Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Expertly-curated progressive politics, news, and culture produced by leftist humans, not algorithms or AI. This is an award-winning podcast that dives deeply into a wide range of national and international issues facing society and governments. We draw from hundreds of sources of progressive news and commentary. Est. 2006. Save time by listening to a range of perspectives on a focused topic in each episode and be introduced to new sources you will not have come across on your own!
Episodes
Air Date 9/11/2025
I've always learned the high-level understanding that the Nazis were partly able to come to power because the opposition at the time was too caught up with infighting to create a coherent resistance. With hindsight, it's easy to lament how badly they miscalculated the circumstances but living through the modern day and watching the Democratic Party struggle gives even more clarity to how that kind of inability to...
Air Date 9/7/2025
Trump has been setting a new tone both at home and abroad which is shaking up everything from the war in Ukraine to threats of force against Mexico, Venezuela, and our own American cities with the militarization of domestic policing. And we made all of this before Trump posted an Apocalypse Now meme about using the Department of War against Chicago.
Air Date: 9–3-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
-
Ch. 1 - The surprising origins of Gerrymandering
-
Ch. 2 - The options we have to improve congressional representation for everyone in the country
-
Ch. 3 - Democratic states response to Republican gerrymandering threats
-
Ch. 4 - The argument for DC statehood and the people to blame for why it hasn’t happened yet
-
Ch. 5 - How to end home...
Air Date: 6–20-2023
Today, we take a look at the story of how neoliberalism was born, how corporations were organized to help push it into the mainstream, and how the courts were reshaped to permanently tilt the rules in favor of corporate power.
Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com
Air Date 9/1/2025
The way people consume almost every variety of media, entertainment, and art is different now than it was only 10-15 years ago. That means that the way protest music, revolutionary art, and even mass market productions and performances are going to be different, feel different, and likely find you in different ways than in the past. But the drive to create never dies and art will always...
Air Date: 8–28-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
- Ch. 1 - How scientific empires fall
- Ch. 2 - How fascists of the past have destroyed their country’s scientific progress in fear of inconvenient truths
- Ch. 3 - How other countries are taking the opportunity to poach American scientists
- Ch. 4 - Living in a society that is shifting away from believing in evidence based science
- Ch. 5 - The 1938 pro-science manifesto th...
Air Date 8/27/2025
RFK Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again movement aren't completely wrong about everything, they often identify the larger structural problems with the US health industrial complex even if their proposed solutions are wildly off the mark. But the problem they failed to see coming when partnering with Trump and the Republicans is that they're only going to be allowed to misguidedly defu...
Air Date 8/24/2025
The nature of politics and public policy is that there's always a need to balance opposing interests. Almost nowhere is there a more intractable set of opposing interests than in the attempt to protect children from harmful content on the internet while maintaining free access to adults, particularly because people wildly disagree about what qualifies as harmful and what degree of privacy invasion is an acceptabl...
Air Date 8/20/2025
There's been a faction of conservatives who have been trying to instill king-like powers into the presidency for a long time, so it shouldn't be surprising that Trump is getting so much help from the packed court and the apparatchiks in the states who are more than happy to turn their precious federalism on its head as long as their king is in charge.
Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-399...
Air Date: 8–19-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
- Ch.1 - The Trump administration’s unprecedented attempts to get your data from the states
- Ch. 2 - Why Trump’s new private health tracking system is a wolf in sheep’s clothing
- Ch. 3 - How HIV patients suffering in the 80s, 90s and early 00s from constant health data breaches is a hint of what could come
- Ch. 4 - Why a new UK law trying to protect children from seeing...
Air Date 8/16/2025
There's the old Douglas Adams quote stating that, "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job" which is a good general rule to live by. But then there are the real baddies, those would-be leaders who possess one or more of the dark triad of traits that spells real doom for the societies that elevate them to power: narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavel...
Air Date 8/12/2025
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month, we're covering the full spectrum of authoritarian threats—military in the streets, surveillance in our phones, conspiracies in our feeds, and corruption at the top—before turning to the grassroots organizers and Democratic Socialists who are building the resistance and winning.
Air Date: 8–10-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, and Deon (Erin was on vacation!) discuss:
- How modern fascism does not look like the jarring and brutal images people think of, and the “rituals of conformity” in Nazi Germany that remind us of another era we’ve lived through
- How despotism affects the citizen psyche and how to counter those effects
- The importance of countering Orwellian language under fascism
- Advice on living under authori...
Air Date 8/10/2025
Trump has been condemning the media for all of his professional life and is pretty open about doing it so that people won't believe the negative press he so richly deserves. Now, with the power of the presidency, he's turned his battle with the press into a protection racket complete with payoffs and side deals in an attempt to turn the media into pro-Trump propaganda.
Air Date 8/6/2025
Today's slate of topics may feel disjointed at first until you realize that they're not. We set out to produce an episode in which we explored powerful men and those who look up to them from various angles and so that ended up including both real and fictional men from supervillains to superheroes.
Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991, message us on the infamous...
Original Air Date: 7–22-2023
Today, we take a look at the action needed to curb and adapt to the extreme weather that climate change is already delivering
Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991, message us on the infamous Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com
Check out our new show, SOLVED! on YouTube!
BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ad...
Air Date: 8-1-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
- The impact of A.I. LLM “friend” bots on childhood development
- How using A.I. LLMs negatively impacts critical thinking and information retention
- The importance of understanding how A.I. LLM tools work before using them
- The ways in which A.I. LLM tools could and shouldn’t help movements on the Left, and evaluating the risks
- BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm (Members On...
Air Date: 7/31/2025
Who would have thought that a political movement built almost exclusively on conspiracy theories and a cult of personality would end up being threatened by the cult leader being implicated in the biggest and worst conspiracy coverup… even though it’s been well documented for decades?
Content warning for detailed accusations leveled against Trump and Epstein by their alleged victims.
Air Date: 7-27-2025
Back when I worked in the climate movement, just after the turn of the century, we knew that the extreme weather we were warning about would become ever-more clear to see in people's lived experiences and assumed that any doubts people had about the science of climate change would be wiped away with the evidence they could see with their own eyes as weather became more intense and less predictable. Of course, we...
Check out our new show, SOLVED! on YouTube!
BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!)
Use our links to shop Bookshop.org and Libro.fm for a non-evil book and audiobook purchasing experience!
KEY POINTS
KP 1: Old Democrats Must Go or Trump NEVER Will - UNFTR Media - Air Date 7-15-25
KP 2: 'The Economy Is Rigged": Robert Reich on Zohran Mamdani, The Democratic Party, Inequality,...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Football’s funniest family duo — Jason Kelce of the Philadelphia Eagles and Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs — team up to provide next-level access to life in the league as it unfolds. The two brothers and Super Bowl champions drop weekly insights about the weekly slate of games and share their INSIDE perspectives on trending NFL news and sports headlines. They also endlessly rag on each other as brothers do, chat the latest in pop culture and welcome some very popular and well-known friends to chat with them. Check out new episodes every Wednesday. Follow New Heights on the Wondery App, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes early and ad-free, and get exclusive content on Wondery+. Join Wondery+ in the Wondery App, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. And join our new membership for a unique fan experience by going to the New Heights YouTube channel now!
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
He left home as the chubby kid with a dream, a decade later, he's a touring comic with a killer set. Literally. In Wisecrack, stand-up comedian Edd Hedges returns to his hometown for a charity gig, only to find himself headlining the most terrifying night of his life. The warm welcome quickly unravels into a chilling true crime tale of a downward spiral and a town shaken by murder. When TV crime producer Jodi Tovay stumbled across Edd’s comedy set, it did more than get a few laughs, it opened the door to a years-long investigation she never saw coming. Part comedy special, part true crime thriller, Wisecrack blends punchlines with plot twists in a genre-defying ride where the laughs are real and the danger is no joke.