Best Jeet Heer Podcasts (2024)

1
The Toxic Legacy of Martin Peretz’s New Republic (w/ Jeet Heer) 40:57

7h ago40:57

40:57

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Jeet Heer has written two major essays about the intellectual legacy of the New Republic magazine’s 70s-2000s heyday. The first, from 2015, excavates the magazine’s history of racism and its role in Clinton-era “welfare reform” and in pushing Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s The Bell Cur…

1
Why Biden Continues Supporting Israel’s Onslaught in Gaza 25:14

6d ago25:14

25:14

On June 28, I delivered a speech at the central branch of the Regina Public Library on the history of American support for Israel. The speech almost didn’t happen. The library briefly cancelled it because they claimed the group promoting it was encouraging discrimination against Jews. Fortunately, a city councillor intervened to sponsor the talk. F…

1
Season 6 Episode 27: Understanding Capitalism w/Prof. Richard Wolff (+ RM Brown on the Election) 2:13:59

12m ago2:13:59

2:13:59

Prof. Richard Wolff came back on the show after a too-long absence to talk about his (as you'll see, apparently quite dangerous) new book "Understanding Capitalism." We talked with him him in the first hour and then our friend RM Brown came by to chat about the election in the second hour and into the postgame for patrons. Follow Prof. Wolff on Twi…

1
How "Pharmacy Benefit Managers" Are Extorting Us (w/ Max from UNFTR) 40:15

14m ago40:15

40:15

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Max (just Max) is the host of Unfucking the Republic (UNFTR), one of our favorite podcasts. UNFTR publishes intensively-researched deep dives into some of the most important issues in the world. One of their most recent investigations is into Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs), an insidious cartel…

1
Why Everyone Feels So Rotten About the Economy (w/ Kyla Scanlon) 33:06

1h ago33:06

33:06

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Kyla Scanlon is a leading online economics commentator and Bloomberg contributor, who regularly publishes TikTok explainers helping people understand the economy. Her new book In This Economy?is meant to help laypeople understand the economic forces around them that are so determinative in the o…

1
Nuclear Countdown, or, Why We Need to Start Worrying and Stop the Bomb 28:46

32m ago28:46

28:46

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Nuclear weapons are always lurking there in the background, out in remote places where we don't have to think about them, but ready to be fired at any time. Journalist Sarah Scoles was interested to find out more about the people who maintain the system of nuclear weapons. What do they do and ho…

1
Season 6 Episode 26: It's Good that Biden Dropped Out. But He Should Be on Trial at the Hague. 1:55:00

1h ago1:55:00

1:55:00

In the first half hour of the show, the GTAA crew takes a look at the insanity at the RNC and Biden dropping out. Then director Kavitha Chekuru chats with Ben about her very good but extremely disturbing Al Jazeera documentary, "The Night Won't End: Biden's War on Gaza." Watch the documentary here: The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza Follow Ka…

1
Why No One Gets To Retire Anymore (w/ Teresa Ghilarducci) 37:47

7m ago37:47

37:47

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Teresa Ghilarducci is an economist at the New School for Social Research and the author of Work, Retire, Repeat, which shows how the possibilities for having a comfortable and dignified retirement are slipping away. We begin with a news story about a 90-year-old veteran who was pushing shopping …

1
The Authoritarian Nightmare Donald Trump Is Planning (w/ Radley Balko) 36:51

18m ago36:51

36:51

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Radley Balko is one of America's leading journalists on policing and criminal punishment. His book The Rise of the Warrior Cop is a remarkable expose of the militarization of local police forces around the country. Recently, Radley has produced several excellent essays on the authoritarian promi…

1
Season 6 Episode 25: Fine. You Win. We'll Do an Election-News Episode. 1:48:32

9d ago1:48:32

1:48:32

[Note: This episode was recorded before the coconut dropped on Biden actually dropping out.] We had something else planned but between the assassination attempt, the JD Vance pick, the RNC, and Biden continuing to do his best impression of an extra from Night of the Living Dead, it seems like the universe really wanted us to just talk about the ele…

