Ben Burgis chats with Matt McManus about Matt's Jacobin article "Gad Saad Is Very Mad That His Books Are Bad and Sad."

Read the article:

https://jacobin.com/2026/05/saad-empathy-conservatism-book-review

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter @JacobinBen [NOTE: The previous account was hacked!]

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Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

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benburgis.substack.com

Victor Bruzzone joins Ben Burgis to break down Medhi Hasan's recent conversation with Patrick Bet-David about Israel, free speech, imperial expansionism, and more.

Follow Victor on Twitter: @victorbruzzone

Follow Ben on Twitter @JacobinBen [NOTE: The previous account was hacked!]

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Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

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When Trump announced the war at the end of February, he said the goal was to bring "freedom" the people of Iran. Over and over again in the weeks of fighting, he said he'd settle for nothing less than "unconditional surrender." At one point, he said that if Iran didn't bend the knee he would "destroy" their "civilization."

So...what happened? And what's going to happen now?

Djene Bajalan joins us to break it all down.

Follow Ben on Twitter @JacobinBen [NOTE: The previous account was hacked!]

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Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

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Last month in New York City, Ben Burgis and Sohrab Ahmari sat down for an in-person dialogue on left- and right- "populism." Here it is!

Follow Sohrab on Twitter: @SohrabAhmari

Follow Cynthia on Twitter: @c_cook1988

Follow Ben on Twitter @JacobinBen [NOTE: The previous account was hacked!]

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

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Ben Burgis is joined by Michael Lazarus (author of "Absolute Ethical Life: Aristotle, Hegel and Marx") and Matt McManus (who needs no introduction to GTAA fans) for a fun three-way exchange on "analytical Marxism" (the tradition Ben works in), Michael's more Hegel-inflected version of Marxism, and Matt's sympathies with both sides.

Order Michael's book:

https://www.sup.org/books/politics/absolute-ethical-life

Follow Michael on Twitter: @Mblaz39

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter @JacobinBen [NOTE: The previous account was hacked!]

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Last week Ben Burgis and Jillian Michaels hashed out their disagreements on socialism in an in-person debate in Michaels's studio in LA. Here it is!

Follow Jillian on Twitter: @JillianMichaels

Follow Ben on Twitter @JacobinBen [NOTE: The previous account was hacked!]

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

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Matt McManus discusses his review of Gabriel Rockhill's Temu-Stalinist conspiracy theory of "western Marxism."

Read Matt's review of Rockhill's "Who Paid the Pipers of Western Marxism?" in Damage magazine:

https://www.damagemag.com/p/western-marxism-through-the-looking

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

A day late because Ben had to write a Jacobin article about all this instead of doing the episode (sorry about that!) but there's a lot to cover. Last Friday he recorded a debate on the war in Iran (hosted by philosopher Spencer Case). In this episode, we play the debate and chat a little bit about the truly bizarre developments since it was recorded. Ben argues that it's good to be clear on what TACO Tuesday was, because that strengthens the anti-war case going forward.

Watch the debate on Spencer's podcast:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ScPGb91B2k

Here's the Jacobin article that delayed the episode a day:

https://jacobin.com/2026/04/iran-war-trump-threat-ceasefire

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Last week at York University in Toronto, there was a panel to pre-launch a book of essays called "Analytical Marxism and Democratic Socialism in the 21st Century: Revisitng G.A. Cohen" co-edited by Ben Burgis and Matt McManus. Contributors Les Jacobs and Christine Sypnowich spoke first, then Matt and Ben. Q&A includes some spicy exchanges on dialectics and whether analytical Marxism is too academic to be of much use to the workers' movement. In this episode, Ben starts with some context on Cohen's life and the major themes of the work and then we play the full video of the panel. At the end, Ben comes back to chat a bit more about the trip to Toronto and the GTAA episode schedule going forward.

Prices in academic publishing being what they are, we can't exactly tell you to go out and buy this thing, but if you want to get your library to order a copy, here's the link for that;

https://www.amazon.com/Analytical-Marxism-Democratic-Socialism-Century/dp/3032028930

Prof. Sypnowich's website:

https://www.christinesypnowich.com/

Prof. Jacobs's profile at York:

https://profiles.laps.yorku.ca/profiles/jacobs/

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com

Matt McManus joins to discuss the complicated legacy of philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who died last Saturday.

Read Matt's article "Jürgen Habermas Showed What Philosophy Could Be" in Jacobin:

https://jacobin.com/2026/03/habermas-obituary-critical-theory-philosophy

Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis

Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show

Consider donating to Andy's GoFundMe so he can replace his computer and fully go back to doing what he does best:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-andy-get-back-to-creating-art-jtwet

Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benefits ranging from occasional patron-exclusive content to access to the GTAA Discord to our undying love and gratitude for helping us keep this thing going:

patreon.com/benburgis

Read the weekly philosophy Substack:

benburgis.substack.com