The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

Christopher Nolan’s  Oppenheimer  is the rarest of things: a summer blockbuster that is super-smart and repays close analysis. Two weeks ago, this podcast  teamed up with  Jewish Currents  writers and editors Mari Cohen, David Klion, and Raphael Magarik to talk about the way the film portrays the 20th century left. But there is more to be said about the movie. Frequent Time of Monsters contributor...

The GOP held their first presidential debate for the 2024 election cycle and the crowded stage was notable for a significant absence. Former president Donald Trump was nowhere to be seen. Enjoying a commanding lead in the polls, Trump rightly felt that it was beneath his dignity to share a stage with a crew of also-rans. So the evening became a contest to see who could imitate Trump best. But Trum...

Christopher Nolen’s  Oppenheimer,  a biopic about the famed scientist who oversaw the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb, is a surprise hit of the summer. It’s made  more than $650 million worldwide , putting it ahead of more conventional blockbusters such as the newest entry into the  Mission: Impossible  franchise.  Time of Monsters host Jeet Heer sat down with writers and edi...

Barbie has smashed through the glass ceiling. Greta Gerwig’s new movie based on the popular Mattel doll is the big summer film of 2023. It’s made more than $1 billion –the first time that box office benchmark has been reached by a film directed by a woman. This popular success is all the more notable because the movie deals explicitly with feminist critiques of patriarchy.  Barbie has generated an...

Disney has released a new documentary which myself and many others have criticized for regurgitating a mythical version of history that extolls Stan Lee as sole creator of the Marvel universe.  To talk more about the documentary, I’m joined by Elana Levin, who has written widely on comics and hosts the Graphic Policy podcast – an excellent forum that takes up the intersection of politics and popul...

It’s no secret that the rich have an outsized role in Ivy League colleges, both as students and alumni. But a new study, by a group of Harvard-based economists, documents in detail just how much elite private education in the Untied States favor the ultra-wealthy. As the New York Times reports, “At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the top 1 percent.” The rich enjoy disproport...

There’s an old joke that the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy, nor Roman, nor even an empire. The right-wing student group Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), founded in William F. Buckley’s house in 1960, is similarly misnamed. It’s not young; the current head, Scott Walker, is 55. It’s definition of American is very narrowly partisan and reactionary in ways that most Americans would reject. And...

Although only formed in 2021, Moms For Liberty, a group agitating for reactionary policies in schools, is already a major player in national politics. Republican presidential hopefuls like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are eager to speak at the group's convention. Moms for Liberty is also receiving generous profiles in major media outlets like the New York Times. As my Nation colleague, Chris...

The Supreme Court ended its term last week with a spate of extremely right-wing decisions that included severely restricting affirmative action in elite universities and colleges, clawing back on anti-discrimination protection for LGBTQ citizens under an argument for expressive free speech, and squashing the Biden administrations plan to give relief to student debtors. These ruling come after earl...

This week we return to Central and South America with Jeffrey Gould, a scholar and filmmaker who has a long history of documenting social movements in the region. Currently distinguished visiting professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Gould is author of many books on social movements in Latin America, including the recent Solidarity Under Siege (2019). In this discussion we’re joined by jo...

The debate over the causes of inflation is heating up and showing an important divide in the discipline of economics. Mainstream economists like Larry Summers blame it on rising wages and recommend interest rate hikes to cool the economy by raising unemployment. But other scholars, notably Isabella Weber of the University of Massachusetts , have a different theory: they argue inflation is due to p...

Pat Robertson, who died at age 93, was a much hated figure on the left and for good reason. For many decades, through his television show,  The 700 Club,  and in his frequent interventions in political debates, he’s been one of America’s most prominent voices for the religious right: a sexist and homophobic preacher with a wide audience. Unfortunately, Robertson left a large legacy, which we need...

Accelerating the shift to electric vehicles (EVs) is a centerpiece of Joe Biden’s climate policy. In making this push, the most likely choke point will come not from the car companies but from car dealers. Slate writer Alexander Sammon recently attended the annual conference of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) and  filed a fascinating report  detailing just how adamantly opposed...

After months of teasing voters and reporters, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has finally launched his presidential bid. He did it on an unusual platform: Twitter Spaces. The launch was widely viewed as a bungle because of its small audience and many technical glitches. Even if was a fiasco, it was significant as an example of Elon Musk trying to remake himself as a right-wing media mogul, a Rupert...

Joe Biden has a divided mind when it comes to the Republican Party. On the one hand, he’s all to aware that the GOP has become radicalized and is an existential threat to American democracy. On the other hand, Biden, drawing on his many decades in Washington, is drawn to the idea of bipartisan compromise and acts as if it is his duty to elevate the more moderate wing of the Republican party. We ca...

Over the last thirty years, Republicans, when in control the House of Representatives, have repeatedly used the debt ceiling to force Democratic presidents to make draconian budget cuts. This drama took place under both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. We are now witnessing a replay under Joe Biden. Under pressure from divergent political forces, Biden is being forced to make a choice between negoti...

The emerging scandals at the Supreme Court are only getting worse with new revelations about Clarence Thomas and his wife Ginni being the beneficiaries of plutocratic largess. But it remains unclear whether the Democrats can mount an effective attack that uses the scandal to reform the courts.  To discuss how gridlock and a lack of political will is allowing a constitutional crisis to fester, I sp...

This has been an eventful week in both the news media and social media. Tucker Carlson was apparently fired from Fox News. Meanwhile, Twitter under the aegis of Elon Musk continues to be in turmoil as it changes verification policies, to the irritation of longtime users.  To make sense of it all, I talked to Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect. Ryan has produced a fascinating You...

The victories of Brandon Johnson in Chicago and Janet Protasiewicz in Wisconsin are the latest signs that the upper Midwest, after a long period of trending right, is now the home of a liberal and left resurgence. Chris Lehmann, who  surveyed the region  in a recent column for the Nation, joins the podcast to talk about this development. We look at the history of how the “Blue Firewall” that helpe...

While the arrest of former president Donald Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business record can be welcomed as a rare example of accountability for the elite Americans, the actual case will have to be tested in court. My colleague Elie Mystal has written  an important column  cautioning against having high expectations. The fact is the  case brought by Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg  is for one of Tr...

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is the preferred Trump foe of the Republican establishment. Both the donor class and media outlets (notably those owned by Rupert Murdoch) have rallied around DeSantis as a figure who can unite the party by adopting the policies of Donald Trump but without Trump’s embarrassing personal flaws. But their theory of Ron Santis  isn’t working out : he’s faltering in the po...

Last year, the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision. This has only emboldened the anti-choice movement. Those who hoped that abortion would at least be safe in blue states and kept available in red states via mifepristone are waking up to a world where the anti-choice movement is using legal warfare to move towards its goal o...

The good news is we have one less thing to worry about: so-called Havana Syndrome turns out not to be caused by a mysterious super-weapon to harm American diplomats and military personnel, despite numerous press reports warning of a hypothetical ray gun created by a foreign foe (Cuba? Russia? China?). Instead,  an assessment  by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) concluded that the sympto...

The ongoing defamation suit launched by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News for its coverage of the 2020 election has already resulted in the release of an eye-opening tranche of documents that give an unprecedented window into the inner workings of the TV network. As National columnist Chris Lehmann has noted , the major revelation is how completely beholden the network is to its right-wing...

The New York Times has become mired in an acrimonious public dispute over its coverage of transgender issues. A letter signed by more than 1,200 writers (both freelance and staff) for the newspaper has challenged the paper for mainstreaming transphobic ideas. A separate letter from the human rights group GLADD also criticized the Times .  The editors of the newspaper dismissed both letters and aff...