Jacobin Radio

Democracy is the proposition that the people should govern themselves. But who are the people, and how should they govern? Populist movements attempt to answer these questions. In response, establishment figures insist that it is the people and their populism that pose a dangerous threat to democracy. How should we appraise our current populist moment? And how can we distinguish between populism's left and right variants? Dan interviews two experts on populism, political scientists Laura Grattan and Thea Riofrancos.Check out Thea's n+1 essays on populism here:nplusonemag.com/issue-28/politics/democracy-without-the-people-2/nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/zombie-liberalism/nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/populism-without-the-people/Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

On this special #RedforEd edition of Jacobin Radio, Suzi speaks with former teacher, member of the School Board, City Council, and State Assembly Jackie Goldberg, who is running in the March 5 special election to the LAUSD School Board. If elected, Jackie will be an experienced and effective progressive voice for public education, opposing the charter school privatizers who were elected with money from the bank-rollers who "have stacked the deck against district public schools.” We talk to Jackie about the strike, the fight to save public education, and how the forces are aligned from Los Angeles to Sacramento to Washington. Suzi also speaks to Eric Blanc, former teacher and author of the forthcoming Red State Revolt:The Teachers Strike Wave and Working Class Politics. Erichas been covering the strike for Jacobinand looks at the larger issues in the UTLA strike, the billionaires arrayed against the LA schools, the dilemma this strike poses for establishment Democrats, and why this fightback is historic.

The teacher strike wave continues as more than 30,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles walk picket lines not only for the higher wages that they deserve but also for the well-funded and great schools that the city's working-class students of color have long been systematically denied—a situation that has been exacerbated by a corporate reform-led school board and superintendent dead-set on privatizing the district. UTLA has in recent years been led by a militant, rank-and-file caucus that has shunted aside the old guard's narrow vision of service unionism in favor of a big-picture movement unionism that makes the struggles of teachers, parents and students one on and the same. Sarah Jaffe is Dan's guest for a discussion of the strike, social reproduction and lessons from Rosa Luxemburg (interview was recorded on Wednesday).Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comSupport this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Jacobin editor Alyssa Battistoni interviews Astra Taylor on her new film What is Democracy?, in which Astra asks ordinary people and political philosophers alike just that. The answers are often extraordinary and far more incisive than the mindless pablum emanating from Washington and its official interpreters. The film opens in New York on Wednesday January 16 at the IFC Center before traveling to theaters and campuses. Special guests on hand during opening week for live Q&As with Astra include Silvia Federici, Cornel West, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor. For details, go to ifccenter.com/films/what-is-democracy. Those of us who don't live in New York can find other dates through the distributor at zeitgeistfilms.com. And if you want to bring this film to your school or town, and you really should, contact Zeitgeist Films! Thanks to Verso Books. Check out their huge selection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.com Please support this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

<font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Suzi speaks to energy specialist and author Simon Pirani about his new book, Burning Up: A Global History of Fossil Fuel Consumption that traces the relentless rise in oil, gas, and coal use since the mid-twentieth century </font>— and shows how consumption has grown fastest since the discovery of global warming in the 1980s. Simon argues that fuels are mainly consumed through technological systems, which are in turn embedded in social, economic, and political systems — and that the transition away from fossil fuels will mean the transformation of all of these. Then: the LA teachers strike is on! Suzi talks toArlene Inouye, secretary of United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) and co-chair of the negotiations team about what happened in bargaining, and how important this strike is for public education, indeed, for the public. UTLA is demanding a fair agreement that addresses class size, funding for nurses, counselors, and librarians, a halt to further privatization through charterization, and teacher pay. The LAUSD’s Austin Beutner failed to show up for the last two bargaining sessions, lied to the media, and presented an inadequate proposal, so now he has to face teachers, students, and community on the picket lines. After the spectacular Red State teachers' strikes of last year, the LAUSD strike has enormous potential in practical and inspirational terms — for labor and community as a whole.

Typically, people think about migration as immigration: people crossing international borders from one nation-state to another. And for the past half century in the United States, people have tended to think about that immigration in a binary way: legal immigration versus illegal immigration. But to understand the origins of the immigration politics in general and the criminalization of Mexican immigrants in particular that have become the core of the Trump presidency, we must explode these categories, identify their origins, and analyze the history that preceded them. Dan interviews Aziz Rana.Thanks to Verso. Check out their huge collection of left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comPlease support this podcast with your money at patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews Melinda Cooper about her book, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism, which makes the case that neoliberalism and social conservatism have been consistent collaborators in creating an economy that redistributed wealth ruthlessly upwards with a risk-absorbing family at its privatized center.Thanks to Verso Books, which has a huge collection of excellent left-wing titles at www.versobooks.comSupport this podcast with your money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Suzi talks to scholar activist Richard Walker about his new book, Pictures of a Gone City, an urban geography of the San Francisco Bay Area, America’s richest and fastest changing metropolis. Walker explains both the miracle of Silicon Valley — including the sometimes delusional ideas behind this new tech boom, and the heavy price being paid for it in terms of affordability, traffic paralysis, environmental disruption, as well as the political challenges and movements it has spawned. We then speak to Jacobin’s Matt Karp, who evaluates the importance of the midterm elections and the politics of the Democratic Party, who went after suburban voters in this election. The Democrats are about to control the house, but Matt says their professional-class politics are a cul de sac, when what is needed is a political revolution driven by the needs and aspirations of the multiracial working class.

Trump and fossil-fueled conservatives have pit working-class prosperity against environmentalism. This, of course, is incredibly dangerous. It's also premised on a misreading of environmental politics as having nothing to do with human well-being. But climate change, of course, threatens not only non-human nature but also the entirety of human life that is fundamentally dependent on it. Right now, coastal homes and cities, agriculture, wildfire-prone forests, and the water supply are all under threat. And so an ecologically sustainable response to this crisis must definitionally also be a socially and economically just one: something like a Green New Deal, a broad vision that climate activists and left insurgent politicians are uniting behind. Dan's guest today, climate reporter Kate Aronoff, is going to tell us all about it — as well as about the general state of domestic and global climate politics.

Historian Adam Tooze, an expert on economic history and author of Crashed, dives deep into the financial crises that reshaped global politics. He discusses the Tea Party's backlash against homeowner bailouts, revealing the roots of austerity measures in Europe and the rising far-right. Tooze also critiques U.S.-China economic tensions and the effectiveness of political responses during crises, highlighting the role of central banks and the complexities of bond vigilantes. His insights connect historical events to today's political landscape, urging a reexamination of economic ideologies.