Pod Insights Masters of Scale The U.S. at 250: The case for reckoning and rebuild, with Ian Bremmer About this episode As America hurtles toward its 250th birthday, the world is watching. Ian Bremmer, Eurasia Group President and PBS host, joins Rapid Response to give his unvarnished read on the state of Brand America. He shares how he’s advising business and political leaders around the globe, why he believes the US is overdue for a revolution, and what the widening gap between American wealth and American opportunity means for the country's standing in the world. Bremmer also reveals the defiant way he plans to celebrate July 4th, and makes the case for what it will take to extend the great American experiment another 250 years.
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1:41 Speaker 01 We have something to celebrate. And that is that we have been successful for 250 years with this most unlikely human experiment. And to fix it, we're going to have to change a bunch of things, but you still come together. Patriotism in this country is having the courage, not just to say I love my country, but having the courage to publicly say when your country is [bleep] up. That's what patriotism is. And we need patriotic Americans to do precisely that now because it matters.
2:18 Speaker 02 That's Ian Bremmer, political scientist, president of the Eurasia Group and advisor to business leaders and political leaders all around the globe. As we head toward the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, I wanted to talk with Ian about the state of brand America at a time of intense disruption. Just before we started recording, Ian got an impromptu call from US Senator John Ossoff, as if to underscore his deep contacts. In this episode, Ian argues that Americans are in a revolutionary mood right now, and that that is a positive. He critiques the wealth divide in the US and the opportunity lapses, and he certainly has no great love for President Trump. But
3:00 Speaker 02 his advice to businesses and to all of us, it isn't partisan, it's practical. And it will get you thinking about what the US needs to extend its great experiment another 250 years. So, let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.
3:21 Speaker 02 I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and host of G-Zero World on PBS. Ian, welcome back to Rapid Response.
3:30 Speaker 01 Good to see you, Bob. It's been a while.
3:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, so we're nearing the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, July 4th, the United States of America's 250th birthday. Celebrations, festivities gearing up. But it's also a moment of intense change, technological, economic, political. I'm eager to get your assessment of the health of the US at 250 years old. I mean, judging by record-high stock market, things seem quite rosy. Is that the right barometer to look at?
4:01 Speaker 01 It would be bad if that was the only barometer you were looking at. I mean, look, I think most Americans aren't sure what their country stands for.
4:12 Speaker 01 We now lionize, even worship, money in this country more than any other thing. In my view, that's pretty far from what is sustainable. It's also making people angrier. It's making, certainly, people feel much more stressed and anxious about themselves, their future, their kids. As a political scientist, of course, I think the fact that American power continues to be projected globally in ways that other countries cannot certainly matters. We've got the best entrepreneurs.
4:56 Speaker 01 We've got the best universities. We've got these extraordinary market returns, technology, defense, all of that stuff. But that's not, I mean, when you're in your deathbed, that's not what really matters to you in terms of your life and your history. And it's also not the reason why I think a lot of Americans care so much about their country. So I think we need to go bigger than that.
5:23 Speaker 02 Things like, you know, trust in the US dollar, English is the default language, the primacy of US entertainment and music and global culture, like all this evidence that America's impact and appeal remains predominant. But the US brand, where it stands, is not quite as stable as it might look if you just talk about those things.
5:49 Speaker 01 Other countries in the world don't trust the United States. I mean, you talk to the Europeans and they'll tell you how angry they are about the way the US has treated them on trade, on Greenland, on Ukraine. I was with the Japanese recently, high-level officials, and they told me they felt like we've extorted them in their trade deal and demanding $550 billion of investment in the US, or else, and we get to decide where it goes, they don't. It's on and on and on. I mean, countries around the world. Certainly understand American power,
6:29 Speaker 01 but the United States is not respected around the world and is not viewed as dependable.
6:37 Speaker 02 You have talked about this for a while. This is not just what's happened in the last year or so with, you know, with the second Trump administration, but this is sort of a trend that's been ongoing.
6:49 Speaker 01 You're right, Bob, that this is something I've talked about for well over a decade now. And there are structural aspects that have nothing to do with the president. The idea that the United States would just be the architect of global free trade is something that now most Americans reject and they want to see industrial policy, support for manufacturing, insourcing at home. The United States no longer supports the kind of leadership and burden sharing militarily with other allies around the world. They want those countries to spend vastly more on their own defense.
