On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins speaks with Thomas Merrill about the historical tensions within the American founding and their significance for contemporary political life. They discuss the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson’s views on natural rights and slavery, the Missouri Crisis, and the political coalitions that shaped the early republic. Merrill reflects on Jefferson as a tragic and self-undermining figure whose ideals provided later generations with tools for criticizing injustice, even as his own political commitments often contradicted those ideals. They also consider the importance of historical honesty, disagreement, and liberal education in helping citizens develop the self-knowledge and practical wisdom necessary for a free society.Dr. Thomas Merrill is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs. He is the author of Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2015), which won the Delba Winthrop Prize for Best Recent Work in Political Philosophy. He is also the co-editor of three edited volumes, including The Political Thought of the Civil War (University Press of Kansas, 2018) and has held fellowships from Harvard, Princeton, and the American Enterprise Institute. He is an editor of the journal American Political Thought and director of the Lincoln Scholars Program at American University.**This episode was recorded on August 19, 2026**Show Notes:Thomas Merrill, “Wrestling With the Founding in the Culture Wars” (Law & Liberty, 2024)Declaration of Independence: A TranscriptionJefferson's "original Rough draught" of the Declaration of IndependenceAnnette Gordon-Reed, “What was the relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings?” (The British Academy, 2024)Annette Gordon-Reed, “Excerpt: 'The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family'” (The Pulitzer Prizes)Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins talks with Osita Nwanevu, author of The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding, about the history, meaning, and future of American democracy. They discuss the distinction between republicanism and democracy, the compromises and contradictions of the American founding, and why the Constitution should be treated as a political document rather than an untouchable artifact. Nwanevu also examines the undemocratic features of contemporary political institutions, including the Senate, the Electoral College, and the filibuster, as well as the relationship between political and economic democracy. The conversation considers the role of unions and civil society in developing democratic capacities and the challenges facing workers in a changing economy.Osita Nwanevu is the author of The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding (Random House, 2025). He is a contributing editor at The New Republic, a columnist at The Guardian, the Democratic Institutions fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, and Senior Advisor at the Aspen Institute's Philosophy & Society Initiative. **This episode was recorded on July 13, 2026**Show Notes:Osita Nwanevu’s SubstackOsita Nwanevu, “Who Owns the Declaration of Independence?” (The New Republic, 2026)Nwanevu, “Care Workers Get a Seat at the Table” (In These Times, 2025)Nwanevu, “What Is Political Writing For?” (Columbia Journalism Review, 2021)Virtual Sentiments | Laura K. Field on the Making of the MAGA New RightVirtual Sentiments | Maria Pia Paganelli on 250 Years of Adam Smith’s Wealth of NationsVirtual Sentiments | Glory Liu on Adam Smith's AmericaLiya Palagashvili, “Empowering American Workers” (The Mercatus Center, 2026)The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Federal Edition (New York and London, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1904-5). Vol. 6.An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, edited with an Introduction, Notes, Marginal Summary and an Enlarged Index by Edwin Cannan (London: Methuen, 1904). Vol. 1.Gordon Tullock, “The Transitional Gains Trap” (Bell Journal of Economics, 1975)Stephen Ansolabehere, John M. de Figueiredo, and James M. Snyder Jr., “Why is There so Little Money in U.S. Politics?” (Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2003)If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins talks with Katharine Jarmul about how transparency, open-source AI, and privacy intersect in today's debates over artificial intelligence. Together they unpack the differences between proprietary, open-weight, and truly open-source AI models. They also explore how AI companies shape user experiences through design choices that often remain invisible, why smaller task-specific models may offer important advantages over increasingly centralized frontier models, and what concepts like data sovereignty and individual autonomy mean in practice. Rather than framing AI as an inevitable force beyond public influence, Collins and Jarmul make the case that curiosity, transparency, and community participation can help people reclaim agency over the technologies shaping their lives.Katharine Jarmul is a data scientist who focuses her work and research on privacy and security in data science, deep learning and AI. She is the author of the well-received O'Reilly book, Practical Data Privacy, and has more than 10 years’ experience in machine learning and AI, where she has helped build large-scale AI systems with privacy and security built in.**This episode was recorded on June 24, 2026**Show Notes:Probably Private: A newsletter on data privacy by Katharine JarmulYoutube Channel | Probably PrivateHow AI / ML Memorization Happens: RepetitionKatharine Jarmul, Busting AI Myths and Embracing Realities in Privacy & SecurityRobert McMillan, “How Heartbleed Broke the Internet — And Why It Can Happen Again” (WIRED, 2014)Sebastian Raschka, Build a Large Language Model (From Scratch)C. E. Shannon, “A Mathematical Theory of Communication” (The Bell System Technical Journal, 1948)Ken Yeung, “The New Side Hustle for Graduate Students: Training AI” (The AI Economy, 2025)Ruth Fowler, “I Work in Hollywood. Everyone Who Used to Make TV Is Now Secretly Training AI” (WIRED, 2026)Laura Kelley, “The Work of Helping A.I. Destroy Work” (NYT, 2026)Joel Mokyr, "The Intellectual Origins of Modern Economic Growth" (The Journal of Economic History, 2005)If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins talks with Laura K. Field about the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and her recent book, Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right. The conversation traces how Field came to chronicle the intellectual architecture behind Trumpism between 2016 and 2024. She explains that beneath the populist energy of the MAGA movement lies a smaller but highly influential network of intellectuals who built a deliberate ideological case against postwar liberal internationalism and fusionist conservatism. Together, they explore the different intellectual camps within this "New Right" and their varying and sometimes conflicting visions of the American founding. Dr. Laura K. Field is an associate with the Illiberalism Studies Program at George Washington University, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, and visiting scholar in residence at American University. She is the author of Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right (Princeton University Press, 2025).**This episode was recorded on May 29, 2026**Show Notes:An Introductory Overview of Furious MindsLaura K. Field, “The Intellectual Edgelords of the GOP” (The Atlantic, 2026)Laura K. Field, “The Closing of the MAGA Mind” (NYT, 2025).Thomas W. Merrill, “Wrestling With the Founding in the Culture Wars” (Law & Liberty, 2024)Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, June 26, 1857If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, Kristen Collins speaks with Glory Liu about the 250th anniversary of both Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations and the Declaration of Independence. Together, they unpack the message of The Wealth of Nations as a critique of Britain's mercantile system rather than a manifesto for laissez-faire economics — illuminating Smith's careful attention to power, class, and state capture. The conversation explores what reception history reveals about the distance between an author's original intentions and what subsequent readers make of their ideas. Glory and Kristen also reflect on what it means to commemorate Smith today, how our current moment of reckoning with concentrated economic and political power is drawing readers back to Smith, and why doing so responsibly requires both historical care and honest self-awareness about what we're really asking Smith to do for us.Dr. Glory Liu is a Provost’s Distinguished Faculty Fellow and Assistant Professor in the Department of Government at Georgetown University. She is the author of Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism (Princeton, 2022), which was named a Top 5 Biographies of Economists by the Wall Street Journal and received the 2024 Best Monograph Award from the European Society for the History of Economic Thought.**This episode was recorded on January 22, 2026**Show Notes:Glory Liu, “How Adam Smith Inspired America’s Economic System” (WSJ, 2025)Glory Liu, Adam Smith’s America: How a Scottish Philosopher Became an Icon of American Capitalism (Princeton University Press, 2022)If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgramLearn more about Academic & Student ProgramsFollow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus