Best of the Left Podcast

02/07/2025

Time to get out the birch rod...

Don't get the ref? Check out SOLVED! #5 "Keep Your Birch Rod Handy" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYQRFXfF7OA

01/07/2025

#1719: "The Fascist Playbook: Immigrants, Brown Shirts, and the Backlash"

The militarization of Trump's deportation regime and response to protesters is the clearest example of his desire to implement a fully authoritarian government. Pure and simple.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/1719

🎙 EDITOR’S NOTE: On protesting with a theory of change

💙 Support the show & get AD-FREE main shows and an early and extended audio version of our original commentary show SOLVED! (https://www.youtube.com/), when you become a Member (monthly, annual, or gift!): bestoftheleft.com/support


Image Description: Photo of a protest sign held in the air depicting a colorful drawing of a happy brown-skinned family surrounded by flowers. The text “No more detention” is at the top and “No more deportations. Abolish I.C.E.” is at the bottom. | Credit: “Abolish ICE protest” by Master Stever Rapport, Flickr | License: CC BY 2.0 | Changes: Cropped and expanded background

01/07/2025

The BIG, CRUEL, STUPID BILL is not a done deal. After barely passing in the Senate, it now heads to the House. Make noise. Everywhere.

Updates July 1, 2025: The Senate has passed H.R. 1 by a vote of 50-51, with J.D. Vance providing the tie-break YES vote. Republican Senators Paul …

01/07/2025

When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
(Maya Angelou)

01/07/2025

NEW SOLVED! OUT NOW! Check out Ep. #12: "Back to the…1980s? The Power of Nostalgia and Trump’s Reaganitis" in which the team discusses the phenomenon of living in a bad reboot of Trump's "heyday" era, where a lot of our current problems started. We get into how nostalgia is affecting more than just those with rose-colored memories of the past, what we can do to fight the new feudalism under this "Landlord in Chief," and more.

▶️ WATCH & SUBSCRIBE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWVgNz8ViKk

⭐ SOLVED! is brought to you by the podcast team. Get Best of the Left, expertly curating the best of progressive politics, news, and culture (via humans, not A.I. or algorithms) since 2006, wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/listen

💙 Become a member to get ad-free shows, and to get the audio version of SOLVED! a week earlier than the YouTube community at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/support

28/06/2025

NEW SOLVED! OUT NOW! Check out Ep. #12: "Back to the…1980s? The Power of Nostalgia and Trump’s Reaganitis" in which the team discusses the phenomenon of living in a bad reboot of Trump's "heyday" era, where a lot of our current problems started. We get into how nostalgia is affecting more than just those with rose-colored memories of the past, what we can do to fight the new feudalism under this "Landlord in Chief," and more.

▶️ WATCH & SUBSCRIBE! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWVgNz8ViKk

⭐ SOLVED! is brought to you by the podcast team. Get Best of the Left, expertly curating the best of progressive politics, news, and culture (via humans, not A.I. or algorithms) since 2006, wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/listen

💙 Become a member to get ad-free shows, and to get the audio version of SOLVED! a week earlier than the YouTube community at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/support

25/06/2025

There's A LOT going on...need to catch up? The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming.

Monthly-ish Mix #1717: "Wealth Concentration, Knowledge Suppression, and Identity Exploitation: The Systems of Control of the Authoritarian Playbook"

This month, we're focusing on the way authoritarian movements operate across multiple fronts simultaneously to reshape society.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/1717

💙 Support the show & get AD-FREE main shows, and an early and extended audio version of our original commentary YouTube show SOLVED!, when you become a Member (monthly, annual, or gift!): bestoftheleft.com/support

21/06/2025

Edition #1716: "The Fight for Workers: Oligarchy and its Bipartisan Enablers"

Critics of capitalism like us often advocate for the system to come to an end and be replaced with another that aligns better with human needs and continued existence. Well, it's possible that the system is close to having run its course and will be making way for something different. Unfortunately, the natural course of capitalism is to concentrate wealth and, by extension, power so that's what's happened and we're now getting close to basically reinventing feudalism. So, wrong direction.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/1716

🎙 EDITOR’S NOTE: On how to snowball progressive policies

💙 Support the show & get AD-FREE main shows and an early and extended audio version of our original commentary show SOLVED! (https://www.youtube.com/), when you become a Member (monthly, annual, or gift!): bestoftheleft.com/support


Image Description: Photo of a handmade protest sign held in the air that says “CAPITALISM IS KILLING US”
Credit: “ClimateStrike-210924-4-1140371” by Mark Dixon, Flickr | License: CC BY 2.0 | Changes: Cropped

17/06/2025

Our 19 years of archives are often extremely relevant today. (Weird, right?) So, here's a THROWBACK because at , we remember the past *and* choose to repeat it.

THROWBACK! Edition #1612: "New Tech and the New Luddite Movement" (Original Air Date: 2-20-24)

"Luddite" should never have become the epithet that it is, as the Luddites were never afraid of or opposed to technological advancement; they only opposed the exploitation of workers and the degradation to society that came with the unfair distribution of the benefits of the targeted technology.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/1612_throwback

💙 Support the show and get AD-FREE main shows, and an early and extended audio version of our original commentary YouTube show SOLVED! (https://www.youtube.com/), when you become a Member (monthly, annual, or gift!): bestoftheleft.com/support


Image Description: An 1812 block print of “The Leader of the Luddites” depicting a man in disheveled early 1800s clothing and missing one shoe, leading other men up a hill while a building burns in the background. | Credit: “The Leader of the Luddites”, Messrs | Working Class Movement Library catalog | Public Domain

15/06/2025

NEW SOLVED! OUT NOW! Check out Ep. #11: "Culture War Distractions While the Oligarchs Rob You Blind" in which the team discusses the culture wars (how they are simultaneously total bu****it and deeply real and important with major effects on society), and the progressive ideas we could focus on instead that solve the underlying issues and more.

▶️ WATCH & SUBSCRIBE! https://loom.ly/kpMkS2A

⭐ SOLVED! is brought to you by the podcast team. Get Best of the Left, expertly curating the best of progressive politics, news, and culture (via humans, not A.I. or algorithms) since 2006, wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://loom.ly/z2qndQI

💙 Become a member to get ad-free shows, and to get the audio version of SOLVED! a week earlier than the YouTube community at https://loom.ly/f6quB8c

Best of the Left Podcast presents: SOLVED! Ep. #11 in which Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:00:00:39 Ch. 1: Trump and the right’s attack on free speech ...

13/06/2025

NEW SOLVED! OUT NOW! Check out Ep. #11: "Culture War Distractions While the Oligarchs Rob You Blind" in which the team discusses the culture wars (how they are simultaneously total bu****it and deeply real and important with major effects on society), and the progressive ideas we could focus on instead that solve the underlying issues and more.

▶️ WATCH & SUBSCRIBE! https://youtu.be/DJ2f7BPEagE

⭐ SOLVED! is brought to you by the podcast team. Get Best of the Left, expertly curating the best of progressive politics, news, and culture (via humans, not A.I. or algorithms) since 2006, wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/listen

💙 Become a member to get ad-free shows, and to get the audio version of SOLVED! a week earlier than the YouTube community at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/support

Best of the Left Podcast presents: SOLVED! Ep. #11 in which Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:00:00:39 Ch. 1: Trump and the right’s attack on free speech ...

12/06/2025

Edition #1715: "The Weaponization of Antisemitism and Counterproductive Violence"

Following the 2023 attack and counterattack between Israel and Hamas, which brought the simmering conflict into the mainstream of American politics, we're now living with the opportunistic weaponization of antisemitism being used as a pretext to crack down on anti-Israel protests and universities that just aren't teaching a Trump-aligned curriculum. Meanwhile, genuinely inexcusable antisemitism is being either condemned or excused by Israel supporters based more on political affiliation than the danger posed to Jews.

🎧 Listen wherever you get your podcasts, or at https://www.bestoftheleft.com/1715

🎙 EDITOR’S NOTE: On why violence makes for a terrible theory of change

💙 Support the show & get AD-FREE main shows and an early and extended audio version of our original commentary show SOLVED! (https://www.youtube.com/) when you become a Member (monthly, annual, or gift!): bestoftheleft.com/support


Image Description: A metal placeholder with the Star of David on it resting between two pages of the Torah.
Credit: “Star of David emblem” via Ri_Ya, Pixabay | Pixabay license