But It Might Work For Us

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His support for the Iraq War so obliterated the reputation of Christopher Hitchens on the Left that the millennial and Gen Z socialists emerging since his death in 2011 are barely aware he existed. In a special crossover with Ben Burgis's Give Them an Argument show, we discuss Ben's attempts to change that with a new book, Christopher Hitchens: What He Got Right, Where He Went Wrong, and Why He Still Matters. To help us interrogate Hitchens's many contradictions, we welcome back to TPS his brother, Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens: an author the elder Hitch once described as so reactionary, he felt he should a wear a garlic rosary while reading him.

Welcome back to RAX KING, author of Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer and co-host of the Low Culture Boil podcast. David and Rax get into the pleasures of Jewish holidays, cheap perfume, the ethical code of Jersey Shore, the relative merits of being in the mall and being online, and the meaning of LET’S GO BRANDON. Our supporters at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod got this episode first, as well as a whole archive of subscriber-only episodes. Why not start helping us grow the platform for less than the cost of a beer per month? 

David Bell is a leading global health expert, who has worked at the top of the World Health Organisation and for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He believes that the use of lockdowns and universal vaccination in the response to COVID-19 has been a grievous error, and a betrayal of the founding principles of the global healthcare sector. In pt.1 of a wide-ranging interview, David describes first-hand the takeover of global health by corporate interests, and how the successive pandemics and near-pandemics of the 21st century have led the WHO in an increasingly authoritarian direction. In our subscribers-only pt.2, THE COVID ERROR, David continues the story, to explain why he thinks a twenty-year drift in the WHO away from its founding constitution has resulted in the disastrous error of lockdowns and vaccine mandates today.

This is pt.1 of a 2-part episode. To listen to pt.2, 'The Wisest Woman in Europe' - on Freud vs. Jung, T.S. Eliot, the meaning of birthdays, and the scary fate of the director of ‘Human Centipede' - subscribe at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. In pt.1, we team up with psychoanalytic film scholar, Mary Wild, to review the biggest horror releases of the summer: Nia DaCosta and Jordan Peele's 'Candyman' and James Wan's 'Malignant'. For extra Halloween spookiness, Mary gets her tarot cards out to predict David and James's futures! 

This is PART 1 of a two-part episode. PART 2, 'Too Laura to Laura', continues the discussion with Laura Smith, and is available exclusively to subscribers at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. The rise and fall of Corbynism is marked by the 2017 victories and 2019 defeats of Laura Pidcock and Laura Smith as radical left Members of Parliament for North West Durham and Crewe and Nantwich. In this unique discussion, the Lauras talk Laura to Laura about the subsequent direction of the Labour Party, the problem with the Labour Right, the Keir Starmer they knew, building left power outside parliament, and what the hell went on in there. 

Help us continue making great shows and get bonus episodes and early-access interviews at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. Afeni joined us from Freedom Fighters DC to talk about keeping politics local in the national core, why the Squad keeps folding, policing in the US and UK, Dave Chappelle and Nicki Minaj breaking rank with their class, the rise of the generation that reached political maturity in the Trump years… PLUS why she’s a “fuck-around-and-find-out free speech absolutist”.

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Subcultural spaces associated with the far right - from GamerGate to 4Chan - have attracted endless analysis. But what about their radical liberal cousin? The guys kicked back with Katherine Dee to revisit Tumblr: Obama-era clickbait journalism's favourite source of anthropological adventures, as well as the laboratory for many mores around sex, identity, and politics today.

This episode was previously EXCLUSIVE TO SUBSCRIBERS at Patreon.com/ThePopularPod. Please help us continue platforming the toughest conversations in politics and culture, on both sides of the Atlantic, for £3 per month.

Support for maximal lockdown measures has been an article of faith for liberals and the left since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. But where did this unprecedented approach to pandemic containment come from? And was it suitable to all the global contexts it was deployed in? Africanist Toby Green is a dissenting voice you NEED to hear. His book Covid Consensus: The New Politics of Global Inequality is an outstanding analysis of the regressive effects of lockdown policies, and the neocolonial dimension of their imposition on the Global South.

Cheaper than a pint! Patreon.com/ThePopularPod membership gives you advance access to our biggest interviews, regular subscriber-only episodes, and helps us grow the project. 

How is the Afghanistan withdrawal being received on the dissident right? MAGA depends on keeping clear water between its 'anti-imperialism of the right' and the bipartisan forever wars of the neocon establishment: a narrative thrown by warmonger Biden's abrupt cutting ties with wars of humanitarian intervention and state building. The fellas look at Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon's scramble to respond to Biden's surprising continuities with Trump, reshaping their stances on the deep state, the military, and culture wars as they do so. We also scoop up Joe Rogan's iv*rm*ct*n controversy, and predict new fractures on the left and within the professional class if anti-COVID measures ramp up once more in the coming months.