1
What Americans Don't Know About Iran (w/ John Ghazvinian) 42:35

15m ago42:35

42:35

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! John Ghazvinian is the leading historian of U.S.-Iranian relations, the author of the indispensable study America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present. His book shows how opportunities for positive relations between the U.S. and the Iranian people have been repeatedly squandered. From instal…

1
Is It 1968 All Over Again? (w/ Charles Kaiser) 32:05

14m ago32:05

32:05

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! With antiwar protests jeopardizing a Democratic president's reelection and an upcoming party convention in Chicago, 2024 has some eerie echoes of one of the world's most tumultuous years: 1968. Perhaps by revisiting that year we can better understand our own time. To see what lessons it holds, …

1
Jonathan Kozol on the Scandal of America's Apartheid Education System 35:00

2h ago35:00

35:00

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Jonathan Kozol is one of the leading critics of the U.S. education system, having written a series of widely acclaimed books across a 60-year career, including Savage Inequalities, The Shame of the Nation, and Letters to a Young Teacher. Today he joins to discuss his new book An End to Inequali…

1
Season 6 Episode 24: Karl Marx's Theory of History (ft. Matt McManus) 2:34:30

12d ago2:34:30

2:34:30

Matt McManus returns to hash out the arguments in G.A. Cohen's book "Karl Marx's Theory of History" with Ben Burgis. Before that, Ben and the crew take a look at Ben's post-debate interactions with YouTube personality Steven Bonnell ("Destiny"). No postgame on this one, but we make the main show count! Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf Follow Be…

1
How Corporations Suck the Welfare State Dry (w/ Anne Kim) 33:16

1d ago33:16

33:16

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Anne Kim's book Poverty For Profit: How Corporations Get Rich Off America's Poor gives a partial answer to an enduring question: how come we spend so much trying to solve poverty but poverty persists? One major reason, Kim argues, is that parasitic for-profit industries suck a lot of the money o…

1
Why Thomas Sowell is a Terrible Economist (w/ Cahal Moran) 54:45

3d ago54:45

54:45

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Thomas Sowell may be the best-selling economics writer of our time. For decades, the Hoover Institution pundit has published books and columns introducing economic concepts to a popular audience. He has been acclaimed as a genius and maverick whose insights are ignored by the academy because the…

1
Why Do We Have a "Viral Underclass"? (w/ Steven Thrasher) 41:12

19d ago41:12

41:12

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs! Steven Thrasher is a professor of journalism at Northwestern University and the author of The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide. He has also recently been present at the Columbia protests over Gaza. He joins today to discuss what he saw at the protests, before …

1
Season 6 Episode 23: What the F*** Was That? (Ben's Debate w/Destiny) 2:17:38

8d ago2:17:38

2:17:38

Last week Ben Burgis had a debate on Israel/Palestine with YouTube personality Steven Bonnell ("Destiny"). It went...oddly. In this episode we break it all down. Watch the debate at MDD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdMRphk7ij4 Follow Destiny on Twitter: @TheOmniLiberal Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show Become …

1
Is Trump an "Aberration" Or the Logical Conclusion of the Right-Wing Project? (w/ David Austin Walsh) 41:40

17d ago41:40

41:40

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Today we talk to David Austin Walsh, a postdoc at Yale and the author of Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right, a new book about the history of the U.S. right wing. Walsh is particularly interest in what the boundaries are (if any) between "mainstream" conservatism an…

1
What Will New Weight-Loss Drugs Do to Us? (w/ Johann Hari) 1:03:34

1M ago1:03:34

1:03:34

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Bestselling author Johann Hari, whose Lost Connectionsand Stolen Focus have previously been discussed on this program, returns today to discuss his new book Magic Pill: The Extraordinary Benefits and Disturbing Risks of the New Weight-Loss Drugs. New weight-loss drugs have proved remarkably eff…

