Start Making Sense

Paris Marx is joined by Dara Kerr to discuss how Elon’s decision to prioritize aesthetics over safety has created a safety crisis, causing people to burn alive in their Cybertrucks and other Tesla vehicles.Dara Kerr is a technology reporter at Guardian US.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

It’s been only a couple of weeks since the No Kings 3 protests, but we can see now how protest and resistance are changing in America: that one it wasn't just bigger than the previous No Kings. It was different: Deeper and more connected. Rebecca Solnit argues that to understand resistance and change today, we need a much longer perspective than a couple of years. Her new book is The Beginning Comes After the End. Also: Minneapolis made history with its mobilization against ICE. But what about the rest of the state, where the immigrant population has been growing for a couple of decades? What kind of resistance has developed there? Emma Janssen went to small town Minnesota to find out. She’s a writing fellow at The American Prospect.  Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek welcome to the show writer Paul Heideman to talk about the transformation of the Republican Party from the main party of business interests to a fragmented, personality-driven coalition. They discuss the historical relationship between Republicans and capital, the disorganization of American employers, the political economy of the 1970s crisis, Reagan-era fragmentation, Gingrich and fundraising, globalization and bipartisan neoliberalism in the 1990s, the Koch network and Tea Party, Republicanism after Romney, the conditions that enabled Trump’s rise, and much more.Read Paul’s book Rogue Elephant: How Republicans Went from the Party of Business to the Party of Chaos.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Aaron and Matt are joined by Nation columnist David Klion to talk about the role that Israel has played in the rise of American fascism and what it all means for American Jews like Aaron, David, and not Matt.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny “Hollywood” Bessner and Derek “Bethesda” Davison are back with the news. This week: Israel bombs Lebanon and kills hundreds (2:09) as Iran halts traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in response (5:43); the U.S. and Iran prepare for peace talks in Pakistan (8:26); Trump threatens to resume the war if talks fail (13:02); the Gaza Board of Peace demands Hamas provide a disarmament response (14:56); Afghanistan and Pakistan pause talks and agree to avoid escalation (17:16); Myanmar’s parliament elects junta leader Min Aung Hlaing as president (20:04); Vietnam’s National Assembly elects Communist Party chief To Lam as president (21:14); KMT leader Chiang Li-wun visits China to pursue closer ties (22:59); Burkina Faso’s junta leader extends military rule (27:06); Hungarian polling projects Viktor Orban to lose power to the opposition (31:51); Chadian forces deploy to Haiti under a UN-backed mission (34:54); Haiti postpones voter registration amid ongoing violence (37:15); Trump pressures NATO to secure the St

Paris Marx is joined by Amanda Mull to discuss the effects of constantly “monitoring the situation” through custom news, social, or live feeds, including higher rates of anxiety and disconnection, and what can be done to recalibrate.Amanda Mull is a senior reporter at Bloomberg Businessweek and writes the Buying Power column.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Minnesota changed everything: how Minnesota’s resistance to ICE provides a model and inspiration for a national pro-democracy movement. Deepak Bhargava will explains; he’s president of the Freedom Together Foundation.Also: July 4 will mark the 250th anniversary of the United States, which Trump is celebrating with a campaign to “eliminate” what he calls “divisive anti-American ideology” from American’s historic sites, national parks, and the National Zoo. Historian Beverly Gage has another idea – a road trip to visit some of those places where history happened. Her new book is This Land is Your Land: A Road Trip Through US History.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek welcome to the show Eldar Mamedov, foreign policy expert and non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute, to talk about Europe’s response to the war in Iran. They discuss European support and hesitation toward the US-Israel attack, inconsistencies in international law, shifts in European rhetoric as the war continues, fears over economic fallout and energy disruption, Europe’s loss of leverage after the nuclear deal collapsed, dependence on the United States for security, domestic political pressures in Europe, and the prospects for diplomacy with Iran and Russia.Find more of Eldar’s work at the Quincy Institute.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Aaron, Matt, and Jonathan are joined by Morris Katz, lead strategist for Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner, to talk about why the Democratic Party sucks so much and how we can make it suck less. Topics include lessons from Zohran’s campaign, our favorite Morris ads, the importance of naming a villain, 2028 prognostication, and that one time three years ago when Aaron and Morris had to pull a sunken canoe out of a pond.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Derek is monitoring The Situation, so Always at War’s Alex Jordan is back to deliver the news with Danny. This week: Trump extends the Iran war without an exit plan (4:02); the U.S. weighs a commando raid to seize Iranian uranium (10:04); Iran threatens U.S. companies after striking a Kuwaiti tanker (13:17); the Hormuz closure drives shortages and price shocks across the global economy (18:43); Europe sees NATO tensions rise as France blocks U.S. overflights and Trump threatens Ukraine aid (22:20); Israel deepens its occupation of southern Lebanon and kills UN peacekeepers (26:42); in Gaza, the Board of Peace proposes faction disarmament before reconstruction (29:28); Israel passes a race-based death penalty law for Palestinians (32:07); a Russian tanker reaches Cuba with oil despite the U.S. blockade (34:17); the U.S. and China prepare a summit amid wider global tensions (36:39); in Sudan, the RSF seizes Kermuk in Blue Nile state (39:13); South Sudan’s peace process collapses as elections lose credibility (4

Paris Marx is joined by Sam Biddle to discuss what it means for data centers to become targets in a war, and how Silicon Valley is aiding the US war against Iran.Sam Biddle is a technology journalist at The Intercept.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

We’re still thinking about No Kings 3 day on Saturday: 8 million people. 3,300 events. ‘No Kings’ protests in almost every city and town in the country. 100 towns in Texas alone had No Kings protests! It was the largest single-day nonviolent protest in American history. John Nichols analyzes the possibilities for what comes next.Also: No one expected that revoking the constitutional right to abortion would wind up expanding access to it. But ever since the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in 2022 allowed more than a dozen states to ban abortion outright, the number of abortions in this country has actually risen every year. How did that happen? Amy Littlefield explains; her new book is Killers of Roe: My investigation into the mysterious death of abortion rights.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In lieu of a standard episode today, we are premiering the first episode of ⁠Marx Prestige⁠, a series where Danny, Derek, and historian Andrew Hartman discuss Karl Marx and how the philosophy and politics he created shaped and reshaped the United States. ⁠Subscribe now⁠ at the annual tier for free access to series like this one!In this first episode of Marx Prestige, Danny, Derek, and Andrew Hartman talk about how Karl Marx understood the United States as a testing ground for capitalism and democratic development in the nineteenth century. They delve into the reception history approach to Marx in America, Marx’s early views on American democracy and capitalism, his writings on the Civil War and slavery, the transition in Marx’s thought from philosophy to political economy, Reconstruction and its limits, early American interpretations of Marx, and the emergence of Marxism in the late nineteenth century.Be sure to check out Andrew's Book ⁠⁠⁠Karl Marx in America⁠⁠⁠.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.co

Welcome to Fighting Fascism, a new podcast hosted by The Nation.Long-time political organizers Aaron Regunberg and Jonathan Smucker, and their normie friend Matt DaSilva, discuss the history of fascist takeovers, the conditions enabling them, and the resistance movements that have defeated them, to find lessons for today’s fights against Trump, MAGA, and the growing threat of modern authoritarianism. Want to piss off fascists? This is the podcast for you.In the first episode, Aaron, Matt, and Jonathan are joined by Astra Taylor, author of End Times Fascism, and Mark Bray, author of Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook, for a big picture conversation about what it means to fight fascism in this historical moment. Topics include popular resistance to ICE, tensions between “radical” and “normie” mobilization, how much we all hate AI, and why it shouldn’t actually be that hard to build a majoritarian coalition around the idea that like 25 creepy pedophiles shouldn’t own literally everything on the planet.Advertising

As millions of Americans protest Donald Trump under the slogan of “No Kings,” it isworth asking how the nation ended up with such an authoritarian president. David Sirotaand the team at The Lever have provided a great answer to this question in their new podcast series Master Plan: The Kingmakers, which looks at the revival of the ImperialPresidency after the Watergate scandal of the early 1970s. I talked to David about thehistory uncovered in this podcast and why Trump is merely a symptom of a muchdeeper problem.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In the Season 3 finale, Jo sells Charlotte on Alan Warner’s “amazingly textured” Movern Callar, which leads the hosts to reflect on some of the season’s recurring themes. They’re then joined by the radically reflective William C. Anderson, who explains how the Buddhism transmitted in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen Battlest, a commentary on the teachings of Master Linji, informed his political development.William C. Anderson is a writer and activist from Birmingham, Alabama. His work has appeared in The Guardian, MTV, British Journal of Photography, Logic(s) Magazine, and Prism, where he’s a monthly columnist. He is the author of The Nation on No Map (AK Press 2021) and co-author of  As Black as Resistance (AK Press 2018). He’s also the co-founder of Offshoot Journal and provides creative direction as a producer of the Black Autonomy Podcast. His writings have been included in the anthologies, Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? (Haymarket 2016) and No Selves to Defend (Mariame Kaba 2014). Please consider supporting

Just a reminder: there was too much Iran news to fit into this episode, so we gave it a standalone special you can find here. Otherwise, this week around the world: in Israel-Palestine, the Gaza Board of Peace negotiates a Hamas disarmament agreement (1:54) while the West Bank sees settler violence surge around Nablus (3:35); Pakistan resumes its war with Afghanistan after the Eid ceasefire expires (7:09); Trump reschedules his China trip for May (8:26); in Sudan’s Blue Nile State, RSF and SPLM-N militants seize Kormuk as Chad boosts its border military presence after Sudan spillover violence (11:19); in Ukraine, Russia launches a massive drone barrage as a new offensive begins (14:14), the United States ties security guarantees for Ukraine to territorial concessions (16:04), and Russia reportedly offers to end support for Iran in exchange for the U.S. ends support for Ukraine (19:00); Denmark’s snap election leaves Mette Frederiksen weakened, but still in contention to govern (21:46); Raul Castro joins Cuba’

Paris Marx is joined by Spencer Ackerman to discuss the US and Israeli war on Iran, including the history that led to this moment and what we might see from here.Spencer Ackerman is the author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America and Produced Trump and the forthcoming book The Torture and Deliverance of Majid Khan. He also write the Forever Wars newsletter.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The No Kings 3 protests this Saturday are going to be big – maybe the biggest day of protest in American history. Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-director of Indivisible, will explain—starting with the plans for St. Paul, site of the day's flagship event.Also: Trump has renewed his year-long campaign against universities that have been resisting his authoritarian rule - he’s focused his attacks on the most prestigious private university, Harvard, and the most prestigious public university, UCLA, suing each of them in the past week for – “antisemitism.” David Myers, who teaches Jewish history at UCLA, commentsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy