The Nation Podcasts

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How The Internet Broke America w/ Garrett Graff | American Prestige Sep 30, 2025

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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 culture, the economic wreckage of deindustrialization and deregulation, the rise of Trumpism as a “burn it down” vote, and the coming AI disruption that threatens white-collar work.

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The Emptiness of Bob Woodward w/ Matt Duss | The Nation Podcast Sep 29, 2025

Show notes

For over 50 years, Bob Woodward has had an uncanny ability to get sources talking—and to sell books. From Watergate to Trump, no political era has gone by without at least one Woodward tome promising to peel back the curtain on how Washington really works. Now, Woodward is out with his latest, the bluntly titled “War.” It’s billed as a look at the end of the Joe Biden presidency and beginning of the second Trump era. But what it really shows is what happens when a reporter evolves from a muckraker into a reputation-launderer for the establishment.

Joining us on the podcast today is Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Bernie Sanders. Duss’s review of War is in the October books issue of the Nation.

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Who Are the Shooters? w/ Ken Klippenstein | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Sep 28, 2025

Show notes

The United States continues to be roiled by political violence, with the recent shooting at an ICE

facility in Dallas coming hot on the heels of the assassination of Charlie Kirk and a school

shooting in Colorado committed by a neo-Nazi. Some of the best reporting on these events has

been done by Ken Klippenstein for his Substack. I spoke with Ken about what he’s discovered

when he interviewed those who knew the alleged shooters, how his findings go against the

simplistic partisan interpretations offered by both the left and right, as well as the dangerous

ways the Trump administration is using the shootings for a crackdown on civil liberties.

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An Unreasonable Woman with Diane Wilson | A People's Climate Sep 27, 2025

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In this episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray sits down with Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper and relentless environmental activist, to explore her decades-long fight against Formosa Plastics—a $250 billion petrochemical giant polluting the Texas Gulf Coast.

From hunger strikes to scaling the White House fence, Diane’s unwavering activism has not only won a historic $50 million settlement, but transformed her community’s fisheries and galvanized citizen-led environmental justice.

Her story is a masterclass in persistence, civil disobedience, and the power of ordinary people to create extraordinary change.

Learn more at apeoplesclimate.org

Resources:

Presented by Counterstream Media and The Nation

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The US Military vs. the Environment w/ Gretchen Heefner | American Prestige Sep 26, 2025

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Danny and Derek speak with historian Gretchen Heefner about how the US military (unsuccessfully) set out to conquer extreme environments and what those efforts reveal about empire, climate, and power. They discuss the US 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 building on the moon, efforts to gather “environmental intelligence” across the globe, and other failed endeavors showing the limits of American military power.

Read Gretchen’s book Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How U.S. Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments now!

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Is Tesla Still a Car Company? w/ Ed Niedermeyer | Tech Won't Save Us Sep 25, 2025

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Paris Marx is joined by Ed Niedermeyer to discuss the mission to turn Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire, Tesla’s growing interest in making robots instead of cars, and how other automakers are coming for the EV market it once dominated.

Ed Niedermeyer is the author of ⁠Ludicrous⁠ and co-host of the ⁠Autonocast⁠.

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How We Defeated Trump on Jimmy Kimmel—plus, the attacks on Harvard | Start Making Sense Sep 24, 2025

Show notes

Trump is trying to block speech that criticizes him. Last week began with JD Vance complaining about an article in The Nation that criticized the ideas of Charlie Kirk. Two days after that, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel. And a few days after that, a protest movement forced ABC to put him back on the air. Bhaskar Sunkara comments on the fight over freedom of speech - he's president of The Nation Magazine.

Also: Attacking Harvard is not unique to Trump -- for decades, indeed for centuries, American politicians have made hay by going after Harvard. Historian Beverely Gage talks about what’s familiar, and what’s new, in Trump’s efforts – based on a reconsideration of Richard Hofstadter’s classic 1963 book “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.”

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A New History of the Americas, Pt. 2 w/ Greg Grandin | American Prestige Sep 23, 2025

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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 challenge to US power, Woodrow Wilson’s and FDR’s occupations and the Good Neighbor Policy, the Cold War, the neoliberal turn, the endurance of social movements in the face of American-backed violence, and why contemporary Latin American politics still display revolutionary undercurrents.

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The MAGA Fashion Revolution | The Nation Podcast Sep 22, 2025

Show notes

Donald Trump and his MAGA movement haven’t just taken over Republican politics. They’ve also taken over Republican fashion.

Gone is the stuffy, genteel uniform of the elite. In its place: a loud, anti-establishment, even vulgar sartorial agenda. But what does this style actually say about MAGA politics? What do these clothes suggest about the authenticity of the movement’s leaders—especially when so many of Trump’s policies remain old-school conservative? And what messages do these looks send when their words often mean something else entirely?

To help us unpack the fashion evolution of the political establishment, we’re joined by Derek Guy—better known online as the Menswear Guy and creator of the blog Die Workwear!

Derek has written for The New York Times, the Financial Times, and other outlets. His essay, “From Blazers to Belligerence,” appears in the October books issue of The Nation.

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What Bari Weiss Is Really Up To | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer Sep 21, 2025

Show notes

Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, has often been profiled in the media, but usually in a superficial way that focuses on her personality and disputes with fellow journalists. She is currently on the cusp of great power, reportedly working on a deal to sell The Free Press and take a senior position at CBS.

David Klion, Nation columnist and frequent guest on the podcast, has written an exceptionally trenchant analysis for The Guardian of Weiss’s politics and the way they align with the Trump administration’s war on critical voices. I was pleased to talk to David about Weiss’s career and how she has used her influence as an ideological enforcer, one that has the support of many wealthy patrons and powerful political allies.

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