Give Them An Argument

David Lay Williams comes on to talk about his excellent new book, "The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx." Order the book: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691171975/the-greatest-of-all-plagues Read Ben's review of the book in Compact: https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-ancient-curse-of-inequality/ Order B...

Deep State Kuba joins Ben Burgis for a deep dive into the ongoing atrocities in Palestine--both debunking Zionist apologetics and pushing back against the dumb and counterproductive things leftists sometimes say in the name of Palestine solidarity and crafting a better and more effective message. Order Ben's pamphlet "Four Essays on Palestine" from Everyday Analysis: https://everyda...

First-time guest Tony Annett and Matt "I Brought My Own Mic" McManus return for an in-depth look at thinkers like Alasdair McIntyre and Paul Tillich, the relationship between left-wing economic ideas and Catholic social teaching, and more. (Turns out that, while an adamant atheist when "in the streets" arguing about philosophy, Ben is "in the sheets" of political prac...

On the one-year anniversary of Hamas's atrocities on October 7th, which have been used as a pretext for unfathomably worse atrocities for the last year, Ben Burgis does an on-air version of his lecture "Debunking the Many Bad Arguments Made By Israel’s Apologists in the West" which he gave as a teach-in at the encampment at Princeton last April, and before that as a presentation to...

We talk some Marxism, and then Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison of the American Prestige podcast join us to talk about their article "America Must Grapple With the Limits of Ukraine's Kursk Offensive": https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/america-must-grapple-limits-ukraines-kursk-offensive-212795 Order Ben's Palestine pamphlet: https://everyday-analysis.sellfy.store/p/four-e...

Will Cooper, op-ed columnist and author of "How America Works ... And Why It Doesn't," joins Ben Burgis for a friendly debate on how much economic inequality is too much. In an article for Newsweek, Cooper argued that America is much too unequal but he also said that: "And, importantly, there's nothing necessarily wrong with some people getting rich. A relatively large amo...

Stormin' Norman Finkelstein joins us in the first half of the show to talk to Ben Burgis about the rise and fall of Robin DiAngelo. Then for the second half we switch to examining the other side of the aisle with a conversation with Matt McManus about his very funny review of Charlie Kirk's latest....let's just say "book," "Right-Wing Revolution: How to Beat the Woke...

Do Palestinians have the same rights as everyone else, or have they collectively forfeited these rights by being "criminals"? In an article for Merion West, libertarian economist Walter Block argued the latter: https://merionwest.com/2024/06/07/yes-to-a-palestinian-state-just-not-inside-or-right-next-to-israel/ Ben Burgis responded: https://merionwest.com/2024/06/10/in-reply-to-walter-bl...

The people's econ prof, Rob Larson, joins us to talk about his new book, "Mastering the Universe: The Obscene Wealth of the Ruling Class, What They Do With Their Money, and Why You Should Hate Them Even More." Before that, Ben and the crew talk about the highlights and the (sadly more numerous) lowlights of the DNC. In the postgame for patrons, they watch Tim Pool be very confused a...

Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson joins us once again to talk about Peter Thiel's favorite "populist," J.D. Vance, the (sadly inaccurate) hysteria from Trump, Musk and the New York Post about Kamala Harris being to the left of Bernie and possibly even a revolutionary communist, and his "anti-socialist bingo" card. Before that, Ben and the crew take a moment to reme...

Matt McManus and Daniel Tutt join Ben Burgis to talk about Marxist theoretician Georg Lukács's analysis of right-wing thought in his book, "The Destruction of Reason." Preorder Ben's pamphlet "Four Essays on Palestine" from Everyday Analysis: https://everyday-analysis.sellfy.store/p/four-essays-on-palestine-by-ben-burgis-print-and-digital-edition/ Read Daniel's a...

This is Revolution host Jason Myles joined Ben Burgis and the GTAA crew to chat about his new essay "This is What You Want, This is What You Get," which uses the classic Eddie Murphy "We've got McDonalds at home" bit to talk about the election and the overall state of American politics at a moment when hope for anything substantially better than what we've got is rapi...

