This episode originally aired on February 10, 2025. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Eric Blanc is the author of We Are the Union: How Worker-to-Worker Organizing Is Revitalizing Labor and Winning Big, which covers the recent wave of unionization drives in America and summarizes the lessons we can learn from them. Eric shows that today's new unions have succeeded against incredible odds through bottom-up organizing: the workers themselves decide to organize a union, rather than existing large unions launching campaigns. Eric argues that we can learn from what baristas and Amazon workers and media workers have been doing, and that there is a substantial possibility of reversing the ongoing decline in unionization rates. His book is a vital toolkit for those seeking to transform their workplaces and the world, and he joins to day to give us clear, concrete lessons that he gleaned from hundreds of interviews with union members around America."Courageous shop-floor organizers have dared to take on corporate behemoths, from Amazon to Starbucks to Volkswagen. Waves of unionization have begun to spread across multiple industries, including higher education, journalism, food service, auto, social services, retail, tech, and museums, as well as nonprofits. And not only are workers fighting back—they’re winning. Despite widespread assumptions among labor leaders and pundits that lightly-staffed organizing can’t compel employers to collectively bargain, workers have won first contracts in a wide range of industries and companies, including at deep-pocketed chains like Apple. Grassroots workplace fightbacks have also wrested major concessions for millions more workers. No less importantly, these struggles have empowered and transformed their protagonists. In a society where people are conditioned to quietly obey bosses—and at a moment in history marked by pervasive hopelessness—joining together with your coworkers to fight back can be an ecstatic, liberating experience." — Eric Blanc, We Are The Union

This episode originally aired on February 6, 2025. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Dr. Genevieve Guenther, the founding director of End Climate Silence, thinks a lot about one of the most important questions of our time: How we can combat climate change denial and actually bring about the transformations to our energy systems that will halt runaway climate catastrophe. She has written a book, The Language of Climate Politics: Fossil Fuel Propaganda and How to Fight It, that looks at how climate change is discussed in the media and how we can talk about it more effectively in ways that actually show people what the problem is and give them actionable solutions to fight for. She stresses the importance of avoiding "doomerism" and maintaining hope through action. She joins us today for a NON-doomerist conversation on the present state of the climate movement and what we should be doing right now."It's so hard to think about the future in America right now, and that's in part because the future is going to be a future with climate change in it. And either the future is going to involve resolving the climate crisis and creating a new system and a new form of human flourishing, or it's going to be death by a thousand cuts. [So] when you start thinking about this stuff, if you start to have feelings of grief or terror or depression or hopelessness, just know that that comes with the territory. It's normal. You're not the only one. But it doesn't mean that it's hopeless. You're taking on these feelings because you have courage. It's a sign of your bravery. But don't think about the stuff you can't control. Don't think about the scientific impacts that feel overwhelming or somehow too scary and depressing to deal with. Take your attention and focus it on the people who are preventing us from halting the climate crisis." — Genevieve Guenther

This episode originally aired on February 3, 2025. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Rob Larson is Current Affairs' In-House Economist. He is also the author of Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do with Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More. Rob covers the grotesque contrast between the lives of the rich and poor in this country, and the outsized power that the super-rich have over our lives. He shows how our country's wealth is squandered and outlines strategies for ending the plutocracy.Rob and Nathan's article on the Wall Street Journal's Mansion section is here. This interview pairs well with Michael Mechanic's episode about his book Jackpot.This book is not just for ogling the velvet lives of the ruling class, although there’s plenty of room for that. It’s about taking the rich out of the cockpit of society and putting a democratic system in their place. Because beyond their multiple gigantic homes and private jet miles, the control of the ruling class over the rest of us is pretty stunning, not to mention utterly grossly undeserved... To achieve anything, important labor and environmental movements require a good understanding of what’s going on—including the shifting strategies of the owning class and their corporate property. The point of this book is not just to study the rich, but to learn their vulnerabilities, and to help build the growing movements that could put some limits back on the power of the ruling class that owns our economy and runs the government. — Rob Larson, Mastering the Universe

This episode originally aired on February 1, 2025. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Today we are joined by Flint Dibble, who last year attempted the ambitious task of explaining science and critical thinking to Joe Rogan. Rogan has been a promoter of the pseudo-archaeology of a man named Graham Hancock, who argues that mainstream archaeologists are covering up the evidence of a lost advanced civilization in the Ice Age that could have been the real-life Atlantis. Dibble went on The Joe Rogan Experience to debate Hancock and show why Atlantis isn't real. He may not have succeeded in convincing either Rogan or Hancock to accept the findings of mainstream archaeology, but he did very effectively present the case for real science over crankery.Today, Flint Dibble joins to explain how ordinary people can avoid being taken in by pseudo-experts and why real science is so much more interesting and powerful than pseudoscience. He situates the war over Atlantis within the greater context of the doubt that people like Rogan have that mainstream expertise on a subject can ever be trusted, which leads to the embracing of many beliefs that are dangerous and faulty. But in a world filled with charlatans, how do you know who is telling the truth? Flint tells us what archaeologists really do so that we can think critically when confronted with wild claims by people who insist that all of the experts are covering up the truth.Nathan's article on Joe Rogan and Atlantis is here.

