Behind the News – April 10, 2025
Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Upcoming Episode
Behind the News
12:00 PM (Noon) Pacific Time: Thursdays
Host Doug Henwood covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.
Tariff extravaganza: the UAW’s view, a critical view
Jason Wade of the UAW explains the union’s endorsement of Trump’s auto tariffs • Sam Gindin, author of this article and former long-time adviser to what used to be known as the Canadian Autoworkers Union, on what issues the tariff controversy obscures
Trump and the courts, class and politics, hipster nihilism
Samuel Moyn on Trump and the courts • Chris Maisano, author of this article, on class and politics • Evgenia Kovda on hipster nihilism (article here)
Professional class liberalism
Brent Cebul and Lily Geismer, editors of Mastery and Drift, on professional class liberalism • a brief reprise of a 2019 interview with Gabriel Winant on the PMC
Marx’s ethics, and what did the BLM protests do to police budgets?
Vanessa Wills, author of Marx’s Ethical Vision, on the morality behind Marxian “science” • Mathis Ebbinghaus on the effects of the summer 2020 anti-cop protests on police budgets (paper here)
Fundraising special: militancy and repression in the Valley, neofeudalism
Ben Tarnoff on tech worker militancy, the bosses’ crackdown, and their hard turn to the right • Jodi Dean, author of Capital’s Grave, on neofeudalism
Fundraising special: worker-led organizing
Eric Blanc, author of We Are the Union, on worker-led organizing (Amazon, Starbucks, etc.)
Trump, a new/old kind of imperialist? • Is Trump a neoliberal?
Anatol Lieven looks at the global dimensions of Trumpism • Quinn Slobodian muses on whether Trump is a neoliberal, and examines the three major strands of DOGE-ism (NYRB article here)
The truth about DEI, a history of “choice”
Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò picks apart the contradictory strands of the DEI obsession • Sophia Rosenfeld, author of The Age of Choice, explores this history of that concept over the last few centuries
The theology of MAGA, “sovereigntism” and Trump
Kristin Du Mez, author of Jesus and John Wayne, on Christian nationalism • Jennifer Middlestadt, author of this article, on “sovereigntism,” the foreign policy of Trump et al.
Moguls and their scribes, the New York intellectuals
Eoin Higgins, author of Owned, on tech moguls and the journalists, like Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi, who work for them • Ronnie Grinberg, author of Write Like a Man, on the mostly male, mostly Jewish New York intellectuals