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“The big question of our time is less, ‘What does it mean to be American?’ than, ‘What does it mean to be white American in an age of ethnic change?’” writes Eric Kaufmann in his new book Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities. Kaufmann’s book is unusual in two respects. First, it’s explicit (and persuasive) in its argument that demographic change and the white backlash to demographic change are behind the rise of rightwing populism across the West. Second, it argues that the right response is to slow demographic change and calm the fears of white majorities. I think Kaufmann’s framework of what’s driving political conflict right now is correct. I have more trouble with his vision of what to do about it. But this is a book, in my view, that gets to the core debate of contemporary politics and takes it on directly. That’s why I wanted to have this conversation. Book recommendations: The Ethnic Origins of Nationsby Anthony D. Smith The Cultural Contradictions Of Capitalismby Daniel Bell NEXT AMERICAN NATION: The New Nationalism and the Fourth American Revolutionby Michael Lind Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right now this spinning land mass we call Earth is host to over 7 billion hungry human mouths to feed. Our current set up for handling this relentless, growing need isn't just problematic, it's broken, outdated technology that is making us sick and decimating the planet at an unfathomable rate. If we want to preserve a vibrant planet for future generations, it is imperative we find better, more innovative, more economic, more compassionate, more sustainable ways to sate the population. This is a long way of saying it's high time for a paradigm shift. If you listened to my podcast with Kip Anderson and Keegan Kuhn – the guys behind the highly compelling documentary Cowspiracy (I implore you to check out both the podcast and the film if you haven't already), then you already know that industrialized animal agriculture is our #1 environmental threat — far more deleterious to planetary health than transportation or fracking and the current leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution and habitat destruction. Adopting a plant-based diet is the single most powerful thing we can do as consumers to take a stand against this insanity. But to truly solve this problem we need to first acknowledge that we have a serious protein fixation. Facilitating a mass cultural shift away from our strong preference towards an animal-centric diet requires more than a simple plea to go vegan. To truly break the paradigm we need phenomenal food alternatives with mainstream appeal. Products that aren't just more sustainable and consciously harvested, but inventive products that rival, if not altogether outdo our appetite for beef, chicken, fish and eggs in not just nutritional content, but in flavor, taste and texture as well. The good news is that there are super intelligent, highly motivated people hard at work on just this — innovating brand new ways to improve human health, positively impact climate change, address global resource constraints and improve animal welfare with products, which for lack of a better phrase, simply taste good. Ethan Brown is one such innovator. Conceived in 2009 as a potential solution to problems he saw with the meat industry, Ethan founded Beyond Meat with a singular goal — to produce plant-based food products that would essentially replicate meat in an effort to render some of the downsides of the meat industry obsolete. In the same way last week's podcast guest Joshua Katcher implicitly understands that ethically manufactured garments must outmatch their less sustainable comparisons in fashion flair, Ethan understands that to win mainstream hearts and minds, his food products need more than satisfy the palates of enthusiastic carnivores. Backed by heavy hitters like Bill Gates and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, it's not a stretch to say Ethan is well on his way to achieving this goal. Food impresario Alton Brown called Beyond Meat's Chicken Strips “more like meat than anything...