0:00 Bob welcomes Nikita back to the Nonzero team
6:17 WSJ's report on Trump's authoritarian drift
8:46 Three levers: streets, media, education system
12:58 Trump the businessman and Trump the politician
14:50 Why Putin was compelling in 1999, when Russia was a young democracy
22:37 Laws vs norms
29:05 Trump and lawfare: how independent is the US judiciary?
35:52 Partisanship among judges
38:28 Trump's view of the world as a game
42:44 Cynicism as a political brand
46:10 Nikita: Putin and Trump share a geopolitical worldview
49:46 The damage the US and Russia did to the international law
54:25 The evolution of Putin's understanding of geopolitics
59:22 Today's Overtime segment is open for everybody!
1:00:29 The crisis of the nation-state & NonZero's community building project
1:18:07 "Kremlin is not Russia": distinguishing between the nation and the state
1:19:35 Bob: We all need a tribe
1:24:32 What does it mean to be an American?
1:29:43 Nikita's Armenian propaganda: A legitimate reason to be proud of your nation
Robert Wright (Nonzero, The Evolution of God, Why Buddhism Is True) and Nikita Petrov (https://psychopolitica.substack.com). Recorded August 28, 2025.
Nikita’s Substack:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NonzeroPods
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