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Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

By: Josh Szeps
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The world has never been more connected. Yet never more divided. We yell at each other from inside our echo chambers. But change doesn’t happen inside an echo chamber. It’s time to get out, to stretch our legs, to step on some land mines. It's time to have an uncomfortable conversation with Josh Szeps.

A DM Podcast

2025 Josh Szeps 224787 Personal Development Personal Success Social Sciences
Episodes
  • Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Refugees, Fossil Fuels & the fate of Western Civilisation

    Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Refugees, Fossil Fuels & the fate of Western Civilisation
    Nov 27 2025
    Tony Abbott was the 28th Prime Minister of Australia. Here, he visits Josh for an Uncomfortable Conversation about his government’s policy of “turning back” asylum-seeker boats; about climate change (as PM, he abolished Australia’s short-lived tax on carbon); and about his view of the historical treatment of First Nations Australians. Josh and Tony wrestle with the challenges facing the U.K. and the U.S. from right-wing populism, illegal immigration, multiculturalism, and the fate of Western democracy. His new book is “Australia: A History“.
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    1 hr and 31 mins
  • "Obama, Trump & the Great American Contradiction" with Pulitzer-Prize-winner Paul Starr

    "Obama, Trump & the Great American Contradiction" with Pulitzer-Prize-winner Paul Starr
    Nov 24 2025
    The difference between America's last two consequential presidents (sorry, Joe) couldn't be starker. How did the same country - sometimes even the same voters - endorse an urbane, professorial, hopey-changey Black man and a foul-mouthed, regressive clown? Is there some deep American contradiction that explains them both? That's the claim of Paul Starr, a Pulitzer-winner who co-founded the iconic magazine The American Prospect. He worked in the Clinton administration and is now a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University. Starr's new book is "American Contradiction: Revolution and Revenge from the 1950s to Now". He joined Josh to explain how, from MLK to Nixon to Gingrich to NAFTA to tariffs to wokeness, we find ourselves in the latest cycle of a grand American battle between revenge, fear and freedom. Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
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    1 hr and 22 mins
  • "The Case for American Power" with Shadi Hamid

    "The Case for American Power" with Shadi Hamid
    Nov 20 2025

    The left has become increasingly uncomfortable about arguing for the moral superiority of the United States, let alone for the exercise of American dominance around the world. But is the American Empire something which even left-wingers should, in fact, fight for?

    Shadi Hamid is a columnist at The Washington Post who opposed the Iraq War and supported Bernie Sanders. An Arab-Muslim American, he lived in Jordan on a Fulbright Scholarship and got his PhD in political science from Oxford University. He's not your average neo-conservative.

    Shadi and Josh debate American influence, American decline, the Gaza War, democracies, dictatorships, China, Russia, Ukraine, Trump, and the future of the American Empire.

    Go to https://surfshark.com/joshs or use code JOSHS at checkout to get 4 extra months of Surfshark VPN!
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    47 mins
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