Mearsheimer and friends on current politics, foreign and otherwise
I cite John Mearsheimer so often that I feel like I need to restate that I have a kind of love-hate relationship to his commentary. He is famous for his “offensive realist” view of international relations, which stresses the dominant influence of the security considerations of major powers on the international state system.
But like his colleague the “defensive realist” Stephen Walt, he also has a commitment to democracy and to avoiding wars. He also is an educational product of the service academies, which means in his case that he also pays close attention to military capacities, which is a big part of what has made his commentary of the Russia-Ukraine War so informative over the last four years (and counting).
Part of his style, which undoubtedly must have made him a great teacher, is to frame his ideas in a provocative way which forces the listener to focus on what he’s saying and think about different possibilities of what that might mean. In this discussion with Glenn Loury and Robert Wright, he gives his realist view of how Donald Trump is a menace to democracy and why that’s a bad thing.1
For people who have mostly heard only his pragmatic power-politics takes on things, they may ask, wait, is this an AI fake or something? Because Mearsheimer starts off sounding like a combination of Anne Applebaum and Timothy Snyder talking about the urgent Trumpist threat to democracy. (Which certainly is a huge threat!) Mearsheimer actually is one of the most-AI-faked political commentators right now.2 But this one is legit. He often posts a notice at his Substack page when a new interview goes up on YouTube.
Most of the discussion is about the politics of current US foreign policy. But Mearsheimer here also has comments on the current news superstructure in America. The roll of Trumpista billionaires in the current US media landscape also comes up.
And there is an actually decent discussion of the current politics of antisemitism in the US political environment.
Mearsheimer on Gaza, NATO, and the New American Empire-Glenn Loury & John Mearsheimer. The Glenn Show YouTube channel 02/06/2026. (Accessed: 2026-07-02).
Mearsheimer, John (2026): My Fake AI Problem. John’s Substack 02/05/2026. (Accessed: 2026-07-02).