Monday morning, Ian Bremmer joined us at Cushman & Wakefield to sit down with Chicago Ideas Founder & Chairman and Uptake Founder & CEO Brad Keywell for a fascinating and thoughtful discussion that explored the political conditions leading to the next wave of global populism. Bremmer was candid and generous with his perspective, allowing attendees to push aside bias to examine global issues with a fresh outlook and to face the realities of our world today. Below we’ve rounded up six quotes from the morning that sum up the biggest takeaways.

“I’m not a member of a political party, but I am deeply empathetic to people around the world.”

“If you ask me what’s going to change in Washington, it has to get worse before it gets better.”

“Conversations with people still matter—no matter how important your company is, how big your network is.”

“Our system is really robust at finding ways to disenfranchise people.”

“I want to have leaders in the world who are investing more in factfulness.”

“To be fair, the United States is low on my list of concern. We’re very wealthy; most Americans don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it.”

Looking for more on this topic? Bremmer recommended Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World–and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, and we recommend picking up a copy of Ian Bremmer’s latest book Us vs. Them: The Failure of Globalism.