1
The Real Problem With Joe Biden’s Bad Debate 47:50

16d ago47:50

47:50

Joe Biden’s performance on the first presidential debate, held on Thursday in Atlanta, has been widely criticized. Much of the criticism has focused on Biden’s style: his horse voice, frequent halting digressions and verbal flubs. But the substance of Biden’s comments, as Moira Donegan pointed out in her Guardian column, was equally troubling. In t…

1
Inside the MAGA Movement on the Ground (w/ Isaac Arnsdorf) 26:04

12d ago26:04

26:04

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Who actually comprises the MAGA movement? Where do Trumpian politicians come from? How do they defeat "establishment" Republicans on the local and state level? How much is organized from above? What's the role of Steve Bannon in all this? In Finish What We Started: The MAGA Movement's Ground Wa…

1
Season 6 Episode 22: The Vanquished (ft. Anders Lee & Freddy G.) 2:14:37

20d ago2:14:37

2:14:37

Anders Lee and Freddy G. come on to chat with Ben Burgis about their new-ish podcast The Vanquished, where they profile losing presidential candidates over the decades. We'll dig into a handful of their favorites. Before that, Ben and the crew talk about his upcoming Israel/Palestine debate with YouTube personality Steven Bonnell ("Destiny"). Last …

1
How The Dollar Became America's Most Powerful Weapon (w/ Saleha Mohsin) 30:14

1M ago30:14

30:14

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! When we think of American power, we often think of missiles, guns, and tanks. But operating in the background is an incredibly powerful weapon whose use often goes unnoticed: the dollar. In her new book Paper Soldiers: How the Weaponization of the Dollar Changed the World Order, Bloomberg News …

1
In Praise of Excess (w/ Becca Rothfeld) 38:45

17d ago38:45

38:45

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Becca Rothfeld is the nonfiction book critic for the Washington Post. Her new essay collection, All Things Are Too Small: Essays in Praise of Excess, draws together and expands on some of her best work. It covers subjects including Marie Kondo and minimalism, the films of David Cronenberg, the …

1
What Would a Left Foreign Policy Look Like? (w/ Van Jackson) 41:10

19d ago41:10

41:10

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! We know the left is, generally speaking, anti-war and anti-imperialist. But if a left-wing government ever took power in the U.S., what would its foreign policy look like? How would it deal with, say, human rights abusing governments? Would it shun them? Sanction them? Would a leftist governmen…

1
Joe Biden’s Muddled Middle East Policy 56:12

1M ago56:12

56:12

Joe Biden has often been described as among the most pro-Israel politicians in America, a characterization which has a large element of truth but misses some important nuances. As David Klion argues in a deeply researched essay for The Nation, Biden’s support for Israel has long been accompanied by rhetorical gestures indicating opposition to aspec…

1
How Cars Make Life Worse (w/ Daniel Knowles) 34:11

1M ago34:11

34:11

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Daniel Knowles is a reporter for The Economist (yes, that one). His book Carmageddon: How Cars Make Life Worse argues that cars are a problem, and shows all the ways in which we could have more satisfying, sustainable, affordable lives with fewer cars. That's a tough sell in a car-loving countr…

1
Debunking Popular Talking Points on Israel-Palestine (w/ Ben Burgis) 1:35:29

2M ago1:35:29

1:35:29

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! Ben Burgis is a philosopher and occasional contributor to Current Affairs, who runs the Philosophy for the People Substack and hosts Give Them An Argument. Today, Ben joins to respond to common arguments made to justify the policies of Israel and the United States in Gaza. "Israel has a right t…

1
Why We Need Solidarity Now More Than Ever (w/ Leah Hunt-Hendrix) 39:36

2M ago39:36

39:36

Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs ! “While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.” ―Eugene V. Debs "Are you willing to fight for someone you don't know as much as you're willing to fight for yourself?" —Bernie Sanders Political philoso…

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