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The Preventable Return of Deadly Diseases

The Preventable Return of Deadly Diseases

The David Frum Show vor 1 Jahr

Historian Kyle Harper on the history of plagues, the rise of anti-vaccination politics, and why measles is back in America.

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On this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum
opens with reflections on President Donald Trump’s repeated delays
to enforce the congressionally mandated TikTok ban. He explains how
Trump’s pattern of ignoring laws, whether by inventing tariffs,
bypassing Congress on spending, or granting de facto immunity to
allies, erodes the foundation of our constitutional
government. Then David is joined by the historian Kyle
Harper, author of Plagues Upon the Earth, for a conversation about
infectious disease and the politics of vaccination. They trace
humanity’s long struggle against killers such as smallpox, polio,
and measles, and the scientific breakthroughs that transformed life
expectancy. Harper explains how mistrust, misinformation, and
polarization have fueled a resurgence of measles in the 2020s, even
after it had been eradicated in the United States. Kyle and David
also discuss what Rome can teach us about living with plagues, why
public trust is essential to public health, and why the next
pandemic will find us less prepared than we were for COVID-19.
Finally, David ends the podcast with a discussion of Carl Schmitt’s
The Concept of the Political. He examines how Schmitt’s claim that
politics is defined by the division of friend and enemy is
influencing modern authoritarian thinkers in America. Get more from
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