Episode Details

Somewhere between what we're taught and what we actually believe, there's a gap—and someone is always ready to fill it. Kelly sits down again with America's government teacher, Sharon McMahon, recorded live on stage at the Aspen Ideas Festival, to trace the invisible architecture of how a country teaches itself what's true. They talk about the seduction of confidence and the strange new authority of the comment section, circling a bigger question: whether the most dangerous thing in a democracy is ignorance, or charisma without accountability. It's a conversation about the discomfort required to actually think for yourself, and what happens to a nation when no one can agree on the story it's telling.

Check out Sharon's book which Kelly mentioned: The Small and the Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement