Diet Soap - a podcast

Chris Cutrone describes how the left's history of supporting right-wing reaction in the Middle East has led to this moment of conflict, whether Trump was planning the attack on Iran all along, and the reason we should assume good faith on all sides when considering world politics.  Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

What is American conservatism, and how should socialists understand it? In this interview, Wyatt Verlen offers a historical overview of conservatism in the United States, from the Bourbon Democrats and Robert Taft to William F. Buckley and the rise of the New Right. We explore how conservatism evolved in response to the Progressive Era, the New Deal, and the Cold War, and examine the role of polit...

Chris Cutrone explains why the left needs to abandon the liberal conception of "Bonapartism" and take up a Marxist understanding instead.  Bonapartism is not Bonaparte at the Platypus Review https://platypus1917.org/2025/06/01/bonapartism-is-not-bonaparte/ Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Stanley Sharpey is a writer and a socialist living in London. His essay for Sublation Magazine, "The Discreet Charm of the PMC" explains the history of the term and ends up sympathizing with the Ehrenreichs given the political dilemma they faced in the 1970s. The Discreet Charm of the PMC at Sublation Magazine https://www.sublationmag.com/post/the-discreet-charm-of-the-pmc Support Sublation Media...

Spencer Leonard discusses the meaning of the term "Historical Materialism," and how it emerged through the historical struggle for socialism.  Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Benjamin Studebaker and Douglas Lain discuss Adorno's essay "Commitment" and the failure of leftist politics over the last decade. What level of regression can we expect? Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

In this episode of the CutroneZone, we dive deep into Chris Cutrone’s essay "On Philosophy and Marxism: Response to Suther and Velissaris"—a characteristically sharp and mournful defense of the dialectic against the return to philosophy. As always, Cutrone’s critique is uncompromising, clear, provocative, and melancholic. Support Sublation Media on Patreon https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Philip Cunliffe discusses his recent essay at COMPACT entitled "How Trump Won the Canadian Election." He explains what constitutes sovereignty, why sovereignty is necessary for democracy, and why Trump turned Canada away from cosmopolitan internationalism and towards patriotic nationalism. Philip Cunliffe at Compact https://www.compactmag.com/article/how-trump-won-the-canadian-election/ Support Su...

Fabio Vighi returns to throw cold water on the notion that capitalism can be saved. The crisis is terminal. The financialization will continue. In this era of Emergency Capitalism, the crisis will only deepen in the US, in Europe, and in China. Support Sublaton Media https:/patreon.com/dietsoap

Ashley Frawley is senior editor of Compact. She is the author of two books, Semiotics of Happiness: Rhetorical Beginnings of a Public Problem and Significant Emotions: Rhetoric and Social Problems in a Vulnerable Age. Her writing has appeared in UnHerd, and the New Statesman. She is also the former co-host of Sublation Magazine and in this episode she returns to discuss her latest essay in Compact...

Benjamin Studebaker and Douglas Lain discuss Benjamin Studebaker's latest essay for Sublation Magazine in this week's Sublation Magazine podcast. Are the Republicans and especially Trump, acting in an anti-democratic manner? What threatens democracy today? Support Sublation Media and Join the Conversation: https://patreon.com/dietsoap

In this episode of the Cutronezone, the Last Marxist discusses his latest essay for Sublation Magazine and speculates on why COMPACT magazine rejected it for publication. How is it that established opinion is incapable of taking up and thinking through the significance of Trump's Tariffs?  Read Cutrone's Essay "Fear" in Sublation Magazine: https://www.sublationmag.com/post/fear-itself Support Subl...

Novelist and journalist Walter Kirn discusses his 2006 novel "The Unbinding" and answers questions like: Was Holden Caulfield a revolutionary? What is the role of the outsider? Can we escape the Spectacle?  Support Us on Patreon for the Second Half https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Wyatt Verlen's essay in Sublation Magazine instructs the left to quit complaining and start critiquing.  History gave Trump a right. As of the moment of writing, this right continues to be denied to him. That right is the right to be critiqued." Read the new Sublation Essay by Wyatt Verlen: https://www.sublationmag.com/post/the-right-to-a-critique Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietso...

Thomas Peermohamed Lambert discusses his novel, Shibboleth, with Nina Power and Douglas Lain in the Culture Corner.  What does it mean to go to Oxford? What is the future of the elites and elite education? Can you find love on campus? Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

In this week's Spencer Leonard Hour, he discusses the meaning of the Civil War in relation to the struggle for socialism. Support Sublation Media on Patreon https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Chris Cutrone discusses just what the aim of Trump's Tariffs might be. Will there be a new global order with the US still at the center? What does it mean to say that the United States is "FREE"? Is Trump just an idiot?  Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Benjamin Studebaker and Douglas Lain discuss Trump's Tariffs, the attacks of law firms such as Perkins Coie, and how the deportations of MS-13 gang members undermine Due Process.  Support Sublation Media: https://patreon.com/dietsoap

William Stratford discusses the dialectics and the revisionism dispute. What lessons can we learn from it today, after the long defeat of the 20th century and the Millennial left?  Support Sublation Media https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Hamilton Craig is a Compact columnist and a doctoral student at CUNY researching farmers’ movements in the United States. In this episode of Diet Soap, he discusses his recent essay for Compact entitled "The Democratic Promise of Manifest Destiny" with Douglas Lain and tries to consider just how seriously to take Trump's effort to revitalize and reinvent our Manifest Destiny and discuss Cutrone's...

Chris Cutrone and Douglas Lain discuss the meaning of the term "neoliberalism" and the ignominious end of the previous regime of accumulation. Cutrone takes Studebaker to task over their differences in conceptualizing neoliberalism, highlighting contrasting interpretations of its historical and ideological implications. Support Sublation Media on Patreon https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Benjamin Studebaker and Douglas Lain discuss the Platypus Affiliated Society convention and a few of the questions raised on our panels:    What was neoliberalism? Why does Society have Politics? Join the Sublation Patreon for a second hour of discussion: https://patreon.com/dietsoap

Spencer Leonard discusses the Frankfurt School's Marxism, how these Marxists are still relevant to us today, and explains Horkheimer's "Egoism and Freedom Movements: On the Anthropology of the Bourgeois Epoch."  Support Sublation Media and Listen to the Second Half: https://patreon.com/dietsoap

David Shields, author of "How We Got Here," returns to discuss how Trump has destroyed our reality and how our sensemaking institutions are in crisis. How can we educate ourselves and get a grip on the world if everything is FAKE NEWS? Get a copy of Shield's book "How We Got Here" https://sublationmedia.com/product/how-we-got-here-melville-plus-nietzsche-divided-by-the-square-root-of-allan-bloom-t...

Chris Cutrone assuages Douglas Lain's fears as they survey the wreckage of Trump's first 50 days in office. Is Trump an amateur just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks? Yes? Is he a world historic figure who aims to rearrange the world order? Yes again? Watch the second half of this podcast on Patreon, and join a Zoom call afterparty conversation with other socialists and think...