7:31 Speaker 01 The US does not want to have the kind of comparatively open borders and immigration regime that many from around the world benefited from. Certainly when my grandmother came over here at the beginning of the 20th century. So all of those things are different and they are different for Democrats and Republicans across the political spectrum. Having said that, there has been an acceleration with a second Trump administration. The way that he has prioritized the actions of the executive over the last year.
8:13 Speaker 01 The Iranian war that has been a staggering mistake, the biggest of his administration. And yet he ran on ending these wars, on being a peacemaker. It's important to recognize that there's a difference as we think about the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States between these structural changes that will persist and these, these issues that are unique to Trump's unfitness as a leader.
8:46 Speaker 02 The limited pushing back against some of these things that Trump has been doing, both within his party and from other institutions, is that historically significant?
9:01 Speaker 01 I think it's significant, but it's also significant that we do have real checks and balances which persist. From a market perspective, CEOs have been pretty quiet, right? But, you know, when Trump does things that are clearly illegal, an independent judiciary eventually stops him. We've seen that with the tariffs, for example, used for ostensible national emergency concerns on countries around the world. And Supreme Court took its time to hear the case and rule on it, but struck it all down. And now just, you know, Trump is saying that they're going to see if they can find a way not to have
9:46 Speaker 01 to pay the money back that they've already collected, which of course, again, was illegal. So they will appeal it and they'll fight it, but they'll lose. And I consider that pushback. It's pushback from an independent judiciary that still exists in the United States. There's pushback when ICE engages in brutal excesses on the ground in Minnesota and is forced out by CEOs across the board and by local politicians, left, right, and center. And I can give you so many more examples of this. And courage is contagious.
10:28 Speaker 01 And Trump's clearly engaging in a lot of political revolutionary activities in that he wants to end checks and balances on the executive, and he will fail. That doesn't mean that that's the end of political revolution in the United States. We've had one with FDR. FDR failed at some things that were excesses, like packing the Supreme Court. But he succeeded in other things like creating an administrative state that helps allow for the creation of infrastructure in the country that built a working and middle class. Um, and you know, the reality is most Americans today believe some form of a political
11:12 Speaker 01 revolution is necessary. That is why you got Trump. And it is why you will have in the future more and more political leaders like Trump in their anti-establishment sentiment, though not, hopefully, in their excessive authoritarian impulses, in their excessive kleptocracy personally, and in their policy incompetence. Those are things that are more unique to Trump, but they do not reflect or represent the anger, the anxiety, the
11:54 Speaker 01 demand for change, the revolutionary impulse that, let's remember, Bob, actually made the United States an independent country to begin with 250 years ago.
12:04 Speaker 02 Jim Van de Heijt Axios has argued that like media tends to overstate the polarization in America. You know, there's more common ground than anything else. Do you buy that? Or is there, is there something else that's sort of driving this today's revolutionary spirit?
12:19 Speaker 01 Oh, I buy that there's a lot of common ground among Americans. When you get them in a room and you make them actually have a beer, have a burger. I mean, they talk to each other, they like each other. Algorithms destroy that. In the same way that when people are walking on the streets, they like each other and you put them in cars on a freeway and they don't, right? I mean, I get that. But most Americans believe that the United States has become a two-tier system and that if you have access and money, the American dream works for you. And otherwise, it doesn't. That, I, I, I grew up in the 70s and, and
13:02 Speaker 01 the United States in the 70s was one of the most class-mobile countries of the advanced industrial democracies. In the last 40 years, it has shifted to becoming one of the most stagnant in terms of class mobility. The best predictor now of the, of class outcomes in the US today compared to every other OECD economy.
13:29 Speaker 01 Is how wealthy your parents are. And that is something that most Americans oppose. There's a great deal of opportunity in small and medium enterprises, creating your own business, building it. That is what I've done from scratch that I would have had a very hard time doing in any other society, and I thank the country. I'm very grateful for what the United States stands for in that regard. But I have seen that become far, far harder. And also, very importantly, that is very visible to people, and it's visible to people in a few different ways. It's visible because people have been self-separating more, they're
14:11 Speaker 01 in more gated communities, they're in more environments, whether it's clubs and institutions that do not intermingle the way they used to. So that's one. Number two, they're spending much more time online, and so they're sorted algorithmically to people that are much more like them, and they also see the kind of life that they're supposed to have, that the CEOs and the billionaires and the influencers have or pretend they have, and they feel very inadequate compared to that. And then they also experience the corporatization
14:49 Speaker 01 of day-to-day life, where every aspect of what you see and experience, companies are able to squeeze micro-targeting to get more money from those that can afford to pay it. And so your experience in air travel, your experience in hotels, your experience at Disney World, your experience anywhere you might go as an American, has become maximally segregated on the back of the people that can pay the absolute most. And the people that can't. And that makes most Americans pretty pissed off. It feels kind of un-American.
15:31 Speaker 01 So, yeah, I think that there's a lot of agreement among most Americans that the system that presently exists is captured by powerful, networked, wealthy people, and most Americans don't like that.
15:47 Speaker 02 And AI is, you know, creating its own wedge, right? I mean, it's this revolutionary tool that disrupts the world of work and an extraordinary wealth-generating mechanism that is accelerating this economic disparity.
16:02 Speaker 01 So AI is interesting. So social media definitely accelerated that insecurity and anxiety. AI, of course, everyone that uses it, it's just blowing smoke up your ass. No matter how bad your idea, AI is very self-affirming in a way that clearly parents would recognize as bad, right? Like, you need kids to understand that most of the things are hard and that they can fail and not all their ideas are good ones and there are consequences of screwing up and then you try harder. AI does not do that because AI is programmed to maximize engagement and for you to like it.
16:45 Speaker 01 So what AI is doing to society is very deeply dysfunctional, but it might not increase anxiety. It might actually move in the other direction and just increase false consciousness and, you know, narcissism and other things that will not serve us well as a society but may not drive this specific thing that we are thinking about. Now, on the other side, there are a lot of people that are gonna have their jobs changed.
17:24 Speaker 01 And perhaps displaced. When I see Jamie Dimon, who is of the American CEOs that are not tech CEOs, seems to be the most like forward-thinking on this. Say, "Look, I mean, in 10 years, in 20 years, you know, you're going to have all this wealth and people are going to be working like, you know, half-time, so three and a half days a week as opposed to five. And isn't that great? Well, it would be great if we had a society like Europe, where people aren't only thinking about how they can maximize wealth and instead had a broader view of well-being that included family and community and institutions.
18:05 Speaker 02 If we define ourselves by nothing but our work and our network.
18:09 Speaker 01 If we define ourselves and if we worship money in the markets, again, if we go back to the question you started this with, which is that, "Well, the market's doing great, so it doesn't mean America's doing great." America's in trouble if that's where we're heading. So, I mean, there are so many business leaders that I talk with, American business leaders, who refer to Europe as a museum, where there is nothing we could possibly learn from Europe. Because they don't have productivity, they don't have efficiency, they don't have growth, they don't have entrepreneurialism, their tech is crap, all of that. And yet, from a social perspective,
18:50 Speaker 01 from a civic engagement and morality perspective, actually, a lot of European societies, in very different ways, the Nordics in their way, the Spaniards in their way, but they actually have a much better shot of adapting to what AI means for humanity than the United States presently does. Even though the Americans are absolutely in the lead in using AI to drive wealth and innovation and all the rest, which we need, which we need.
19:25 Speaker 02 Ian's snapshot of America at 250 years old isn't simple, even though each point he makes is logical. AI is dysfunctional, yes, but we need it, yes. So how do we reconcile those things? And what sort of revolution might America be moving towards in 2026? We'll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.
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21:46 Speaker 02 Before the break, political scientist Ian Bremmer outlined some of the challenges facing the United States on its 250th birthday. Now, we talk about what he's hopeful about, the revolution that he thinks the United States needs in 2026, and the role that tech and business play. Plus, the defiant way he plans to celebrate on July 4. Let's jump back in. You've talked about how the the most important new global leaders aren't countries, they're they're technology companies in a lot of ways. Is there some stability that that provides? Because they're looking out like, oh, they need a healthy population and
22:26 Speaker 02 a healthy marketplace and a healthy open trade. Or or is it? I don't know. Is it is it scary? Is it dangerous? Where where's the balance on that?