Dr. Adam Gaffney, a physician and author of 'To Heal Humankind,' discusses the pressing need for Medicare For All as a solution to America's healthcare woes. He compellingly argues that existing systems fall short, leading to high uninsured rates and burdensome medical debt. Debunking myths around wait times and costs, he asserts that a single-payer system could actually lower overall expenses. Gaffney emphasizes tackling systemic deficiencies rather than solely blaming individual lifestyle choices, advocating for progressive reforms to ensure equitable healthcare for all.

This episode originally aired on January 7, 2025. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Today, Nathan is joined by Malaika Jabali as co-host along with Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, authors of the book Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a Dangerous Idea. They join us in the wake of the killing of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson. The alleged killer's manifesto said that he was motivated over the hideously unfair practices of the insurance industry, and polling shows Americans blame the healthcare system (as well as the killer himself) for Thompson's death. But assassinations are not social movements. They don't fix the system, as Nathan argues in a piece on the killing. What kind of movement do we need on health justice, then? Leah and Astra help us think through how we can organize for meaningful improvements in the healthcare system.  

This episode originally aired on December 30, 2024. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Adam McKay is a writer and film director who has made some of the most successful comedy films of our century, including Anchorman (No. 6 on Time Out's top 100 comedy films of all time), Talladega Nights, Step Brothers, and The Other Guys. In the last decade, his more dramatic and political films like Vice and The Big Short have attracted critical acclaim and been nominated for multiple Academy Awards. He joins us today to discuss the film he released in 2021, Don't Look Up, a satirical look at the climate catastrophe that uses the analogy of an approaching deadly comet to expose how the media, corporations, and the political system are incapable of addressing a major crisis. When Don't Look Up came out, it quickly became one of the most popular movies in Netflix's history, but many critics assailed it as "heavy-handed." In Current Affairs, Nathan wrote an article arguing that these critics were missing much of the penetrating leftist analysis that makes the film a remarkably astute piece of satirical fiction.Today Adam joins to talk about Don't Look Up: what the film was saying about our world, what Adam hopes the audience gets out of it, what critics didn't get, and why the film should get us talking about the climate crisis itself rather than just analyzing the film.

This episode originally aired on December 12, 2024. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Musa al-Gharbi is a sociologist with a unique, albeit controversial, take on the idea of "wokeness," laid out in his new book We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. Essentially al-Gharbi argues that among elites, a kind of social justice language has come to be important for maintaining and enhancing their status, but has little to do with meaningfully advancing justice in the real world. He points out the contradiction between the embrace of "woke" language among many elites and their behavior. They are not, he says, and have never been, woke in any real sense, and conservatives are missing what is actually going on when they treat these people as dangerous radicals. Instead, al-Gharbi argues, there is nothing radical at all about the strands of "wokeness" found in the Ivy League.Al-Gharbi's argument doesn't entirely persuade Nathan, and al-Gharbi joins today to answer some probing questions, like: how do we know that the use of this language is an effort at self-advancement rather than a good-faith presentation of a set of ideas that should be judged on their merits? But while al-Gharbi is a critic of much contemporary social justice discourse, he is a constructive one, who shares the goal of achieving a society free of racial and economic injustice. This makes his criticism all the more interesting and worth engaging with.it would be mortifying for people on all sides of this argument to recognize that what they are actually fighting over is how future generations of elites understand, describe, and legitimize their social position. One side instead pretends as though CRT-associated ideas represent the "authentic" will and interests of most "people of color." The other side pretends as though an embrace of these ideas will somehow harm their children. In reality, mastering these frameworks will enhance students' social status and professional flourishing. And this is why elite schools are pushing it. - Musa al-Gharbi, We Have Never Been Woke

Historian Thomas Frank, renowned for his insightful analyses of American politics, dives into why Democrats have strayed from their populist roots. He critiques the party's alignment with the elite and the impact of faux-populism from Trump. Frank addresses the disconnection with the working class and argues for genuine left-wing populism as a solution to neoliberal failures. He draws parallels between past leaders and modern figures, emphasizing the need for authentic political voices to truly represent the public.

This episode originally aired on December 4, 2024. Get new episodes early at patreon.com/CurrentAffairs!Zohran Mamdani represents the 36th District in the New York State Assembly. A member of the Democratic Socialists of America, he is currently running for mayor of New York City, hoping to unseat the controversial Eric Adams, who is facing federal corruption charges. Mamdani is running on a platform of lowering the cost of living for New Yorkers. He joins today to discuss his city and his campaign."This is also a moment of political uncertainty as well as political possibility. People feel failed by the answers they have been told for many decades. And while there is not a majority of socialist or progressive thinking across New York City, I would say there is a majority who feel left behind by this economic system and the policies of this current administration, and that is an ingredient that could give rise to an entirely new coalition of people who feel left behind and are ready to get behind a leftist in order to turn the page." — Zohran Mamdani