The first big election of 2025 will be in Wisconsin, which elects a new Supreme Court Justice on April 1. Elon Musk is spending hundreds of millions in that race. That’s both a threat, and an opportunity for Democrats. On this episode of Start Making Sense , John Nichols will comment. Also: How did we end up with Trump back in the White House? We got here in part because Republicans built a movement over several decades centered on what are called “the culture wars.” But there’s a long history b...
Feb 19, 2025•39 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Danny and Derek are joined by Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, and Aslı Bâli, professor of law at Yale Law School and nonresident fellow at Quincy, to talk about the Institute’s Better Order Project, a collaboration between over 130 people from more than 40 countries creating proposals for a stable, multipolar world. They talk about the vision of moving beyond the current “rules-based” order in favor of an inclusive, global one...
Feb 18, 2025•56 min
On this week's news roundup from American Prestige : Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin agree to start bilateral peace talks for the war in Ukraine (1:05), with anticipated fallout for the latter nation (6:17); Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth makes some frank comments on Europe, Ukraine, and NATO (8:06); an update on the situation in Israel-Palestine, including Hamas threatening to delay the next hostage release over Israeli transgressions (12:06) and Trump continuing to push a US takeover of Gaz...
Feb 14, 2025•45 min
Paris Marx is joined by Eoin Higgins to discuss how tech billionaires changed the media ecosystem and made it profitable for influential voices to shift to the political right. Eoin Higgins is a journalist and the author of Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices on the Left . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Feb 13, 2025•53 min
Trump has lost a series of major legal battles in the last week, where courts have ruled that key executive orders of his are unconstitutional. But what happens if Trump defies the courts? David Cole comments—he recently stepped down as national legal director of the ACLU to return to teaching law at Georgetown University. Also: “One of the most important lawsuits in the history of the United States” (The American Prospect): the suit brought by Public Citizen to stop Elon Musk’s attempted takeov...
Feb 12, 2025•39 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Peter Beinart speaks with Danny and Derek about his book Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning , American Jews’ conception of and relationship with Israel, and how things have changed since the start of the genocide in Gaza. They explore why Peter centers being Jewish at this moment, what he’s seen happen in the Jewish community since October 7, Palestinian dehumanization among American Jews, liberal Zionism and the two-state solution, the...
Feb 11, 2025•57 min
On this week's news roundup from American Prestige : Donald Trump proposes the US take over the Gaza Strip (0:32), prompting mixed responses at home (9:16) as well as abroad (15:18); the US vows to return to a "maximum pressure" Iran policy (17:08); in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the M23 ceasefire fizzles out (20:04); Trump threatens to cut off funding to South Africa over certain land policies (22:10); Ukraine offers minerals in exchange for Trump's support (25:02); Secretary of...
Feb 07, 2025•41 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , we're joined by Liz Pelly to discuss how Spotify changes how we listen to music and the broader impacts it has on the wider music industry. Liz Pelly is a music journalist and the author of Mood Machine . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Feb 06, 2025•1 hr 6 min
Understanding our power: “If you’re always consumed by the next outrage, you can’t look closely at the last one.” (Ezra Klein) Last week, Trump tried to stop payment of all federal grants and assistance. But people rose up in protest, and within a day Trump rescinded the entire effort. How did we do it? What does that tell us about him--and about our power? Rebecca Solnit comments – her new blog is “Meditations in an Emergency.” Also: Trump’s strategy of flooding the zone with executive actions ...
Feb 05, 2025•41 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Derek speaks with Marie-Rose Tshite, a peacebuilding advocate and Ph.D. student in Political Science with a concentration in Feminist Comparative and International Politics at the University of Cincinnati, about M23 and the situation in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They explore the group’s origins, its ties with the Rwandan government, other external actors, the recent seizure of Goma, minerals and the economic factors driving the conflict, the...
Feb 04, 2025•48 min
Running for president last year, Donald Trump disowned Project 2025, the laundry list of radical demands gathered together by right-wing think tanks. Trump claimed Project 2025 had no influence on him and was only being raised by Democrats as a political attack. But now Trump is in power, he’s enacting an agenda of dismantling the welfare state that is following Project 2025 in close detail, as my Nation colleague Chris Lehmann documented in a recent column . Chris and Jeet Heer talk about Trump...