Prof. Richard Wolff came back on the show after a too-long absence to talk about his (as you'll see, apparently quite dangerous) new book "Understanding Capitalism." We talked with him him in the first hour and then our friend RM Brown came by to chat about the election in the second hour and into the postgame for patrons.  Follow Prof. Wolff on Twitter: @profwolff Follow RM Brown o...

In the first half hour of the show, the GTAA crew takes a look at the insanity at the RNC and Biden dropping out. Then director Kavitha Chekuru chats with Ben about her very good but extremely disturbing Al Jazeera documentary, "The Night Won't End: Biden's War on Gaza." Watch the documentary here: The Night Won’t End: Biden’s War on Gaza Follow Kavitha on Twitter: @KaviChek Fo...

[Note: This episode was recorded before the coconut dropped on Biden actually dropping out.] We had something else planned but between the assassination attempt, the JD Vance pick, the RNC, and Biden continuing to do his best impression of an extra from Night of the Living Dead, it seems like the universe really wanted us to just talk about the election tonight. So fine. You win this one. Guest is...

Matt McManus returns to hash out the arguments in G.A. Cohen's book "Karl Marx's Theory of History" with Ben Burgis. Before that, Ben and the crew take a look at Ben's post-debate interactions with YouTube personality Steven Bonnell ("Destiny"). No postgame on this one, but we make the main show count! Follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf Follow Ben on Twitter: @...

Last week Ben Burgis had a debate on Israel/Palestine with YouTube personality Steven Bonnell ("Destiny"). It went...oddly. In this episode we break it all down. Watch the debate at MDD: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdMRphk7ij4 Follow Destiny on Twitter: @TheOmniLiberal Follow Ben on Twitter: @BenBurgis Follow GTAA on Twitter: @Gtaa_Show Become a GTAA Patron and receive numerous benef...

Anders Lee and Freddy G. come on to chat with Ben Burgis about their new-ish podcast The Vanquished, where they profile losing presidential candidates over the decades. We'll dig into a handful of their favorites. Before that, Ben and the crew talk about his upcoming Israel/Palestine debate with YouTube personality Steven Bonnell ("Destiny"). Last but definitely not least, returning...

The Nation's Jeet Heer joins Ben Burgis to discuss his article "Friends and Enemies: Marty Peretz and the Travails of American Liberalism." You might not know who Marty Peretz is but you've unfortunately seen his handiwork--Anthony Blinken, for example, is a Peretz protege. So is Jim Cramer. The man's got a lot to answer for, and Jeet gets into all of it. Before that, the...

Daniel Tutt joins us again for a deep dive on Mark Fisher's classic essay "Exiting the Vampire's Castle" (heavily featured in Ben Burgis's book "Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique of the Contemporary Left"). Before that, Ben and the crew talk about NYU's bizarre reeducation program for student Palestine protesters. In the postgame for patr...

This time we bring on the big guns--political science professor Matt McManus and Varn Vlog host C. Derrick Varn--to help Ben Burgis watch Tucker Carlson's interview with Russian fascist intellectual Aleksandr Dugin. This interview is basically GTAA catnip. Before that, we introduce new GTAA intern Aidan, talking about the protests at UCLA, and we do a quick wellness checks on Dennis Prager. L...

David Griscom and Matthew Whalan join Ben Burgis to listen to Ben's debate on the Munk Debates podcast with neoconservative commentator Jamie Kirchick on, "Be it resolved, the campus protesters are on the right side of history." Before that, Ben and the crew talk about Biden's reception by anti-war students at Morehouse (where Ben used to teach) and Ben's Jacobin review of...

Jordan Chariton comes on GTAA for the first time to chat about his new documentary "Flint Fatigue." Before that, RM Brown comes by to watch some Bill Maher and Morning Joe. Last but not least, we watch Ben's keynote speech at last week's convention of the Green Party of New Jersey. (No postgame this week, sorry!) Watch the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skA8m33jJM...

Ben Burgis is freshly back from New Jersey where among other things he did a Palestine teach-in at the Princeton encampment. He also recently sat down for a friendly debate with goodhearted but right-leaning philosophy podcaster Spencer Case. We watch most of that and then bring on Rutgers professor and New Jersey Uncommitted organizer Elektra Kostopoulou to talk about her Palestine activism and (...