The Dig

Dan interviews sociologist Paolo Gerbaudo on his book The Digital Party: Political Organisation and Online Democracy. How does the promise of direct digital democracy obscure how leaders are made more powerful and less accountable? Examples from Italy (Five Star Movement) and Spain (Podemos). How does the failure to incorporate people into rooted forms of political organization undermine the left’s power, coherence, and durability? Example from the USA (the funhouse mirror-appeal of a certain YouTube comedian). Related episodes from The Dig archives: Hegemony How-To with Jonathan Matthew Smucker thedigradio.com/podcast/hegemony-how-to-with-jonathan-matthew-smucker How Left Parties Neoliberalized with Stephanie Mudge thedigradio.com/podcast/how-left-parties-neoliberalized-with-stephanie-mudge Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig Book Club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

Dan interviews author Fatima Bhutto on social media subjectivities; Pakistani history, politics, and identity; and her novel The Runaways. Support this podcast with a contribution at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig Book Club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

Dan interviews Thea Riofrancos on how Ecuador’s Pink Tide government was constrained by an unequal world system and on the conflict over mining that erupted between leftist President Rafael Correa and the Indigenous movement that laid the groundwork for his rise to power. Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig book club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

Nikhil Pal Singh and Joe Lowndes discuss and debate today’s American Right: what sort of threat does the Far-Right pose? How does it relate to the Republican Party and to the neoliberal imperial Center? What does that mean for the Left? Read Corey Robin’s smart and short piece on impeachment jacobinmag.com/2021/01/corey-robin-what-impeachment-could-mean-trump Listen to Dan’s interview with Joe Lowndes and Daniel Martinez HoSang & Joe Lowndes on their book Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity www.thedigradio.com/podcast/right-wing-racism-with-daniel-martinez-hosang-joe-lowndes/ Support this podcast with money at Patreon.com/TheDig

Dan interviews historian and essayist Gabriel Winant on the social worlds that make US politics and how that sociality is rooted in the economy, carceral state, social media, religion, and more. Read these n+1 essays and Dissent interview for context: We Live in a Society nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/we-live-in-a-society Coronavirus and Chronopolitics nplusonemag.com/issue-37/politics/coronavirus-and-chronopolitics-2Professional-Managerial Chasm nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/professional-managerial-chasm “What’s Actually Going on in Our Nursing Homes”: An Interview with Shantonia Jackson dissentmagazine.org/article/whats-actually-going-on-in-our-nursing-homes-an-interview-with-shantonia-jackson Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig Book Club thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

From The Dig archives: Dan interviews Melinda Cooper about her book, Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism, which makes the case that neoliberalism and social conservatism have been consistent collaborators in creating an economy that redistributed wealth ruthlessly upwards with a risk-absorbing family at its privatized center. We’ll be back next week with a new episode. Listen to Antibody thedigradio.com/antibody Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig Join a Dig book club thedigradio.com/dig-book-club

A big-picture interview with Tobita Chow and Jake Werner on China that puts today’s geopolitical conflict and repression into the context of global capitalism. Join a Dig Book Club thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast at patreon.com/TheDig

What happened to social democratic politics? Dan interviews sociologist Stephanie Mudge on her book Leftism Reinvented: Western Parties from Socialism to Neoliberalism. Join a Dig Book Club thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast at patreon.com/TheDig

Prevailing identity politics norms call on people “listen to the most affected” or “centre the most marginalized.” But this often works out quite badly in practice. Philosopher Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò on his brilliant essay “Being-in-the-Room Privilege: Elite Capture and Epistemic Deference.” It’s The Dig’s four-year anniversary. Support us at Patreon.com/TheDig and take a moment to post something to social media about why you listen to The Dig and how it has shaped your politics.

Guest host Astra Taylor interviews Thomas Frank about his book The People, No: A Brief History of Anti-Populism. From The Dig archives on populism: Universalizing American Liberty with Aziz Rana Populism’s Power with Laura Grattan and Thea Riofrancos Worker Freedom with Alex Gourevitch Join a Dig Book Club at thedigradio.com/dig-book-club Support this podcast at Patreon.com/TheDig