In this episode we discuss how the accelerating hype of the "artificial intelligence" race affects left political theory and movements. Cayden talks to co-author of the new book Why We Fear AI: On The Interpretation of Nightmares, Hagen Blix. We’ll explore how the seeming inevitability of AI is intertwined with neoliberalism as well as how we urgently need to figure out how to narrate the development of technology for ourselves – so that the billionaires don’t do it for us.

We discuss the ground-level organizing it took to accomplish Zohran Mamdani’s massive victory in New York City’s mayoral primary race in late June. Joining Cayden on this episode are Jasmine Gripper, co-director of New York Working Families Party; and Lena Pervez Afridi, a New York City-based writer, researcher, and organizer.

Writer, lawyer, and co-founder of Interrupting Criminalization, Andrea Ritchie joins this week. She’s published a free guide titled Block & Build – But Make it Abolitionist, which explores strategic frameworks for fighting Right-wing authoritarianism from an abolitionist perspective; an invitation to expand collective resistance beyond strategies that rely on the carceral state.

This week on the show we feature a recording of the panel Convergence Magazine hosted on July 4th at the Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago: Blocking the Right, Building the Base - The Work of Building Left Unity. The panelists feature leaders from Liberation Road, North Star Socialist Organization, the Socialist Majority Caucus of the Democratic Socialists of America, Rising Majority, and Movement for Black Lives discussing how their work is aligned with the “Block and Build” strategic framework and the need for both building membership bases while developing functional cross-sector unity.

Writer and organizer Asha Ransby-Sporn joins to talk about building durable political power in the five years since the 2020 uprisings, what those challenges look like in her city of Chicago (which elected progressive mayor Brandon Johnson in 2023), and what comes next.

This week's show was recorded live at the 22nd Century Conference. In this sobering discussion on the rise of political violence, Cayden is joined by Executive Director of 22nd Century Initiative and co-host of the Anti-Authoritarian Podcast (published by Convergence), Scot Nakagawa, Principal Research Advisor for Political Research Associates, Steven Gardiner, and Co-Executive Director of TakeAction Minnesota, Amanda Otero.

They explore the grief and responses to last week's attacks on lawmakers in Minnesota and other recent acts of stochastic violent terror. The panel discusses how we orient ourselves to keep doing movement work in a increasingly dangerous environment and the need to go on the offensive while maintaining nonviolent discipline.

This week on the show, Cayden is joined by Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University, Hahrie Han. Her 2024 book Undivided: The Quest for Racial Solidarity in an American Church is a fascinating, ground level chronicle of the years-long effort in a Midwestern evangelical church to reckon with their city’s history of racial segregation and police violence.

This week we are joined by Brittany Ramos DeBarros, Interim Organizing Director at About Face: Veterans Against the War (@vetsaboutface). Since 2004, About Face (f.k.a. Iraq Veterans Against the War) has provided a political home to veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns who are opposed to US militarism and imperialism. We’ll discuss what her organization has been doing to respond to our current political conditions.

How to Support Immigrant Communities During ICE Raids

Get involved in About Face's upcoming direct action: Benefits Not Bullshit

We don’t have a full episode this week, but we wanted to drop a quick check-in for your podcast feed, because a lot is going on. We're celebrating pride and wrestling with the grief of Gaza and political violence, all while staving off the hypernormalization of creeping fascism.

So...how are you holding up?

This week, Cayden is joined by Suzanne Pharr, a longtime social justice worker from the South. Suzanne is one of the most astute observers of the political project of the far Right from a movement perspective, and someone whose work has spanned issue area and geography. At age 86, her work is relentless as she has recently published a 2nd edition of her book In the Time of the Right: Reflections on Liberation. The book constructs a progressive view of the politics of our time that is accessible to students, activists, and all who are trying to understand the threat to democracy by the Right.