Van and Lyle are joined by journalist and historian Jonathan M. Katz to discuss Patricio Guzmán’s seminal Battle of Chile trilogy—widely regarded as one of the greatest political documentaries ever made—alongside its 1997 epilogue, Obstinate Memory. Our conversation was recorded mostly in the weeks after Trump’s reelection but before his inauguration, and the urgency of that moment colors much of our analysis. At the heart of it: What can the Chilean road to socialism and its systematic destruction teach us about the slow corrosion of democratic institutions in the U.S. and elsewhere? And how might the fates of Salvador Allende, the Popular Unity coalition, and Chilean workers help illuminate the emerging dynamics of the global far right?

We dig into the paradoxes and possibilities of the Allende years: the failed balancing act between revolution and legality; the coordinated resistance from business owners, professionals, and the military; the question of whether a peaceful transition to socialism was ever possible. We examine how The Battle of Chile dissects the infrastructure of counterrevolution—economic pressure, street violence, parliamentary sabotage, and media warfare—and what it means to rewatch these films in our current moment. And we talk about the strength and tragedy of mass mobilization, the unarmed marches and factory occupations, and the fateful decision not to arm the people.

Further Reading

The Racket, Jonathan’s newsletter

Gangsters of Capitalism: Smedley Butler, the Marines, and the Making and Breaking of America’s Empire, by Jonathan Katz

America, América: A New History of the New World, by Greg Grandin

“Defending Allende,” by Ariel Dorfman

Teaser from the Episode

Battle of Chile Trailer

The Death Star was born in blood well before it ever came into existence. In episodes 7-9 of Andor, we see just how much blood, and why. A false-flag operation to secure critical minerals. A French-resistance style sub-plot involving infiltration by an ambitious order muppet. Genocide of the Ghormans—an affluent middle-power planet. And a Galactic media that pretends to be the arbiter of truth while merely manufacturing consent for empire.

These are among the many thrills of a story whose politics evoke our own. You don’t want to miss Senator Mon Mothma’s daring, radical speech on the Senate floor, followed by Andor’s equally daring exfiltration of Mon Mothma to the Rebellion-held planet Yavin, where she comes home to herself.

Writer David Klion and historian David Austin Walsh rejoin the pod to discuss episodes 7-9 of Andor Season 2—the most-action packed and emotionally charged arc of not just Andor but perhaps any TV show.

Further Reading

David Austin Walsh on Twitter

David Klion on Twitter

“Andor Is the Best Star Wars You Will Ever See,” by David Klion

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

The Romance of American Communism, by Vivian Gornick

Teaser from the Episode

Andor Season 2 Trailer

An occasional glimpse behind the curtain as Van (missing Lyle!) sits down with writer David Klion and historian David Austin Walsh. Their candid convo ranges from the politics of liberal Zionism to personal radicalization and the history of the United States as the world’s most successful (but ultimately failed?) settler-colonial project founded on genocide.

You can catch this chat wherever you listen to podcasts, and the full video version is included as an unlisted YouTube link, below.

Look for David and David as recurring guests on our Andor mini-series.

Van and Lyle are joined by journalist David Klion and returning guest Paul Adlerstein to unpack Episodes 4 through 6 of Andor Season 2, when the slow-burn tension of the early arc erupts into full-fledged moral crisis.

They discuss how Ghorman—rendered with a kind of haute-bourgeois, French fusion aesthetic—is not only targeted by the Empire’s military clampdown, but also by its Fox News–style media wing, and fashion becomes a proxy for disloyalty. Meanwhile, Mothma’s effort to secure a de-escalation vote in defense of Ghorman is met with apathy or cowardice by her Senate colleagues, nominal liberals who fold in the face of imperial momentum.

The group also notes Bix’s PTSD, a trauma-riddled silence that now borders on suicidal despair, as well as Luthen and Saw’s parallel unraveling. One hides behind charm, the other behind mania, but both embody the same truth, that revolution is not for the sane.

“Do you think I’m crazy?” Saw asks. “Yes, I am. Revolution is not for the sane.” And Luthen proves it, growing impatient with Mothma’s delays and willing to let Ghorman burn to protect the long game.

Further Reading

Paul’s website

David on Twitter

“Andor Is the Best Star Wars You Will Ever See,” by David Klion

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

The Romance of American Communism, by Vivian Gornick

Teaser from the Episode:

Andor Season 2 Trailer

Slate culture editor Jenny G. Zhang returns to the pod for our initial foray into the first block of Andor Season 2.

Van and Jenny discuss the all-too-familiar labor exploitation on the agricultural planet Mina Rau, and how it relies on illegal immigration to remain profitable; the way that the Galactic Empire offers license to the patriarchal impulse of some to dominate others; and the secretive, elitist logic that leads agents of empire into committing genocide in order to secure critical minerals…and we are of course referring to Ghorman and the Empire’s need to extract it for the Death Star.

Plus: Senator Mon Mothma’s performance of desperation at her daughter’s wedding—dancing like no one’s watching with a face that can’t hide agony…totally the vibe of 2025.

Catch Up on Our Season 1 Coverage

Andor Season 2 Trailer

Otto Preminger’s Exodus isn’t just a sweeping Hollywood epic but a foundational text of the postwar Zionist imagination. Van and Lyle are joined by journalist David Meir Grossman to dissect the 1960 film and its enduring legacy. Together, they parse the film’s aesthetics and ideology, its thinly veiled apologetics for settler colonialism, and its staging of Jewish suffering as license for state power.

