The Left Unsaid

For this episode of The Left Unsaid, we sat down with Nora Lester Murad, a Jewish-American author, educator and activist who married a Palestinian Muslim and raised three daughters in the West Bank. Nora provides a clear-eyed view of the way in which organizations like the Anti-Defamation League misrepresent themselves as anti-bias or educational resources, weaponizing claims of antisemitism to pu...

This week, we bring you an interview from a few months ago, when high-schooler Finn McElwee sat down with North Carolina State Senator Graig Meyer to talk about his decision to oppose "genocide" in Gaza. A former educator, Senator Meyer emphasizes the importance of allowing classroom discussion of genocide against Palestinians alongside study of the Holocaust and other great crimes of th...

This week, senior members of the Biden administration presented their defense before history, explaining or pointing fingers over their support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. In this episode, we pick that defense apart and compare it to earlier justifications of US imperial crimes. Read NPR’s article, sourced from a couple dozen senior Biden officials: “We Didn’t Do Enough” If we understand the fai...

This episode features part two of our conversation with Catholic Worker organizers Lenore Yarger and Steve Woolford, and their son Quinn. From their rural North Carolina home base, they’ve spent 20 years running the GI Rights Hotline, an anonymous lifeline for soldiers looking to get out, resist, or simply not follow illegal orders. Their hotline blew up when Trump ordered National Guard deploymen...

This week, the tide may finally be starting to turn against genocide. A majority of Democratic Senators voted with Bernie to cut off some weapons to Israel. Not enough, but a major step forward. Zohran Mamdani polls overwhelmingly ahead in the New York mayoral race, including among Jewish voters. Over in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn launched a new leftist party and immediately matched Labour’s membership...

After a brief hiatus due to vacation, COVID superspreading, and a flood event here in Chapel Hill, we’re back with our very first interview. This week, we talk with our cousin Chiara Kimelia, Dartmouth student and freshly minted canvassing superhero, who hit the pavement for Zohran Mamdani’s historic, come-from-the-left win in NYC’s mayoral primary. We explore the generational and community politi...

This week, Trump launched a full-throttle, unprovoked strike on Iran, violating U.S. law, international law, and any shred of moral credibility. The oligarchy is flexing its muscles, but we can flex back. We examine the opposition to this war, a populist opposition that covers the spectrum from MAGA to Bernie and the left. CNN, Fox and other mainstream outlets start to manufacture consent, but we&...

This week on The Left Unsaid , we skip the burgers and throw something juicier on the grill: the imperial myth machine. It’s a Father’s Day edition, so naturally we’re spending it exactly how Dad likes—tearing into bipartisan war propaganda and the elite penchant for fascist-adjacent pageantry. Finn and Patrick debrief from their trip to DC where The Left Unsaid crew filmed CodePink giving Congres...

This week, we keep it a little shorter, since Finn, Patrick and Meg are deep in work on a documentary about Gaza solidarity in the high schools. On the podcast, we cover: AI and the Big Dumb Bill. The House passed a monster benefits-cut bill. Half of them didn’t even read it. it is bad in almost every way, EXCEPT, it finally kicked off the divorce between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. We discuss the...

This week, The Left Unsaid bursts out of the living room and into the headlines. Literally. Our youngest co-host and resident teenage rabble-rouser, Finn, organized a Walkout for Palestine at Chapel Hill High School and made the front page of the local paper. We bring you the exclusive on how it all went down. You'll be impressed by these students. But first: the grotesque theater of the "Gaza Hum...

This week, the McElwee family returns to the belly of the beast - domestic politics - to rip apart Trump’s $4.5 trillion “budget” bill, aka oligarchic looting plan. We break down what’s in the bill, how it’s quietly murdering people with paperwork and poverty, and a truly massive expansion of fascist border law enforcement. Meanwhile, the genocide rages on in Gaza, two Israeli consulate employees...

This week, we start with the deranged plot twist of the Duck Dynasty guy teaming up with Homeland Security to turn immigration into reality TV. For these people, The Hunger Games was a how-to manual. From there, we drag our mics out of the simulacra and into the real: the criminalization of journalism, the surveillance of dissent, and borders as literal and ideological weapons. We discuss famous l...

Meg returns for a Mother’s Day episode that is warm, weird, and wildly enraging. We start with a ceasefire (India and Pakistan) and end with state violence (ICE kidnapping a mom in Massachusetts). In between, we explore the imperial roots of the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, why caste and colonialism still matter, and how U.S. immigration law is a eugenics project in bureaucratic drag. Oth...

This week, it’s just Patrick and Finn—no Meg, but plenty of rage, history, and dark humor. Starting with the unspeakable horrors coming out of Gaza, they explore not only the U.S.’s financial and political complicity but also why this particular atrocity demands our attention. It’s not “just another war.” It’s a stress test for precious, hard-won moral frameworks: international law, human rights,...

In this episode of The Left Unsaid , Pat, Meg, and Finn take a wild, unbalanced joyride through the myths we’re taught in school — from the sacred veneration of the Founding Fathers to the soothing bedtime stories spun by Ken Burns documentaries. We dig into: How the Trump administration is pushing "patriotic education" (read: mandatory nationalistic myth-making ). How liberal takes on h...

In this episode of The Left Unsaid , your favorite intergenerational think tank—Pat, Meg, and Finn—dive headfirst into the authoritarian fever dream that is U.S. higher education under pressure from the Trump administration. From threats to Harvard’s funding to the criminalization of pro-Palestinian student speech, we trace how empire comes home to roost. Also: Finn contemplates his college prospe...

In this debut episode, Patrick, Meg and Finn sway to the vibes of our current political moment: killer robot dogs dressed as cartoons, Mahmoud Khalil and predictive political repression, why "not obeying in advance" might be our most important survival skill. And of course, because it's now legally required of all podcasters, we talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Join our attempt to briefly...