The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

Only a few years ago, European elites were patting themselves on the back for fending off the

tide of right-wing anti-system parties (often styled as populists). But recent polls in France,

Germany and the United Kingdom show that that the far right is once again gaining traction,

thanks in no small part centrist governments that have demoralized the population and

legitimized xenophobia. David Broder, author of Mussolini's Grandchildren and European editor

of Jacobin, wrote a wide-ranging essay on this for The New York Times. I spoke to David about

both the dismal decisions of mainstream parties and also possible alternatives.

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The famed economist Larry Summers, not for the first time, finds himself the center of a

scandal. He’s had to take a leave from Harvard, where he teaches, because of embarrassing

emails he had with his late friend Jeffrey Epstein.

I talked to economic journalist and Nation contributor Doug Henwood, a long-time Summers

watcher, about the career of this controversial and influential figure. Summers has been one of

the most influential policy makers of his era, serving as Treasury Secretary and President of

Harvard. He has also embodied the major intellectual and political limitations of the ruling class.

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The scandal around Jeffrey Epstein, who trafficked and abused children and died in a prison cell

in 2019, has never gone away. It continues to explode now that House Democrats have

released thousands of emails from Epstein and his cronies. But while the political class and

mainstream media are understandably focused on the sex scandal, another dimension of the

scandal goes uncovered except by independent media outlets such as Drop Site: Epstein’s deep

ties to the national security state. I talked to international relations scholar Van Jackson about

this crucial part of the story.

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Much has been written about how the Israel/Palestine conflict is dividing the left, but the

same is true of the right. Tucker Carlson’s interview with the antisemitic critic of Israel Nick

Fuentes has created an intense debate on the right about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism,

currently playing itself out in turmoil at the Heritage Foundation. I spoke with the historian

David Austin Walsh, whose book Taking America Back: The Conservative Movement and the Far

Right provides a crucial background for this story.

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Donald Trump claims he wants to be the peace president and has even lobbied for a Nobel

Peace Prize. But his foreign policy has been wildly contradictory. While the United States is

clearly retrenching from many parts of the world, violence against hemispheric neighbors is

increasing. I talked to Trita Parsi, co-founder and executive vice president of the Quincy

Institute for Responsible Statecraft, for a wide-ranging discussion on why American hegemony

is declining but also why the push for retrenchment hasn’t gone far enough.

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On Friday, the self-styled “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced the US was sending an aircraft carrier to bolster its attacks on Venezuelan boats (which the Trump administration alleges, without evidence, are trafficking drugs). I spoke to international relations scholar Van Jackson (whose work can be found here) about the motives for this new war as well as the muted opposition to it from Democrats.

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The fragile ceasefire negotiated between Israel and Hamas hasn’t ended the violence, but it has

for now lessened it. But even if the ceasefire holds, the need for a political solution to

Palestinian dispossession remains. To discuss the issue of accountability, I spoke to Yousef

Munayyer, who is the head of the Palestine/Israel Program and Senior Fellow at Arab Center

Washington DC. We talked about how the shocking events of the last two years have shifted

global public opinion, including in the United States. Both parties are heading towards a long-

delayed debate about the value of the US/Israel relation.

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Few movies have ever been as timely as Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film One Battle After

Another, which traces the battle between revolutionary resistance groups trying to protect

immigrants and an authoritarian government run by racists. There are scenes from the movie

that feel like they are being played out right now on the streets of Chicago, Los Angeles and

Portland. Although it presents a stylized version of reality, the film raises important questions

about different strategies of resistance. David Klion, a frequent guest, wrote about the movie

for The New Republic. David and I talked about the film, its roots in actual history but also

variance with that history as well as its relationship with the Thomas Pynchon novel Vineland.

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Donald Trump has plunged the nation into another government shutdown. I spoke with my

Nation colleague Chris Lehmann about the larger political stakes. We take up Trump’s shifting

rhetoric, which has started with false and racist claims about undocumented immigrants

receiving benefits and now seems to be about gloating over austerity. We also take up the

Democratic party response, and the way the base of the party has forced the leadership to take

a stronger stance. Chris’ article on the shutdown can be found here.

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The United States continues to be roiled by political violence, with the recent shooting at an ICE

facility in Dallas coming hot on the heels of the assassination of Charlie Kirk and a school

shooting in Colorado committed by a neo-Nazi. Some of the best reporting on these events has

been done by Ken Klippenstein for his Substack. I spoke with Ken about what he’s discovered

when he interviewed those who knew the alleged shooters, how his findings go against the

simplistic partisan interpretations offered by both the left and right, as well as the dangerous

ways the Trump administration is using the shootings for a crackdown on civil liberties.

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