22:35 Speaker 01 There's no balance yet. And, you know, governments exist, at least in principle, to take care of citizens and defend citizens. While companies are not. They have many different stakeholders. Their shareholders, their workers, their customers. But very infrequently will they really think about the responsibility to society. And one of the big problems I have with a lot of these technology companies is how socialist they are. I mean, they're very
23:18 Speaker 01 capitalist when they make profits. But whenever they're responsible, directly responsible for social ills, suddenly, they're not capitalists anymore. Suddenly, it's like, oh, no, no, no, that the government should pay for that. Or or or you should pay for that. Or or your kids should pay for that. But not but not us. Like, what, why are you suddenly scared of capitalism? Well, I mean, like, we, we need our technology companies to be capitalists when they have negative externalities and costs that come directly from the products that they are developing, um, and that they are putting into the ecosystem. And this was just as
24:03 Speaker 01 true for the oil companies and carbon as it is for, um, the cigarette companies and tobacco smoke, um, as it is for AI companies and, and society at large.
24:19 Speaker 02 So if you're an AI company and you're spending tons of money on compute and data centers and energy, you should be prepared to invest in similar ways in community, in helping people who are transitioning from the job market of the old to the job market of the new?
24:41 Speaker 01 Well, I mean, they're not. Um, so, I mean, should they? Ideally, that should be the role of the government. And, and you want a government that effectively regulates so that the companies don't have to do things that they are not actually structured to do.
25:00 Speaker 02 Cause they're not good at it, right?
25:01 Speaker 01 They're not good at it. They're short term. Um, they focus on, you know, they've got market cyclicality and they've got fundraising rounds that they need to prioritize and they're always talking their book and all of this stuff, right? And, and so we've got three sorts of governance out there. We've got the, the American system, which is great for entrepreneurs, but where the private sector essentially pays for and captures the regulatory environment, the government. You've got the Chinese system where the government actually captures the private sector. And so they determine what the private sector can and can't do, who they're going to fund, which sectors are strategic, which aren't. And then you've got the European system, um, where the government is an independent
25:44 Speaker 01 arbiter that really is trying to regulate in favor of society. Now, here's the issue, that the former two drive a lot more growth and you need growth to pay for the things that the European system wants to actually do for society. The first two also happen to be where AI and is dominant. You'd be much more likely to get a series of regulations that would be safer for society. With a European-style system, you're much less likely to get the AI that would drive it in a European-style system to begin with. So we're stuck in this weird situation in America,
26:27 Speaker 01 where the technology companies are essentially self-regulating and self-governing at this point. And, and, you know, I think this is gonna be an essential driver of politics in 2028 and the campaign coming up. But another two and a half years of this, given how fast AI is moving, is gonna be very, very disruptive and will create reactions in society that I don't think technology companies will like.
26:58 Speaker 02 I don't want this 250th birthday not to have any presents or cake. So like, are there things that give you hope? Are there things that you're optimistic about? Do you have a vision for how this all might come together in a way that is positive or that is hopeful?
27:15 Speaker 01 Well, of course. I mean, the worst thing would be if you had all of this systemic change and Americans feeling like the system is inadequate and no political revolution as a response. That would be horrible. So, I mean, I understand that this is a period of great uncertainty and volatility, but it's obvious why. I mean, this happens both domestically and globally, is that you will have a set of institutions, an architecture, values, priorities, leaders, and they are created to address a certain balance of power
27:56 Speaker 01 that exists at a period of time. The balance of power changes. The world changes, the country changes, but the institutions are sticky. And as that gap becomes too great, you end up in a recession, not an economic recession, but a political recession. And so we are now facing in the United States, we're in a political recession. And the American people are reacting to that, demanding more radical change. And what I wanna see is people fighting for what they believe in. We got an American Pope.
28:37 Speaker 01 Right, Pope Leo and, and his first, um, you know, encyclical came out on AI. One of the most important human beings on this planet, more impact, more influence, actually talking about what we need to make society function. And some of that's pretty revolutionary, but thi- this needs to be a time of, of great change. What has gotten us here will not get us another 250 years, won't even get us another 25. Patriotism in this country is having the courage, not just to say, I love my country,
29:22 Speaker 01 but having the courage to publicly say when your country is [bleep] up. That's what patriotism is. And we need, uh, patriotic Americans to do precisely that now because it matters.
