Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy

By Best of the Left: Perspectives on Politics, Culture, and Economics

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Category: Politics

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Subscribers: 1126
Reviews: 8
Episodes: 200


 Jul 17, 2024

David
 Sep 12, 2023
I've been listening for years. Jay and his team do a wonderful job curating and putting together topics from progressive voices around any given topic of the day. There have been so many episodes I see the title of and think "nah, not for me" but inevitably every single time I give them a shot, I walk away happy I did!


 Jan 9, 2023


 Mar 5, 2022

Eric
 Apr 26, 2020
presents a reasoned, responsible view of issues we all should be thinking about.

Byron
 Feb 21, 2020
tried it... certainly wasn't impressed


 Jul 29, 2019

Chris Ryan
 Nov 13, 2018
A nice compilation of progressive news from reliable and trustworthy progressive media sources.

Description

Expertly-curated progressive politics, news, and culture produced by leftist humans, not algorithms or AI. This is an award-winning podcast that dives deeply into a wide range of national and international issues facing society and governments. We draw from hundreds of sources of progressive news and commentary. Est. 2006. Save time by listening to a range of perspectives on a focused topic in each episode and be introduced to new sources you will not have come across on your own!

Episode Date
SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES - "Collaborators, Internal Exiles, and Dissidents" (Original Air Date: 01-26-25)
Mar 09, 2026
#1775 Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition and the Remaking of American Politics
Mar 07, 2026
#1774 Monthly-ish Mix: Who's in Charge?—The Scramble for Control of Nations, Bodies, and Minds
Mar 03, 2026
#1615 Envisioning a Leftist Economic Future of Postcapitalism, High-Tech Automation, Universal Basic Income and a World (Mostly) Without Work (Throwback)
Feb 28, 2026
#1540 The Grift of Life (Scam Culture™ and the Economy it has built) (Throwback)
Feb 26, 2026
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #34 - Understanding The Dual State: Life Under Authoritarianism and Your Role in Fighting It
Feb 25, 2026
#1773 How Big Tech Captured Attention, Kids, and Democracy
Feb 24, 2026
#1772 From Fragile to Fascist: How Broken Masculinity Feeds Authoritarianism
Feb 21, 2026
#1771 They Need You in the Dark: Information, Journalism, and the Fight Against Fascism
Feb 15, 2026
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #33 - Be a Mosquito in a Swarm: How to Put Cracks in Authoritarian Power
Feb 13, 2026
#1770 Getting in the Fight Against ICE and Authoritarianism
Feb 10, 2026
#1128 Confronting Fascism in the Land of Free Speech (Throwback)
Feb 06, 2026
SOLVED! #32 - How the Left is Always Right Too Soon (With Receipts)
Feb 05, 2026
#1769 Politics Beyond the Ballot Box: Elections and the Movements that Power Them
Feb 01, 2026
#1768 The End of an Era: The International Rules-Based Order Gives Way to Trump's Might-Makes-Right Plutocracy
Jan 30, 2026
SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES - "Of Horse Races and Men: The Result of Decades of Media Atrophy (aka: Uncertain and Powerless"
Jan 26, 2026
#1767 Wars Are Won By Teachers and Trump is Attacking Them Like a Foreign Adversary
Jan 25, 2026
#1766 The Fragility of State Violence: The ICE Occupation, Renee Good, and the Minneapolis Uprising
Jan 21, 2026
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #31 - There is no "Male Loneliness Crisis(TM)": Why Patriarchy & Capitalism Are Hurting Us ALL
Jan 20, 2026
#1765 AI Capitalism Will Not Deliver an AI Utopia
Jan 17, 2026
#1764 Wealth Inequality is Bad for Society and There's No Good Counterargument
Jan 15, 2026
#1763 It's Not a Health Care System, it's a Wealth Extraction System
Jan 10, 2026
#1248 There you go again. Venezuela and America's addiction to imperialism (Remix)
Jan 07, 2026
#1762 Trump's Imperialistic Shakedown of Venezuela
Jan 03, 2026
#1761 Monthly-ish Mix: The Machine Cracks—Empire, Exploitation, and the Crumbling Facade
Dec 30, 2025
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #30 - Everything is Ugly: How Convenience Killed Beauty—And How We Can Bring It Back
Dec 30, 2025
#1760 Hot Mess: Conservative Chaos Below the Surface of Trump's Authoritarian Regime
Dec 26, 2025
#1500 America, A Beginner's Guide (Throwback)
Dec 24, 2025
#1759 Why Dictators Are Lunatics and Their Followers are Fools
Dec 22, 2025
SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES - "This is Really Happening" (Original Air Date: 12-12-24)
Dec 21, 2025
#1758 Why you think the Sudanese civil war doesn't involve you
Dec 17, 2025
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #29 - "Don't Be Cringe": Is Gen Z's Humor a Political Warning Sign?
Dec 15, 2025
#1757 Life is But a Game (that you can now bet on)
Dec 14, 2025
#1756 War Criminal Dick Cheney's Guide to Ethical Governance and Saving Democracy
Dec 10, 2025
SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES! - "Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted" (Original Air Date: 5-26-24)
Dec 07, 2025
#1605 Our Prison System is a Demonstrable Failure (Throwback)
Dec 06, 2025
#1755 Affordability: Actual Economic Populism is the Kryptonite to Fake Populism
Dec 02, 2025
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #28 - Big White Lies: The Impossible Promises of Supremacy
Dec 01, 2025
#1354 Police violence and racism are a product of our past (Uprising, Crackdown, Authoritarianism) (Throwback)
Nov 28, 2025
#1754 The Epstein Files and Donald Trump, Our Predator-in-Chief
Nov 25, 2025
SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES - "The Truth Shall Set Us Free" (Original Air Date: 12-6-24)
Nov 23, 2025
#1753 What the Shutdown and Weaponized Hunger Exposed About Our Asymmetric Morality
Nov 21, 2025
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #27 - Watch what you say! How weaponized language changes our reality
Nov 16, 2025
#1752 Reigniting the Nuclear Arms Race: Fat Man, Little Boy, and Donald Trump
Nov 14, 2025
#1751 Monthly-ish Mix: Institutions Fall, Reality Breaks, Empire Rises
Nov 11, 2025
#1750 "America's Backyard" - The War on Terror Meets the War on Drugs
Nov 07, 2025
SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES - "Transgressive Thoughts in a Villain Era" (Original Air Date: 1-6-25)
Nov 06, 2025
#1749 Democracy: In Theory, In Practice, and Under Threat
Nov 04, 2025
#1748 Patriotism in Peril: Democracy, the Military, and the Fight Over What America Means
Nov 02, 2025
#1747 Racism in the United States, it turns out, is a problem
Oct 28, 2025
#1746 What an actual attack on free speech looks like
Oct 25, 2025
