
<p>We&#8217;re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She&#8217;s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She&#8217;s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the Twitter joke, but also of the mysticism of St. Teresa. She’s on a field-trip to Harvard this week from her home base in Savannah, Georgia, and we’re meeting for the first time, in Cambridge.</p>


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<figure class="aligncenter size-full is-resized"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" width="480" height="640" src="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/TriciaLockwood.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-36631" style="width:342px;height:auto" srcset="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/TriciaLockwood.jpg 480w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/TriciaLockwood-225x300.jpg 225w" sizes="(max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px" /></figure></div>


<p class="has-text-align-center">Patricia Lockwood and Chris Lydon.</p>



<p>In this almost archaic culture of books, her mindset is very 2025. This side of Harold Bloom, I&#8217;ve never met a wider scope in a reader. </p>


<description>We&amp;#8217;re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She&amp;#8217;s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She&amp;#8217;s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the ... </description>

We’re reading our way out of a ruined time with the model reader, Patricia Lockwood. She’s the poet laureate of the internet, for starters. She’s a big-league literary critic, master of social media and the ...

From Social to Spiritual Media


<p>We&#8217;re looking for our American place in what can feel like a new world order, with Stephen Walt, our first and favorite so-called realist in the foreign policy game—realists being the people who steer by the interests of nations, not their egos or their dreams. And they look beyond the headlines to the long-term effects of policy, to the results. </p>


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<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img decoding="async" width="700" height="394" src="http://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Pic_SteveWalt-700x394.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-32236" srcset="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Pic_SteveWalt-700x394.jpg 700w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Pic_SteveWalt-700x394-300x169.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /></figure></div>


<p class="has-text-align-center">Stephen Walt.</p>



<p>By Stephen Walt&#8217;s standards, it looks like a new world since that astonishing shouting match in the White House, Donald Trump telling Ukraine&#8217;s President Zelensky that the U.S. is out of the war on the border of Russia, that we&#8217;re bent on repairing our relationship with Vladimir Putin. And Walt is in the news with a commentary and a headline that said, &#8220;Yes, America is Europe&#8217;s Enemy Now.&#8221;</p>



<p></p>


<description>We&amp;#8217;re looking for our American place in what can feel like a new world order, with Stephen Walt, our first and favorite so-called realist in the foreign policy game—realists being the people who steer by ... </description>

We’re looking for our American place in what can feel like a new world order, with Stephen Walt, our first and favorite so-called realist in the foreign policy game—realists being the people who steer by ...

A New World


<p>Angus King is the anti-partisan, independent United States Senator from the cranky Yankee state of Maine. He is giving us a conversational civics lesson in the tradition of James Madison and also of <em>Schoolhouse Rock</em>, the kids’ TV explainer. </p>


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<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" width="842" height="1024" src="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Madison-842x1024.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-36614" style="width:470px;height:auto" srcset="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Madison-842x1024.jpg 842w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Madison-247x300.jpg 247w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Madison-768x935.jpg 768w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Madison.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 842px) 100vw, 842px" /></figure></div>


<p class="has-text-align-center">James Madison.</p>



<p>Senator King has been in the thick of the frenzy in Donald Trump’s Washington, with a certain distinction. His tone on the Senate floor has been measured, his language old-fashioned, and his message a deadly warning. It’s the Constitution itself that’s at risk. What’s at stake, he has been saying, is the famously balanced U.S. Constitution, “this clumsy system” of self-rule, he calls it, that is “the mainspring of our freedom.” And it is under direct assault as never before in these first weeks of a new presidency. Rescuing that “we the people” charter will mark our place in history, Angus King is telling us. Losing it would mark the end of the American experiment.</p>


<description>Angus King is the anti-partisan, independent United States Senator from the cranky Yankee state of Maine. He is giving us a conversational civics lesson in the tradition of James Madison and also of Schoolhouse Rock, ... </description>

Angus King is the anti-partisan, independent United States Senator from the cranky Yankee state of Maine. He is giving us a conversational civics lesson in the tradition of James Madison and also of Schoolhouse Rock, ...

Angus King’s Civics Lesson


<p>In the fog of Trump Two, we&#8217;re asking: what&#8217;s new? The co-presidency with Elon Musk is surely new, also the raging battle of exotic ideas among techno-optimists and libertarian anarcho-capitalists at war with the very idea of popular democracy and republican government. Further question: do citizens have to follow the action? Matt Taibbi’s headline is: Nation Shrugs as Godzilla Eats Washington.</p>


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<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="768" src="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ben-and-Quinn-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-36609" style="width:694px;height:auto" srcset="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ben-and-Quinn-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ben-and-Quinn-300x225.jpg 300w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ben-and-Quinn-768x576.jpg 768w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ben-and-Quinn-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ben-and-Quinn-2048x1536.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></figure></div>


<p class="has-text-align-center">Ben Tarnoff and Quinn Slobodian.</p>



<p>Here at Open Source in the first month of the Trump sequel, we’re hovering in the fog with two young historians of American finance, technology, and politics, and comparing clues about the future under construction.</p>


<description>In the fog of Trump Two, we&amp;#8217;re asking: what&amp;#8217;s new? The co-presidency with Elon Musk is surely new, also the raging battle of exotic ideas among techno-optimists and libertarian anarcho-capitalists at war with the very ... </description>

In the fog of Trump Two, we’re asking: what’s new? The co-presidency with Elon Musk is surely new, also the raging battle of exotic ideas among techno-optimists and libertarian anarcho-capitalists at war with the very ...

Muskology


<p>We&#8217;re picking up the pieces of our country in the age of Trump, Part II. Is the USA still here? Is it still us?</p>


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<figure class="aligncenter size-full"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="505" height="276" src="http://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Kurt.png" alt="" class="wp-image-33927" srcset="https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Kurt.png 505w, https://radioopensource.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Kurt-300x164.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 505px) 100vw, 505px" /></figure></div>


<p class="has-text-align-center">Kurt Andersen.</p>



<p>Cue Kurt Andersen, with his finger in the wind. We want him on a mission to track the spirit of the age, because he&#8217;s been a cool, creative, wide-angle eye on events since the &#8217;80s, when he founded <em>Spy</em> magazine, and then <em>Studio 360</em> on public radio. </p>


<description>We&amp;#8217;re picking up the pieces of our country in the age of Trump, Part II. Is the USA still here? Is it still us? Kurt Andersen. Cue Kurt Andersen, with his finger in the wind. ... </description>

We’re picking up the pieces of our country in the age of Trump, Part II. Is the USA still here? Is it still us? Kurt Andersen. Cue Kurt Andersen, with his finger in the wind. ...

Trump Part II

Christopher Lydon in conversation on arts, ideas and politics

Open Source with Christopher Lydon

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