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

Air Date: 7/1/2026 Today we examine how four months of American bombardment accomplished what decades of diplomacy never could, making Iran, still run by oppressive theocrats, a regional superpower. An Iranian woman told a reporter she endured the bombing hoping it would topple the regime. Instead, it entrenched it. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to...

Air Date: 6/27/2026 Today we trace how one man went from receiving a $278 million government grant to becoming the world's first trillionaire who spent .025% of his wealth to get Trump elected, then used his position to slash programs that help people while stoking race riots overseas. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org...

Air Date: 6/24/2026 The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! If you've been pulling back from the news for your own sanity, this one's built for you — a quick recap and reference guide to the past month or two, organized around a single idea: when power can't earn legitimacy, it manufactures it. The performance. Spectacle, religion, and health branding standing in for real consent: Trump collecting a FIFA "peace prize," Christian nationalism worn as a costume the actual church refuses to bless, and RFK Jr. dressing up a gu...

Air Date: 6–20-2026 Today we explore how political revenge became official government policy. The Department of Justice has dropped fraud cases while opening vindictive investigations into Trump's critics. Judges who rule against him face death threats at home with no federal protection and thousands of DOJ lawyers have walked out the door, leaving the agency hollowed out by loyalty tests and bent toward retribution. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com ...

Air Date: 6/17/2026 Today we trace a pattern that repeated across half a dozen states this primary season: working-class candidates running on the cost of living beat the opponents party leadership hand-picked and funded. It looks like ordinary election news, but it's more pieces of a larger shift already underway; away from a politics of left against right and toward a new era of the elite vs working people. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email...

Air Date: 6/12/2026 Today we examine how America caused a loneliness epidemic by tearing down the places where people used to find each other, how big tech is offering AI as a lackluster substitute for connection, and how people are building the opposite of loneliness with block parties, labor unions, and community gardens. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) ...

Air Date: 6/10/2026 Today we explore how Taiwan's own people are stuck between the US and China. Fewer and fewer of them want to rejoin China but their faith in America is sinking just as fast as Trump treats them as a bargaining chip. Their own leaders are split on how to respond. And the place that makes most of the world's advanced chips has almost no seat at the table where its future is being decided. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us...

Air Date: 6–5-2026 Today we explore sportswashing past and present, from fascist dictators who first weaponized the World Cup to FIFA's modern extractivism model of corrupt capitalism, and why workers, unions, and fans are now organizing to reclaim the game from those profiting off it. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org an...

Air Date: 6–3-2026 Today we examine the AI industry's economic house of cards, the ideology Silicon Valley uses to sell a broken product, and the very real human costs being paid by workers, the lonely, and communities bulldozed for data centers nobody asked for. Direct Download Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to sh...

Air Date: 5–30-2026 Today we examine how Trump turned a sham lawsuit into a $1.8 billion reward fund for his political allies who attacked the Capitol on January 6th while implementing a counterterrorism strategy that erases right-wing extremism from the threat landscape, refocuses on left-wing violence that hardly exists and threatens to "find and kill" those they deem enemies. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bo...

Air Date: 5–26-2026 Today we examine what separates successful revolutions from failed ones, ask why so many revolutions of the 2010s fell short, understand how revolutionary energy gets neutralized, and explore the strategic case for nonviolent resistance. Full Show Notes Transcript Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org and Libro.fm for a non-evil book and au...

Air Date: 5–23-2026 Today we examine the real-world cost of dismantling America's public health infrastructure, the dangerous pseudoscience driving RFK Jr.'s health agenda, and the contradictions fracturing the MAHA movement from within.And now on to the show Full Show Notes Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop Bookshop.org and Libro.fm for a non-evil book and audiobook pu...

Air Date: 5/20/2026 Today we examine how the Trump administration is quietly reshaping its unpopular immigration crackdown by moving enforcement out of public view. Plus, we explain how anti-immigration politics is spreading through the post-colonial world, highlighting how it's reshaping political parties and public debate in the UK, Canada, and Australia. Full Show Notes Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Use our links to shop...

Air Date: 5/15/2026 Today we examine what it would actually take to claw back democracy from billionaire capture — and why some people think it's more possible than it looks. We'll hear about California's proposed billionaire wealth tax, AOC's vision for change that doesn't depend on positional power, and why Peter Thiel's new "AI Tribunal of Truth" may have accidentally revealed exactly what the ruling class fears most. Full Show Notes Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Be...

Air Date: 5/12/2026 Today we examine the redistricting scramble unleashed by the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act. We'll hear how Southern states moved within days to crack majority-Black districts, how Tennessee banned public input to rush through new maps, and why every governor's race, state legislative seat, and secretary of state contest in 2026 is now a redistricting fight. Full Show Notes Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus...

Air Date: 5–9-2026 Today we examine how political violence has always been woven into the fabric of American life and who gets to decide what counts as violence in the first place. We'll hear about presidential assassinations, the assassination of Fred Hampton, the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, and the long history of state-sanctioned violence. And I'll discuss the only real way to bend the curve back away from endemic violence in the US. Full show notes Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or...

Air Date: 05-06-2026  Today we examine how the U.S. war on Iran is producing an economic crisis with echoes of the 1970s stagflation era which explains why Trump is now less popular on inflation than Jimmy Carter. We'll also be exploring various element of the structure of our economy, including how GDP became a deeply misleading measure of welfare, why consumer spending increasingly goes toward things people don't want to buy, and how gambling and junk fees are literally counted as economic growth. Full Show Notes Check out our new show, SO...

Air Date: 05/01/2026 The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we open with Jesse Jackson's death as a reckoning with the multiracial coalition America chose not to build, trace the American playbook from the 1953 Iran coup to Cuba to the current war on Iran, examine how the same logic of control operates at home through AI monopolies, sports money, and captured courts, and close with the religious and labor traditions that have always driven change — plus Orbán's defeat in Hungary as proof that authoritarian projects don't last...

Air Date: 4–29-2026 Today we explore the extraordinary clash between Pope Leo XIV and the Trump White House — a feud involving military threats, medieval papal history, and an American-born pope who refuses to back down. We'll hear why analysts say MAGA's religiosity is pure aesthetic, and what that hollowness means for the millions of Americans still taking their faith seriously. Full Show Notes Transcript Check out our new show, SOLVED! on YouTube Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or e...

Air Date: 4/24/2026 Today we explore how Viktor Orban spent 16 years transforming Hungary into a blueprint for 21st-century autocracy, how that blueprint traveled directly to the United States and what Hungary's stunning defeat of Orban can teach Americans about fighting back against authoritarianism. Be part of the show! Leave a voice message, message us on Signal at the handle bestoftheleft.01, or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Full Show Notes Check out our new show, SOLVED! on YouTube! BestOfTheLeft.com/Support (Members Get Bonus Shows + No Ads!) Join our Discord...