Today we take a break from exhausting primary news to have writer and University of Michigan lecturer Phil Christman on to discuss his upcoming book Midwest Futures (you can pre-order here ). We discuss the history and nature of the Midwest, what he learned growing up there, how the Trump era has changed his political thinking, and more. Enjoy! Also, you can subscribe to Phil's newsletter here ....
Here we discuss why we won't vote for Michael Bloomberg if he is nominated. Subscribe here to hear the full episode!
Just Ryan today with a quick pre-New Hampshire episode going through Reed Hundt's excellent book A Crisis Wasted about the presidential transition in 2007-8 and Obama's consequential early decisions as president. We go through how Obama allowed Bush Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to set the priorities for the bank bailout (thus ensuring Wall Street would not be cut down to size), how Obama allowed his Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to turn homeowner assistance policy into a quiet backdoor bail...
Ryan is back from vacation so we return with a discussion of the Iowa clusterfuck: How Bernie edged out Pete Buttigieg in the popular vote and tied in pleged delegates, how Biden collapsed, how and why the caucus was bungled so horribly, and what it maybe means for the next few primaries. Enjoy!
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Today we have the Brothers Alvarez -- Maximillian and Zak -- of the Working People Podcast on with a crossover episode. We discuss what Zak learned from his time in the University of Chicago economics department, how they were both radicalized by the financial crisis, and more. Enjoy!
With New Hampshire coming up, we've unlocked our episode on the Bernie-Warren competition.
Bit of a different episode today: Ryan reads a very long 1997 essay about the Second World War by the late Lee Sandlin called " Losing the War " (with permission from Nina Sandlin). Though it takes three hours to finish, it's a remarkable piece about the way the nature of the war was obscured from public view, why wars happen, and what we should remember about it today. Enjoy!
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Today we've got UC Davis Professor of History Eric Rauchway on to talk the history of the New Deal, particularly the transition period in the winter of 1932-33 covered in his book Winter War . We take apart the common false belief, held by both Republicans and Democrats (including Barack Obama) that FDR deliberately refused to help Herbert Hoover fix the Great Depression so he could get the New Deal passed, when in fact it was Hoover who refused to help in an effort to get Roosevelt to abandon a...
Today we've got two professional union organizers on to talk about the state of labor organizing in 2019 -- the tactics of the union busters, the hostility of the Trump administration, and the brushfire labor militancy that has sprung up across the country. Read more about Google's union-busting tactics here , and find the essay about progressive union-busters here ....
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We've got Professor Nicole Fabricant from Towson University to discuss what's going on in Bolivia. We talk about Evo Morales' flawed but decent record, the source of right-wing authoritarian sentiment, and the military coup that displaced him. Enjoy! Her book Mobilizing Bolivia's Displaced can be found here.
Today we've got Ezra Levin, co-author of the book We Are Indivisible (along with his wife Leah Greenberg) to talk about how he fell, by his own account, ass-backwards into leading a national political movement. We discuss the nature of political organizing in the online age, what objectives Indivisible is focusing on, and what lessons others might learn from them. Enjoy!
We have on Nicholas Buccola to talk about his book The Fire Is Upon Us , which is a history of the famous debate between James Baldwin and William F. Buckley. We discuss why Baldwin whipped Buckley so handily, how Buckley's rhetoric of racial resentment and anti-democratic views continue to hold sway on the right, and more! You can watch the debate here , and find Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's book From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation that was mentioned here ....
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We've got Professor Matt Karp of Princeton on to discuss his new Catalyst article on " The Mass Politics of Antislavery ," his first preview of a new book on the history of the 1850s that is in progress. Then we turn to the debate about Bernie, Warren, and the upper-middle class, starting with another article: " A Socialist Party in Our Time? " by Abbott and Guastella. Check out his book This Vast Southern Empire here ....
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Today we've got Heidi Sloan , a DSA member who is running for Congress in Texas' 25th district. We chat about what got her into politics, what it's like running as a DSA member, what is most important to her about politics, what attracted her to the People's Policy Project's Family Fun Pack , and more. (PPP has also endorsed her candidacy .) Enjoy!...
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Today we've got Professor Harvey Kaye on to discuss his upcoming book Take Hold of Our History: Make America Radical Again . We discuss how many of the grim realities of American reality and history are totally at odds with our founding values and aspirations -- but also how on many occasions Americans have made serious efforts to live up to them, and changed this country for the better. Enjoy!...
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Today we've got Professor Jedediah Purdy on to discuss his new book This Land Is Our Land: The Struggle for a New Commonwealth . We talk about how he distinguishes a socialist society from a commonwealth, the advanced case of political rot in the United States, what is to be done about climate change, and more. Enjoy!
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Here's a little excerpt from a story by Ryan's father about running the Little Colorado during a flood. Find the whole thing here !
If a Democrat wins the White House next year, they will almost certainly not have 60 votes in the Senate, or perhaps even a majority. New bold legislation like a Green New Deal will face a near-impossible uphill struggle. But hang on -- it turns out there are gigantic reams of statutory authority just waiting to be picked up. We've got David Dayen , executive editor of The American Prospect, on to talk about his fresh magazine issue laying out just some of these tools. The Prospect has Marcia Br...
In this excerpt we discuss how Republican electoral cheating reveals their lack of power in an Arendtian sense. Subscribe now to hear the full episode!
Today we've got on Liza Featherstone to chat about her article on the families of 2020 candidates. From there we move onto a broader discussion of the merits of Bernie vs. Warren, how FDR became a class traitor, whether Lincoln was any good, and more! Also links to her books: Divining Desire and Selling Women Short ....
We've got writer David Klion on to discuss the freshly updated magazine Jewish Currents , Center for American Progress chief Neera Tanden's decision to bust the ThinkProgress union, the prospects for imperial rollback after 2020, how far the new Koch- and Soros-funded Quincy Institute should be trusted, and the evolution of Bernie Sanders' foreign policy thinking. Here are his Nation articles: on Matt Duss , lefty foreign policy , and the Quincy Institute ....
We bring on Dr. Jamaal Green -- otherwise known as the Surly Urbanist -- to talk about the ongoing debate about the role of slavery in early capitalism. Was it necessary to get capitalist development started, or did it actually slow down economic growth? Moreover, why is this an important question, and what does the gruesome history of slavery tell us about the nature of capitalist institutions? Tune in to find out!
