Is Trumpism crashing on the shoals of the Iran war?

That is what Christopher Caldwell thinks. Caldwell is a prominent thinker on the right. He?s a contributing editor at the conservative publication the Claremont Review of Books,and he?s one of the people who?ve been trying to define, and even craft, a coherent Trumpism. So his recent article in The Spectator, ?The End of Trumpism,? sparked a lot of debate on the right.

At the core of this debate are some fundamental questions that I think remain unresolved, despite Trump?s decade-long dominance of the Republican Party: What is Trumpism? Is there Trumpism, or is there just Donald Trump?

Caldwell is a contributing writer for Times Opinion and the author of ?The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties.? In this conversation, he explains how he understood Trumpism as a movement of ?democratic restoration? ? and why he believes the Iran war betrays that. And I ask him why he sees the seams of Trump?s base fraying, despite polling that suggests otherwise.

Mentioned:

?The end of Trumpism? by Christopher Caldwell

The Age of Entitlement by Christopher Caldwell

?Is the West Becoming Pagan Again?? by Christopher Caldwell

Self-Rule by Robert H. Wiebe

?Trump as Alexander the Great? by John B. Judis

Book Recommendations:

The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas

Ball Four by Jim Bouton

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

This episode of ?The Ezra Klein Show? was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show?s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.

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Iran has currently shut off more than 10 percent of the world?s oil supply. If that goes on for a lot longer ? or if the war escalates to include more strikes on energy infrastructure in the region ? the price of oil could go through the roof, and the damage to the global economy could be catastrophic.

So what would that look like? What tools does the United States have to avert it? And how is this crisis already reverberating in countries around the world?

Jason Bordoff is the founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a founding dean of the Columbia Climate School. He served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama and senior director for energy and climate change on the National Security Council.

In this conversation, Bordoff answers all my questions about the crisis so far and how things could spin out from here, the strategic positioning of the United States, Europe, Iran, Russia and China, the developing countries likely to suffer the most and the lessons the world might take from this.

Mentioned:

?Making the U.S. More Resilient to Oil Price Shocks? by Jason Bordoff and Spencer Dale

?The Return of the Energy Weapon? by Jason Bordoff and Meghan L. O?Sullivan

Book Recommendations:

Material World by Ed Conway

More and More and More by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz

Deliver Me from Nowhere by Warren Zanes

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Naomi Klein saw where our politics was headed before most people on the left. Her 2023 book ?Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World? is hard to describe. But among other things, it traces the new coalitions Klein saw forming on the right, the ways they were co-opting issues long associated with the left, and finding huge audiences and influence outside existing institutions.

The people and coalitions that Klein wrote about run our world now. We are all living in the mirror world. As she put it, it?s ?doppelgangers at the wheel.? So I wanted to have Klein on the show to help understand how that happened, what the left failed to see at the time and the lessons the left should take from it now.

As Klein told me: ?The thing about doppelgangers is, in literature, they?re always a message telling you a warning: You have to look at yourself. There?s something about yourself that you?re not seeing.?

Note: We recorded this episode before the war in Iran.

Mentioned:

Doppelganger by Naomi Klein

No Logo by Naomi Klein

?Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong? by Adam Serwer

End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor

Book Recommendations:

Empire of AI by Karen Hao

Here Where We Live Is Our Country by Molly Crabapple

Fire Alarm by Michael Löwy

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of ?The Ezra Klein Show? at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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In a couple weeks, the archives of our show will only be available to subscribers. Here?s why that?s happening and what to expect. 

To learn more, go to nytimes.com/podcasts.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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Every Tuesday and Friday, Ezra Klein invites you into a conversation about something that matters. How do we address climate change if the political system fails to act? Has the logic of markets infiltrated too many aspects of our lives? What is the future of the Republican Party? What do psychedelics teach us about consciousness? What does sci-fi understand about our present that we miss? Can our food system be just to humans and animals alike?

Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of "The Ezra Klein Show" at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein.

Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected].

?The Ezra Klein Show? is produced by Rogé Karma and Jeff Geld; fact-checking by Michelle Harris; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld.

Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

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