Jacobin Radio

Suzi interviews two guests about the surging Jeremy Corbyn and the fate of leftwing class politics in the coming UK elections. Journalist and author Paul Mason joins the conversation from London. Blogger and analyst Kevin Ovenden is based in Athens.

Doug interviews two guests. First, James Whitman on the U.S. origins of Nazi race law. Second, Alex Gourevitch discusses strikes and their challenge to bourgeois law.

Donald Trump pledged to build a big, beautiful wall on the border with Mexico. For liberals, the wall now shares a toxic association with Trump. But until recently, militarizing the border with Mexico was accepted as a core piece of the commonsense, bipartisan establishment immigration and drug policy agenda. Dan talks about border policy with Peter Andreas, a professor at Brown University and the author of Border Games: Policing the US-Mexico Divide.

The drug war is winding down around the country and heating up under Trump at the same time. Rick Lines of Harm Reduction International lays out the humane and evidence-based alternative to the war on drugs.

Hope is more than a mood or feeling — it's the basis for all political action, argues Ronald Aronson in an interview with Suzi Weissman. Bernie Sanders's campaign inspired collective action to make the world more equal; the Trump campaign and presidency are its mirror opposite. Aronson's book We: Reviving Social Hope is out now.

Jacobin's latest issue, "By Taking Power," asks: What has the Pink Tide accomplished? What is its future? When the Pink Tide emerged in Latin America, the U.S. Left was done with governing. The Pink Tide was a confident call back to the old-time religion, a return to not ceding state power to the Right, but wielding it to improve lives in the here and now.Jacobin editor and publisher Bhaskar Sunkara spoke with Rene Rojas, a PhD student in sociology at NYU, to discuss the ebb and flow of the Pink Tide at the Verso Books offices on May 16.

Micah and RL finally release their take on Jordan Peele's film "Get Out." Micah sees the story as standard brocialist propaganda, an ode to unionized public sector workers and the social democratic investments that produce them. RL can't get past the protagonist picking cotton and turning into the "Terminegro" at the film's climax. But like Saul on the road to Damascus, RL sees the light and Micah converts him mid-take. This episode is in honor of Yale maintenance worker Corey Menafee, MTA employee Darryl Goodwin, and all the other unionized workers who have stood up to racism on the job. Follow us on Twitter at @RLisDead and @micahuetricht.

What’s the matter with Appalachia? Many liberal elites think they know the answer. Since Trump’s campaign began, the region has become a symbol of all that is wrong with Red State America: guns, bigotry, a willingness to get swindled by right-wing snake-oil salesmen. There is, indeed, a lot wrong with Appalachia. But what’s most wrong is that a region where people waged militant labor struggles has now been devastated by coal company greed, automation, shifts in global commodity markets, and, of course, by Republican reaction and neoliberal neglect. Sarah Jones, social media editor at the New Republic, explores the possibilities for left-wing revival in Appalachia and discusses her own life in the region.

Micah welcomes RL to the Jacobin staff family. RL immediately pitches "Marxistpiece Theater," making Micah instantly regret their new work situation. Later, Micah interviews Erik Forman, a labor organizer and former salt. They all discuss their experiences organizing as low wage workers, as well as the history of salting in both radicalism and the labor movement. Listen closely for Micah's horrible lefty dad humor and RL's ridiculous Easter egg. Follow us on Twitter at @RLisDead and @micahuetricht.

The Women’s March on Washington showed the power of women's leadership in the battle against Trump and the Right. But significant divides that pervaded the 2016 primary campaign remain. Those debates continue to divide the feminist movement and the Left.Dan’s guest today is Liza Featherstone, a member of The Nation’s editorial board and the editor of False Choices: The Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Doug interviews two guests. First, Margaret Corvid on the British election, the Labour Party—and sex work. Second, Emre Öngün on Turkey’s deeper slide into authoritarianism.

Why do Republicans only seem to care about deficits and debt when they’re trying to cut social welfare programs? Dan's guest for this special episode is Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He discusses Trump’s regressive tax proposal and the GOP's never ending efforts to redistribute wealth the super-rich.

Under President Trump, the media has become a part of the story like never before. Journalistic probing has irritated our touchy president. But media outlets have also played a role in Trump’s rise. During the campaign, cable news outlets provided him with wall-to-wall free advertising and, more recently, lauded Trump as “presidential” because he decided to bomb Syria. Adam Johnson, a writer at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, breaks it down.

Sebastian Budgen on the second round of the French elections, pitting a centrist against a fascist. And Sofia Japaridze on how foreign NGOs turned Georgia (the country) into a broke libertarian paradise.

Weissman interviews Tariq Ali, filmmaker, activist, and author of numerous books, on his new book The Dilemmas of Lenin: Terrorism, War, Empire, Love, Revolution and the legacy of Vladimir Lenin 100 years after the Russian Revolution.

The Dig normally serves up ice cold, well-digested takes. Sometimes, however, something important happens and Dan finds someone who can help us understand it quickly. Last weekend’s election in France, which advanced the far-right National Front’s Marine Le Pen and neoliberal centrist Emmanuel Macron to a runoff, is one such event. Sebastian Budgen is an editor for Verso Books, a contributing editor at Jacobin, and a member of the editorial board at Historical Materialism.

Putting “black faces in high places,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor argues, has not only failed to benefit the working class and poor black majority — it has actually harmed them by pushing an individualistic, meritocratic narrative that blames poor black people’s condition on their own personal failings. Taylor is a professor of American-American studies at Princeton and the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, from Haymarket Books. She is a regular contributor to Jacobin and contributed a chapter called "What about racism? Don't socialists only care about class?" to The ABCs of Socialism.

RL interviews Chantel Johnson, whose brother Richie was one of the hundreds of young black men murdered in gun violence in Chicago in recent years. She and RL discuss the ties between violence and austerity in the city, the feeling of "conspiracy" against Richie and other poor black men like him in her neighborhood, and how anger at inequality in the city has become part of her grieving process.

Politicial scientist Thea Riofrancos on Ecuador's elections, the state of social movements and the Left there, and the decline of the pink tide in Latin America. Philosophers Landon Frim and Harrison Fluss on Jason Jorjani and the philosophy of alt-right.

Prisons don’t just keep inmates in; they keep the public out. Even at a moment when mass incarceration is under unprecedented criticism, it is hard for people on the outside to empathize with people who they cannot see or speak to. My guests today are Brett Story and Jordan Camp. Story is a filmmaker who has made an incredible new documentary called The Prison in 12 Landscapes, which shines a harsh light on America’s prison archipelago without ever taking a peek inside. Jordan Camp is a scholar of the American carceral state.