American Prestige
A podcast from Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison that provides listeners with everything they need to know about what’s going on in the world. americanprestige.supportingcast.fm
Episodes
December 9, 2025 • 83 mins
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Derek and journalist Mat Nashed assess the state of Sudan’s ongoing civil war, particularly the fall of Al-Fasher and the Rapid Support Forces’ consolidation of control across much of Darfur. They discuss the throughline from the 2003 genocide to today; the wider humanitarian catastrophe; the shifting battlefield in Kordofan; the growing role of drones; the international d...
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December 7, 2025 • 9 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome back to the show media scholar Andrew deWaard to discuss Netflix’s reported acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery and what it says about the economic forces driving contemporary media. They talk about how conglomeration and financialization have reshaped Hollywood; zero interest rates, asset inflation, and Wall Street driving mergers; how intellectual property, streaming ...
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December 6, 2025 • 69 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome back Brendan James and Noah Kulwin, of the Blowback podcast, for a tour through their latest season, which takes the show to Angola. They discuss how Angola became one of the largest and least-remembered battlefields of the Cold War, Reagan’s return to proxy wars, Cuba’s decision to send troops without Soviet approval, South Africa’s “total on...
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Don’t forget to download our Chinese Prestige miniseries, currently on sale for $5. Annual subscribers get the series free!
Despite sitting on a large surplus of Labubus, Danny and Derek work hard to bring you the news. This week: in Russia-Ukraine, new US diplomacy goes nowhere (1:08), Ukraine is now attacking Russian commercial ships (5:55), and the EU moves to phase out Russ...
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December 2, 2025 • 58 mins
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Danny and Derek welcome to the show Molly Lambert, creator of the JENNAWORLD podcast, to talk about the rise of the modern porn industry and its roots in L.A.’s San Fernando Valley. They discuss the medium’s origins in underground stag films and the porno chic era; the shift to home video and the corporate studio model; breakout stars like Ginger Lynn Allen and Jenna James...
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November 30, 2025 • 9 mins
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Danny and Derek speak to Ilias Alami, assistant professor of political economy at Cambridge, about the global shift from neoliberalism to new forms of state capitalism. They discuss the rebalancing of economic power toward East Asia; sovereign wealth funds, policy banks, and state-owned enterprises; and the role of states in industrial strateg...
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November 28, 2025 • 51 mins
Instead of a news roundup, we are releasing the second episode of our new miniseries Chinese Prestige. Annual subscribers already have access, while everyone else can get the 8 episodes for $5 for two weeks only.
This conversation examines China’s early post-Korean War period and the political and social campaigns that defined the new PRC. The group discusses land reform, the Three-anti and Five-anti campaigns, Soviet-style econ...
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November 27, 2025 • 41 mins
Danny speaks with Alex Goldman about his new podcast Hyperfixed, in which he works to get to the bottom of listeners’ complex problems, or at least enough of an explanation that they’re ok with the annoyance. We have then provided the full episode of “Third Eye Blind,” where one Mitchell finds out he's missing something almost everyone else has, and he wants to know -- who would I be if I had it?
If you like what you hear, why ...
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November 25, 2025 • 55 mins
In lieu of a typical Tuesday episode this week, we are releasing the first episode of our new miniseries Chinese Prestige. Annual subscribers already have access, while everyone else can get the 8 episodes for a whopping $5 for two weeks only. Enjoy!
In this first episode of Chinese Prestige, Yidi, Danny, and Derek trace the origins of the Chinese Communist Party from the May Fourth Movement to the civil war with the Nationalists....
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November 24, 2025 • 20 mins
Mark Ames of Radio War Nerd is on the program to tell us a little about the new book penned by his partner in podcast crime, John Dolan, titled They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War.
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November 23, 2025 • 10 mins
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Danny and Derek speak with writer and editor David Klion about the collapse of the liberal Zionist project and how the moral and political implication of the Gaza genocide have reshaped American Jewish identity. They discuss how October 7 and Israel’s assault on Gaza forced a reckoning among liberals who once believed in the two-state promise; the fracturing of ins...
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November 21, 2025 • 5 mins
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Danny and Derek are joined by the writer Emily Tamkin to discuss Sarah Hurwitz’s comments on the Holocaust, education, and the Jewish people.
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November 21, 2025 • 44 mins
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Danny and Derek are praying for Kim Kardashian to pass the bar. In this week’s news: Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia visits the White House (1:56); the U.S. pushes a new Ukraine peace deal (8:58); Israel continues killing people in Gaza (12:30), Palestinians’ shelters are failing in heavy rain (13:57), the UN votes on Trump’s Gaza plan (15:22), and Palestinians seeking...
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November 18, 2025 • 61 mins
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Danny and Derek speak with political theorist and author Lea Ypi about her new book Indignity: A Life Reimagined, which explores how personal memory intersects with imperial collapse, nationalism, and the surveillance state. They discuss her grandmother’s journey from Ottoman Salonika to Albania amid the rise of competing political projects; archives and the stories they e...
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November 16, 2025 • 10 mins
Danny and Derek welcome back historian Nick Mulder, writer at Weltinnenpolitik, to discuss Trump’s new tariff regime. They get into Trump’s focus on taxing goods while leaving finance untouched; how U.S. allies are obediently eating higher economic costs; why this approach resembles a “subscription model” of empire rather than a coherent industrial strategy; early signs of backlash in places like India, Brazil, and Europe; how immi...
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November 14, 2025 • 5 mins
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Danny and Derek sit down with journalist Murtaza Hussain of Drop Site News to talk about his ongoing reporting on Jeffrey Epstein’s extensive political and financial influence. They get into how Epstein operated as a fixer and connector for powerful people and entities around the world; the private meetings and backchannel negotiations he helped facilitate, from...
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Danny and Derek are vigorously programmed to bring you the news headlines. This week: the Thai-Cambodia ceasefire breaks down as border fire and incidents escalate (0:30); in Gaza, Trump’s framework stalls while governments debate the shape and purpose of an international security force (4:27); Syria’s President Ahmed al-Shara visits the White House (13:49); Iraq’s election...
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November 12, 2025 • 5 mins
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Danny talks with Jamie Beran, CEO of Bend the Arc, about the political and generational tension reshaping the American Jewish community. They discuss the fallout from Zoran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign in New York; the role of legacy institutions like the ADL; how debates over Israel-Palestine, antisemitism, and safety are redefining American Jewish political identity; and what these shif...
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November 11, 2025 • 52 mins
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Derek is joined by Omar Zahzah, Assistant Professor of Arab Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies at San Francisco State University, to talk about his book Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism. They discuss the Sheikh Jarrah uprising and the digital front of the Palestinian struggle, the difference between “digital aparthei...
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November 10, 2025 • 54 mins
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Danny and Derek talk with journalist Jasper Nathaniel about his reporting from the West Bank on settler attacks that have become routine and state-backed. They discuss the town of Turmus Aya, the far-right ministers pushing annexation, a mob attack on an American‐Palestinian lawyer’s neighbor, and Jasper’s firsthand account of a violent mob assault during the olive harvest.
St...
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