Douglas Murray on Democracies, Death Cults & Elizabethan England

Update: 2025-08-06

Description

Douglas Murray is a journalist and bestselling author of 8 books, including: On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization (2025); The War on the West (2022); The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race and Identity(2019); and The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam (2018).

He has been a contributor to The Spectator since 2000 and associate editor since 2012. He is a columnist at the New York Post and regularly writes for the Telegraph and the Sun.

Mr. Murray is also a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor of City Journal.

On this episode of The One Way Ticket Show, we begin the conversation with Mr. Murray sharing his one way ticket back in time to Elizabethan England which he describes as the greatest period of the flowering of the English language. There, he would meet Shakespeare, attend performances at the Globe Theatre, and marvel at the Court of Queen Elizabeth I.

We then delve into his latest book, On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization and cover topics and thoughts, including:

Vasily Grossman’s quote from his book, Life and Fate: “Tell me what you accuse the Jews of, I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of”
How many in the West don’t understand that for Hamas and people like Sinwar, their war against Israel is a religiously motivated jihad
It’s a myth that all people – everywhere – want the same thing
The extent to which and the consequences of populations being misled in closed societies
Divorcing a performer’s politics from their performance (and how it would be wonderful if actors just “shut up” about politics in the first place!)
The strange landscape that is the (news) media today
His break mechanism of: "Never forget how much damage can be done by willful optimism"
Why he never talks about his next book project
And much more . . .