#1374 Tell Stories, Not Myths: Columbus and the Centrality of Colonialism (Throwback)
Oct 22, 2025
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #25 - Trump's "State Capitalism" is Just a Grift, NOT Socialism
Oct 21, 2025
#1745 Fake New World: The Age of AI Slop, AI Education, and AI Fascism
Oct 20, 2025
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #24 - Attacking the Medium is the Message: Trump's Media Oligarchs and the Assault on Free Speech
Oct 14, 2025
#1743 Trump and Project 2025: Blitzkrieg Against America
Oct 10, 2025
#1742 Captured Court, Captured Nation: SCOTUS Serves Trump's Authoritarianism
Oct 07, 2025
#1741 Global Uprisings: Dissatisfaction Roiling France, the UK, and Nepal
Oct 03, 2025
#1740 Monthly-ish Mix: The Enemy Within and the Enemy Without—America's Two-Front
Sep 30, 2025
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #23 - ROBBING YOU BLIND: 'Buy Now Pay Later' and Mass Consumer Manipulation
Sep 28, 2025
#1526 A History of Political Violence in the US (Throwback)
Sep 26, 2025
#1739 The Charlie Kirk Assassination and the Plans to Weaponize It
Sep 23, 2025
SOLVED! #22 - The Culture Wars at 10,000 Feet
Sep 22, 2025
#1738 Escalations: Russia, Israel, And What We Are Allowed to Say About It
Sep 20, 2025
#1737 State of the Resistance: Labor, Anger, and Knowing That We've Been Here Before
Sep 16, 2025
#1736 Not the Opposition Party the Country Need Right Now
Sep 11, 2025
#1735 Trump's Making Friends of Enemies and Enemies of Neighbors (Foreign and Domestic Wars)
Sep 07, 2025
SOLVED! #21 - GerryF**ked: How to Fix Congressional Representation and End Homelessness
Sep 05, 2025
#1567 How to Sell an Immoral Economic System to the Masses (Throwback)
Sep 03, 2025
#1734 Where is the Revolutionary, Anti-Fascist Art?
Sep 01, 2025
SOLVED! #20 - America's Brain Drain: How Scientific Empires Fall
Aug 29, 2025
#1733 The Impossible Promise of Make American Healthy Again: MAHA vs MAGA
Aug 27, 2025
#1732 It's Never Just About the Kids (Online Censorship, Age Verification, and the Project 2025 Agenda)
Aug 24, 2025
#1731 Raw Power, the Presidency, the Courts, and Democracy in the Balance
Aug 20, 2025
SOLVED! #19 - Big Data: Putting Digital Fingerprints in the Pie of Freedom
Aug 19, 2025
#1730 The Axis of the Dark Personality Triad: Unfit Leaders and the Suffering They Cause
Aug 16, 2025
#1729 Monthly-ish Mix: Layers of Authoritarian Control and the Rising Resistance
Aug 12, 2025
SOLVED! #18 - How to Live Under Fascism
Aug 11, 2025
#1728 The Lawfare Presidency: The Case of Trump v. Journalism
Aug 10, 2025
#1727 Super-Powered Men For Good and Ill: Fascism, Media, and the Manoshpere
Aug 06, 2025
#1573 Confronting Climate Chaos with Action and Adaptation (Throwback)
Aug 03, 2025
SOLVED! #17 - How to Use the Bullsh*t Machine: A.I. LLMs' insertion into childhood, school, work, and movements
Aug 02, 2025
#1726 Epstein Forever: Trump flails as criticism finally comes from inside the MAGA house
Jul 31, 2025
#1725 A Flood of Disinformation: A World of Climate Change and Conspiracies
Jul 28, 2025
#1724 How to Socialism: Einstein liked socialism, you think you know better?
Jul 23, 2025
SOLVED! #16 - Under Pressure: Aiming Higher to Fix Societal Problems
Jul 22, 2025
#1375 The Militia Movement is Having a Moment (Throwback)
Jul 18, 2025
#1723 Scam Nation: Trumpism is the Art of Screwing You Over in Every Way Possible
Jul 16, 2025
SOLVED! #15 - This is Propaganda Country: The Grotesque, Cruel, & Artificial Aesthetics of Modern Fascism
Jul 14, 2025
#1722 Imbalance of Powers: The Supreme Court and Executive Branch Collude for Unchecked Power Grab
Jul 12, 2025
#1721 The Evolution of the Military Industrial Complex: Now with AI!
Jul 09, 2025
SOLVED! #14 - How to Be An Imperfectionist: Fighting the infighting and building a resilient Left movement
Jul 08, 2025
#1376 Tell Stories, Not Myths- America is a Force But Not Always For Good (Throwback)
Jul 04, 2025
#1720 Building an Organized Left, the Eternal Oxymoron
Jul 02, 2025
#13 - How to Make Enemies and Influence People
Jul 01, 2025
#1719 The Fascist Playbook: Immigrants, Brown Shirts, and the Backlash
Jun 28, 2025
#1718 On the Path to Destruction: Israel Attacks Iran as Support for War on Gaza Drops
Jun 25, 2025
SOLVED! #12 - Back to the…1980s? The Power of Nostalgia and Trump's Reaganitis
Jun 24, 2025
#1717 Monthly-Ish Mix: Wealth Concentration, Knowledge Suppression, and Identity Exploitation: The Systems of Control of the Authoritarian Playbook
Jun 21, 2025
#1716 The Fight for Workers: Oligarchy and its Bipartisan Enablers
Jun 18, 2025
#1612 New Tech and the New Luddite Movement; Inequitable Distribution of Benefits from New Technology Always Sparks Demands from Labor and AI is Rekindling the Old Arguments (Throwback)
Jun 13, 2025
#1715 The Weaponization of Antisemitism and Counterproductive Violence
Jun 11, 2025
SOLVED! #11 - Culture War Distractions While the Oligarchs Rob You Blind
Jun 10, 2025
#1714 Trump's Anti-Knowledge Agenda is Inviting the Next Authoritarian Dark Age
Jun 06, 2025
#1597 The rise of fascism around the world driven by economic insecurity (Throwback)
Jun 03, 2025
SOLVED! #10 - The Old Guard is Dying
Jun 02, 2025
#1713 Yes, GOP Policies Really Are That Bad: Trump's Corruption and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
May 30, 2025
#1712 Eugenics Redux: A Gilded Age Ideology Brought Back for the Second Gilded Age
May 27, 2025
SPECIAL MEMBERS EDITION! Myths, Vampires, and Sinners (the movie!) - SPOILERS!
May 26, 2025
#1355 I Can't Breathe, The Three Words That Define an Era (Throwback)
May 24, 2025
#1711 How It Started, How It's Going- Assessing the Flooded Zone Full of Shit
May 21, 2025
SOLVED! #9 - A Pale Blue Dot of Anxiety
May 19, 2025
#1710 The past is never dead. It's not even past. Race, Religion, Culture and the Stories we Tell
May 18, 2025
#1493 Marketing, Messaging and Mass Shootings (Throwback)
May 14, 2025
#1275 So, Marxism. What is that all about? (Throwback)
May 09, 2025
#1709 Monthly-ish Mix: Government Power, Vulnerable Communities, Transformations, Opposition & Resistance
May 06, 2025
SOLVED! #8 - PART 2: Drowning Men Will Clutch at Straws: Masculinity in a MAGA world
May 05, 2025
#1708 Rent Asunder: From the Moderation of Pope Francis to Extremism of JD Vance, the Catholic Church is Deeply Divided
May 02, 2025
#1707 Tariffied: Exposing Trump's Artless Deal
Apr 29, 2025
SOLVED! #8 - PART 1: Drowning Men Will Clutch at Straws: Masculinity in a MAGA world
Apr 28, 2025
#1706 Trump's Kafkaesque Deportation Nightmare is the Shame of the Nation
Apr 26, 2025
#1705 Threatened Social Safety Nets Are Foundational to Healthy Societies
Apr 22, 2025
#1704 Weaponization and Capitulation: Trump vs Immigrants, Universities, and Media
Apr 18, 2025
#1703 The Broligarchy and the Rise of Techno-Feudalism
Apr 14, 2025
#1254 Israeli right-wing politics has lead to some strange, fascist bedfellows (Throwback)
Apr 08, 2025
#1702 Destroying Education, Boosting Christian Nationalism: Rewriting the Past and Hamstringing the Future
Apr 05, 2025
#1701 Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way: Installing the Backbone Democrats Need
Apr 02, 2025
#1700 Dehumanizing Trans People is Always the First Step for Fascists
Mar 29, 2025
#1479 Torturing Children and Families in the Name of Protecting Them (Trans Rights Throwback)
Mar 26, 2025
SOLVED! #3 - Common Sense Is Not So Common
Mar 25, 2025
#1699 A Government Of the People, By the People, and Weaponized Against the People
Mar 21, 2025
Bonus Edition #341 - SOLVED! Like a Flame in the Night
Mar 19, 2025
#1698 Resistance is Not Futile: Support the collective revolt against Trumpism (Special Podcasthon!)
Mar 18, 2025
#1697 The Trump World Order: Are we the Baddies?
Mar 15, 2025
#1696 Monthly Mix: Ethnic Cleansing Gaza, Mass Deportations, Deconstructing the State, Trump's Corruption
Mar 12, 2025
Bonus Edition #340 - SOLVED! Prophetic Voices from the Past and Hope for the Future
Mar 09, 2025
#1695 Trump's Corruption As A Matter Of Course and a Strategy to Hold Power
Mar 07, 2025
#1694 Unhealthy Discourse: RFK Jr. and the Anti-Science Movement Endangering Global Health
Mar 04, 2025
Bonus Edition #339 - SOLVED! The Power of Entrepreneurial Spirit Compels You!
Mar 02, 2025
#1496 Home Is Where The Hardship Is (Housing Crisis Throwback)
Feb 28, 2025
#1693 Empowering Ethnostates: Ethnically cleansing Gaza and Trump's South Africa fixation
Feb 25, 2025
Bonus Edition #338 - SOLVED! Friends, Enemies, and Blood Chutes
Feb 23, 2025
#1692 Ethnically Cleansing America: Trump's racist whirlwind of deportation and criminalization of immigration
Feb 21, 2025
#1691 Democracy Emergency, Constitutional Crisis, Democratic Backsliding, Failing Guardrails
Feb 18, 2025
Bonus Edition #337 - SOLVED! Bullying the Biggest Losers
Feb 16, 2025
#943 No human being is illegal (Throwback)
Feb 15, 2025
#1690 Oligarchy Unmasked: Why Billionaires Hate Democracy and How They're Dismantling It
Feb 11, 2025
Bonus Edition #336 - SOLVED! Demystifying Our Reality
Feb 10, 2025
#1689 The Media and the Moguls: Corporate Media is not equipped for Trump
Feb 07, 2025
#1688 International Decline: The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born
Feb 04, 2025
Bonus Edition #335 - SOLVED! Good Advice in Bad Times
Feb 03, 2025
#1687 Respite: Ceasefire in Gaza and the Legacy of Imperial Folly in the Middle East
Jan 31, 2025
#1686 Temperatures Rising, Tempers Flaring: LA Fires, Climate Emergencies, Conspiracies, and Water Wars
Jan 28, 2025
Bonus Edition #334 - SOLVED! Collaborators, Internal Exiles, and Dissidents
Jan 26, 2025
#1085 A case against the myth of individualism (Throwback)
Jan 24, 2025
#1685 Faux Populism and Neoliberalism: Working People Are Stuck Between Oligarchy and Disregard
Jan 21, 2025
Bonus Edition #333 - This is What Democracy (Actually) Looks Like
Jan 20, 2025
#1684 The Last Honest President: The imperfect life and legacy of Jimmy Carter
Jan 18, 2025
#1683 Oligarchy Unmasked: President Musk, the crackup of capitalism, and the MAGA meltdown
Jan 15, 2025
#1682 Looking Back to Trump 1.0 (Remix)
Jan 11, 2025
#1681 Trump's American Imperialism: Threatening Friends and Annoying Neighbors
Jan 08, 2025
Bonus Edition #332 Transgressive Thoughts in a Villain Era
