Jacobin Radio

American slaveholders before the Civil War oversaw an incredibly brutal economic system that generated enormous wealth for a tiny elite while denying enslaved Africans the most basic rights. But they also presided over American foreign policy, overseeing US territorial and economic expansion. As historian Matt Karp explains in This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy, they didn't just want an independent slaveholding south — they wanted to spread their empire of slavery to the entire United States and beyond. In November 2016, Karp spoke at the New School in New York City with historian Eric Foner, Dewitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University and author of many books on the Civil War including Reconstruction and The Fiery Trial. Karp is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University and a contributing editor at Jacobin. Follow him on Twitter at @karpmj.Produced by Tanner Howard.

The horrors of the Trump administration have shown no signs of slowing in the month he has been in office. But so far, neither has the pushback we've seen in the streets. The protests have reminded Ellie Mae O'Hagan of the anti-austerity protests in the United Kingdom — both in terms of the hope they represent and the potential dangers and pitfalls they face. O'Hagan wrote about this in a recent article for Jacobin, "Lessons from the Anti-Austerity Movement," which you can read here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/lessons-from-the-anti-austerity-movement/ Ellie Mae O'Hagan is a frequent contributor to the Guardian who lives in London. Follow her on Twitter at @MissEllieMae.

Donald Trump's viciously xenophobic policies have put the word "sanctuary" on many people's lips. But immigrant rights organizers under Trump don't have to reinvent the wheel: the 1980s saw a vibrant sanctuary movement in response to US intervention in Central America.Hilary Goodfriend is a researcher based in San Salvador, El Salvador, who has covered Central America for Jacobin. Here, she talks about the sanctuary movement's history, its practical and ideological components, and the movement's lessons for today. You can read Goodfriend's article on the Central American sanctuary movement here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/2017/02/sanctuary-movement-central-america-el-salvador-trump-deportations/ And you can follow her on Twitter at @HilaryGoodfrien.Produced by Tanner Howard.

All eyes have turned to the judiciary. It’s the one potential institutional check on Trump on the federal level (aside from the national security state). But the judiciary, despite pretenses to the contrary, is fundamentally political. It has historically shred civil rights and economic protections more often than it has protected them.Today, Dan Denvir speaks to Jed Purdy about the judiciary and other matters. Purdy is a professor at Duke Law and the author of three books on American political identity including The Meaning of Property. His most recent book is After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene and he has published articles in many, many publications.

The Salvadoran Civil War is one of the most brutal conflicts in recent history. The United States funded far-right, quasi-fascist forces who had no qualms with bathing the country in blood in the name of anti-communism. Few incidents illustrate this better than the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, the country's top Catholic leader, whose brief period speaking out on behalf of the poor and against the military led to his murder while giving mass. Matt Eisenbrandt is the author of Assassination of a Saint: The Plot to Murder Óscar Romero and the Quest to Bring His Killers to Justice, a fast-paced, often heartbreaking look into a uniquely depraved period of the Cold War. Eisenbrandt is a former attorney at the Center for Justice and Accountability, which brought a case in the United States against Romero's killers. Here, he walks through the history of the Salvadoran conflict and the attempts to pursue the architects of the archbishop's assassination in both the United States and El Salvador.

The first episode of Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman, featuring a wide-ranging interview with Bhaskar Sunkara and Robert Brenner that covers prospects for resistance with a rising anti-Trump sentiment but a weakened labor movement, the Democrats' refusal to learn any lessons from November's election, and the widespread support for a social-democratic agenda that the Left can capitalize on.Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin. Robert Brenner is the director of the Center for Social Theory and Comparative History at UCLA, author of numerous books including The Economics of Global Turbulence, and coeditor with Vivek Chibber of Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, forthcoming from Jacobin.

Betsy DeVos is now Secretary of Education. A far-right billionaire heiress to a pyramid scheme — sorry, alleged pyramid scheme — who has never spent a day teaching but has devoted much of her career to dismantling public education, her tenure will likely prove disastrous for schools. But DeVos's nomination also drew unprecedented pushback, forcing a tie on her confirmation vote that Vice President Mike Pence had to break in her favor. Activists actually turned her away from a public school in Washington, DC, last week by blocking an entrance. While things look bleak for public education, there is also an opportunity for teachers and parents to fight back, as Megan Erickson, a public school teacher in Brooklyn, explains in this conversation. Erickson is a member of Jacobin's editorial board and the author of Class War: The Privatization of Childhood. You can read her articles for Jacobin here: https://www.jacobinmag.com/author/megan-erickson/ And buy her book here: https://www.versobooks.com/books/1954-class-warThanks to Tanner Howard for producing this segment.

Mark Blyth wasn't surprised by the rise of Donald Trump, nor Brexit, nor the crises spreading across Europe. He actually predicted them all. Blyth, the author of "Austerity: The History of a Dangerous Idea" and professor of political economy at Brown, explains how economic crisis has led to upheaval in a political establishment that worked obsessively to eliminate inflation and maximize profits at the expense of general wellbeing. This crisis has produced horrific peril, as the Trump administration's first weeks have made clear. But for the Left, it also provides historic opportunities.Blyth recently spoke with Daniel Denvir in a live taping of the Dig in front of a crowd of 150 in Providence, Rhode Island.

Welcome to the first episode of Stockton to Malone, a podcast from Jacobin magazine. For the first episode, ahead of protests and counterprotests at Planned Parenthood clinics around the country and forthcoming attacks on abortion rights under President Donald Trump, hosts RL Stephens and Micah Uetricht interview Judy Wittner. Before Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was illegal throughout most of the country. In 1969, Wittner, who was involved in the feminist movement in Chicago, discovered she was pregnant and wanted an abortion. She sought out assistance from doctors around the Chicago area but was turned away. Eventually, she turned to an illegal feminist abortion service, the Jane Collective, and ended up receiving an abortion on her kitchen table in Evanston, Illinois. We sat down with Judy in that same kitchen to talk with her about that experience and the state of reproductive rights today.

George Cicariello-Maher is professor of political science at Drexel University and author of several books, including Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela, published by Verso as part of the Jacobin Series. He recently drew the ire of white supremacist, "alt-right" trolls after a mocking tweet about "white genocide," including death threats to his family.Perhaps more concerning was the response from Drexel Administration, which almost immediately released a statement calling his tweets “utterly reprehensible, deeply disturbing,” and stating that they “do not in any way reflect the values of the University.” Drexel eventually backed off after a public campaign in defense of Cicariello-Maher. He discusses the incident as well as issues of violence and free speech in the United States.