Keen On America

Will Trump be removed by the 25th Amendment? No, it’s never going to happen - not after Jan 6 or Venezuela or Greenland or any other mad foreign or domestic adventure. That, at least, seems the conclusion of Rebecca Lubot, author of Keeping a Finger on the Button, a timely new analysis of the 25th Amendment. But the real question isn't about the nuclear button—it's about who controls the White House. And the way to do that is through new Congressional or judicial initiatives. The 25th Amendment was passed in what now feels like the halcyon 1960s. Trump has created an entirely new political reality in America. Congress needs to respond accordingly with a new Constitutional Amendment for our 21st century Imperial Presidential age. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

The great John Maynard Keynes explained it a century ago. In his 1930 essay, "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren," Keynes predicted that the future would be defined by economic abundance rather than scarcity. But such a cornucopian future, Keynes warned, would create societies teetering perpetually on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Keynes' vision has been updated by Niskanen Center SVP Brink Lindsey in his new book, The Permanent Problem. Today's societies, the Thailand-based Lindsey observes, are all on the verge of nervous breakdowns triggered by economic prosperity rather than poverty. So the challenge today, he notes with his own Keynesian flourish, is transforming this mass plenty into mass human flourishing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Back in 2018, the New York Times reporters Katie Benner and Erica L. Green exposed the disturbing reality of the T.M. Landry college prep school in rural Louisiana. Celebrated as a “miracle” institution that successfully sent underprivileged black students to elite colleges, Benner and Green uncovered a miserable school that doctored college applications and bullied its students. Seven years later, Benner and Green have written Miracle Children, a book as much about race, education and false promises in contemporary America as it is about T.M. Landry itself. While Benner and Green’s narrative won’t please everyone, it should be required reading for those on both the left and right who peddle magical educational solutions to historically complex social problems.Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

WTF will happen in 2026? Over the last week, we’ve been running a series of interviews about the promise and peril of the new year. And in this new weekly magazine-style KEEN ON AMERICA show, we feature highlights of conversations with Charles Kupchan, Julia Hobsbawm, Keith Teare, Jason Pack, Jim Goldgeier, Chris Schroeder and Soli Ozel. And I end the show with some thoughts from the David Masciotra interview about my own thoughts on the upcoming year. That’s it for previews of 2026. Now let’s see what really happens. Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

If Darwin’s evolutionary theories couldn’t kill America’s faith in God, then what could? That’s the message in Daniel K. William’s new book, The Search for a Rational Faith. Americans, Williams argues, have always sought to combine scientific knowledge with Christian apologetics. From the Founding Puritans to John Adams, Harriet Beecher and Martin Luther King, Americans have clung to the idea that enlightenment doesn’t undermine faith. That’s why thoughtful people - or, at least, thoughtful Americans - believe in God. “Without religion as a moral constraint, any sort of moral anarchy would be theoretically possible. In the world of the atomic bomb, there had to be some form of transcendent thinking,” Williams argues. “Religion has not been simply an anti-liberal reactionary force, but actually has been central to the American story and to America’s human rights project.”Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe