The Nation Podcasts

Over almost 20 years in Afghanistan, the US lost 2,400 troops and personnel. Another 21,000 Americans have been wounded. The mission cost more than a trillion dollars—including 80 billion dollars to train and arm the Afghan army. But that army didn’t resist the recent Taliban advance and now the Taliban control the country and the last Americans are fleeing. Andrew Bacevich comments; his books inc...

19 Republican Senators voted in favor of the bipartisan infrastructure bill on Tuesday, after Trump demanded they vote “no.” It took significant concessions by Democrats to win their support for the bill—was that a good idea? Should Democrats help Republicans step away from Trump? Joan Walsh comments. Also: the life, and death, of Ethel Rosenberg, the accused “atom spy”: who she was, before she wa...

We said it couldn’t be done: a bipartisan bill getting through Congress. Now, however, it looks like the $1 trillion infrastructure bill will get the Republican votes it needs in the Senate to pass. But what miserable compromises did the Democrats make to get ten Republican votes? John Nichols explains. Also: the great comics artist Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for Maus , has a new boo...

Joe Biden needs to do a lot more to stop the global spread of the covid virus and its Delta variant—and to prepare the world for the next pandemics. Gregg Gonsalves explains three key actions that are necessary right now. Also: the story of a music festival in a park in Harlem in 1969: the documentary about it, “Summer of Soul,” is a powerful and moving contributions to the history of the sixties....

Bernie Sanders recently spoke with our John Nichols about the importance of doing big things in politics--and now Senate Democrats have agreed on a $3.5 trillion budget proposal that would dramatically expand Medicare, provide for paid family leave, subsidize child care, make community college free, and fund some meaningful climate crisis initiatives.  Big things! John Nichols comments. Also: A co...

World politics after the Biden-Putin Summit: Katrina vanden Heuvel argues that we need to rethink what real security means, and that it can't mean a new cold war, but joint action with Russia and China on climate change, pandemics, and the threat of nuclear war. Also: Amy Wilentz comments on Haiti after the assassination of its unloved president—and the necessity of following grassroots progre...

"Utopian" has been a term of abuse in politics for a long time now, synonymous with “irrational” and “impossible.” Instead, we are told, we should focus on realistic plans to improve things. But The Nation is publishing a special issue in defense of utopia. Jeet Heer explains how the dreams of a good society keep hope alive and expose the inadequacy of present structures. Also: the Los Ang...

“Critical Race Theory” has been attacked on Fox News nearly 1300 times.  It’s being banned from public schools and colleges in something like 15 Republican states.  But what IS “critical race theory”?  And why is this happening now?  Kimberlé Crenshaw explains; she teaches law at Columbia and UCLA, and she’s probably the most prominent figure associated with critical race theory—she coined the ter...

Voting rights suffered a defeat in the Senate this week, but really it's just the latest battle in a continuing struggle—and if anything, it clarifies the real problem: the filibuster must go, at least for voting rights legislation. John Nichols says it’s now up to grassroots groups to go to work on reluctant Democrats during the July 4 break. Also, here's an idea: Create a new Federal Wri...

Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema are not the only Democrats opposed to filibuster reform—Dianne Feinstein says she won’t vote for it, either. And there are more Democrats in the Senate staying the same thing. But without filibuster reform, the rest of the Democrats’ agenda is dead—starting with protection of voting rights and elections. What’s wrong with these people? Joan Walsh comments. Also: Many...

Republicans are not just making it harder to vote—they’re making it easier for judges and state legislatures to reverse the results of elections they have lost.  Congressional action could block these changes—but that requires filibuster reform, and Joe Manchin says he won’t vote for filibuster reform.  What does Joe Manchin want?  John Nichols comments. Also: Amy Wilentz comments on the earthquak...

Joe Biden went to Tulsa on Tuesday to commemorate the fact that, one hundred years ago this week, in 1921, a white mob attacked an all-Black neighborhood there. It was one of the worst episodes of racial violence in U.S. history.  Historians think it left 300 dead and 10,000 homeless. David M. Perry comments on the political issues around the historical facts -- he’s a journalist and historian who...

While Joe Biden has pledged an “ironclad commitment to Israel's security," many Democrats in Congress, and outside of Congress, have been moving away from unquestioning support for Israel since the Israeli attacks on Gaza last week. John Nichols reports. Plus: It’s probably the most radical show that’s ever been on TV: Exterminate All the Brutes , the 4-part, 4-hour documentary about colon...

Palestinians and Israel: Saree Makdisi talks about what Netanyahu has called “the second front”: Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are increasingly subject to attack by right-wing Jewish mobs, and who are increasingly active in support of Palestinians in East Jerusalem and Gaza. Saree is a professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA and his work has appeared in the New York Times , t...

Conflict between Israel and Palestine has been escalating this week.  For this podcast we have two segments about Palestinians; neither is about the current crisis, which changes daily. Rachel Kushner visited a Palestinian refugee camp in 2016 – Shuafat, the only one inside Jerusalem – alongside a community organizer as he tried to solve massive problems. Her report, published originally in the Ne...

Blake Bailey’s new book about Philip Roth was taken out of print by the publisher after Bailey was accused of rape and attempted rape and “grooming” his teenage students for sex with him when they reached 18. Nation columnist Katha Pollitt argues that, while she believes the women—Bailey probably was a rapist, as well as a misogynist and a creep— readers should nevertheless have the chance to buy...

Mazie Hirono, Senator from Hawaii: She’s the only immigrant currently serving in the Senate, and she was the first Asian American woman elected to that office, starting in 2013. She talks about the need for filibuster reform and Supreme Court reform, about the storming of the capitol on January 6, and about her vote on Amy Coney Barrett: “Hell No.” Her new autobiography is Heart of Fire: An Immigr...

Guilty, guilty, guilty! The verdicts in the Derek Chauvin trial in Minneapolis made history—and came only after millions of people took to the streets, for months, in hundreds of cities across America; and only after a decade of sustained organizing by Black Lives Matter. Jody Armour comments—he’s the Roy Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California, and author of N*gga Theory...

The union organizing campaign at the Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, was defeated by a vote of 1798 against and 738 in favor. Jane McAlevey  argues that the biggest factor in the vote was the laws that give tremendous advantages to the corporate side—but the union itself made a series of tactical and strategic errors. Jane is The Nation ’s strikes correspondent. Also: Hunter Biden...

There’s one political prediction that always comes true: record turnout in one election will be followed by a tidal wave of voter suppression efforts before the next one. So it’s not surprising that, after 2020 had record turnout, 2021 is seeing voting rights under attack nationwide by Republican-controlled state legislatures. Georgia has taken the lead—and Georgia is being challenged in court by...

The political transformation of Kyrsten Sinema, the new senator from Arizona: She’s one of the two most conservative Democrats in the Senate—but Aida Chavez  explains that she started out to the left of the Party . Also: Should Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer retire? He’s 82, and apparently healthy and competent—but his retirement would give Biden a chance to nominate a younger person—he’s pr...

The arrival of multiple vaccines against Covid-19 in less than a year after the virus’s emergence is sort of a miracle—but there’s nothing miraculous about the failure of donor nations, along with pharmaceutical and biotech companies, to prepare for, and mount, a global vaccination campaign. Gregg Gonsalves comments. Also: now that Trump is gone, Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson has become the leadin...

One of the senate seats being abandoned by a Republican incumbent is in Ohio.  Can Democrats win that seat?  It’s going to be hard.  Unlike North Carolina, which will also have an open Republican seat, Ohio has not been divided 50-50 recently.  For the last decade it has elected only one Democrat to statewide office--one of our heroes, Senator Sherrod Brown.  Steve Phillips thinks they can send a...

It’s been almost exactly a year since the covid lockdown began – 220 million Americans have died of Covid-19, and now 90 million Americans have gotten at least one shot of the covid vaccine.  We could have herd immunity in July. But Mike Davis points to the proliferation of variants of the virus and says “beware the light at the end of the covid tunnel.” Also:  Michelle Obama’s memoir is out now i...

Chesa Boudin , the recently elected district attorney of San Francisco, talks about prisoners as parents—he grew up with parents in prison (David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin), and wrote about it for The Nation . Also: Amy Wilentz reports on the huge protests in Port-au-Prince last Sunday, the biggest in decades, and asks: Why is the Biden administration following Trump when it comes to US policies in...