Jacobin Radio

Latest Episodes:

The Dig: MAGA 2.0 w/ Quinn Slobodian & Wendy Brown Nov 29, 2024

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Featuring Quinn Slobodian and Wendy Brown on Trump’s triumphant return to power and the freakish, obscene, billionaire-dominated, capitalist reactionary, Christian nationalist, contradiction-ridden MAGA movement that surrounds him. A comprehensive early assessment of what is going on, where it’s coming from, and where it all might be heading.

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Long Reads: Netanyahu Is a Wanted Man w/ John Reynolds Nov 28, 2024

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Last week, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant. It was a rare moment of hope for Palestinians, but the US government responded with outrage.

Earlier this year, a report by the Guardian and +972 Magazine showed that Israel had been spying on the ICC for a number of years. The aim of the espionage was to keep track of which particular allegations of war crimes were being investigated by the ICC. Israel would then start its own investigation retroactively into the same allegations. This was designed to undercut the ICC and make it possible for people like US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller to speak about the virtues of the Israeli court system.

Our guest today for a conversation about the ICC arrest warrants is John Reynolds. John is a professor of law at Maynooth University and the author of Empire, Emergency and International Law. He’s joined us twice before on Long Reads to speak about the challenges Israel is facing on the international legal front.

Find his last interview for the podcast, "Backing Israeli Apartheid Isn’t Just Immoral — It’s Illegal," here: https://jacobin.com/2024/08/israeli-apartheid-gaza-icj-icc

Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies, music by Knxwledge.

Jacobin Radio: The Landslide That Wasn't w/ Marc Cooper Nov 26, 2024

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Veteran journalist Marc Cooper joins Suzi to talk about the landslide that wasn’t, Trump’s transition swamp, and the state of the Fourth Estate. Trump’s victory is confined to the undemocratic electoral college. His winning margin in the popular vote is 1.6 percentage points, the smallest in more than 20 years. Trump may claim an historic, unprecedented mandate, but he just squeaked by. He is still dangerous but vulnerable. We talk about the danger and the chaos to come, including the threat to formal democracy.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Behind the News: Ethel Rosenberg's Execution w/ Michael Meeropol Nov 25, 2024

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Michael Meeropol, son of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, talks about how the government executed his mother despite knowing her innocence. Ruth Whippman, author of BOYMOM: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity, discusses the challenges of raising boys.

See recent documents shedding light on "Why Ethel's execution was wrongful": https://www.rfc.org/node/4836

Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global. Find the archive online: https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/radio.html

The Dig: Crypto Dystopia or Popular Democracy w/ Hilary Goodfriend & Jorge Cuéllar Nov 23, 2024

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Featuring Hilary Goodfriend and Jorge Cuéllar in the final installment of a three-part series on Central America. This episode picks up with Nayib Bukele’s authoritarian crypto enthusiasm in El Salvador; Daniel Ortega’s perversion of Sandinismo’s revolutionary legacy in Nicaragua; anti-mining movements in Panama; Honduras and Guatemala, where popular social movements have elected left presidents to confront entrenched power structures. We conclude by discussing mass migration from the region that’s taken on a mystified form in US politics as the MAGA far right’s principal scapegoat.

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Check out nacla.org for in-depth coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean

Buy Defund: Conversations Toward Abolition at haymarketbooks.com

Behind the News: Predicting Trump Policy w/ Alex Vitale & Anatol Lieven Nov 20, 2024

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Anatol Lieven tries to divine a Trump foreign policy out of unreliable rhetoric and early appointments. Alex Vitale tries similar on Trump and criminal justice.

The Dig: Neoliberalism, Violence, Migration w/ Hilary Goodfriend & Jorge Cuéllar Nov 18, 2024

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Featuring Hilary Goodfriend and Jorge Cuéllar in the second of a three (not two!) part series on the history and present of Central America. This interview picks up our discussion of revolutionary armed struggles against brutal US-backed military-oligarchic regimes in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. Then, the peace accords and postwar transitions accompanied by the imposition of neoliberal economic restructuring. Finally, the rise of mass migration, new transnational gangs, and the regime of El Salvador’s authoritarian Bitcoin enthusiast Nayib Bukele. And more.

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Want to learn more? Greg Grandin on The Dig: thedigradio.com/podcast/empires-workshop-with-greg-grandin

We now have a special feed dedicated entirely to our Thawra series. Listen and spread the word: thedigradio.com/Thawra

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Jacobin Radio: Return of the Trumpian Right w/ Dylan Riley Nov 18, 2024

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Suzi talks to UC Berkeley sociologist Dylan Riley, who has written a great deal about fascism and far right politics. The US has just elected to the Presidency a man who represents a dire threat to democracy and constitutional rule as we know it. We get Dylan’s understanding of the specificity of Trump’s politics, the basis of his support, and the fascistic measures favored by people in and around his party, including the frightening Project 2025. Central to MAGA is a reactionary view of gender, which sees women’s advances happening at the expense of men and their traditional family role. Dylan sees Trump as more of a patrimonial misfit, a charismatic leader who rules more incoherently than a consistent fascist. We also ask how Trump fits in with analogous movements of the far right around the world.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

Long Reads: The Forever War on Gaza w/ Akbar Shahid Ahmed Nov 14, 2024

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Earlier this week, Joe Biden welcomed the Israeli president Isaac Herzog to the White House. Last October, Herzog announced that there were no innocent civilians in Gaza. The International Court of Justice cited his comments as evidence that the Palestinian people needed protection from the threat of genocide.

Akbar Shahid Ahmed of the Huffington Post has been following the Biden administration’s support for the Israeli attack on Gaza from the start. He’s currently working on a book that will give a detailed account of the inside story. Akbar has joined the podcast twice before to discuss the latest developments. Dan spoke to him again after the US presidential election about the events of the past few months and what is likely to happen next.

Find our last Long Reads interview with Akbar here: https://jacobin.com/2024/06/biden-administration-israel-cease-fire-policy

And read his ongoing coverage for Huffington Post here: https://www.huffpost.com/author/akbar-shahid-ahmed

Jacobin Radio: Post-Election Analysis w/ Robert Brenner Nov 13, 2024

Show notes

We look at the election results that took many of us by surprise — giving Donald Trump and Republicans an across the board victory. For a look at the bigger picture, Suzi speaks to Robert Brenner, professor of history at UCLA, for analysis and some post-election blues. This podcast was recorded on November 8, before all the votes were counted along the West Coast. The final tallies will likely shrink Trump’s margin of victory, but not the overall results. The striking character of the Trump victory is attributable virtually entirely by the drop off in the vote for the Democrats. We try to understand what happened, and how to analyze this shift to the right.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

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