Current Affairs31 Jan 2025

Why Democrats Fear Populism (And Keep Losing) (w/ Thomas Frank)

This episode originally aired on December 10, 2024. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!

Thomas Frank, historian, journalist, and author of What’s the Matter with Kansas? and Listen, Liberal, joins us to dissect how Democrats abandoned populism, the rise of Trump’s faux-populism, and why the party refuses to embrace the working class. He also explores the path forward for authentic left-wing populism in the face of neoliberal failures.

Video version of this podcast is here.

“The Democrats posture as the “party of the people” even as they dedicate themselves ever more resolutely to serving and glorifying the professional class. Worse: they combine self-righteousness and class privilege in a way that Americans find stomach-turning. And every two years, they simply assume that being non-Republican is sufficient to rally the voters of the nation to their standard. This cannot go on.

Yet it will go on, because the most direct solutions to the problem are off the table for the moment. The Democrats have no interest in reforming themselves in a more egalitarian way. There is little the rest of us can do, given the current legal arrangements of this country, to build a vital third-party movement or to revive organized labor, the one social movement that is committed by its nature to pushing back against the inequality trend.” — Thomas Frank, Listen, Liberal

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(600)

Democrats’ Victory Will Be Wasted Without New Leadership

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipIf Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries remain in power, Democrats will squander their mandate and give...

14 Nov 29min

Zionism Is a Racist Ideology (w/ Benjamin Moser)

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipBenjamin Moser is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Sontag: Her Life and Work and the new book An...

10 Nov 43min

The Case for Centrism Is Collapsing

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membership There is no such thing as a red state. The toxic Republican Party can be defeated everywhere. But ...

6 Nov 20min

Mamdani’s “Richard Scarry Socialism” Can Make City Life Simple Again

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipThe NYC mayor is trying to build a city that functions like a city in a children's picture book, whe...

30 Okt 12min

Zombie Simpsons and How Capitalism Killed Culture

🌹 Use the code "ZOMBIES" for a 20% discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipJon Greenaway is a writer, critic, and co-host of the podcast Horror Vanguard. He joins Curren...

28 Okt 51min

Why We’re Banning AI

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipWe urgently need to protect human thought and creativity. Our magazine is committing itself to remai...

23 Okt 16min

How Bill Maher Lost His Mind (w/ Kyle Kulinski)

🌹 Use the code "KRYSTALKYLE" for a 20% discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipKyle Kulinski is the host of The Kyle Kulinski Show, co-host of Krystal Kyle & Friends, an...

20 Okt 40min

Israel’s Election Won’t End the Genocide

🌹 Use the code "15OFF" for a discount on Current Affairs: https://www.currentaffairs.org/membershipWill McCaffery is a leftist content creator focused on anti-imperialism, anti-Zionism, and anti-capi...

16 Okt 37min