In June 2019, mass protests erupted in Hong Kong in response to a bill that would have allowed the extradition of fugitives to mainland China. As the protests continued throughout the year, the objectives shifted, and a broader, more complex, and increasingly violent movement emerged. The movement quickly converged around five key demands: the complete withdrawal of the extradition bill, the establishment of an independent inquiry to investigate police brutality, withdrawal of the label of protesters as “rioters,” release of those arrested at protests, and universal suffrage in Hong Kong. While it has drawn on the tactics of political movements from the past, including those of anticommunist activism in Eastern Europe, the movement is distinctly contemporary. Decisions are made through encrypted chat apps, and Hong Kongers from diverse sectors of society participate. Yi-Ling Liu reports on the evolution of these protests in “Dream State,” published in the May issue of Harper’s Magazine, and reveals that though the protesters have five demands at the moment, far more sweeping changes could be realized. Born in Hong Kong to parents from mainland China, Yi-Ling Liu grew up moving between multiple worlds. In her early adolescence, Liu’s cultural ambiguity remained unremarkable. But as the number of mainland tourists in Hong Kong grew, the perception of mainlanders as rude and uncivilized (they are sometimes called “locusts”) spread. In “Dream State,” Liu describes Hong Kong during the protests from the perspective of a Hong Konger with a mainlander’s name. In this week’s episode of the podcast, Liu discusses her article with host and web editor Violet Lucca. They discuss the origins and evolution of the Hong Kongers’ demands, the ways that the COVID-19 outbreak has changed the protests, how xenophobia has spread with the virus, the generational rift in the movement, and surveillance as a component of protest.Read Liu’s article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/05/dream-state-hong-kong-protests/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

The Federal Reserve, the central banking system of the United States, was created in response to the Panic of 1907, a depression caused by a crisis in the country’s banks. Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson, the 1913 Federal Reserve Act established twelve Federal Reserve Banks, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Open Market Committee. The unique private-public structure of the Fed was the result of political compromise between President Wilson and one of his cabinet members, William Jennings Bryan. Bryan, who was known as the “Great Commoner,” argued that the Fed should be run by officials who acted in the public’s interest. His efforts resulted in an elected board of governors, but that has not been enough to hold the Fed accountable. The Fed is not subject to the same checks and balances as other governmental institutions; us commoners have no democratic recourse against it. As Christopher W. Shaw writes in “The Money Question,” published in the April issue of Harper’s Magazine, “the notion of absolute Fed independence is as old as the institution itself.” In this week’s episode, host Violet Lucca speaks with Shaw about the question of Fed independence. They discuss the Fed’s structure, its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, and ways to hold the institution accountable.Read Shaw’s revision: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/the-money-question-federal-reserve/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

Five years ago, Ishion Hutchinson went searching for paradise in the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, a small town in northern Ethiopia. The multilevel houses of worship, carved out of the rocky ground, are attributed to King Lalibela, who set out to create a New Jerusalem during his reign. The site is a marvel for even the most jaded fan of history and architecture, but Hutchinson, who was raised in a Rastafarian family in Jamaica, wasn’t sure what he would encounter there. Ethiopia occupied a unique place in Hutchinson’s childhood imagination: a central tenet of Rasta is the belief that Ethiopia is a paradise to which one hopes to arrive—both in this life and in the afterlife. In “Dreams of Stone,” published in the April issue of Harper’s Magazine, Hutchinson recounts the transcendent experience of exploring a place that in his boyhood had seemed unreal to him. In this episode of the Harper’s Podcast, Hutchinson joins web editor Violet Lucca to explore the sometimes intangible relationship between Jamaica and Ethiopia; his experience in Lalibela and Ethiopia at large; and how poetry and writing can be a form of religious expression.Read Hutchinson’s article here: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/dreams-of-stone-lalibela-ethiopia-rastafarian/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

James Pogue hated gun culture. Having spent much of his career reporting on paramilitary groups, he especially disliked how often the “gun guys” he’d met were “small-minded or cruelly callous about the blood that guns spill, [and] evasive about the reason people actually own guns.” As Pogue points out in the April cover story of Harper’s Magazine, that reason is almost always to provide the owner with “the option to commit acts of violence.” Nevertheless, Pogue also felt that gun ownership was a right, and an American tradition, worth upholding. As he saw it, the real misfortune had to do with how completely gun culture has been monopolized by the political right—which tends to see guns as instruments of “personal security”—and with the mainstream media’s unhelpful tendency to flatten the debate into “pro-gun” and “anti-gun” positions. When Pogue went looking for leftists who felt as he did, he discovered, and had soon joined, the Socialist Rifle Association, a fast-growing group of mostly rural, working-class gun owners organizing around a new ethic of “community defense.” In this episode of the Harper’s Podcast, James Pogue, author of Chosen Country: A Rebellion in the West, joins the web editor, Violet Lucca, to talk about his essay, “Good Guys with Guns.” After addressing some likely objections to the idea of leftist gun ownership, Pogue and Lucca discuss how the SRA is bucking the stereotype of socialism as an ideology of coastal elites; ways in which right-wing gun owners may be better prepared than liberals for society-shifting disasters like the coronavirus outbreak; the disproportionate impact current gun laws have on black Americans; and the important difference between supporting gun rights and supporting the unrestricted flow of handguns into poor neighborhoods.Read Pogue’s article: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/04/good-guys-with-guns-socialist-gun-club/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