Feb 01, 2025•37 min
This week: in Israel-Palestine, detainees were exchanged on Thursday (0:31), the IDF continues its operation in the West Bank (6:05), an update on the humanitarian situation in Gaza (7:40), and Trump proposes the idea of ethnically cleansing the Strip (10:34); in Lebanon, the IDF ignores its withdrawal deadline (15:02); in Syria, the political transition continues (17:00), the IDF remains in the country’s south (19:04), and negotiations with Russia are underway over its bases in Syria as well as...
Jan 31, 2025•44 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by Chris Gilliard to discuss David Golumbia's final book Cyberlibertarianism and how right-wing politics shaped how we think about the internet. Chris Gilliard is co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute and author of the forthcoming book Luxury Surveillance, coming in 2026. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Jan 30, 2025•58 min
Our attention is limited. That makes it valuable, Chis Hayes says– not just to us, but to those who’d like to exploit it. Chris’s new book is The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource; before he became host of “All in with Chris Hayes” on MSNBC, he was The Nation’s Washington Correspondent. Also: Your Minnesota Moment: officials in sanctuary cities and counties in Minnesota face threats from the Trump administration. Host Jon Wiener explains the threats to undoc...
Jan 29, 2025•31 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Lydia Walker, historian at Ohio State University, is back with Danny and Derek to conclude the conversation about her book States-in-Waiting: A Counternarrative of Global Decolonization . This time, the group explores post-colonial states following colonial borders, how business interests shaped things in states like Namibia, progressive capitalism, how the Cold War defined horizons of political possibility for nationalist actors, legitimacy as dictated by ...
Jan 28, 2025•55 min
On this week's American Prestige news roundup: in Gaza, the ceasefire takes effect (0:37), allowing a surge of humanitarian aid (3:51), the latter being partly facilitated by Hamas’s police force back in power (5:50). Meanwhile, an agreement on the second phase of the ceasefire remains to be seen (7:56); the IDF launches a new operation in the West Bank (14:38); negotiations between the government and SDF continue in Syria (17:11); Turkey hints at a possible thaw with the Kurdish PKK (20:13); Af...
Jan 24, 2025•50 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by Gaby Del Valle to discuss the inauguration of Donald Trump and what the tech oligarchy hopes to get from their relationship with him. Gaby Del Valle is a policy reporter at The Verge and is working on a book on ecofascism that will be released by Bloomsbury in 2027. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Jan 23, 2025•53 min
How Trump ‘won’: In 2024, 244 million Americans were eligible to vote. 31.5% voted for Trump, 30.6 % voted for Harris, 38% did not vote. Trump won the same share of the eligible voters as he did four years ago (32%), But Harris’s share of eligible voters fell by 3.5 points compared to Biden. Why did 7 million Democratic voters stay home? Harold Meyerson has our analysis—he’s editor-at-large of The American Prospect. Also: now that Trump is preparing to round up and deport undocumented residents,...
Jan 22, 2025•31 min
On this episode of American Prestige , we speak with Lydia Walker, historian at Ohio State University, about her book States-in-Waiting: A Counternarrative of Global Decolonization . The group discusses narratives of decolonization that Lydia wanted to challenge before exploring the “transnational advocacy network” and non-state actors she features in the book like Naga nationalist leader Angami Zapu Phizo, Indian politician Jayaprakash Narayan, anti-apartheid minister Michael Scott, the latter ...
Jan 21, 2025•48 min
On this week's news roundup from American Prestige : the terms and concerns of the Gaza ceasefire (0:30); Lebanon elects new PM Nawaf Salam (8:02); worries arise over foreign fighters in Syria’s new administration (12:21); in Sudan, the military takes Wad Madani, leading to reprisal killings (14:40); Somalia and Ethiopia agree to restore full relations (18:59); the TikTok saga continues (21:28); President Yoon of South Korea is finally arrested (23:55); in Russia-Ukraine, the US issues new sanct...
