Start Making Sense with Jon Wiener

The blue-blood families that made fortunes in the opium trade: Amitav Ghosh recounts the origins of much of the wealth for the 19th century New England elite on this episode of the Start Making Sense podcast. He wrote the  cover story  for The Nation 's latest print issue. His new book is called Smoke and Ashes . Also on this episode: The latest US moves in Haiti are framed in democratic rheto...

Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon is one of our leading progressives, and one of 5 Senators to call for a cease-fire in Gaza. He explains why; and he discusses his new book, “Filibustered! How to Fix the Broken Senate and Save America.” Also: the case for disqualifying Trump as a candidate, based on the 14 th Amendment banning those who have engaged in insurrection from holding public office. That ca...

The Nation’s annual Progressive Honor Roll features movement leaders who provide hope for 2024. John Nichols tells their stories. Also: California moved one step closer to universal healthcare on January 1, when it expanded coverage to all low-income residents, regardless of immigration status. Sasha Abramsky reports. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://r...

Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, first in the nation, was also the last chance for Republicans to move beyond Trump. And also the first chance for Democrats to pressure Biden to push for a cease-fire in Gaza. John Nichols has our analysis. Also: Adam Shatz talks about Franz Fanon, whose books Wretched of the Earth and Black Skin, White Masks made him a huge figure on the left, not just in the &#39...

John Nichols reports on Monday’s Republican caucuses in Iowa, and explains why Iowa is the state with the biggest shift from blue to red between Obama in 2008 and Trump in 2020. Also: The new film "American Fiction," starring Jeffrey Wright, takes up the question, do Black writers have to "write Black"? The film is based on the novel "Erasure" by Percival Everett, which is...

Israel's war in Gaza has been going on now for three months, and the IDF said over the weekend they plan to keep the war going for another year. Amy Wilentz talks about Netanhayu’s use of the war to hold on to power. Also: the lies that protect profit, power and wealth in America: they are documented, and dealt with, in a wonderful new book co-authored by Joan Walsh. It's called Corporate...

Hope is different from optimism – it’s an embrace of uncertainty, and a basis for action. The polls look bad for Joe Biden, but Democrats’ chances are much brighter in the House, and perhaps the Senate. John Nichols talks about reasons for hope in 2024, starting in the tipping point state of 2020, Wisconsin. Also: Bill Gates is now the 6 th richest man in the world, with 104 billion dollars. He’s...

Our holiday giving list: Katha Pollitt presents her list of groups that need—and deserve—our support: Gaza aid, abortion assistance, and organizing against Trump. Also: Bob Dylan fans have been puzzled and troubled by his Christmas album ever since he released it in 2009. To help figure out what Dylan was doing, we turned to Sean Wilentz. He’s the official historian at BobDylan.com, and he also te...

Why have American feminist groups been slow to condemn rapes of Israeli women and girls by Hamas? that’s the question posed by Katha Pollitt. Also: They call it “the parents’ rights movement.” we call it a culture war against public education. It failed as a Republican election strategy in 2023, but what about 2024? Randi Weingarten has our analysis – she’s president of the AFT. Advertising Inquir...

Joe Biden has historic achievements as president, but polls show him to the candidate least able to defeat Donald Trump. Democrats need someone else to run—and an open primary. Harold is editor-at-large of The American Prospect. Also: What conditions are needed for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its blocking of Palestinian self-determination? David Myers comments; he teaches Je...

Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT, spent Thanksgiving weekend in Israel; she reports on meetings with shared society groups and peace movement leaders, and on the role of the US in bringing not just peace but equality and justice to Palestinians. Also: Who was Bayard Rustin before the 1963 March on Washington?  Gary Younge comments on the remarkable life of a gay Black pacifist and former com...

People with very different visions of what a just peace between Israel and the Palestinians might look like must work together to stop the war. That’s what The Nation's editor, D.D. Guttenplan argues. He's on this episode of the podcast to discuss. Also on this episode: John Powers joins the show to offer his review of Slow Horses , the British spy series based on the books by Mick Herron....

hat comes after Israel’s war on Hamas? The Israeli government seems incapable of thinking about that. Now, the ideas of Israel’s left-wing, pro-peace camp are needed more than ever. Dahlia Scheindlin, a political scientist based in Tel Aviv, is on the podcast to explain. Also on this episode of  Start Making Sense:  “California has always been a place to write home about.” David Kipen reads letter...

For this week’s Start Making Sense podcast we have two archival segments about Palestinians; neither is about the current war.  In 2016, Rachel Kushner visited Shuafat, the only Palestinian refugee camp inside Jerusalem. She went alongside a community organizer as he tried to solve massive problems. Her report, published originally in the  New York Times Magazine , appears in her 2021 book of nonf...

Tuesday’s vote tested the potency of abortion rights as an issue for Democrats, with a referendum in Ohio and the election of a new state legislature in Virginia. John Nichols has our analysis of those elections, and some others. Also on this episode: What is Israel’s endgame in its war with Hamas? Over the past 50 years they’ve tried two radically different strategies in Gaza, and neither succeed...

A cease-fire in Gaza is only the beginning of what Israel and the Palestinians need. D.D. Guttenplan, The Nation ’s editor, argues that “both peoples will have to find a way to share the land—in peace, yes, but also with justice.” Also on this episode of Start Making Sense: victory for the United Auto Workers in their strike against the big three automakers, GM, Ford, and Stellantis. Harold Meyers...

In response to Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, Adam Shatz says Israel’s disregard for Palestinian life has never been more callous or more flagrant. But Israel can’t extinguish Palestinian resistance by violence any more than the Palestinians can win an Algerian-style liberation war.  The only thing that can save the people of Israel and Palestine is a political solution that recognizes both as equal ci...

Israel and Gaza, Hamas and the Palestinians, war crimes and mideast history: On this episode of the Start Making Sense podcast, we have comment and analysis from Amy Wilentz, Nation contributor and former Jerusalem correspondent of The New Yorker . Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The UAW won a historic victory in their strike against GM—an agreement that EV workers will be covered by the union contract . Harold Meyerson joins the podcast to comment on that and on Israel’s war against Hamas. Also on this episode: Elon Musk has been a leader in the transition to renewable energy, while making Twitter into a threat to democracy. He has become the face of 21st-century capitali...

Voters in Maine will decide next month whether to turn the state’s private utilities public. If that happens, it would be a huge step toward dealing with the climate crisis, and a model for other states. Bill McKibben explains -- of course he’s an author and environmentalist and co-founder of 350,org, currently working with the new environmental group Third Act, for people over 60. Also: Our polit...

The right-wing supermajority on the Supreme Court has returned to a case about racial gerrymandering in Alabama, where Republicans have defied the Court’s order. Dahlia Lithwick will comment about that, and about her book Lady Justice: Women, the Law, and the Battle to Save America —it’s out now in paperback. Also on this episode: Two girls grew up in the 1980s and ’90s in a small town in Arkansas...

Trump and the UAW strike, plus ‘manufactured insecurity’: Nelson Lichenstein plus Astra Taylor The UAW strike against Detroit’s Big Three is rapidly becoming a major political battle as Donald Trump speaks to auto workers in Detroit, challenging Biden’s massive initiatives for America’s transition to electric vehicles. Nelson Lichtenstein provides historical perspective on what’s at stake. Also: t...

Gary Younge, the award-winning former columnist for The Guardian , talks about Black writing and Black writers—and his own writing about Mandela, Obama, Travon Martin, and Claudette Colvin. Also on this episode of Start Making Sense, the news from Haiti, where the UN, with US support, is authorizing a new security force. Made up of mostly Kenyan troops, it's supposed to restore “law and order”...

Every night, more than a million people read Heather Cox Richardson’s newsletter about the day’s political events. Now she has a new book out, “ Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America .” It’s about the history of Americans’ fight for equality—about which she remains optimistic, despite Trump’s current polling. Also on this episode of  Start Making Sense : September 11th is the 50th ann...

Our hot labor summer continues. Harold Meyerson, editor at large of  The American Prospect , comes on the  Start Making Sense  podcast to discuss the coming auto strike, the continuing Hollywood strikes, the Teamsters’ big victory, and a historic action by the NLRB which will make union organizing possible again.  Also on this episode: Melania and Ivanka Trump have been mostly absent from the form...