The American Compass Podcast
Our mission is to restore an economic consensus that emphasizes the importance of family, community, and industry to the nation’s liberty and prosperity. The American Compass Podcast features conversations on a wide variety of policy issues aimed at helping policymakers and the broader public navigate the most pressing issues that will define the future of the conservative movement in America.
Episodes
154 episodes
What Happened to the Starter Home? with Bobby Fijan
America’s housing shortage is often framed as a simple supply problem, but building the kinds of homes families actually need has proven far more complicated. While capital continues to flow into large suburban developments and luxury apartment...
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49:30
Solving the Welfare Fraud Crisis with Shad White
America’s welfare programs have long operated on the assumption that states and nonprofits could responsibly steward federal dollars with minimal oversight. But a series of explosive fraud cases—from California to Mississippi to Minnesota—have ...
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32:42
Dispatches from Davos with Oren Cass
The annual gathering of the world’s leadership class at the World Economic Forum in Davos bills itself as high-minded forum for increased global cooperation in the now-struggling old international order. But, in practice, it’s more of a concent...
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32:20
How to Solve the Affordability Crisis with Daniel Kishi
Inflation may have cooled, but Americans still feel squeezed. Groceries are still expensive, housing and health care costs continue to outpace wages, and consumer credit debt continues to balloon, leaving a gap between encouraging economic data...
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39:29
How to Rebuild American Industry with Mike Schmidt
The CHIPS Act was billed as a once-in-a-generation effort to rebuild America’s manufacturing base in a strategically vital industry. But turning legislation into functioning factories and good paying jobs requires far more than slogans about “o...
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50:21
Is Venezuela the Return of Regime Change? with Michael Brendan Dougherty
After running on a campaign centered on ending forever wars, the Trump administration has become increasingly aggressive toward Venezuela—and rumors are abuzz that the administration may soon attempt to topple the Maduro regime.Michae...
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42:16
Policing Monopolies with Gail Slater
For decades, antitrust policy rested on the assumption that markets would correct themselves and that consolidation posed little risk to consumers and workers. But across the economy, from housing and healthcare to Big Tech and labor markets, c...
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36:49
A New Global Trade Order with Mark DiPlacido
The assumptions that once defined global trade are cracking. The United States can no longer absorb the world’s trade surpluses, China has become a near-peer adversary, and allies are facing hard choices about their own dependence on Beijing. T...
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42:39
Reassessing Globalization with Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo
Globalization was once viewed as economic destiny: it would spread prosperity worldwide, destroy authoritarian regimes, and counterbalance industrial decline with innovation and growth. The reality has been far more negative, with communities h...
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50:25
The Tech Revolution in America's Schools with Brad Littlejohn
Heading into the holidays, the hottest gifts on the shelf are AI-powered smart toys, leading parents to confront a troubling question: what happens when machines start reading to our kids, teaching them, and becoming their companions? At the sa...
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39:19
America's Squid Game Economy with John Carney
For decades, America told its young strivers that the path to economic security ran through degrees, credentials, and a foothold in the professional class. But as housing costs climb and career ladders shrink, even the “successful” are finding ...
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41:30
Is AI Really Going to Kill Us All? with Eliezer Yudkowsky and Nate Soares
Artificial intelligence has leapt from speculative theory to everyday tool with astonishing speed, promising breakthroughs in science, medicine, and the ways we learn, live, and work. But to some of its earliest researchers, the race toward sup...
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49:10
Somewheres and Anywheres with David Goodhart
Western politics has increasingly been shaped by a widening divide between the “Somewheres” and the “Anywheres”—those rooted in place and community versus those defined by education, mobility, and openness to change. This clash has fueled popul...
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49:32
Enforcing America's Labor Laws with Seema Nanda
America’s labor laws promise fairness for workers and a level playing field for businesses, but promises mean little without enforcement. Underfunded agencies and administrative failures have allowed bad corporate actors to exploit employees un...
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46:37
Sharpie's American Comeback with Chris Griswold
A favorite libertarian parable, I, Pencil, portrays the market as a mystical force beyond human control, an “invisible hand” that government must never try to steer. This conversation tells a different story: how Sharpie manufacturing ...
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38:24
The Geography of Political Belonging with Salena Zito
While the nation’s cultural curators cluster in a few wealthy zip codes, the voters who decide its elections remain rooted in towns where family, church, and work still bind community together. The result is a political and media class increasi...
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31:35
Trump's Media Pushback with Emily Jashinsky and Haisten Willis
President Trump's second term has brought with it a more combative approach to the American press. Supporters have cheered it as overdue payback for the media's bias, but have the president's recent actions—from threatening broadcast licenses t...
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50:16
Labor's Realignment in the AI Age with Sean M. O'Brien
Efforts to modernize labor law have stalled in Washington for decades, leaving workers vulnerable to delayed contracts, retaliation, and corporate maneuvers. Meanwhile, a new challenge looms for workers: rapid advances in automation and artific...
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41:17
Is Abundance Just Neoliberalism? with Matt Yglesias
The abundance agenda claims to offer a new path, one centered on housing, energy, and expanded state capacity. But are advocates of abundance offering a genuine political shift? Or are they just repackaging neoliberalism for the Trump era?<...
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46:45
Are the Tariffs Constitutional? with Chad Squitieri and Peter Harrell
Last Friday, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Trump did not have the authority to issue emergency tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), setting up a pivotal Supreme Court battle...
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45:27
An American Sovereign Wealth Fund with Julius Krein
America’s political elite assumed Wall Street would finance its future. Instead, private capital chased software and speculation, leaving the nation dependent on foreign supply chains for most manufactured goods. The result is a hollowed-out in...
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39:27
Still Hooked on Beijing with Geoffrey Cain
In the 1990s, Silicon Valley thought access to China would help open their markets and liberalize the nation. Instead, their engagement ended up empowering the CCP and helped build the Chinese surveillance state.Geoffrey Cain, an ...
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43:33
Rebuilding Strategic Depth with Nadia Schadlow
America once relied on oceans, industrial might, and large stockpiles to give her strategic depth—the ability to maneuver economically, militarily, and technologically during conflict. But those buffers have eroded in the age of drones, cyberat...
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36:05