check that out. |
| 1:12.3 | That is about how we live well with technology and not just endure it. |
| 1:16.2 | And there is a spirit of how to citizen with tech that imbues that whole project. |
| 1:21.9 | But right now, I just wanted to check in with you and then I'm going to share a conversation I had. |
| 1:28.1 | On the check-in, so it's 24th of November, 2025. |
| 1:33.3 | And it's been like the longest year ever, right? |
| 1:37.7 | In the United States, in many parts of the world. |
| 1:41.9 | And that thing that we've been saying for a while, that that democracy is dying, |
... |
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