Stephen Wertheim, a Lecturer in American and international history at Birkbeck, University of London, breaks cuts through the suffocating foreign policy debate that shapes American Empire under Trump.

Peace has broken out across the Korean Peninsula—or, at least, the odds that Donald Trump will blow the world up have gone down a just a bit—at least temporarily. Yes, Trump is the one who pushed us way too close to the brink of nuclear war. And yes, he likely sought peace with Kim Jong-Un because he loves wins, whatever their political or ideological content. But wow, has the liberal reaction been revealing. According to the mindset that pervades the liberal media and political elite, a move toward peace with North Korea is bad because Trump is bad. Or perhaps worse yet, it’s bad because the national security state conventional wisdom that has governed Washington under both parties for so long—purveyed by the very people who have brought us endless war almost everywhere—says that it’s bad. It’s clearer than ever that the task of the left to find a way out of this ideological closed circuit of the liberal vs. Trump foreign policy debate—and, if we win power, to shut down its warmongering for good.

Thanks to Verso. Check out Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump by Asad Haider versobooks.com/books/2716-mistaken-identity

And register for the Socialism 2018 conference (July 5-8, Chicago!) at socialismconference.org

Support this podcast with $ and access our weekly newsletter at patreon.com/TheDig