29:37 Speaker 02 The idea of revolution, which, which scares some people because it sounds like, oh, dramatic change. What you're saying is like, this country needs the revolution and revolution has always been part of the country.
29:49 Speaker 01 Yeah. I mean, again, we had a revolution to start the country. It was successful beyond our wildest dreams and, and, and, and we, and we revere that. And then with FDR, after the Gilded Age, with a New Deal and the creation of an administrative state that allowed generations of Americans to have a better shot. That was a successful political revolution. So three times the charm, but Trump isn't the right guy. Uh, and a lot of people believed in him, you know? I mean, he was able to build himself up, um, and he has some genius. He's not the political revolution we need, um, but we still need a political revolution.
30:34 Speaker 02 Does it need to be structural or is this really like a leadership revolution, like a vision?
30:40 Speaker 01 Revolutions recently that have been successful had a leader attached to them, but not all. I mean, there's Been a green revolution. The world is moving from oil and gas into post-carbon. The Chinese are now leading the world in that, but it's happening. And that was started at a grassroots level. And Trump has helped, by the way. I mean, there's no question that launching this ill-fated war in Iran is gonna do more to move the world away from oil and gas long term than than. Trump will end up being the biggest American president driver for green energy in history. Not intentionally, but nonetheless. And that that's a really positive thing.
31:22 Speaker 02 For July 4th, will you celebrate, America? How how will you celebrate?
31:28 Speaker 01 Absolutely. So it's funny. I am, again, especially as a kid who grew up in the projects and who now, you know, lives with staggering privilege. I have a summer house in Nantucket. They close down Main Street and everybody gets their like their water pistols and the the the fire truck comes down and they they soak everybody, the whole island comes out. But in the morning, the Unitarian church does a reading of the Declaration of Independence and sings some songs and all that. And this year, just just a few days ago, the head of the Unitarian church said that they were gonna protest and they weren't gonna do that for the 4th of July because they're not proud of a lot of things happening politically in the country right now. Voter Rights Act, Supreme Court, all this sort of stuff.
32:12 Speaker 01 And I, for the first time in my life, I publicly came out like on social media and said I strongly disagree with that. Just because the American president is politicizing the 4th of July in ways that I consider completely inappropriate does not mean it's okay for the other side to do that, too. No, we have something to celebrate. And and that is that we have been successful for 250 years with this most unlikely human experiment. And to fix it, we're gonna have to change a bunch of things, but you still come together. And so, as it turns out, that there's a different church on the island that has decided that
32:55 Speaker 01 since the Unitarians aren't doing it, that they're gonna do it instead. So I'll go and do that one. Works for me.
33:02 Speaker 02 Well, Ian, as always, it is great to talk with you and get your insights. Thanks for doing it.
33:07 Speaker 01 Thanks, Bob. Good talking to you.
33:11 Speaker 02 I like the image of Ian and the Nantucket community gathering together to hear the Declaration of Independence. It feels old fashioned and reassuring. But what sticks with me most is a comment he made with the opposite sentiment. This needs to be a time of great change. What Ian is saying is that however impactful and influential America's past and present may be, it is at a crossroads. It needs to refresh its revolutionary spirit, as he describes it. And while that kind of upheaval may be uncomfortable, it's also inevitable. As business leaders, we embrace change because change is necessary
33:50 Speaker 02 for growth and ongoing relevance. As citizens, we need to be equally brave and bold. So, as people raise their voices in praise of a 250-year experiment, let's remember that experimentation is messy and unpredictable and unsettling, and that it's also exciting, energizing, and above all, necessary. For those listening in the US, I hope you and yours have a great July 4th holiday. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.
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36:50 Speaker 02 Rapid Response is a Wait What original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Trow. Our senior producer is Alex Morris and our associate producer is Masha Makutonina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli and Brian Pugh. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Lita Almala. For more, visit rapidresponseshow.com.
37:25 Speaker 03 Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.
37:28 Speaker 04 There's going to be two types of companies. Those who are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't.
37:33 Speaker 05 How do we build a future that is human centered?
37:39 Speaker 06 I'm Rana Elkhayubi. And on my podcast, Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find Pioneers of AI wherever you tune in.
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