From the very first scene, where a tour guide on Cyprus rattles off its many conquerors with oblivious irony, the film makes clear that it sees empire not as problem but backdrop. The British are cast as bureaucratic brutes, the Arabs as angry fanatics, and the Jews as righteous protagonists caught between. But this story collapses under its own contradictions: The hunger strike led by Jewish detainees mirrors tactics long used by Palestinians; mothers proclaim they would rather die with their children than be deported, a form of resistance the film treats with reverence. Yet when Palestinians make similar claims decades later, they are cast as monstrous, even suicidal.

The conversation also revisits the film’s iconic characters. Paul Newman’s Ari Ben-Canaan embodies the Zionist hero as charismatic, haunted, and certain that Jewish liberation can be achieved without reckoning with anyone else’s. Then there’s Kitty Fremont, the well-meaning American nurse whose imperious naïveté mirrors the U.S.’s own posture toward the region.

David, Van, and Lyle trace how Exodus anticipates not only the mythologies of the Israeli state but also the moral blind spots of its liberal defenders. They explore the film’s revealing attempts at nuance—such as the friendship between Ari and the Palestinian character Taha (played by the white American heartthrob John Derek)—and why those gestures fall flat in the face of the larger narrative. If Exodus helped consecrate Israel’s founding story for American audiences, this episode tries to read between its frames.

Further Reading

David on Twitter

The Question of Zion (2005), by Jacqueline Rose

“Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims” (1979), by Edward Said

Diaspora Boy: Comics on Crisis in America and Israel (2017), by Eli Valley

On the Arab-Jew, Palestine, and Other Displacements (2017), by Ella Shohat

Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (2019), by Noura Erakat

Teaser from the Episode

Exodus Trailer

The full video episode for our coverage of Exodus is available as an unlisted link on YouTube, just for paid subscribers, below:

Van (minus Lyle) is joined by historian David Austin Walsh to explore episodes 10-12 of Andor’s first-season finale. Their conversation focuses on Andor’s embrace of revolution and the surprising political realism of the show’s portrayal of labor exploitation and social uprisings. Van and David also discuss liberalism’s failure to inspire meaningful change in the real world—why has no electoral politician in our lifetime ever roused our souls like Marva did in episode’s 12’s revolt on the planet Ferrix? What might that say about the rise of fascism in the 2020s?

Further Reading

David Austin Walsh on Twitter

Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far Right, by David Austin Walsh

“Luthen Rael Embodies Andor’s Gray Side,” by Roxana Hadadi

“A Tale of Miners and Prisoners,” by RK Upadhya

Teaser

Andor Season 1 Trailer

An occasional glimpse behind the curtain as Van (missing Lyle!) sits down with historian David Austin Walsh to gossip a bit about the conservative movement, far-right politics, and how Van ended up unwittingly studying at a paleocon university.

David joined the Bang-Bang Podcast to discuss Star Wars’ Andor (episode forthcoming) and we were able to get some great convo before recording.

Bang-Bang is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Van and Lyle are joined once again by historian Paul Adlerstein to delve into episodes 8 through 10 of Andor. The conversation traces the jarring split between the dystopian labor camps of Narkina 5 and the sterile dinner parties of Coruscant’s elite, two poles of the same imperial order. They examine the moral complexities faced by characters like Mon Mothma, who grapples with the potential betrothal of her daughter to secure rebel funding, and how sectarianism and hard strategy collide in the rebel underground.

The trio also discusses the depiction of solidarity among prisoners, the moral dilemmas of resistance, and the show's not so subtle allusion to historical markers like the Spanish Civil War. And then there’s Luthen Rael—coldblooded handler, ghost of revolutions past—who delivers one of the most unforgettable monologues in the history of the franchise. What does it mean to sacrifice everything for a dream you’ll never see? Or to damn yourself in the name of liberation? And what are we to make of Andor, helping to build the very weapon that will later kill him?

Further Reading

Paul’s website

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

"Ali's Theme" – The Battle of Algiers Soundtrack

“Luthen Rael Embodies Andor’s Gray Side,” by Roxana Hadadi

“A Tale of Miners and Prisoners,” by RK Upadhya

Teaser

Andor Season 1 Trailer

The pod returns to Andor with Slate culture editor Jenny G. Zhang and, for the first time, the historian Paul Adlerstein. This second installment covers the Aldhani arc, Coruscant as pristine imperial metropole, and metropolitan contempt for the indigenous periphery—writ large in their treatment of the Aldhani tribes.

They discuss the protagonist's mirroring of Ali’s radicalization in The Battle of Algiers, how Ali’s theme song from that film makes a near-identical appearance in Andor’s own opening music, and how the heist sequence was inspired by Simon Montefiore’s Young Stalin—too perfect given Montefiore’s latest turn as apologist for America’s most murderous outpost.

Special attention is also lent to Mon Mothma, the electoral progressive forced to test her own commitments; Dedra Meero, the rising star of the surveillance state; and Syril Karn, the corporate rent-a-cop turned humiliated bureaucrat whose debacle paves the way for direct imperial control.

Arvel Skeen, too, the treacherous militant whose final and fateful words to Cass also mark a life-changing challenge:

I knew when you first came into camp. We were both born in the hole and all we know is how to climb over others to get out.

Further Reading

Jenny’s website

Jenny on Bluesky

Jenny on Twitter

Paul’s website

Project Fulcrum: Nemik’s Weekly Manifesto

"Ali's Theme" – The Battle of Algiers Soundtrack

“The Andor Dilemma: Pop Culture’s Place in Leftist Strategy,” by Van Jackson

The Battle of Algiers Episode

Teaser from the Episode

Andor Season 1 Trailer