The Nation Podcasts

Only two Justices backed Trump in the Court’s ruling blocking his efforts to enlist the postal service in restricting voting by mail in the midterms. David Cole explains why this is a huge victory, but far from the end of Trump’s effforts to undermine Democratic voting.

Also: The blue state attorneys general have succeeded in blocking the efforts of Trump’s allies at Paramount-Skydance from taking over Warners...

Yotam Marom has been helping build movements—and many of the most important movement organizations—for the last 20 years. His new book, For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness, is an essential read for everyone on the left who wants to win a better world.

Yotam, who became an organizing leader in Occupy Wall Street alongside Jonathan approximately a million years ago, joined us to talk about the left...

I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords. In this week’s news: the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms last month was tied for the hottest ever recorded (0:52); the Houthis/Ansar Allah take the port city of Mokha (1:45); the U.S. and Iran exchange ship attacks as oil prices rise (5:25); the IAEA refers Iran to the United Nations (7:32); Trump predicts an end to the Iran war immediately after the midterms (8:...

For this Labor Day episode we’re joined by Bill Fletcher, a longtime union organizer who’s spent the last several years working to build out the labor movement’s anti-fascist infrastructure. Bill has an important reminder for those of us who direct most of our anti-fascist energy against Trump and the oligarchy: MAGA isn’t some astroturf trick. It’s a genuine social movement representing some 25-30 per...

What can ancient human prehistory teach us about fighting fascism today? It turns out, quite a bit! So says historian Patrick Wyman, whose recent book, Lost Worlds, covers the 10,000 years between the end of the Ice Age and the Late Bronze Age collapse. Together, we discussed what makes societies fall apart, what is lost when they do, and how history demonstrates that human agency — and our decisions today — really do m...

Danny and Derek speak with David Griscom, co-host of Left Reckoning and author of The Myth of Red Texas: Cowboys, Populism, and Class War in the Radical South, to talk about the all-but-ignored history of leftwing politics in Texas. Topics include: the current state of Texas politics, the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party, the Texas Socialist Party and its newspaper The Rebel, the role of religion in Texas social...

Is the resistance to data centers a new kind of mass politics? David Wallace-Wells explains why the answer is “yes.” He’s a writer for The New York Times Opinion pages and author of the unforgettable book “The Uninhabitable Earth.”

Also: How to be a dissident in an age of fear – Ami Fields-Meyer has thought a lot about that. For starters: don’t start from scratch; don’t try t...

The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Trump could proceed with construction of his ballroom—they explicitly did not rule on the merits of the case, but on the issue of standing for the plaintiff. Robert Weismann has our analysis – he’s co-president of Public Citizen.

Also: The Democrats are now favored to win not only the House but also the Senate in November – they need to flip four seats, and their ca...

The Trump administration has announced a new set of harsh sanctions against Iran. This is a strange development since originally Trump launched a war on Iran on the pretext that sanctions weren’t working. Trita Parsi of the Qunicy Institute argues the current tactic won’t work and is a holding action as both the US and Iran bide their time in a long conflict. Parsi’s writings can be found on his Substack. In the i...

American Prestige brand MREs use Argentinian beef, but don't worry, it's the good kind. In this week’s news: the US launches a new sanctions campaign against Iran (1:35); Iran and Oman negotiate the management of the Strait of Hormuz (5:49); a Haitian gang killing (9:20); the Israeli government takes bids for its E1 settlement (11:52); the US removes Syria from the terrorism sponsors list (14:30); the Syrian Democratic Forces...

Not long ago, tech jobs were sought after for their security, benefits, wages, and the progressive values promoted by Silicon Valley companies. But now workers are barely hanging on. Clarissa Redwine and JS Tan join Paris Marx to discuss the state of worker organizing in the tech industry, including how it’s changed since the mid-2010s and where it needs to go from here.

Clarissa Redwine is a tech worker and labor activist. JS...

Danny and Derek speak with Jonathan Cheng, China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, about the Christian origins of North Korea’s founding ideology and the subsequent personality cult. The discussion explores missionary Samuel Moffat’s work in Pyongyang, the conversion of Kim Il-sung’s family to Christianity, Christian nationalism during Japanese colonial rule, the turn toward socialism, Kim’s postwar ...

The Supreme Court is not a Trump court – at least not on several issues - but where do they stand on voting rights? And what exactly did the court say on Monday about the postal service cooperating with Trump in his effort to restrict voting by mail? David Cole explains - he’s the former National Legal Director of the ACLU, and The Nation's legal affairs correspondent.

Also: Colson Whitehead won two Pulitzer prizes for h...

We said we'd talk about Graham Platner someday, and that day has arrived. We were all super excited about Platner. That excitement turned out to be misplaced. So what are the lessons we should draw from this saga? We also reflect back on the broader primary season, debate Woke 1, talk data centers, and look toward November, in this first just-us-cohosts-episode.

The current conflict in the Middle East might escalate on a new front. In recent weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjaman Netanyahu has been touting Turkey as a potential threat on par with Iran. This conflict is partly spurred by the fact that Syria, currently rebuilding after a brutal civil war, is becoming a battleground for competing projects of regional hegemony. To discuss this as well as the prospects for a more realisti...

Danny and Derek must disclose that they have had Hasan Piker on this program. They are listening and learning from him. In this week’s news: Israel bombs a Syrian airbase, potentially moving closer to a conflict with Turkey (1:22); Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu agree to scrap the Gaza Board of Peace's Hamas disarmament plan (7:09); the Iran MOU expires as Trump escalates the economic war (9:20); the Islamic Republic mi...

A cult of fascist ideology has gripped Silicon Valley, and the tech industrial complex is threatening US democracy. Gil Durán joins Paris Marx to discuss the radical billionaire cabal that is hellbent on the consolidation of corporate and political power, including the visions they have for the future and the strategies they’re using to drive us there.

Gil Durán is the author of The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the W...

Danny and Derek welcome historian Lisandro Claudio back to the program to talk about how austerity, first imposed by the U.S. during its colonial rule of the Philippines, continues to influence the Filipino political economy. They discuss the colonial gold standard, dollar diplomacy, Miguel Cuaderno and the Central Bank of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos being forced to depreciate the peso, the Filipino Left’s anti-debt sta...

Indivisible’s 2,500 local volunteer-led groups are preparing for a rapid response to any threats to free and fair voting around election day, starting with plans to promote early voting, and including preparations to mobilize large-scale protests if there are attempts to undermine the results. Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director, explains.

Also: Vanita Gupta reviews the massive legal planning underway to ...