Left Anchor

Philosophy, politics, and the left.

Listen on:

  • Apple Podcasts
  • Podbean App
  • Spotify
  • Amazon Music
  • TuneIn + Alexa
  • iHeartRadio
  • Podchaser

Episodes

49 minutes ago

Today Ryan has Sarah Taber, a small farmer and proprietor of the Farm to Taber YouTube channel, on to talk about just what is going on with American farming--the collapse in soybean exports, what farmers thought they would by voting for Trump, how he has made the H-2A visa program even more exploitative, why so many farmers are addicted to producing corn and soybeans, and more.
Subscribe now to listen to the whole thing!

Better Than Ezra - 368

Thursday Oct 09, 2025

Thursday Oct 09, 2025

Now that the dust has started to settled around the whole Charlie Kirk thing, we've brought on Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, associate professor of philosophy at Georgetown, to discuss his Boston Review piece about Ezra Klein's hagiography of Kirk, the discussion Klein had with Ta-Nehisi Coates, and why moderate liberals seem so at sea politically.
Other readings mentioned in the discussion: Waging a Good War: A Military History of the Civil Rights Movement, 1954-1968, by Thomas Ricks, and "Democrats Must Embrace War Mindset," by Samantha Hancox-Li.

Nordic Socialism - 367 EXCERPT

Thursday Oct 02, 2025

Thursday Oct 02, 2025

Today we have Danish MP Pelle Dragsted on to talk about his book Nordic Socialism: The Path Toward a Democratic Economy. We discuss what is distinctive about the Nordic socialist tradition, how much of it is left after many decades of neoliberal attacks, what people can learn from it today, and more. 
Subscribe here to listen to the whole thing!

Tuesday Sep 16, 2025

Today we have Phil Christman on to talk about his book Why Christians Should Be Leftists. Is there a model of Christianity aside from right-wing fundamentalism--something more in like with the teachings of this fellow Jesus Christ?
The David Bentley Hart essay mentioned can be found here.

Friday Sep 05, 2025

Today we have Dr. Jonathan Howard, who writes at Science Based Medicine, on to discuss his new book Everyone Else Is Lying to You: How the medical establishment weaponized doubt to spread COVID, normalize quackery, and undermine public health. It's all about a cohort of highly credentialed and elite doctors who spread grotesque disinformation about Covid from the very start of the pandemic, and kept doing so even as their predictions were repeatedly proven wrong. And now many of those people are in charge of America's public health bureaucracy, tearing it to shreds--when they aren't getting Jonathan's YouTube channel nuked by abusing the company's copyright policy.
Why and how did they do this, and what might we do to stop this from happening in the future?

The Case for Democracy - 364

Monday Aug 25, 2025

Monday Aug 25, 2025

Today we have writer and friend of the pod Osita Nwanevu on to talk about his new book The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. He goes back to political brass tacks--what democracy actually is, why it's important, why we don't have it, and why we should work to achieve the goals set forth in the Declaration of Independence for the first time.

Friday Aug 15, 2025

Ryan recently visited Greenland to report on their public sector, which turns out to be extremely large and critical to the local economy. How and why did this develop? Then we discuss some recent gerrymandering news.
Stay tuned for the full article in the next issue of the Prospect! And subscribe here to hear the rest of the episode.

Thursday Aug 07, 2025

Today we're interviewing Katie Brennan, who just won the primary for the New Jersey state Assembly in Hudson County. She explains how the state Democratic machine de facto abolished democracy with a rigged ballot design, how it changed, and how she overcame a tidal wave of money to win.
Subscribe now to hear the rest of the episode!

Friday Aug 01, 2025

Today we've got Layla Al-Sheik on to discuss recent events in Gaza, where an onrushing famine has suddenly become widely acknowledged, even among parts of the Israeli far right. Is it because reality finally broke through, or Europe getting fed up--or perhaps an Ezra Klein column? And is there a chance to save Gazans and get a permanent peace settlement?
Check out our previous episode with Layla here and the Isaac Chotiner interview of Amit Segal here.

Friday Jul 18, 2025

Alexi is still on vacation, so this time we are replaying a recent American Prospect Weekly Roundup show, in which Evan Urquhart of Assigned Media helps Ryan dig into the Supreme Court's latest transphobic decision and how The New York Times played a vital role in it.

Image

Welcome aboard!

This podcast is by journalist Ryan Cooper and academic Alexi the Greek. We talk politics, philosophy, history, current events, and whatever else catches our fancy.

Copyright 2021 All rights reserved.

Podcast Powered By Podbean

Version: 20241125