Jan 06, 2025
#1680 The US puts the Hell in Health Care: For-profit insurance, Pharma, and the hatred and conspiracies they breed
Jan 04, 2025
#1554 Destroying Education and Democracy for Fun and Profit (Throwback)
Dec 31, 2024
#1679 The Middle East War Process: Syria's Transition, Israel's Expansion, and Beyond
Dec 28, 2024
#1566 Wrestling with Ethical Consumption Under Capitalism (Throwback)
Dec 25, 2024
Bonus Edition #331 - The Realignment Will Make You Seasick
Dec 23, 2024
#1678 Trump's Total Dominance Over the Republican Party and the Resistance Efforts Already Underway
Dec 20, 2024
#1677 Dems Can't Have Their Billionaires and Beat Them Too: The politics of anti-elitism
Dec 17, 2024
Bonus Edition #330 - Rebuilding the Village
Dec 15, 2024
#1676 The Incompetence of Authoritarians: Trump's cabinet picks are all loyalty, no ability
Dec 13, 2024
Bonus Edition #329 - This Is Really Happening
Dec 12, 2024
#1675 Fighting Nihilism to Organize For Freedom Against Fascism
Dec 10, 2024
#1595 Pushing for Medicare For All in the Laboratories of Democracy (Throwback)
Dec 08, 2024
Bonus Edition #328 The Truth Shall Set Us Free
Dec 06, 2024
#1674 #MenToo: The Make America Male Again Election and the Media Driving the Message
Dec 03, 2024
#1673 Beyond Thanksgiving: Telling Native Stories (Remix)
Nov 29, 2024
#1672 Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out
Nov 26, 2024
Bonus Sample #327 You Say You Want a Revolution
Nov 24, 2024
#1671 The Non-Exclusive Impact of White Supremacy and Misogyny on the Election
Nov 20, 2024
#1670 A Refresher on the Sham of Conservative Economic Populism and the Left Alternatives (Remix)
Nov 15, 2024
#1669 Private Equity: The worst of capitalism, amplified
Nov 12, 2024
#1668 We Are Going Back: Team post-election analysis
Nov 08, 2024
#1667 Billionaires and Ballots: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
Nov 05, 2024
#1666 The Holy War Against America: The New Apostolic Reformation, Opus Dei, Evangelicals, Christian Nationalists, and the Worship of Donald Trump
Nov 02, 2024
Bonus Edition #326 Marketing: The Dirty Public Restroom of the Internet
Oct 31, 2024
#1665 The GOP Is A Grift And Was Long Before Trump
Oct 29, 2024
#1543 Capitalism doesn't live up to the hype (Throwback)
Oct 25, 2024
#1664 All That Gets Wrongly Blamed on Immigrants: Lies about the economy, crime, election integrity, Social Security, and more!
Oct 22, 2024
Bonus Edition #325 A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing
Oct 20, 2024
#1491 Mismanaging Capitalism Can Lead to Fascism (Inflation and the Working Class)(Throwback)
Oct 18, 2024
#1663 Recovering from Disaster(ous) Policy Amid Disinformation: Hurricanes and Wild Fires at the forefront of our climate emergency
Oct 15, 2024
Bonus Edition #324 The Mess Joe Made
Oct 14, 2024
#1662 Renewing the Nuclear Age: Weapons, Energy, Climate Mitigation, and Risk
Oct 12, 2024
To See Each Other: A Beloved Nursing Home
Oct 10, 2024
#1661 Immigration is Actively Good for the Country Unless You're Racist
Oct 08, 2024
Bonus Sample #323 Solving Antisemitism
Oct 07, 2024
#1660 Criminalizing Pregnancy: The high cost in health, freedom, and even lives of the campaign to keep people pregnant.
Oct 04, 2024
#1659 Conflagration Through Escalation: Israel expands the war to Lebanon to defend their ongoing genocide in Gaza
Oct 01, 2024
Bonus Sample #322 Things That Go Vroom
Sep 29, 2024