In May 1942, six months after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, General George C. Marshall gave a commencement speech at West Point in which he stated, “We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.” In the March issue of Harper’s Magazine, Andrew J. Bacevich demonstrates how Marshall’s proclamation became the essential premise of American foreign policy. This “terminal inertia” has persisted in the face of multiple forever wars, and it shows no sign of ending even under the self-proclaimed isolationist Donald Trump. As we attempt to come to terms with and move on from the conditions that led to Trump’s election, we must reckon with both freedom and power, and how densely intertwined those concepts are. In this week’s episode, Bacevich, who is the president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory, speaks with web editor Violet Lucca about his cover story, “The Old Normal.” Bacevich and Lucca discuss the centrality of expansionism to American foreign policy, the uniquely American failure to learn from our past mistakes, the origins of executive power, and the opportunity the United States has to redefine its core values. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

“Until the news can say, ‘We have no show (or paper) today because there is nothing of significance to concern you,’ the news will build its monument to truth on a lie.” So writes Greg Jackson in “Vicious Cycles,” published in the January issue of Harper’s Magazine, an essay that looks past the transfixing plotlines of the news cycle to question the inherent limitations of the news. For Jackson, a fiction writer, the unacknowledged imperative to keep audiences engaged shapes every aspect of the news, from its sense of what’s important to the way pundits help relieve us of ideological uncertainty. As for a response to the problems the news presents us with each day, it tends to offer just one: stay tuned for more.In this episode, web editor Violet Lucca speaks with Jackson to discuss the work of the media theorist Neil Postman; how a “facts versus falsehoods” approach to analyzing news outlets ignores their more fundamental influence on our worldview; the difference between ideology and education; and whether culture itself can help us turn away from the noise of the attention economy.Read Jackson’s essay: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/01/vicious-cycles-theses-on-a-philosophy-of-news/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

If you’re reading this, you already know that over the past five years both the quantity and the popularity of podcasts have exploded. Non-fiction podcasts—particularly those about true crime and history—have cultivated devoted audiences. Yet these shows are largely exempt from the standards of veracity, sourcing, and ethics to which newspapers and magazines are held. When a podcast does plagiarize or get facts wrong, this often goes unnoticed, and shows that have been caught in the act haven’t suffered a decrease in listenership. In this week’s episode, web editor Violet Lucca speaks with Hugh Eakin, a senior editor at The New York Review of Books and author of “Selective Hearing,” published in the February issue of Harper’s Magazine. Lucca and Eakin discuss the experiential nature of podcasts, their fan-driven culture, and the limits of fact-checking. Read Eakin’s review: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/02/selective-hearing-specious-history-in-new-podcasts/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

Evangelical churches in Brazil’s favelas serve as a source of redemption for many, and there are many pastors who work earnestly to save the souls of gang members, whose numbers have grown significantly in recent years. Yet some pastors in Rio de Janeiro have become entangled in violence, the drug trade, political corruption, and the exploitation of Brazil’s poor. Complicating the issue of faith further, conversion allows gang members a path to safely exit a world of violent crime—something that might be more pressing than spiritual salvation. In this episode, Alex Cuadros, author of the book Brazillionaires and the article “‘My Gang is Jesus,’” featured in the February issue of Harper’s Magazine—explains how these narratives coexist in Rio de Janeiro’s favelas. In his conversation with web editor Violet Lucca, Cuadros discusses the politics of evangelicalism, tensions between evangelicalism and Afro-Brazilian religions, and other factors that have contributed to the spiral of violence in Brazil.Read Cuadros’s story: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/02/my-gang-is-jesus-brazilian-evangelicals/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

Whether Donald Trump wins or loses the upcoming presidential election, the shift in Republican values he has ushered in is sure to outlast him. What aspects of Trump’s legacy will the next generation of conservatism cling to, and under whose leadership? In July, historian and writer Thomas Meaney braved the Ritz-Carlton in Washington, D.C., for the inaugural National Conservatism Conference, where a diverse group of pundits and thinkers of the nationalist right gathered to argue these questions, hoping to extract a winning ideology from the jumble of recent history; his report is the cover story for Harper’s Magazine’s February issue. Amid speeches by futurist tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel, talk-show host Tucker Carlson, and former national security advisor John Bolton, Meaney depicts an exuberant and contradictory scene, bound together less by a specific platform—for now, at least—than by a common enemy, the “cosmopolitan” liberal elite. In this episode, web editor Violet Lucca speaks with Thomas Meaney about the resuscitation of the right-wing political theories of James Burnham, the degree of relation between national conservatism and white nationalism, and why an event like the National Conservatism Conference might be the best place to read the future of the movement.Read Meaney’s story here: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/02/trumpism-after-trump/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com

The Comoro Islands, an archipelago off the eastern coast of Africa, offers a glimpse into the future of the global climate crisis. After the islands’ natural resources were depleted, the local economy failed—except on the island Mayotte, which is an overseas department of France. In search of an escape, citizens of the independent Union of the Comoros embark on a potentially fatal journey to Mayotte on tiny fiberglass boats. Unable to work and forever evading French authorities, these migrants’ lives are only marginally improved; asylum seekers from African and Middle Eastern nations who have made it to Mayotte find themselves in a similarly dire position.In this week’s episode, host Violet Lucca speaks with the British journalist and photographer Tommy Trenchard, the author of an article about this ongoing crisis that was published in the January issue of Harper’s Magazine. Their discussion explores how this environmental and economic devastation is likely irreversible, and how the emphasis on security has only made the situation worse.Read Trenchard’s story: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/01/oceans-apart-comoro-islands-migrant-crisis/This episode was produced by Violet Lucca and Andrew Blevins. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit harpersmagazine.substack.com