Editor’s Choice: The Best Interviews of 2019

As is tradition at Merion West, here are the editor’s choices for our favorite Merion West interviews of 2019.

5. Nicholas Christakis on His Latest Book

Nicholas Christakis, the Sterling Professor of Social and Natural Science at Yale University, joined Merion West in June to discuss his recently published third book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society. In the interview, Christakis comments on how he sees his book in the context of other recent works aiming to understand aspects of the “human condition” through empirical works of science. Christakis walks through a number of the examples and thought experiments used in his book, alongside his general comments on the book’s aims to examine how natural selection has resulted in humans possessing a number of virtues, which offset their more frequently written about vices.

4. Rep. Jeff Van Drew on Getting the Two Parties to Work Together

Speaking with Merion West in September, just two short months before being thrust into the national spotlight for being among the lone Democrats to oppose the impeachment of President Donald Trump, Rep. Jeff Van Drew discusses representing a district nearly evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats. He also describes possible strategies for promoting bipartisanship in a highly polarized Congress. Recognition of the problem, he believes, is the place to start.

3.

Vice President Mondale Comments on Today’s Democratic Party

Former Vice President and 1984 Democratic presidential nominee Walter Mondale joined Merion West in April to look back on his career and to offer his advice and words of counsel to the Democratic Party of today. Presciently anticipating some of the priorities the new Democratic House of Representatives would undertake, Vice President Mondale cautioned them: “We can’t be seen just as being negative on Trump, although we should. We need to be talking positively about what we can do. ” Vice President Mondale, the first presidential nominee of a major party to select a woman as his running mate, also reflected on the increasing number of women taking leading roles in federal politics.