American Prestige

Danny and Derek speak with Matt McManus about his book, The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism. They discuss the core definitions of liberalism and socialism, how liberalism differs from classical republican thought, John Stuart Mill as the first liberal socialist, Karl Marx's relationship to the liberal tradition, and John Rawls's place in liberal socialism.

Read Matt’s book, ⁠The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now⁠ for an ad-free experience and all of our episodes.

American Prestige brand MREs use Argentinian beef, but don't worry, it's the good kind. In this week’s news: the US launches a new sanctions campaign against Iran (1:36); Iran and Oman negotiate the management of the Strait of Hormuz (5:50); a Haitian gang killing (9:28); the Israeli government takes bids for its E1 settlement (12:00); the US removes Syria from the terrorism sponsors list (14:38); the Syrian Democratic Forces announces its dissolution (15:51); Trump submits the Saudi nuclear deal to Congress (18:39); progress is made in negotiations between the DRC and M23 (23:46); the Ebola outbreak in the DRC continues to expand (26:33); the CIA director visits Russia (28:14); US-Canada trade talks collapse (31:17); and the United States prepares a deep sea mining auction around overseas territories (35:42).

Catch a replay of last night's livestream.

Don't forget Derek's Substack, ⁠Foreign Exchanges⁠.

Enjoy Danny's new Substack, I⁠mperialist Realism⁠.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience and all of our episodes.

Danny and Derek speak with Jonathan Cheng, China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, about the Christian origins of North Korea’s founding ideology and the subsequent personality cult. The discussion explores missionary Samuel Moffat’s work in Pyongyang, the conversion of Kim Il-sung’s family to Christianity, Christian nationalism during Japanese colonial rule, the turn toward socialism, Kim’s postwar personality cult, and how Christianity informs the Kim family’s rule today.  

Be sure to grab a copy of Jonathan’s book Korean Messiah: Kim Il Sung and the Christian Roots of North Korea's Personality Cult.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for the full episode.

Danny and Derek speak with economist Christopher Hartwell about how wealthy elites who strike bargains with authoritarians often come to regret it. They discuss oligarchs in post-Soviet Russia, authoritarian state capitalism, Hungary’s break from Orbán, Trump courting tech billionaires, asset-price inflation and financialization, and the durability of state capitalism in China. 

Read Christopher’s piece for Foreign Affairs, co-written with Tricia Olsen: “The Disposable Oligarchs.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience and all of our episodes.

Danny and Derek must disclose that they have had Hasan Piker on this program. They are listening and learning from him. In this week’s news: Israel bombs a Syrian airbase, potentially moving closer to a conflict with Turkey (1:22); Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu agree to scrap the Gaza Board of Peace's Hamas disarmament plan (7:09); the Iran MOU expires as Trump escalates the economic war (9:20); the Islamic Republic might restart the shooting war (13:36); the Pentagon and Arab governments rethink America’s military presence in the Gulf (15:58); Trump curtails military exercises with South Korea, possibly moving toward diplomacy with North Korea/DPRK (18:53); the Sudanese military concludes a new cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia (24:47); the Ebola outbreak in the DRC continues to expand (27:39); in Ukraine, Zelenskyy faces calls for new elections (30:06); Trump suspends new tariffs on Canada (33:01); the U.S. moves Operation Southern Spear onto land (34:50); and a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report details the cost of the new “Trump class” battleships (36:45).

Watch a replay of last night's livestream with Séamus Malekafzali.

Don't forget Derek's Substack, Foreign Exchanges.

Enjoy Danny's new Substack, Imperialist Realism.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience and to get all of our episodes.

Danny and Derek welcome historian Lisandro Claudio back to the program to talk about how austerity, first imposed by the U.S. during its colonial rule of the Philippines, continues to influence the Filipino political economy. They discuss the colonial gold standard, dollar diplomacy, Miguel Cuaderno and the Central Bank of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos being forced to depreciate the peso, the Filipino Left’s anti-debt stance, and the country’s dependency on exported labor.

Grab your copy of Lisandro’s book The Profligate Colonial: How the US Exported Austerity to the Philippines.

Listen to our "History of the Philippines" series with Lisandro.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for the full episode.

Danny welcomes political science professor Corey Robin to the show to discuss his review of Sven Beckert's Capitalism: A Global History and the "new history of capitalism" field. They talk about Beckert's take that capitalism originated among 12th-century Muslim merchant traders in Aden, the decentering of Europe and the US in his narrative, enslaved labor in his "capitalist utopias," the near-absence of class conflict in the book's story of capitalism's early years, and why capitalism, not ideology, is the better lens for the US-China rivalry today.

Read Corey’s piece for The Nation, “The Long Revolution.”

And check out Danny’s recent “Power Without Ideology” piece.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience and all of our episodes.

Danny and Derek bring you the headlines against their better judgment. In this week’s news: Western Europe and the U.S. set new temperature records (2:05); in Iran, the Islamic Republic demands reparations and sanctions relief before reopening the Strait of Hormuz (4:22), Trump declares that the U.S. will keep control of the Strait (8:20), and Iran makes a wave of hardline appointments (10:25); in Yemen, Houthi forces strike a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (13:02); Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey form a new defense alliance (15:00); Netanyahu rejects Hamas's disarmament plan as the Board of Peace agreement collapses (18:11), plus Israeli settlers besiege a Palestinian American family's home in a West Bank village (19:48); a Syrian court sentences Bashar al-Assad to death (in absentia) for war crimes (22:19); a new UN report finds that violence against civilians rises in Myanmar (23:43); in Darfur, the Sudanese military and allied militias make key territorial gains against the RSF (25:49); Ukraine bombs the Russian port of Novorossiysk as tensions in the Black Sea push global food prices higher (28:23); Abelardo de la Espriella takes office as Colombia's new far-right president and joins the U.S.-backed Shield of the Americas (31:58); Trump secretly flees Turkey on a decoy aircraft amid reports of an Iranian assassination plot (34:06); and the Pentagon claims its Yemen strikes caused the only U.S.-inflicted civilian casualties of 2025 (37:31).

Watch yesterday’s livestream here.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now for an ad-free experience.

Danny and Derek speak with artist and writer Molly Crabapple about her book on the history of the Jewish Labor Bund, Here Where We Live Is Our Country. They discuss Molly's personal connection to the story, the Pale of Settlement and Jewish emancipation, the founding of the Bund in 1897, the Bund's armed self-defense against pogroms, its fraught relationship with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, the Bund's rivalry with Zionism, the flourishing of Bundist culture in interwar Poland, and the lessons of the Bund’s story for the Jewish left today.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Subscribe now to get the full episode.

Danny and Derek welcome Matt Duss, Executive Vice President at the Center for International Policy, back to the show for a conversation on the fractured foreign policy consensus in the Democratic Party. They talk about Rahm Emanuel's recent Tel Aviv speech, the primacist versus restraint divide in the party, accountability for Blinken and Sullivan's Gaza policy, the Iran war and the collapse of the JCPOA, China and Taiwan, and the contradiction of supporting Ukraine while enabling the Gaza genocide.

Read Matt’s piece for The Nation, “Rahm Emanuel’s Speech in Tel Aviv Breaks With a ‘No Daylight’ Approach.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices