The Book That Explains JD Vance’s Worldview
About this episode
Klein interviews Israeli political theorist Yoram Hazony, whose 2018 book 'The Virtue of Nationalism' and NatCon conference movement have become intellectual scaffolding for JD Vance and Trump's second-term right. They debate nationalism versus multiculturalism: Hazony argues nations need a shared moral tradition and that assimilation has collapsed into 'multicultural liberalism,' while Klein presses whether his vision — rooted in a Protestant British-American tradition — can accommodate a pluralist, immigrant-built democracy. They clash over immigration (Hazony sees mass immigration as dissolving national cohesion; Klein sees America as built by it), the meaning of assimilation, and whether the nation-state model Hazony champions fits the diverse country Vance actually governs. The conversation probes whether Vance's nationalism is a coherent philosophy or a political posture.