The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer

Last month, Pat Buchanan announced he was retiring as a newspaper columnist , an event that went strangely under-noticed in the mainstream press. The simple fact is Buchanan is one of the most influential writers and thinkers on the American right since World War II. He’s had a long career as not just a newspaper columnist and TV pundit but also as an advisor to presidents such as Richard Nixon an...

In two previous podcasts, we talked about the strong left resurgence in Latin America that is shaping up to be a second “pink tide.” But the new “pink tide” is much stronger in South America than Central America, where the left is often stalled, even in countries where it holds power. To examine the special history of the region, I turned to Jeffrey Gould, who has known the area well as an activis...

The movie award season is in full swing and this year’s crop of potential Oscar winners includes a healthy and diverse array of films, ranging from psychological studies like Tár to big blockbusters like Avatar: The Way of Water .  I sat down with Adam Nayman, a film critic for The Ringer , about the Oscar list. We also discuss, at greater length, one particular nominee which we felt merited a lon...

It’s easy enough for liberals to laugh at Marjorie Taylor Greene, the voice of the most unhinged faction of the Republican party. The onetime QAnon supporter who will always be associated with the immortal concept of “Jewish space lasers.” But inside the Republican party, Greene is no joke. She’s a rising star and has emerged as the kingmaker who ensured that Kevin McCarthy would be House Speaker....

Since 2016, the Democratic Party has moved steadily to the left. Even tried and true moderates like Joe Biden have adapted to this new reality with greater government intervention in the economy than was contemplated in the eras of Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. But centrist Democrats still sometimes revert to their bad old habits. We saw two signs of this recently with New York Governor Kathy Hoch...

Republican congressman George Santos seems to have lied about everything: about his ancestry, his education, his career, his charitable work, his medical history, and other things. Many people have taken delight in the Santos story as an over-the-top example of a con-man who rose to the top. But Moira Donegan, a columnist for the Guardian , pushed the discussion about Santos deeper in a recent col...

Good news is easier to notice if you consider the alternatives. On Monday, the Biden offered “unwavering” support of Brazil president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the aftermath of an right-wing coup. It’s easier to imagine earlier presidents, not just Republicans like Donald Trump but also Democrats like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, taking a very different stand when a socialist government in La...

In recent years, ads from companies such as 23andMe and AncestryDNA have become a staple on television and social media. They promise customers a chance to find out family secrets through DNA collection. What’s rarely emphasized is that the real DNA data goldmine is selling the information gathered by customers to big pharma, which can then be better positioned to sell its products. To look into h...

On a previous podcast, the TV critic Sean T. Collins and I discussed how we were both surprised that Andor , the latest iteration of the Star Wars franchise, was actually a good TV program rather than just fan service.  Now, the first season of Andor is over and there’s room for a larger appraisal. David Klion, writing in The New Republic, makes the bold claim that the show deserves to be seen as...

Kanye West’s appearance on the Alex Jones show, where the singer praised Hitler and Nazism , has brought the problem of antisemitism to the fore. To take up the issue, I spoke with Sarah Posner, a columnist at MSNBC and author of the valuable book Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump.   Sarah is a particularly valuable voice in this conversation because the fraught a...

The collapse of FTX, a crypto currency exchange that went from a valuation of $32 billion to bankruptcy, is sending shockwaves not just through the economy but also politics. FTX's founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was the second biggest donor to the Democratic party in 2022. He has many complex ties with Democratic politicians, policymakers and pundits. In a recent column, I wrote about how Democra...

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s victory over Jair Bolsonaro in the Brazilian presidential election is the latest evidence of the resurgence of the Latin American left. This is a one of the most hopeful stories in the world, since the left and center-left parties that now govern most of Latin America have the potential to seriously address issues like climate change and inequality. But it’s a complex s...

The midterm of 2022 is almost over, with only some counting and the Georgia run-off remaining. But it’s seismic impact will be felt for years to come. It was the first nation wide election since the Supreme Court eviscerated the right to reproductive choice in the Dobbs decision. The election confirmed the Dobbs decision has sent a shockwave through the electorate, energizing pro-choice voters to...

Elon Musk’s first few days as the head of Twitter have proved rocky, with advertisers leaving in droves after he spread a conspiracy theory about the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, followed by a round of firings and rehirings, all in the service of a murky agenda. Whether Musk will be able to make Twitter an ongoing concern is an open question. The question of why the world’s richest man wants...

Joe Biden’s executive action on college student debt is both the culmination of a long political struggle and the possible start of a new era of debt relief not just for college students but for many other people weighed down by money they owe for hospital stays, housing and other essentials. To talk about the potential of debt relief as the basis for an energized new left politics, I talked with...

In the past week, a number of prominent MAGA leaders have made comments about Jews that range from insulting to outright antisemitism. Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “No President has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly, however, our wonderful Evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the U.S. Those livi...

The Star Wars franchise has long seemed to have exhausted itself with endless sequels and prequels offering variations of the same old stories. That's why the new Disney+ program, Andor has come as a surprise to many viewers. In tone and story, it’s very different than the Star Wars norm, offering a much grittier story about imperial oppression, police violence, and the emergence of a revoluti...

The power of centrism as a political force comes from the fact that it’s not so much an ideology as it is an ambient mood. It’s the shared common sense of the elite, a set of axioms about the goodness of bipartisanship, deficit reduction and military spending. Those who adhere to it take it so for granted, that they don’t feel the need to even defend it. Part of the achievement of Luke Savage’s ne...

On September 12, Politico noted that Trump's appointed judges were "on a tear” and listed “a flurry of controversial decisions by Trump judges in recent months that have been criticized as out of step with longstanding legal principles.” These decisions touched on everything from abortion, to Trump’s handling of classified documents to voting rights. Politico’s reporting was backed up by a...

In the theater of American politics, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is auditioning for the role of Trump II. His pitch is that he’ll offer all the hard right policies the GOP base loves but with a more competent and stable persona which won’t offend centrist voters. His current gambit of shipping asylum seekers from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts is just his latest bid to gain attentio...

Queen Elizabeth II is being widely mourned in the United Kingdom and elsewhere as a symbol of the British state, tradition, and service. These mainstream sentiments, often expressed in the media coverage in the United States as well as the UK, are not universally shared. In Ireland and many other former colonies, the Queen is a symbol of the oppression of an imperialism that is now in retreat but...

Joe Biden has become increasingly frank and forthright in in his criticism of Donald Trump. In late August, Biden told Democratic party donors that “extreme MAGA philosophy”  “It’s not just Trump,” Biden said . “It’s the entire philosophy that underpins the — I’m going to say something: It’s like semi-fascism.” Subsequently, Biden delivered an important and substantial speech in Philadelphia where...

Richard Seymour joins the Time of Monsters podcast for a live conversation in London, to discuss climate change and economic crisis in the United Kingdom. Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The victory of Gustavo Petro in the recent Colombian presidential election is further proof that Latin America is being swept in a new “ pink tide ,” one that has the potential to be larger and more far-reaching in its impact than the original wave of left-of-center governments that took power in the 1990s and early 2000s. Aside from Colombia, there are now left-of-center governments, including so...

The Supreme Court, with a 6-3 supermajority of Republican appointed justices, is on a rampage. On Friday, they extinguished the constitutional right to reproductive freedom. Then on Monday, they eased restrictions on teachers and coaches leading students in prayer at public schools.  In his majority statement in the Dobbs case which ended abortion rights, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito made a...