Jacobin Radio

Last week was a bad week for Republicans and a good week for Democrats — and for democratic socialists. It’s now pretty clear that Republicans will pay a price for the fact that large numbers of Americans detest our dotard-in-chief. But last week’s election once again fails to offer any sort of definitive answer to the long-running debate between the Left and the corporate Democratic establishment over who is best poised to beat Republicans. The coming anti-Republican wave is an opportunity that the Left must seize. Dan's guests are DSA member Lee Carter, who took out the Republican whip to win Virginia’s 50th House District, and David Duhalde, DSA’s Deputy Director. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Age of Folly: America Abandons Its Democracy by Lewis H. Lapham versobooks.com/books/2517-age-of-folly Also, support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Brooke Harrington, author of Capital Without Borders, on the offshore wealth racket and the Paradise Papers. Then Kali Akuno, co-editor of Jackson Rising and a co-founder of Cooperation Jackson, on building a green municipal socialism in Jackson, Mississippi. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Historian Kelly Lytle Hernández tells the story of human caging in Los Angeles, from the Spanish Conquest to the mid-twentieth century, in her new book City of Inmates: Conquest, Rebellion, and the Rise of Human Caging in Los Angeles, 1771-1965. It's a story of indigenous exploitation and elimination, immigrant detention and deportation, and the suppression of cross-border revolutionary movements. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot versobooks.com/books/2571-out-of-the-wreckage Support us with your $ at patreon.com/TheDig. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Journalist @melissagira eviscerates a newspaper investigation that conflates sex work with trafficking. She examines how reporters unwittingly fall into a savior complex, which ends up criminalizing workers in the name of defending women's dignity. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out Futures of Black Radicalism https://www.versobooks.com/books/2438-futures-of-black-radicalism. And support us on Patreon.com/TheDig with some cash. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Intercept's Ryan Grim on the the state of the GOP, which despite recent losses in this week's elections, controls all three branches of the federal government and is currently trying to pass a tax bill. Then, Rachel Sherman, author of Uneasy Street, on the consciousness of the rich. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Kate Wagner of McMansion Hell on those abominable things dotting the American landscape. Then, Donna Minkowitz, author of this article, reports on her visit to the genteel white supremacists of AmRen. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Centrist business elites believe in an America that doesn't exist. Two guests this episode: first, @mollyesque talks about her piece "On Safari in Trump's America" for The Atlantic. Her article follows the centrist organization Third Way on a “listening tour” of the real America. Then @EricLevitz (35:52), who just published on op-ed in the New York Times entitled “America is not ‘center-right," sorts through research to argue that what Americans often mean when they say they are “moderate” is not the combination of superficial social progressivism and neoliberalism that Wall-Street-aligned Third Way types think they mean. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School by Stuart Jeffries versobooks.com/books/2501-grand-hotel-abyss Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Writer and author Andy Durgan discusses the fast-moving events taking place in Catalonia. This past week, Catalonia declared independence, and the Spanish government is moving quickly to repress the independence movement's political leaders and keep the region within its fold. Then, journalist Michael Sainato joins Suzi to talk about the post-2016 election  fights within the Democratic Party, and what they mean for the next wave of election cycles. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Why have the size of American police departments grown so dramatically in recent decades, even as crime rates have fallen? One factor may have been the growing centrality of real estate for urban economies, according to a new article published in the journal Social Forces by Adam Goldstein, a professor of sociology at Princeton, and Brenden Beck, a PhD student in sociology at CUNY. Thanks to our sponsors at Verso Books. Check out The End of Policing by Alex Vitale versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Aziz Rana discusses his pivotal book, The Two Faces of American Freedom. Rana overturns conventional accounts of American history, from settlement and Revolution to the Populists and the present day. In reality, settler-colonialism, empire, and a brutally exploitative economic system grounded in racial subjugation have always been at the core of the American project. But radical thinkers and movements have consistently stepped forward at critical junctures to propose transformative alternatives that would make American freedom universal. Rana's most brilliant move is to ultimately make a devastatingly critical account of American history hopeful and optimistic. Thanks to our supporters at Verso Books. Check out Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump versobooks.com/books/2535-alt-america Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Benjamin Opratko, a fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin who teaches at the University of Vienna, on the rise of the far right in Austria. On Sunday, October 16, Austria held elections, and the two right-wing parties will form a government (you can read Opratko's Jacobin articles for more on this subject). Then Steven Teles, author of The Captured Economy, launches a hybrid "liberalitarian" attack on rent-seeking. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The exposure of Weinstein's predations has reignited widespread fury over the longstanding problem of sexual harassment and assault—especially in the workplace. Jacobin editor @alexnpress discusses two new pieces she wrote on how dealing with these problems as individuals only ends up harming individual women and why women must organize to fight back. Support us on Patreon.com/TheDig with some cash. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Corey Robin points to a tension that has defined conservatism from the get-go, between two competing conceptions of virtue and nobility: one defined by political and military distinction and another by entrepreneurial  acumen and accumulated wealth. Robin parses how Trump fits into this dynamic history, in part by taking a look back to seminal conservative thinkers like Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek. Support us with $ at patreon.com/TheDig Listen to Dan's first interview with Corey: blubrry.com/thedig/22226639/corey-robin-on-the-reactionaries-minds-under-trump/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dan was on a panel last week on ending the war on drug dealers at the Drug Policy Alliance conference in Atlanta. The panel was moderated by asha bandele and included Daryl Atkinson, Constanza Sánchez Avilé, Lyn Ulbrich, Kemba Smith and Dan. Thanks for listening. Support us at patreon.com/TheDig. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Suzi Weissman switches seats with Robert Brenner: she is the guest and he does the interviewing. The program begins with a talk Suzi gave recently in Berkeley: "One Hundred Years Since October: When the Russian Working Class Opened the Possibilities For Humanity." Robert and Suzi then discuss the significance of October 1917, when workers took power with profoundly democratic institutions of popular control from below in the Russian empire, creating the Soviet Union. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Isabel Hilton, editor of ChinaDialogue.net, discusses recent developments at the Chinese Communist Party Congress. Then, Doug is joined by Alex Vitale, author The End of Policing, who addresses how we cure ourselves of the cop sickness. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Since Bernie Sanders's success in the 2016 Democratic primary, much of the Left, from progressive Democrats to socialists, has had its sights set on something we had long at least implicitly assumed was impossible: state power and governing. The question now is how to take power, and the Left is consumed by debates over how and whether to engage with the Democratic Party or, in a more limited fashion, with the Democratic Party's ballot line. Joe Dinkin of the Working Families Party talks to Dan about the promise and pitfalls of fighting within the Democratic Party. Support us at Patreon.com/thedig. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In his new book The End of Policing Brooklyn College sociologist @avitale makes the case that technocratic reforms won't fix American policing. In reality, we can only fix policing by ending the carceral state and defeating neoliberalism. Thanks to Verso Books for their support. Check out Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump by David Neiwert versobooks.com/books/2535-alt-america Support us with your $$ at patreon.com/thedig See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An extended interview with former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis on his new book, Adults in the Room, the story of his surreal negotiations with Greece’s creditors See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Chapo went on The Dig. Dan talks to @cushbomb about optimism, pessimism, Manitowoc, reptilians, why the internet might be mostly bad, and Dan’s personal connection to the PizzaGate coverup. Toss us some cash love at Patreon.com/thedig and check out The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, from our sponsors at Verso Books. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.