The Public Sphere

Rafael Khatchaturian joins the podcast again. 

Today, we are talking about the bizarre circle that took Paul Manafort from the apex of K-Street to post-Soviet Eastern Europe and back. Mantefort was briefly the campaign manager of the Trump campaign and now is a major target of Robert Mueller's investigation.

Franklin Foer, now a national correspondant with The Atlantic, describes Manafort's rise as an influential Washington lobbyist to his work on behalf of an international rogues gallery including former Ukranian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. In this way, Manafort's career mirrors the arc of history since 1980:  the rise of neoliberal, Reaganite conservatism in 1980, the exportation of US style democracy and campaigning to Europe after 1991, and the dubious rewards that both the US and Europe are now reaping.

One programming note:  You can hear my cat, Imogen, on both this and our last episode.

• Rafael's breakdown of an anti-soviet cartoon.
• Sean Guillory - Sean's Russian Blog.
• Franklin Foer, "The Plot Against America," The Atlantic (March 2018).
• Masha Gessen, "The New Politics of Conspiracy," New York Review of Books (November 2nd, 2016).

What is Quit Lit? And what does it says about the universities and professors.

• Erin Bartam, "The Sublimated Grief of Being Left Behind."
• Rebecca Shuman, "Thesis Hatement," Slate (April, 2013).
• Funding for Maryland Universities.
• Guns vs. Butter (12:25)
• US Discretionary Funding:  CBO infographic, 2017 Budget Priorities.
• Malcolm Gladwell, "My Little Hundred Million," Revisionist History podcast.

This is the podcast on podcasts. This week, Pete and Luke discuss which podcasts we listen to, why, and what makes them work.

1. Slate's Trumpcast
2. Rational Security from Lawfair.
3. The Weeds, Vox.com
4. Pod Save America, Crooked Media
5. The Dig from Jacobin
6. Chapo Trap House

Today we're talking about Nancy Fraser, eminent political and critical theorist.  She is a professor of philosophy and politics at the New School for Social Research. Her work addresses the intersection of feminism and Marxism, by arguing in part that the exploitation of unpaid domestic, mostly female labor is a key aspect of capitalism.

She recently wrote an essay for the journal American Affairs: "From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump and Beyond." It was later republished at Public Seminar.

• Nancy Fraser, "From Progressive Neoliberalism to Trump and Beyond," Public Seminar. American Affairs
• Nancy Fraser, "Behind Marx's Hidden Abode: For an Expanded Conception of Capitalism." NLR 86 March-April 2014
• Nancy Fraser, "Contradictions of Capital and Care," NLR July-August 2016.
• Nancy Fraser, "How Feminism became capitalism's handmaiden — and how to reclaim it," Guardian Oct 14, 2014.

This week we're discussing "Greate White Hype" by Ned Resnikoff published by The Baffler.

In the article, he argues against a new dynamic influencing public debate.

The primary example he cites is Steve Bannon, now-discredited presidential advisor and former CEO of Breitbart News, who was portrayed as a genius in some media accounts.  "A legion of pseudo-Bannons and mini-Bannons are scrambling to replicate his success," Resnikoff warns.

But his argument is a deeper indictment of a the emergence of the "though-leader" and "think-piece" — which we're putting in scare-quotes.

This week we are talking about "Rescuing Economics from Neoliberalism" by Dani Rodrik, published in the Boston Review. Rodrik is a well-known economist and long-time critic of globalization. While he's no black-flag, brick-throwing anti-capitalist, he was one of the earliest voices questioning the post-1991 free trade orthodoxy. Of course, the story has changed since then, not least because of the 2008 Great Recession. In this essay, Rodrik is keen to disentangle the valuable parts of Economics from the bowdlerized, neoliberal version popular today.

Today we're talking about Michael Wolfe's book on the first 200 days of the Trump administration. Fire and Fury is the the dramatic title for a controversial book.

Links

• Michael Wolfe, Fire and Fury
• Devil's Bargain
• Andrew Prokop, "The controversy around Michael Wolff’s gossipy new Trump book, explained." Vox.com (Jan. 5, 2018).
• Nausicaa Renner and Pete Vernon, “Every Age Gets the Boswell It Deserves,” Columbia Journalism Review (Jan. 5, 2018).
• James Fallows, “It’s Been an Open Secret All Along.” The Atlantic (Jan. 4, 2018).
• Jonathan Swan, “Trump’s Secret Shrinking Schedule,” Axios (Jan. 7, 2018).

This week we're engaging in some good old fashioned punditry. December saw a couple of profiles published about how the Trump White House operates. We've been getting edges of the puzzle for months now as personnel, like Steve Bannon, have left and the Russia investigation continues. But the Dec. 9 NY Times article from Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, and Peter Baker is daily picture of life in the White House (and the Florida golf resort that they call the "Winter White House."

"Inside Trump’s Hour-by-Hour Battle for Self-Preservation" is a classic example of palace intrigue. But what do we learn that we didn't know before?

The Public Sphere is a podcast from Contrivers Review.

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Thanks for listening.

This week, Pete and Luke talk about "Generation Screwed" by Michael Hobbes, published by the Huffington Post.

The Public Sphere is a produced by Contrivers' Review, where you can find lot's of things to read. Follow us on Twitter, Like us on Facebook, or subscribe to our mailing list.

This week, Pete and Luke discuss the NY Times Magazine profile of Sean Hannity and Justin Peter's "Watching Fox" blog from Slate.com. Is Fox News propaganda? How does it impact public opinion? Is there a middle ground between a dogmatic insistence on "facts" and a postmodern world of competing narratives?

The Editors Podcast is a production of Contrivers' Review.