Commonwealth Club of California Podcast

Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada has spent years examining the books, ideas and figures that shape American politics. Now, as America marks its 250th anniversary, he turns to the country’s global role. In Lozada’s view, the United States has gone from the leader of the free world to a “dangerous nation.”Whether in the war in Iran, the jailing of Venezuela’s president, or Trump’s stated desire to “take Cuba,” Lozada sees a consistent pattern. Under Trump, he writes, U.S. leadership has been remade “from authority to domination, from persuasion to bullying, from nurturing alliances to wrecking them.”Lozada argues that Pax Americana has given way to “Lax Americana”—a superpower that still expects the benefits of global leadership while shedding the obligations that once came with it. Before joining The New York Times in 2022, Lozada served as The Washington Post’s nonfiction book critic, Outlook editor, national security editor and economics editor. Previously, he was the managing editor of Foreign Policy magazine. He’s the author of What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era and The Washington Book: How to Read Politics and Politicians. He joins us for a timely conversation about America’s changing role in the world and what it means for democracy at home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Come hear the story of a single nuclear bomb’s deep origins, brief life during the Cold War, and lasting environmental and political legacies―and how some are viewing the entire sweep of the American nuclear enterprise. A grave reminder of the frightening truth about nuclear testing, as international norms waver. As the United States and Russia let one treaty after another falter and expire, Jon Else reminds us of the terrible price of those tests. In his new book Frenchman Flat, Else recounts the science, politics and human experience of those who developed nuclear weapons, suffered the consequences of their testing, and fought for and against arms control between the 1940s and 1990s. The throughline of this vast, complex story is a 37-kiloton atomic bomb dubbed “Priscilla” that was exploded above a custom-built mini-civilization at Frenchman Flat, Nevada, in 1957. Jon Else uses Priscilla and the bombs that preceded and followed to highlight the terrifying ways we have considered to blow ourselves to bits with nuclear weapons, how near and often we came to self-annihilation, how we managed to avoid it, and what we did to the planet and to our own bodies in the process, from wartime Los Alamos to the suspension of U.S. and Soviet nuclear testing in 1992. In the two decades after Hiroshima, a pair of dramatic stories unfolded alongside each other: the scramble to produce ever more powerful nuclear weapons, and the struggle to ban testing of those same weapons. The dramatic narrative takes in the physics of the megaton postwar bombs, the role of private industry, the near misses of the Cuban Missile Crisis and less well-known events, and the testimony of scientists, politicians, doctors, weapons developers, test-site workers, ranchers and families downwind of test sites. Else reminds us how we have―so far―prevented nuclear war by deterrence, diplomacy and luck. It is for the moment a success story—and a warning. This content has EXPLICIT langauge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Sarah Longwell did what she's done nearly every week for the past eight years: She sat down with voters. She conducted hundreds of focus groups, listening to thousands of ordinary Americans―Republicans, Democrats, and the politically homeless―with the goal of understanding politics through the eyes of the people who will decide our country’s future.  American voters, and what they want for their country, are at the heart of her new book How to Eat an Elephant. Longwell, the founder of The Bulwark and a popular political communicator, lays out the playbook for building a coalition big enough, bold enough, and tough enough to defeat authoritarian populism for good. Not with a single election. Not by doing another poll or debating the benefits of being more progressive or more moderate, but by building something new: A modern pro-democracy movement that can create its own communications infrastructure―just like the right has done for decades―achieve narrative dominance, elevate more compelling leaders, and talk to voters like adults.  Drawing on her own unlikely political journey from a lesbian Republican operative to the vanguard of the anti-MAGA movement, Longwell makes an argument that is equal parts war manual and pep talk―with her personal and professional story woven throughout. With her trademark bluntness and humor, she explains exactly how we got here and, more important, what we must build next―all while directly quoting the most important but overlooked people in the country: the voters themselves.  Join us as she answers the question: How do you eat an elephant? One voter at a time, she says. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Social Impact Forum examines how promising approaches to social challenges translate into measurable results. This conversation will explore not only the role of belonging and connection in addressing homelessness, but also questions of effectiveness, accountability, duplication of existing services, and whether organizations practice the relational values they promote. Homelessness is one of the most vexing issues in the social impact field. Despite countless attempts and huge budgets to address it, and everyone anxious for results, it persists. Many talk of housing first, what other inputs can achieve results, and how can they be measured? Join moderator Kevin F. Adler, founder of Miracle Messages, for an intimate roundtable exploring a critical but often overlooked dimension of homelessness: the need for connection, relationships and belonging alongside housing and material support. Through lived experience, direct service, policy and systems-change perspectives, panelists Lawrence Lincoln, Khadijah Williams, Christina Garcia, and Miracle Messages founder Kevin F. Adler will discuss what it means to treat relationships as an essential intervention, not simply an outcome. Together, the conversation will examine how human connection can strengthen homelessness prevention and response, humanize social service systems, and shift the conversation from “housing first” to “housing AND belonging.” A Social Impact Member-led Forum program. Forums at the Club are organized and run by volunteer programmers who are members of The Commonwealth Club, and they cover a diverse range of topics. Learn more about our Forums. This program contains EXPLICIT Langauge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the 2026 midterms approach, voters are contending with concerns around affordability, the AI boom, and climate disruption in their daily lives. AI data centers have become the wild card in energy politics, driving up energy demand and utility bills, and playing a large role in a battleground House primary. A year after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act rolled back key parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, many climate advocates assumed the energy transition was stalled out, but new research suggests otherwise.  How will climate and energy shape the ballot box this year? And what's it like to campaign on those issues in a swing state? William Lawrence, Candidate, US Congress MI-07; Co-founder, Sunrise Movement Leah Stokes, Associate Professor, UC Santa Barbara; Author, “The Carbon Wave” Lily Bermel, Visiting Fellow, Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy. For show notes, related links, and episode transcript, visit our ⁠⁠episode page⁠⁠ at ClimateOne.org Highlights: 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:25 William Lawrence on campaign messaging 00:05:48 William Lawrence on climate and data centers  00:08:05 William Lawrence on giving people more agency  00:13:21 William Lawrence on addressing decarbonization and affordability  00:16:41 Leah Stokes on rewriting narratives about having children in a climate crisis 00:18:55 Leah Stokes on what's driving climate hushing  00:26:36 Leah Stokes on working on climate policy and a high risk pregnancy  00:31:30 Leah Stokes on the trials and joys of working with others  00:36:17 Leah Stokes on what the future could hold after the midterms 00:39:42 Lily Bermel on the methodology of “Glass Half Full”  00:46:01 Lily Bermel on the other factors affecting solar and wind deployment  00:48:55 Lily Bermel on how energy could play into the midterm elections  *** Join Climate One for a town hall event on September 28 at 6 p.m. on navigating AI, climate, and the future of democracy. How do we ensure that AI and data centers serve the public good? How does a democracy function when AI is distorting our sense of shared truths? Tickets available at ⁠⁠climateone.org/events⁠⁠  *** Also: We’ll be having an electric conversation on October 14 at 6 p.m. between PG&E CEO Patti Poppe and California State Senator Scott Wiener about energy affordability, outages, and whether cities like San Francisco are ready to break up with the investor-owned utility model. Tickets available at ⁠⁠climateone.org/events⁠⁠  *** Support Climate One by going ad-free! By subscribing to Climate One on ⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠, you’ll receive exclusive access to all future episodes free of ads, opportunities to connect with fellow Climate One listeners, and access to the Climate One Discord. ⁠⁠Sign up today⁠⁠. *** Ad sales by ⁠⁠Multitude⁠⁠. Contact them for ad inquiries at ⁠⁠multitude.productions/ads⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices