Start Making Sense

Much has been written about how the Israel/Palestine conflict is dividing the left, but thesame is true of the right. Tucker Carlson’s interview with the antisemitic critic of Israel NickFuentes has created an intense debate on the right about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism,currently playing itself out in turmoil at the Heritage Foundation. I spoke with the historianDavid Austin Walsh, whose book Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the FarRight provides a crucial background for this story.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Reading Writers is BACK, and in partnership with Bookforum Magazine!In this first episode of Season 3, hosts Jo and Charlotte delve into the (separate) letter collections of Vincent Van Gogh and D.H. Lawrence before they’re joined by superstar novelist Rumaan Alam to reflect on magazine eras of yore via Tina Brown’s The Vanity Fair Diaries. Also mentioned: Cat Marnell’s How To Murder Your Life, Jean Godfrey June’s Free Gift With Purchase, Michael M. Grynbaum’s Empire of the Elite, Stet by Diana Athill, the diaries of Helen Garner, and the diaries of Andy Warhol.Rumaan Alam is the author of four novels, including, most recently, Entitlement.Please consider supporting our work on Patreon, where you can access additional materials and send us your guest and book coverage requests! Questions and comments can be directed to readingwriterspod at gmail dot com. Outro music by Marty Sulkow and Joe Valle.Charlotte Shane’s most recent book is An Honest Woman. Her essay newsletter, Meant For You, can be subscribed to or

In this episode of A People’s Climate, host Shilpi Chhotray sits down with Vivien Sansour, founder of the Palestine Heirloom Seed Library, for a powerful conversation about resistance in the face of Israeli militarism, occupation, and ecological devastation.For two years, the world watched Israel’s genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing campaign across Palestine — including the annihilation of Palestinian land, contamination of water, and the carbon-intensive bombardment that has choked the air and scorched the soil. Entire food systems have been erased. And yet, so many environmentalists remain silent. Vivien makes it clear that climate conversations cannot be separated from Western imperialism and genocide.From saving heirloom seeds to ancestral farming practices, Vivien shares how Palestinian farmers and land stewards are not only protecting the environment but also preserving culture, memory, and survival itself.Key Themes & Topics:The intersection of conservation, human rights, and food sovereigntyWhy

Paris Marx is joined by Doug Gordon and Sarah Goodyear to discuss the many ways cars have negatively affected society, how tech companies seek to entrench those problems, and what can really be done to improve mobility in our communities.Doug Gordon is a TV producer and writer. Sarah Goodyear is a journalist and author. They are the co-hosts of The War on Cars and co-authors of Life After Cars: Freeing Ourselves from the Tyranny of the Automobile.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Democratic candidates won everywhere they ran on Tuesday – Abagail Spanberger and a Democratic state legislature in Virginia, Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey, Gavin Newsom’s redistricting proposition in California, and of course Zohran Mamdani in New York City. Trump didn’t even campaign against any them. John Nichols has our analysis.Also: Greil Marcus comments on the new film about Bruce Springsteen writing the songs for his 1982 album “Nebraska”, starring starring Jeremy Allen White of ‘The Bear.” The movie misses the context: working class decline in Reagan’s America. Greil Marcus is the author of two dozen books, including “Mystery Train,” which has just been reissued in a special 50th anniversary edition.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek welcome journalist and author John Lechner to discuss his book, Death is Our Business: Russian Mercenaries in the New Era of Warfare. The conversation cuts through the mainstream narrative of the Wagner Group to explore the true history of Yevgeny Prigozhin, from his start as a product of post-Soviet "gangster capitalism" in 1990s St. Petersburg to his ascent as Vladimir Putin's de facto military entrepreneur. They analyze how Prigozhin leveraged the Russian state’s grand ambitions with limited resources to create a self-funding war machine in Syria and across Africa, ultimately turning his own military success in Bakhmut into a fatal political challenge to the decadent Moscow bureaucracy—a challenge that ended with a suspiciously accidental plane crash.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com

It can be tempting to look away from the Supreme Court. The cases are complicated, the traditions archaic, and these days the decisions are almost always devastating and the reasoning often perverse. But alas, the Court is too important to ignore, particularly as John Roberts and his five ultra- conservative colleagues have turned it into a rubber stamp for Donald Trump. Luckily, we at The Nation are blessed to have perhaps the only person in America who can make following the Supreme Court not only bearable but entertaining — our inimitable justice correspondent, Elie Mystal. Elie's annual roundup of the court's biggest upcoming cases is the cover story in our November issue.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Donald Trump claims he wants to be the peace president and has even lobbied for a NobelPeace Prize. But his foreign policy has been wildly contradictory. While the United States isclearly retrenching from many parts of the world, violence against hemispheric neighbors isincreasing. I talked to Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the QuincyInstitute for Responsible Statecraft, for a wide-ranging discussion on why American hegemonyis declining but also why the push for retrenchment hasn’t gone far enough.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Host Shilpi Chhotray is joined by Tennessee State Representative Justin J. Pearson, a fierce advocate taking on corporate power — from Big Oil to Big Tech. You may know him as one of the two Black representatives who was expelled for demanding gun reform on the House floor after The Covenant school shooting in Nashville. But long before becoming one of the youngest members of the Tennessee legislature, Rep. Pearson was on the frontlines in South Memphis, organizing against a crude oil pipeline that threatened his hometown.Now, in Rep. Pearson’s district, Elon Musk’s xAI project is expanding its empire with massive, unregulated data centers that pollute the air, threaten their water, and undermine hard-won environmental protections. This conversation is about fighting against entrenched corruption, unchecked corporate and political power, and billionaires who put profit over people’s health and future.Key Topics Covered:Defeating the Valero / Plains All American Byhalia PipelineThe rise of Elon Musk’s xAI data

What’s spookier than international relations? This week in the news roundup: Trump tours Asia to talk trade deals (1:28), a Thai-Cambodia accord (7:11), and to meet with Xi (8:45); the RSF captures of Al-Fashir in Sudan with reports of mass killings (12:19); Gaza sees the deadliest day of Israeli bombardments since the ceasefire began (17:19); the PKK makes more concessions in talks with Ankara (21:53); Afghan-Pakistan ceasefire negotiations collapse in Istanbul (24:34); Myanmar rebel groups agree to a Chinese-brokered ceasefire (26:59); elections in Ivory Coast and Cameroon keep longtime incumbents in power (29:44); Nigeria’s military sees a shake-up amid rumors of a coup plot (33:30); Dutch elections sideline Geert Wilders and the far-right (36:26); Trump freezes trade talks with Canada and raises tariffs over an ad (39:50); the UN General Assembly votes to condemn the U.S. embargo on Cuba (42:35); the U.S. expands its boat-bombing campaign in the Pacific and sends a carrier to the Caribbean (44:21); and Tr

Paris Marx celebrates the 300th episode of Tech Won’t Save Us by sharing his reasons to push for digital sovereignty and get off US tech. On top of explaining how that dependence gives the US governments and its tech companies power over us, Paris also provides tips of alternative services to consider migrating to.Our Sponsors:* Check out Avocado Green Mattress: https://avocadogreenmattress.com* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Voters can take a stand against Trump’s candidates in next Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, California, and New York City – and move toward redistricting that favors Democrats. Harold Meyerson explains.Also: a new art exhibit in Los Angeles, called ‘Monuments,’ displays ten decommissioned Confederate monuments alongside the work of 19 artists responding or relating to them. It's at MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and at the Brick, an arts nonprofit. Christopher Knight comments -- he's art critic for the LA Times and winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Alex Aviña is back on the podcast, this time to talk about the evolution of ICE and the U.S. security state. They discuss the convergence of the war on terror, the war on drugs, and the war on migrants; the transformation of the border into a domestic counterinsurgency project; ICE’s roots in settler colonialism; the role of whiteness and assimilation in immigration politics; the use of surveillance and drones in law enforcement; the privatization and grift at the core of Trumpism; the legacy of Latin American death squads; the erosion of constitutional rights; and migration as the consequence of empire.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On Friday, the self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced the US was sending anaircraft carrier to bolster its attacks on Venezuelan boats (which the Trump administrationalleges, without evidence, are trafficking drugs). I spoke to international relations scholar VanJackson (whose work can be found here) about the motives for this new war as well as themuted opposition to it from Democrats.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

On October 14, Donald Trump announced that the United States had blown up a boat off the coast of Venezuela, killing six people on board. It was the fifth such US strike on a vessel in the Caribbean in the last six weeks. In total, 27 people have been killed in the attacks.Trump has claimed that the bombings are part of a fight against drug cartels. But there is no legal basis for this campaign. We're not at war with cartels, none of the victims had been charged with a crime, and there's no evidence that Americans were under imminent threat from any of them.Longtime Nation contributor Greg Grandin's piece about the strikes, "Trump's Caribbean Killing Spree," is in our November issue.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Solving the climate crisis isn’t about reinventing the wheel or the latest tech scheme — it can be as simple as growing food and building community. Host Shilpi Chhotray chats with Leah Penniman, farmer, educator, and co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, about the intersection of land, food justice, and racial equity. Leah shares how Afro-Indigenous farming practices offer solutions to the climate crisis— but also serve as a tool for personal and community healing. From the legacy of Black farmers in the U.S. to the ongoing exploitation of agricultural workers, this conversation reveals how land is not only the foundation of sustenance but the basis of revolution, independence, and justice.Key Topics Covered:Farming as a spiritual and ecological practice that reconnects humans to the earth.Pitfalls of Industrial agriculture, from soil degradation, pesticide contamination, and contributions to the climate crisis Afro-Indigenous farming practices that sequester carbon, restore soil, and increase resilience to extreme

Rest assured, no one on the AP team has any undeclared tattoos. In this week’s news roundup: In Israel-Palestine, Gaza’s so-called ceasefire holds after another weekend of Israeli strikes (1:36), the International Court of Justice (ICJ) orders Israel to allow more humanitarian aid (8:16), and reports emerge of a plan to partition Gaza (11:48) as J.D. Vance arrives in Israel and the Knesset advances West Bank annexation votes (14:21); Donald Trump looks set to host Mohammed bin Salman for the Saudi crown prince’s first U.S. visit since the Jamal Khashoggi murder (18:36); Afghanistan and Pakistan agree to a fragile ceasefire after cross-border clashes (21:16); Myanmar’s junta retakes a key commercial town and resumes its offensive (23:47); Japan elects hard-right Takaichi Sanae as its first female prime minister (27:27); in Sudan, drone strikes delay the reopening of Khartoum’s airport (29:59); new data shows jihadist groups tightening their grip across West Africa (31:19); the Trump-Putin-Zelensky saga takes s

Paris Marx is joined by Joanne McNeil to discuss the proliferation of delivery bots and robotaxis and how they recycle disproven claims about how technology will improve transportation.Joanne McNeil is a freelance writer and the author of Wrong Way and Lurking: How a Person Became a User.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

No Kings Day on Oct. 18 was the largest peaceful protest in American history. Rebecca Solnit comments, and refutes Republican statements about violence on the left. Her most recent book is “Orwell’s Roses.”Also: the fight to control the LA police: a decades long effort that culminated in 1992, after the Rodney King riots, when longtime police chief Darryl Gates was forced out. Danny Goldberg comments – at the time he was board chair of the ACLU of Southern California Foundation, and his new book is “Liberals With Attitude.” Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek speak with historian Fara Dabhoiwala, author of What Is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea, about the complex history of one of liberalism’s proudest ideals, and how it largely emerged from hypocrisy and self-interest. They trace its 18th-century birth in the polemics of corrupt British journalists, its exclusion of women and colonized peoples, the U.S. founders’ rejection of France’s more balanced model, and the later reappropriation of the slogan by abolitionists and reformers. The group also traces free speech’s evolution through the Cold War and into the age of Big Tech, revealing how a principle meant to liberate became a tool of power and a license for unaccountable media.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy