GoodFellows: Conversations from the Hoover Institution

Ten Miles From Stonehenge

Already plagued by a pandemic and a sickly economy, is California’s spate of wildfires and unhealthy air the tipping point for its disgruntled residents? Hoover Institution Senior Fellows Niall Ferguson, John Cochrane and Victor Davis Hanson discuss whether California can be fixed, or if it's time for a full-fledged “CalExit” to elsewhere in America.

Recorded September 15, 2020 1 PM PT

But Seriously, Folks . . .

With summer over and Americans (in theory, at least) returning to work, school, and familiar routines, what lies ahead for the remainder of 2020? Hoover Institution senior fellows Niall Ferguson. H. R. McMaster, and John Cochrane examine what might ensue in the way of pandemic, economics, geopolitics, and a contentious presidential election.

Recorded September 9, 2020 1 PM PT

Fiery But Mostly Peaceful

Its virtual national convention concluded, what is the Republican Party’s vision—is it the party of Trump moving forward? Hoover Institution senior fellows Niall Ferguson and John Cochrane and Hoover research fellow Lanhee Chen (the policy director for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign) discuss the potency and lasting effect of Trumpism, the rising influence of social media, and whether the televised spectacle of urban unrest and violence works to the incumbent’s benefit.

SPECIAL GUEST:

Lanhee J. Chen, Ph.D. is the David and Diane Steffy Fellow in American Public Policy Studies at the Hoover Institution and Director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University. A veteran of several high-profile political campaigns, Chen has worked in politics, government, academia, and the private sector. He has advised numerous major campaigns, including four presidential efforts.

Recorded August 28, 2020 8 AM PT

A Little Revolution Now And Then . . .

Its virtual national convention now concluded, what is the Democratic Party’s vision? Hoover Institution Senior Fellows Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster and John Cochrane discuss whether the November election will spawn a policy push for the left and how a Biden presidency would balance old-guard liberal governance against a younger generation’s socialist and activist cravings.

Recorded August 20, 2020 1 PM PT

Tik Tok Pot Luck

This week, a special “potluck” edition of GoodFellows has Hoover Institution senior fellows Niall Ferguson, H. R. McMaster, and John Cochrane serving up a spirited debate over the bureaucratic pandemic bungling and whether the social network TikTok is a data-mining threat to national security, plus thoughts on the addition of California senator Kamala Harris to the Democratic ticket.

Recorded August 11, 2020 1 PM PT

The Importance Of Institutions In A Time Of Crisis

Even pre-pandemic, America was experiencing a crisis in institutional confidence (with the noted exception of the military)—a lack of public trust in government, business, education, media, and faith organizations. Yuval Levin, a social and cultural scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, joins Hoover senior fellows and GoodFellows regulars John Cochrane and H. R. McMaster to discuss where America went astray and how the nation can rebuild from the grass roots up.

SPECIAL GUEST:

Yuval Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founding and current editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor of The New Atlantis and a contributing editor to National Review.

Recorded August 4, 2020 12 PM PT

Chilling Out On Climate With Bjorn Lomborg

Earlier this year, the world’s elites agonized over climate change as the planet’s great existential crisis. And then along came a global pandemic. Hoover senior fellows John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson, and Hoover visiting fellow Bjorn Lomborg—this week’s guest “GoodFellow” and the author of a new book on the climate-change debate—discuss where the “environmental justice” movement is taking America and the world’s nations.

 

SPECIAL GUEST:

Bjorn Lomborg is a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution. Lomborg is president of the Copenhagen Consensus Center and visiting professor at Copenhagen Business School. His numerous books include The Skeptical Environmentalist, Cool It, How to Spend $75 Billion to Make the World a Better Place, The Nobel Laureates’ Guide to the Smartest Targets for the World: 2016–2030, and Prioritizing Development: A Cost Benefit Analysis of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. 

 

Recorded July 28, 2020 9 AM PT

Back From The Future

Something offbeat this week: the three “GoodFellows” hopping into a DeLorean time machine, à la Back to the Future, speeding two summers ahead and reporting back on what they see. Hoover senior fellows John Cochrane, Niall Ferguson and H. R. McMaster foresee a 2022 in which the coronavirus seems “so 2020,” the cancel culture overplays its hand, China suffers an internal backlash, and America pays a price for its spending and currency choices.

 

Recorded July 21, 2020 1 PM PT

Cruel Summer: The Fight To Preserve Freedom Of Speech

This week the Good Fellows are joined by Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson. The gentleman farmer from Selma, CA (and the author of The Case For Trump) is not known for pulling his punches, and this discussion is no different. The Good Fellows consider the recent resignation by New York Times editor Bari Weiss, the open letter published in Harper’s Magazine supporting free speech,  the scourge of cancel culture in the academy and the media, as well as some ideas for enhancing higher education to make it more relevant for today’s society. And yes, Hanson proffers some unsolicited advice to the current occupant of the Oval Office about how to win in November. 

SPECIAL GUEST:

Victor Davis Hanson is the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution; his focus is classics and military history. Hanson was a National Endowment for the Humanities fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, California (1992–93), a visiting professor of classics at Stanford University (1991–92), the annual Wayne and Marcia Buske Distinguished Visiting Fellow in History at Hillsdale College (2004–), the Visiting Shifron Professor of Military History at the US Naval Academy (2002–3),and the William Simon Visiting Professor of Public Policy at Pepperdine University (2010). In 1991 he was awarded an American Philological Association Excellence in Teaching Award. He received the Eric Breindel Award for Excellence in Opinion Journalism (2002), presented the Manhattan's Institute's Wriston Lecture (2004), and was awarded the National Humanities Medal (2007) and the Bradley Prize (2008). Hanson is the author of hundreds of articles, book reviews, and newspaper editorials on Greek, agrarian, and military history and essays on contemporary culture. He has written or edited twenty-four books, the latest of which is The Case for Trump (Basic Books, 2019).

Recorded July 14, 2020 1 PM PT

Condoleezza Rice On COVID, Russia, And Putin

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

This week on GoodFellows, we tackle a very complex geopolitical topic: Russia and the effects the COVID-19 crisis has had on that country’s economy, internal politics, international relations and aspirations, and ability to influence other countries and regions. To help us, we are fortunate to have one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject, someone who has years of direct experience in dealing with Russia and with Vladimir Putin himself: Hoover fellow (and soon to be director of the Hoover Institution) Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state and national security director under George W. Bush. She, along with our other GoodFellows (that’s H. R. McMaster, John Cochrane, and Niall Ferguson), conduct a fascinating conversation on why the COVID-19 crisis is an especially difficult problem for Russia to manage and solve. We also get Secretary Rice’s unique take on the current social unrest in the United States, a perspective informed by her upbringing in the South and her own experiences with racism. 

SPECIAL GUEST:

Condoleezza Rice is a Professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business and a Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution where she will become Director on September 1. Rice was the 66th Secretary of State. She is also a founding partner of RiceHadleyGates, LLC. From January 2005 to 2009, Rice served as the sixty-sixth secretary of state of the United States, the second woman and first African American woman to hold the post. Rice also served as President George W. Bush’s assistant to the president for national security affairs (national security adviser) from January 2001 to 2005, the first woman to hold the position.

Recorded June 23, 2020 3 PM PT