American Prestige

Daniel Bessner & Derek Davison•www.americanprestigepod.com

A podcast from Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison that provides listeners with everything they need to know about what’s going on in the world. americanprestige.supportingcast.fm

Last refreshed: March 3rd, 2026 at 5:47 PM ⓘ

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Episodes

E218 - How The Internet Broke America w/ Garrett Graff

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content. Don't forget to vote for American Prestige in the Signal Awards! Danny welcomes to the show journalist and historian Garrett Graff, host of the podcast Long Shadow . They talk about the show’s latest season on the internet, tracing how its promise of democratization and liberation devolved into an engine of polarization and conspiracies. Topics include: Facebook’s cynical algorithmic choices, Watergate’s enduring influence on American political...

Sep 30, 2025•41 min

Bonus - Dead End Democrats w/ Ross Barkan (Preview)

Subscribe now for the full episode! Vote for American Prestige in the Signal Awards! Danny and Derek talk with writer Ross Barkan about his new essay collection Fascism or Genocide . They get into the “uncommitted” revolt during the 2024 primary and what that says about the Democratic Party’s failures, the decline of party elites from the Hillary coronation in 2016 to Biden’s cognitive decline, generational change inside the party like Zoran Mamdani, Democrats resistance to their own base, Trump...

Sep 28, 2025•10 min

Bonus - The U.S. Military vs. the Environment w/ Gretchen Heefner

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content. Vote for us now in the Signal Awards . No news today because Derek needs a break! Danny and Derek speak with historian Gretchen Heefner about how the U.S. military (unsuccessfully) set out to conquer extreme environments and what those efforts reveal about empire, climate, and power. They discuss the U.S. Army training for a desert war that turned out to be mud, the Pentagon’s disastrous attempts to master Greenland’s ice, early blueprints for ...

Sep 26, 2025•56 min

E217 - A New History of the Americas, Pt. 2 w/ Greg Grandin

Subscribe now to get skip the ads and get more content! Danny and Derek once again speak with historian Greg Grandin about his recent book, America, América: A New History of the New World . In this second part of the conversation, they follow US–Latin American relations from the American Civil War through the present. The discussion covers the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the contradictions of U.S. expansion cloaked in the language of human rights, the Mexican Revolution as a defining chall...

Sep 23, 2025•1 hr 11 min

Bonus - Maduro, Trump, and Washington’s Narco-Terrorism Fixation w/ Alex Aviña and Gabriel Hetland (Preview)

Derek welcomes back Gabriel Hetland, associate professor at the University at Albany, and Alex Aviña, associate professor at Arizona State University, to talk about America’s latest moves against Venezuela. They discuss the long US campaign to topple Nicolás Maduro, Washington’s resurrection of the “narco-terrorism” label, the oil politics behind US incoherence in the region, Maduro’s domestic maneuvering, and how Trump’s recent assertions of dominance risk sparking a wider regional crisis. Lear...

Sep 21, 2025•10 min

News - Gaza City Ground Invasion, US War on “Narco-Terror” in the Caribbean, Russia Sanctions Standoff

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content! Derek is joined once again by guest co-host Alex Jordan to bring you the news. This week: in Israel-Palestine, Israel commences its ground operation in Gaza City (1:50), a UN commission rules that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (8:14), and Netanyahu touts a “Sparta” model for Israel while Smotrich talks Gaza real estate (9:39); fallout from Israel’s strike in Qatar continues (15:04); nuclear talks between Iran and European nations make l...

Sep 19, 2025•1 hr 7 min

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