The Popular Show

Portugal, the junior partner of 2015's new Left electoral experiments, offers the example with the most longevity. The supply and demand relationship the centre-left Socialist Party (PS) embarked on with the anti-austerity Communist Party and Left Bloc reached fruition in this January's general election, in which PS won a historic absolute majority. To guide us through the fate of Portugal's far Left parties, their prospects against a centre Left they they re-legitimised and the rise of a new Portuguese national populism, we welcome Joana Ramiro, contributing editor at Setenta e Quatro, and writer for Novara Media, the Guardian and elsewhere. Consider helping us grow the project at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod.

Curt Mills is a contributing editor at The American Conservative. He was a speaker on the foreign policy realignment of the post-Trump New Right at last autumn’s National Conservatism conference: an event that moved David Brooks to despair that “what passes for the worldview of the right is a set of resentful animosities, a partisan attachment to Donald Trump or Tucker Carlson, a sort of mental brutalism”. We get the inside word on the up and comers of the post-Trump Right, compare its dynamics to those of the Corbyn project AND MORE. If you enjoy this episode, help us out and get bonus shows at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod.

Canada's long special relationship with Ukraine gives it a peculiar position in the West's current drums-for-war with Russia over the Ukrainian border. Canadian journalist Jeremy Appel joins us to outline the complex influence of the Ukrainian Right on the self-consciously progressive administration of Justin Trudeau, and the ironies of its coincidence with the new visibility of a homegrown far right in the Freedom Convoy.  Help us grow the project and get exclusive episodes at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod.

More than any other British politician, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the creation of the media, and it appears that media is now resolved to take him down. Media scholar Dan Hind joins us for a wide-ranging assessment of the dynamics behind the Prime Minister's rapid collapse in the polls, the function of the BBC, the media's role in the 2019 General Election, and his plan for a new and democratised model of public broadcasting. Help us build the project and get early access to episodes like this one, and loads of exclusive episodes, at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod

TPS supporters at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod have access to TWO simultaneously released new episodes, with James and David, and with media scholar Dan Hind. Seriously what are you waiting for! TPS57 WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL The boys finally get together for some materialist critique of two big winter movies - The Matrix Resurrections and Don't Look Up- before returning to the COVID WAROOM to analyse how Trump and Boris Johnson's fortunes continue to shift with the pandemic, the real reason people hate Boris for his parties, Trump the vaccine moderate, and how lockdown maximalism became the new preferred dialect of America's elite schools. TPS58 META MEDIA | Dan Hind More than any other British politician, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was the creation of the media, and it appears that media is now resolved to take him down. Media scholar Dan Hind joins us for a wide-ranging assessment of the dynamics behind the Prime Minister's rapid collapse in the polls, the function of the BBC, the media's role in the 2019 General Election, and his plan for a new and democratised model of public broadcasting.

Donald Ray Reynolds, Jr. - a young black Knoxvillian with no prior trouble with the law, who owned four small businesses and possessed a Tennessee open-carry permit - has now spent a decade of a remarkable life + 75 year sentence in a controversial Bureau of Prisons Communication Management Unit in Knoxville, Tennessee: institutions set up in the George W. Bush years to house accused terrorists. New Right journalist and friend of The Popular Show, J. Arthur Bloom has been researching Reynolds' case, and sets out for us the spine-tingling evidence that Donny is in fact being detained for turning down the offer to act as an informant on Mexican cartels, in a case remarkably similar to the Operation Fast and Furious scandal of the Obama years. Support us, get extra content, and help us build the project, at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. 

pt.4 of our Christmas 'Harms of Lockdown' miniseries. To listen to the entire series, become a subscriber at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. Daniel Briggs teaches at the Universidad Europea de Madrid and is co-author of Lockdown: Social Harm in the COVID-19 Era. In this new instalment of our 'COVID critical' miniseries, Daniel and James discuss the under-publicised harms of lockdown policies, the two models of neoliberalism defended by pro and anti lockdown parties, and Daniel's forthcoming study of Europe's anti-vaccine movement.

pt.3 of our Christmas 'Harms of Lockdown' miniseries. To listen to the entire series, become a subscriber at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod.Tara McCormack teaches International Relations at the University of Leicester and is an expert in the theory of the state. In 2018, she was attacked on the front page of the Times for her critique Britain's role in Syria. In this interview, Tara argues that the COVID-19 response reflects a 'coming home' of dynamics formerly only associated with foreign policy, as well as a decline and an attempt to renew the power of state. This is part of mini-series speaking to COVID critical academics. Please consider supporting our work at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod for subscribers-only bonus episodes. 

pt.2 of our Christmas 'Harms of Lockdown' miniseries. To listen to the entire series, become a subscriber at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. Vaccine mandates and the threat of new lockdowns come to the UK, to the backdrop of new and increasingly authoritarian measures across Europe and in parts of the US. The Popular Show is spending the run-up to Christmas speaking to academics about under-publicised negative effects of previous and existing measures, starting with the effect of lockdowns on the young. Dr Jennie Bristow (Canterbury Christ Church University, Centre for Parenting Culture Studies) and Professor Ellen Townsend (University of Nottingham, Self-Harm Research Group) join us to speak about the prospects of the 'Corona Generation'. SUPPORT OUR WORK at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. Patrons get early access to our hottest episodes as well as regular Patrons-only bonus episodes like this and this!

Marxism with Twink characteristics is the theme of our Christmas party (Omicron permitting), as we're reunited with Sam & Gian from the cult TWINK REVOLUTION podcast, plus writer and honorary twink River Page. Itinerary for pt.1: COVD culture in Wisconsin and the South * from Coke Zero to Zero COVID * elites go woke * reviewing progressive baby books... don't miss our Patreon pt.2 AFTERPARTY! on The New Left and the CIA * Do universities reproduce elites? * Biden’s imperialism * the Compatible Left vs Assange, Corbyn and Glenn! 03c457fafbc8b91b462ef0b8f61d4fd96577a4b58c18b50e59621fd0f41a8ae1a4