Is It Time to Let Our Illusions Die? (with Obama National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes)

Ben Rhodes (0:00)

We never went into a room thinking about how to mess up Afghanistan that day. We were well intentioned. I went to work thinking I was going to try to make Afghanistan better, and I remember this person saying, what you were doing is you were creating chaos, you were creating violence. And I remember saying, honestly, I thought, I never went to a meeting where that was the purpose of the meeting, and she's like, what was the outcome?

You have to work backwards from what was happening.

Sam Fragoso (0:36)

Welcome to the show.

Today, writer and former Obama advisor, Ben Rhodes. For eight years, Rhodes served in the Obama White House, first as a speechwriter and later as a deputy national security advisor, working on everything from the war in Afghanistan and the Arab Spring to the Iran nuclear deal and the normalization of relations with Cuba. But since leaving the White House, Rhodes has grown increasingly interested in interrogating the systems he spent his life working within. The establishment logic, the institutional mindset, the Washington playbook that often ignores life beyond the Beltway. And the kicker is, he's been doing this work in full view. He's an opinion writer for the New York Times, an analyst for MSNOW, and the co-host of his podcast, Pod Save the World. His new book, All We Say, is a collection of 15 pivotal speeches from American history, including those from Ben Franklin, Donald Trump, and his former boss that tell us what it means to be American. And so, ahead of the high-level meetings at this year's UN General Assembly, I wanted to sit with Rhodes to discuss the ongoing war with Iran, the erosion of international law, his years writing for President Obama, the key decisions and compromises their administration made over two terms, the rise of authoritarianism here and abroad, the responsibility Democrats have in that ascension, and how we may go about rebuilding institutions in the image of the people they proclaim to be working for and protecting. That's coming up next with Ben Rhodes.

Ben Rhodes, thank you for being here.

Ben Rhodes (2:17)

Thanks for having me.

Sam Fragoso (2:18)

How are we doing?

Ben Rhodes (2:19)

We're not doing great. You're probably like me where people are like, hey, how are you? And you say, I'm doing great. And then you feel like you have to caveat it, despite the state of the world or something, especially me because people think, not wrongly, that I'm following things, but it's not good out there.

Sam Fragoso (2:38)

I have to tell you, I'd be a little nervous if you weren't following things.

Ben Rhodes (2:41)

I'd be a bit of a fraud if I wasn't.

Sam Fragoso (2:43)

I thought, what are all those eight years for?

On a recent sub stack, you wrote a post called Let the Illusions Die, where you wrote of this moment, this is an anxious time. Old orders are vanishing along with the illusions that sustain them. New technologies are transforming human life without a sense of where it's all going. And somehow the daily realities of life coincide with the forces remaking it. Systems that feel beyond our control, despite our participation in them.

Ben Rhodes (3:14)

What I'm getting at there is there are these existential things happening. We all sense it, you know. Technology, it doesn't feel good anymore. One of our illusions was technology improves our lives. Are we sure about that? You know, it's hot.

But we don't like to talk about climate change anymore, because it's not politically popular to talk about that.

America, are we sure we're the good guys? You know, I think a lot of people are wrestling, they look at things like the war in Iran, and that the illusion that we had, the assumption that, you know, well, we might get some things wrong, but I think we all in this country have some vague sense that, I don't, this doesn't feel right. But we kind of keep plugging into it. Capitalism, climate change, technology. And, you know, I've lived long enough now to see the danger in thinking that the next election is going to fix things. And actually, I think some of the challenges in our society go a little deeper than that.

Sam Fragoso (4:18)

And when did you stop believing the next election was going to fix things?

Ben Rhodes (4:22)

I'll be pretty blunt in terms of, you know, speaking against my own political tribe. It was after Joe Biden was elected, because-

Sam Fragoso (4:32)

Why was that?

Ben Rhodes (4:33)

Because like, you know, I think there was this kind of presumption among a lot of people, and I kind of shared it, that, well, Trump, you know, he's this aberration, and if we can just kind of wait him out and get past him. But, you know, Biden got elected, and politics is still toxic, and the problems are still growing, and even things he did that I liked kind of felt like drops in an ocean.