Frames of Space

Lars Doucet on How to Reduce the Cost of Rent

Lars Doucet is the President of the Center for Land Economics and the writer behind the Substack "Progress and Poverty." Lars is a Georgist, which means he believes that land is fundamentally different from other forms of property. From his point of view, we shouldn't be taxing what people build, earn, or produce—we should be taxing the value of the location itself.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the concept of a land value tax (LVT): why it reduces rent costs, how it can increase government revenue without decreasing productivity, and the extent to which an LVT is compatible with the YIMBY movement.
Show Notes
civicmapper.org
"The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom" by Jonathan Haidt
"The Land Trap: A New History of the World's Oldest Asset" by Mike Bird

Blaise Brosnan on the Divisions Within the MAGA Right

Blaise Brosnan is a good friend of mine, and I've had many conversations with him over the years about the divisions within the MAGA movement. He currently studies as a PhD candidate at UCLA, and I brought him onto my podcast to better understand the civil war that's happening within the Republican Party right now.
So in this episode, we spoke quite a bit about the recent interview between Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes, the misconceptions that Democrats have about right-wingers, and the degree to which anti-Semitism is tolerated in Republican Party politics.
Show Notes
"Liberals Read, Conservatives Watch TV" by Richard Hanania
"The New GOP Survey Analysis of Americans Overall, Today’s Republican Coalition, and the Minorities of MAGA" from The Manhattan Institute
"Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes and the Right’s ‘Groyper’ Problem" from The Ezra Klein Show
"Populism fast and slow" by Joseph Heath, In Due Course
This episode will continue publishing episodes weekly until the end of the month, after which time it will return to its traditional biweekly uploading schedule.

Rana Mitter on How China is Changing

Announcement: this podcast will be going on holiday for the rest of December, so this is the last new episode you'll be seeing on this feed in 2025. But I'll be back to regularly scheduled episodes beginning on January 1st of the new year :)
Rana Mitter is the ST Lee Chair in US-Asia Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School, and an expert on understanding the nature of Chinese politics: government, culture, values, and much more.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about how China's Zero COVID policies increased resentment towards the Chinese government, the nature of China's investments in renewable energy, and whether the Chinese economy is poised to overtake the American economy within the next few decades.
Show Notes
"American Energy Policy Cannot Afford to Be This Dumb" by Derek Thompson
"America: the failed state" by Francis Fukuyama, Prospect Magazine
"Modern China: A Very Short Introduction" by Rana Mitter

Joseph Heath on the Psychology Behind Modern Populism

Joseph Heath is a political philosophy professor at the University of Toronto and the writer behind the Substack "In Due Course." He is known for his commentary on critical theory, the nature of capitalism, and how our psychological tendencies influence our political beliefs.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the differences between intuitive thinking and analytical reasoning, why common sense is sometimes wrong, and what all of that has to do with the rise of populism.
Show Notes
"Populism fast and slow" by Joseph Heath, In Due Course
"Why populism became popular" by Tim Harford, The Financial Times
Enlightenment 2.0 by Joseph Heath
Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz

Habib Fanny on Tribalism and Fighting the Algorithm

Habib Fanny writes the Substack "Politidoc." He used to write about politics on the Q&A site Quora, where he amassed over 100k followers from writing there for over a decade about topics such as electoral trends, race relations, and how negative polarization affected his ideology.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about why non-white voters swung away from the Democratic Party in 2024, how to strive for good-faith communication when writing for a social media algorithm, and the Insurrection Act.
Show Notes
"Populism fast and slow" by Joseph Heath, In Due Course
"The Enemies of Liberalism Are Showing Us What It Really Means" by Ezra Klein, The New York Times
"Trump's deployment of troops to US cities is perfectly legal, and that's a problem." by Habib Fanny, Politidoc

Lakshya Jain on How Democrats Can Win

Lakshya Jain is a political data analyst and co-founder of Split Ticket, a data journalism project known for its sharp election modeling and nonpartisan vote breakdowns. He currently leads the polling operation over at The Argument, a magazine devoted to making the persuasive case for liberal democracy—not by avoiding political conflict, but by engaging it head-on.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about the results of the 2025 US elections, what Gen Z voters want from elected officials, and whether Zohran Mamdani serves as a model for how future Democrats should campaign for office.
Show Notes
"How popular is Donald Trump?" by Nate Silver and Eli McKown-Dawson, Silver Bulletin
"It will shock you how much this shutdown never happened" by Lakshya Jain, The Argument
"Gen Z's Political Shift: Why Young Voters Are Turning on Democrats (Feat. Lakshya Jain)" from FYPod

Elizabeth Bruenig on the Agony and Beauty of Faith

Elizabeth Bruenig is a staff writer at The Atlantic and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. She is one of the rare journalists today whose work moves seamlessly between politics, theology, and ethics, and grief—without flattening any of them. There’s a line of hers I keep coming back to: Beauty tells you where to look. That's how she writes. And it's how she sees the world.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with her about the pain and divinity that come from a forgiving attitude, the rightward turn of modern American Christianity, and how she wants others to remember her.
Show Notes
On Human Slaughter by Elizabeth Bruenig

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Francis Fukuyama on Liberal Democracy at a Crossroads

Francis Fukuyama is a Senior Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. He is known for his book The End of History and the Last Man, which argued that liberal democracy represented the endpoint of humanity's ideological evolution.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about whether his end of history thesis holds up by modern standards, the nature of democratic backsliding in the United States, and the main contributing factors behind the decline in social trust within the country.
Show Notes
The End of History and the Last Man by Francis Fukuyama
"It’s the Internet, Stupid" by Francis Fukuyama, Persuasion
"Is Social Media Destroying Democracy—Or Giving It To Us Good And Hard?" by Dan Williams, Conspicuous Cognition

Marshall Kosloff on Why Liberalism Needs New Stories

Marshall Kosloff is a senior fellow at the Niskanen Center and the host of the podcast The Realignment. His work covers the nature of coalitional change in American politics since the rise of Donald Trump, and how Democrats can accomplish the policies of the Abundance agenda at the state level.
In this episode, I got a chance to speak with him about his journey from the center-right to the center-left, the dearth of compelling stories in center-left discourse, and why it's so important for liberal communicators to emphasize the destination instead of just the vehicle for that destination.
Show Notes
"Ezra Klein Is Worried — but Not About a Radicalized Left" from Interesting Times with Ross Douthat
"Danielle Lee Tomson: The Story & Authenticity Gap - Why the Center-Left Keeps Losing the Plot" from The Realignment
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