The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

Many of Joe Biden’s closest advisors are now well-ensconced in the sinecures reserved for the elite, working at think tanks, academia, and major media outlets. Normally, they could expect to have future jobs when the Democrats retake the White House. But this cozy situation is being disrupted by ongoing reporting showing the extent of their complicity in the Gaza genocide and other US crimes in the Middle East. I spoke about this with Connor Echols, managing editor of Responsible Statecraft, who wrote an excellent article on the efforts to hold these officials accountable.

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My Nation colleague Kate Wagner has written a brilliant critical essay on the Obama Center, which just opened in Chicago. I talk to her about how the history of presidential libraries, a now anachronistic form as well as the controversies surrounding the Obama Center’s displacement of public space and the dissatisfying way it memorializes the Obama presidency.

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My Nation colleague Joan Walsh recently profiled Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff for the magazine. Georgia is very much a purple state. The fact that Ossoff won there and stands a good chance at re-election is evidence of his political talent, turning him into an increasingly prominent national figure. Joan and I talked about Ossoff’s background and the long struggle to transform Georgia, a formerly red state where Democrats are making headway.

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The Trump administration has announced a new set of harsh sanctions against Iran. This is a strange development since originally Trump launched a war on Iran on the pretext that sanctions weren’t working. Trita Parsi of the Qunicy Institute argues the current tactic won’t work and is a holding action as both the US and Iran bide their time in a long conflict. Parsi’s writings can be found on his Substack. In the interview, we discuss his column on the surprising way many governments are rooting for Iran to check US imperialism.

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The current conflict in the Middle East might escalate on a new front. In recent weeks, Israeli Prime Minister Benjaman Netanyahu has been touting Turkey as a potential threat on par with Iran. This conflict is partly spurred by the fact that Syria, currently rebuilding after a brutal civil war, is becoming a battleground for competing projects of regional hegemony. To discuss this as well as the prospects for a more realistic foreign policy, I talked to Adam Weinstein of the Quincy Institute.

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There’s an ongoing feud in the Trump administration between restrainers (advocates of a less hawkish foreign policy) and neoconservatives (advocates of militarism on multiple fronts). David Klion wrote about this conflict for the Nation but notes that the ideologies are less important than the fact that Trump is an impulsive bully who often changes his mind. I talked to David about this conflict and the larger incoherence of right-wing foreign policy.

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Republicans are plummeting in the polls in the lead-up to the midterm thanks to the unpopularity of the Iran War and the attendant inflation. As my Nation colleague Chris Lehmann has noted, in an attempt to shore up their fracturing base, the GOP has decided to label all Democrats as communist, a weird rhetorical move now being made by Donald Trump and his supporters. I talk to Chris about this strange and dangerous development.

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The purported ceasefire in the Iran War was always tenuous and now the war is not only heating up but entering a dangerous new phase. The Iranians have closed the Strait of Hormuz and the Houthis are firing on the Red Sea while Donald Trump promises a new wave of attacks on Iran’s civilian infrastructure. I talk about the state of the Middle East and related matters with Matt Duss, vice president of the Center for International Policy.

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Donald Trump is practicing crony capitalism on an unprecedented scale, with the government greenlighting major mergers that benefit the president’s friends (most notably the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger). I spoke to Zephyr Teachout, who teaches constitutional law at Fordham, about this worrying development. We take up the long history of anti-monopoly politics going back to the American revolution and the trust battles of the late 19th century as well as the possibility state governments can fight the new wave of consolidation. Zephyr has often written on his subject for The Nation, notably in two recent articles. 

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Graham Platner is withdrawing as the Democratic Senate nominee in Maine after a credible rape allegation was made against him (Platner denies the allegation). I spoke to Maine writer Eoin Higgins about Platner’s rise and fall, the progressive politics that animated his campaign, and the upcoming scramble by the Democratic Party of Maine to find a new candidate.

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