Jan 17, 2025•40 min
On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by Jathan Sadowski to discuss the relationship between technology and capitalism, and what lessons can be taken from the Luddites to properly assess and understand these systems. Jathan Sadowski is is the author of The Mechanic and the Luddite: A Ruthless Criticism of Technology and Capitalism . He’s also the co-host of This Machine Kills and a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Information Technology at Monash University. Advertising I...
Jan 16, 2025•1 hr 3 min
As we prepare for Trump to take office next week, we're getting ready to challenge him and his people in the upcoming elections later this year. But before that, we have an important election in the next few weeks: the Democratic National Committee will elect a new chair on February 1 to prepare for the battles and the campaigns to come. For our analysis we turn to John Nichols. Also: Trump promises to deport millions of undocumented residents, while Republicans in Congress threaten a nationwide...
Jan 15, 2025•37 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Udi Greenberg, associate professor of history at Dartmouth, is back on the podcast to talk about the state of politics within Israel. We discuss the major factors driving domestic politics, the ruling coalition, ultra-Orthodox military exemption, the “centrist” faction, Yoav Gallant, the politics around national security, Israeli media narratives about Gaza, resettling the Strip, and more. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Op...
Jan 14, 2025•47 min
On this episode of The Time of Monsters , Jeet Heer and Nora Loreto on how political disarray in Canada’s political elite in the face of MAGA taunting. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Jan 11, 2025•42 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Danny and Derek return to the newsroom for the first time in 2025! This week for our news roundup: the transition process continues in Syria (1:48) as the US government beginning relations with the new Syrian leadership (7:11), but fighting continues between Turkey and the SDF (10:25); in Lebanon, the IDF faces a withdrawal deadline (13:48) and the parliament finally elects a new president (15:46); yet more Gaza ceasefire talks are underway (19:37); the dow...
Jan 10, 2025•48 min
On this episode of Tech Won’t Save Us , Paris Marx is joined by Will Tavlin to discuss how the Netflix model transformed film into the Typical Netflix Movie and how the company uses claims about data to deceive the public. Will Tavlin is a New York-based writer who has written for n+1, Bookforum, and the Columbia Journalism Review. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Jan 09, 2025•1 hr 6 min
On this episode of Start Making Sense : Trump’s ‘dictatorship on day one’ will feature executive orders to deport undocumented residents. Ahilan Arulanantham, co-director of the Center for Immigration Law & Policy at UCLA Law School, will explain the legal strategy to be deployed by the sanctuary states and cities, Also: Not everything is about Donald Trump. The Geneva Freeport, for example – where it doesn’t matter who is president of the US. The Freeport is a place where the world’s riches...
Jan 08, 2025•46 min
On this episode of American Prestige , Danny and Derek speak with Colette Shade, who just released her debut collection of essays Y2K: How the 2000s Became Everything (Essays on the Future That Never Was) . They discuss the fine line between ordinary nostalgia and lamenting the decline in material conditions, the advent of the internet and how it shaped a generation, how the millenials who grew up with the promise of the 90s compare with Gen Z and Alpha, the reality of globalization, how 9/11 ma...
Jan 07, 2025•1 hr 10 min
On this episode of The Time of Monsters, David Klion and Matt Duss on a popular right-wing fabulist. Has former president Barack Obama secretly been running the American elite — including the media and wide parts of the government — for nearly 20 years? Has he been doing so on behalf of a subversive agenda to empower Iran and undermine American exceptionalism? That’s the argument made by David Samuels in a much-read piece in The Tablet . On this episode, I dissect Samuels arguments with two frie...
Jan 04, 2025•46 min
The endlessly elusive Bob Dylan seems an unlikely candidate for a Hollywood biopic. John Powers, Critic-at-Large on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” talks about how the new movie “A Complete Unknown” captures a defining moment in his career -- and in American culture . Also: Our holiday reading guide: Dozens of books about Trump were published at the end of his first term, some selling millions of copies. Now that he’s coming back, it’s time to look at what some of those books had to say about him. Host Jon W...
Dec 31, 2024•30 min
