The Nation Podcasts

Pull yourselves up by your bootstraps, rise ‘n grind, and find your calling as we welcome historian Erik Baker to the program to talk about his book Make Your Own Job: How the Entrepreneurial Work Ethic Exhausted America. The group explores the Protestant work ethic and Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, influential figures like Henry Ford and Frederick Winslow Taylor, the seeds of entrepreneurialism in Harvard Business School, how it came to be seen as an American value during the Cold War, “entrepreneurial modernity,” postwar liberalism’s failure to provide meaningful work for the professional-managerial class, self-help writers, and much more.Be sure to check out Issue Fifteen of The Drift, where Erik is a senior editor. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Donald Trump’s foreign policy has been as unstable as the man himself, shifting quickly frompushes for restraint to escalating wars in the Middle East. This volatility is a function not just ofTrump’s personality but the contradictions and competing factions that are gathered under theterm America First, as well as the continued power of the foreign policy establishment thatTrump has claimed he defeated but which maintains a strong capacity to shape policy. To talkabout Trump’s foreign policy and the factional battles that have bedevilled his administration, Ispoke to Justin Logan, director of defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. In particular we take up the attacks on Elbridge Colby, the under-secretary of defense forpolicy. Colby was the subject of a Politico hatchet job which claimed he was running a rogueforeign policy. Justin critiqued this analysis here.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Remember that today is the last day to order our limited edition “Robo Washington Crossing the Delaware” poster! Paid subscribers get a 50% discount!AP’s retirement account is entirely tied to copper, so we’re not sure how long we have to do this. In this week’s news: Yemen’s Houthi/Ansar Allah fighters have resumed attacks on commercial ships in the Red Sea, sinking two (1:47); in Israel-Palestine news, Benjamin Netanyahu (on a visit to the White House) rules out a Palestinian state (4:50), ceasefire talks resume (7:56), and Israel has revealed a plan to “relocate” Gaza’s population (12:34); the IDF resumes attacks on Lebanon despite a ceasefire (15:54); the ICC issues warrants for the leaders of the Taliban (18:28); Trump revisits a “burden sharing” debate with South Korea (19:59); Trump invites a group of leaders from African countries to the White House (22:54); widespread protests in Kenya leave many dead (27:03); Trump reverses course on withholding military aid to Ukraine (29:01); the UK and France discuss a “coordinated nuclear deterrent” (32:41); the US and Colombia recall envoys in an intensifying diplomatic row (35:10); Trump sets a new date for reciprocal tariffs (37:35), threatens additional tariffs on BRICS countries (39:49), and threatens a 50% tariff on Brazil for putting Jair Bolsonaro on trial (42:04); and the US traffics 8 people to South Sudan (44:55).Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Paris Marx is joined by Laleh Khalili to discuss how the United States uses its control of key technologies to shift global power dynamics, and how that specifically plays out in the Middle East.Laleh Khalili is Professor of Gulf Studies at the University of Exeter and author of the forthcoming book Extractive Capitalism.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Trump’s ICE is attacking undocumented people in LA County because there are a lot of them -- maybe a million, out of a total of 3.3 million Latinos, and also because LA is one of the most Democratic counties in the country. And LA has a big and militant alliance of immigrants rights groups that are fighting Trump. Harold Meyerson will explain the deportation battle in Southern California at this point. Also: Rachel Kushner will talk about the informant and provacateur who infiltrates an anarchist eco-commune in rural France – the central character in her award-winning novel, “Creation Lake” - it’s out now, in paperback.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

⁠Get your limited edition "Robo Washington" poster now⁠⁠!Economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) ⁠Mark Weisbrot⁠ joins the show to talk about economic sanctions and how they affect people’s lives. They discuss the effect of sanctions on migration flows, how the PR about them targeting governments and not civilians is false, how the international financial system and dollar hegemony allow the US to sanction so freely, whether sanctions on other countries actually benefit ordinary Americans, whether tariffs can be considered a form of sanctions, and more.Check out ⁠CEPR’s work⁠ for much more material on sanctions.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Writing in The Nation, Pamela Alma Weymouth drew a contrast between Kay Graham, her lategrandmother who was publisher of The Washington Post when it fought Richard Nixon’sadministration on The Pentagon Papers and Watergate, with the current owner of thenewspaper, Jeff Bezos. Unlike Graham, Bezos has been all too willing to bend the knee to acorrupt president. I talked to Pamela about Bezos and other contemporary corporate leaderswho are undermining journalistic integrity at a moment when it is needed more than ever.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Our news roundups are sometimes big, but never beautiful. This week: the PKK to begin its disarmament in Turkey (1:17); Iran suspends its cooperation with the IAEA (4:30), but remains open to negotiations with the US (6:53); the debate continues on how far the war set back Iran’s nuclear program (9:18); in Gaza, a new ceasefire push (12:24) while journalists investigate the massacres at “humanitarian aid” sites (16:15); Russia recognizes the Talbian-led government in Afghanistan (20:20); the Constitutional Court of Thailand suspends PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra (21:57); Malaysia bans US plastic waste (23:55); Trump ramps up US airstrikes in Somalia (26:07); the DRC and Rwanda sign a peace deal (28:48); Russia makes advances in Ukraine (33:31) plus the US freezes military aid (35:46); the UN says the security situation in Haiti is worsening (37:51); and the US and China make another trade deal (39:29).Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Paris Marx is joined by Yangyang Cheng to discuss how Huawei became one of the most powerful companies in China and how current geopolitical narratives distract from the issues at the heart of surveillance capitalism in the US and China.Yangyang Cheng is a Research Scholar in Law and Fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The surprise victory of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in New York City’s Democratic mayor primary over a well-funded establishment candidate shows that progressive politics, when pursued with discipline, vision and vigor, can win broad support. Bhaskar Sukara, President of The Nation and author of The Socialist Manifesto, has our analysis.Also: After going to court to challenge Trump’s cut of $2 billion in federal grants, Harvard is now in negotiations with the administration, seeking “common ground” – raising fears that even the most established and wealthy university will submit to his demands. E.J. Dionne argues that authoritarians everywhere target universities, which everywhere are centers of resistance and defenders of democratic freedoms.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy