American Prestige

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As Derek completes the final phase of his vision quest, Alex Jordan of the Always at War podcast fills in once more. In this week’s news: U.S.-Iran talks stall over the order of concessions (1:28); Gulf oil exports return to prewar levels (4:34); Netanyahu uses an attempted seizure of a FlyDubai flight to reinforce his agenda as an election approaches (11:15); in Iraq, the U.S. ends its counter-ISIS mission (16:06); Pete Hegseth launches Project Meridian to study the “future of warfare” (21:35); Trump hosts tech leaders who pledge...

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Danny and Derek welcome Simon Ball, professor of international history and politics at the University of Leeds, to the show for a discussion about the history of political assassination in the modern era. They talk about the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, political killing as a tool of statecraft, assassination and British imperial rule, its use by Western powers during World War II, the CIA and Cold War assassination programs, the JFK assassination and its surrounding conspiracies, the investigations of the 1970s and Gerald Ford’s ba...

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Derek speaks with Wolfram Lacher, a senior associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs and author of Libya’s Fragmentation, about Libya’s political and military breakdown since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi. They discuss Khalifa Haftar and the power dynamics in eastern Libya, militia power and political fragmentation in Tripoli and western Libya, control of Libya’s oil, Turkish and Russian involvement, the spillover of Libya’s conflicts into Mali, Chad, Sudan, and the Sahel, migrant smuggling and detention, Massad Boulos’s power-sharing plan, and the prospects for electi...

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Don’t forget that AP puts out a YouTube exclusive episode and a video version of our Wednesday episode every week!

Studio 54 and Palladium are long gone, so the UN General Assembly is the biggest party New York currently has to offer. Meanwhile, Danny and guest host Alex Jordan bring you the news: Trump welcomes Xi as the U.S. and China extend the Busan trade truce (01:22); at the UNGA, Trump threatens Iran and gloats about U.S. control of Venezuelan oil (5:18); Iran offers to...

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Danny and Derek talk with Noam Scheiber, New York Times reporter and author, about the radicalization of American college graduates. They discuss a Starbucks union campaign, underemployment among recent grads, the Taylorization of white-collar jobs, AI, corporate fixation on labor costs, the “con” of college for millennials, and the collapse of meritocracy.

Buy your copy of Noam’s book on the subject, Mutiny: The Rise and Revolt of the College-Educated Working Class.

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Danny and Derek speak with journalist ⁠David Wallace-Wells⁠ about the decline of the liberal order before Trump 2.0 and the current political moment. They discuss the post-2024 vibe shift, Trump's falling popularity, the erosion of institutional trust, the new generation of Democratic Party leaders, the lack of oversight of AI, and China's leadership in green technology.

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Spencer Ackerman, writer of the Forever Wars newsletter and author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America, returns to the program to talk about his upcoming political comic book No One Escapes the Dialectic and the state of the comic book industry. The discussion covers labor in comic publishing, the direct market and consignment system, independent publishers like Image and Boom Studios, the plot and characters of the book, the purge of the military under Pete Hegseth, and ICE and CBP’s role in immigration enforcement. 

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Derek has journeyed to Bolivia seeking contact with the newly discovered cat species, so Alex Jordan of Always at War steps in to bring you the headlines. This week: in New Delhi, BRICS member states issue a fractured joint statement on restraint in the Middle East (1:12); Iran strikes a U.S.-contracted vessel near the Strait of Hormuz (5:42); a cyberattack disables Texas-bound tankers (8:30); a new Pentagon report puts the Iran war’s cost at $33.4 billion (9:59); the Houthis/Ansar Allah advance in Taiz and hit Saudi Arabia (14:46); Ye...

The AP-NonZero collaboration returns!

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The group talks about the recent vibe shift in discourse around AI. What's really going on here?

0:00 Teaser
0:46 This episode's surprise vibe shift
2:30 Middle East update: Houthis vs. Saudis
15:21 What’s really driving Dario (et al.)?
25:14 Debating effective altruism’s effectiveness
30:18 The trouble with big-tech Kremlinology
34:08 Was “learn to code” just sleight of hand?  
40:25 Bob’s Fukuyama name drop
42:11 Heading to Overtime

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Danny and Derek welcome back Akbar Shahid Ahmed, Diplomatic correspondent for The Washington Sun and author of Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel’s War on Gaza, to talk about the Biden administration’s role in enabling the genocide in Gaza. They discuss the conditions in the Strip as of the current day; Biden’s small inner circle of Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, and Brett McGurk; Jack Lew’s role of ambassador and the dubious war crime review process he implemented; the Rafah red line...

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Spencer Ackerman, writer of the Forever Wars newsletter and author of Reign of Terror: How the 9/11 Era Destabilized America, returns to the program to talk about his upcoming political comic book No One Escapes the Dialectic and the state of the comic book industry. The discussion covers labor in comic publishing, the direct market and consignment system, independent publishers like Image and Boom Studios, the plot and characters of the book, the purge of the military under Pete Hegseth, and ICE and CBP’s role in immigration enforcement. 

L...

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I, for one, welcome our new AI overlords. In this week’s news: the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms last month was tied for the hottest ever recorded (0:52); the Houthis/Ansar Allah take the port city of Mokha (1:45); the U.S. and Iran exchange ship attacks as oil prices rise (5:25); the IAEA refers Iran to the United Nations (7:32); Trump predicts an end to the Iran war immediately after the midterms (8:59); 12 countries ban products made in Israeli settlements (10:52); a new report alleges that Netanyahu ignored Octo...

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*This episode was originally recorded and released in September 2021*

This is a special episode for the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Danny and Derek begin the episode with some reflections on their 9/11 experience, and are then joined by Jim Lobe, director of LobeLog and contributing editor at the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft, to talk about the intellectual origins of the coalition that after 9/11 pursued endless war. The episode then moves to a discussion with Laila Ujayli, associate editor at Inkstick Media, about growing up as a...

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Danny and Derek speak with David Griscom, co-host of Left Reckoning and author of The Myth of Red Texas: Cowboys, Populism, and Class War in the Radical South, to talk about the all-but-ignored history of leftwing politics in Texas. Topics include: the current state of Texas politics, the Farmers’ Alliance and the People’s Party, the Texas Socialist Party and its newspaper The Rebel, the role of religion in Texas socialism, and the prospects for socialism in modern-day Texas.   

Along with the book and podcast...

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Danny and Derek speak with Lee Jones, co-host of the Bungacast podcast, about Donald Trump’s foreign policy and the decay of the neoliberal order. Topics include: the unraveling of Fukuyama’s end of history thesis, the erosion of representative democracies, how MAGA and European rightwing populism differ from historical fascism, interpretations of Trump’s National Security Strategy, U.S. spheres of influence, fallout from the Iran war, and whether the U.S. would defend Taiwan.

Register now for Danny’s Quincy webinar and his live Elliott Bay Book Company...

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The AP Labor Day barbecue seeks more bouncy castle security personnel. In this week’s news: a grim climate update (3:27); the Trump administration is trying to avoid Iran escalation until the midterms pass (6:22); the Iran war appears to resume (6:40); settler violence escalates in the West Bank (12:07); a leaked Pentagon document shows that generals object to extended deployments in Iran (13:44); Israel's defense minister backs Gaza ethnic cleansing (17:20); Libya's rival governments sign an election agreement (21:26); Somali piracy is on the rise (23:01); Russia uses more advanced drones to pummel Uk...

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Danny and Derek welcome political theorist and historian Hugo Drochon to the show for a discussion about the tension between democracies and the elites who actually run them. They talk about elites taking turns in power, the 80/20 rule, the iron law of oligarchy, “dynamic democracy” and social change, and how these ideas apply to Trump, foreign policy, and the future of the EU and NATO.

Grab a copy of Hugo’s book Elites and Democracy.  

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Danny and Derek speak with Matt McManus about his book, The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism. They discuss the core definitions of liberalism and socialism, how liberalism differs from classical republican thought, John Stuart Mill as the first liberal socialist, Karl Marx's relationship to the liberal tradition, and John Rawls's place in liberal socialism.

Read Matt’s book, ⁠The Political Theory of Liberal Socialism⁠.

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American Prestige brand MREs use Argentinian beef, but don't worry, it's the good kind. In this week’s news: the US launches a new sanctions campaign against Iran (1:36); Iran and Oman negotiate the management of the Strait of Hormuz (5:50); a Haitian gang killing (9:28); the Israeli government takes bids for its E1 settlement (12:00); the US removes Syria from the terrorism sponsors list (14:38); the Syrian Democratic Forces announces its dissolution (15:51); Trump submits the Saudi nuclear deal to Congress (18:39); progress is made in negotiations between the DRC and M23...

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Danny and Derek speak with Jonathan Cheng, China bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, about the Christian origins of North Korea’s founding ideology and the subsequent personality cult. The discussion explores missionary Samuel Moffat’s work in Pyongyang, the conversion of Kim Il-sung’s family to Christianity, Christian nationalism during Japanese colonial rule, the turn toward socialism, Kim’s postwar personality cult, and how Christianity informs the Kim family’s rule today.  

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Danny and Derek speak with economist Christopher Hartwell about how wealthy elites who strike bargains with authoritarians often come to regret it. They discuss oligarchs in post-Soviet Russia, authoritarian state capitalism, Hungary’s break from Orbán, Trump courting tech billionaires, asset-price inflation and financialization, and the durability of state capitalism in China. 

Read Christopher’s piece for Foreign Affairs, co-written with Tricia Olsen: “The Disposable Oligarchs.”

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Danny and Derek must disclose that they have had Hasan Piker on this program. They are listening and learning from him. In this week’s news: Israel bombs a Syrian airbase, potentially moving closer to a conflict with Turkey (1:22); Jared Kushner and Benjamin Netanyahu agree to scrap the Gaza Board of Peace's Hamas disarmament plan (7:09); the Iran MOU expires as Trump escalates the economic war (9:20); the Islamic Republic might restart the shooting war (13:36); the Pentagon and Arab governments rethink America’s military presence in the Gulf (15:58); Trum...

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Danny and Derek welcome historian Lisandro Claudio back to the program to talk about how austerity, first imposed by the U.S. during its colonial rule of the Philippines, continues to influence the Filipino political economy. They discuss the colonial gold standard, dollar diplomacy, Miguel Cuaderno and the Central Bank of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos being forced to depreciate the peso, the Filipino Left’s anti-debt stance, and the country’s dependency on exported labor.

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Danny welcomes political science professor Corey Robin to the show to discuss his review of Sven Beckert's Capitalism: A Global History and the "new history of capitalism" field. They talk about Beckert's take that capitalism originated among 12th-century Muslim merchant traders in Aden, the decentering of Europe and the US in his narrative, enslaved labor in his "capitalist utopias," the near-absence of class conflict in the book's story of capitalism's early years, and why capitalism, not ideology, is the better lens for the US-China rivalry today.

Read Corey’s pi...

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Danny and Derek bring you the headlines against their better judgment. In this week’s news: Western Europe and the U.S. set new temperature records (2:05); in Iran, the Islamic Republic demands reparations and sanctions relief before reopening the Strait of Hormuz (4:22), Trump declares that the U.S. will keep control of the Strait (8:20), and Iran makes a wave of hardline appointments (10:25); in Yemen, Houthi forces strike a cargo ship in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait (13:02); Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey form a new defense alliance (15:00); Netanyahu re...

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Danny and Derek speak with artist and writer Molly Crabapple about her book on the history of the Jewish Labor Bund, Here Where We Live Is Our Country. They discuss Molly's personal connection to the story, the Pale of Settlement and Jewish emancipation, the founding of the Bund in 1897, the Bund's armed self-defense against pogroms, its fraught relationship with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, the Bund's rivalry with Zionism, the flourishing of Bundist culture in interwar Poland, and the lessons of the Bund’s story for the Jewish left today.

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Danny and Derek welcome Matt Duss, Executive Vice President at the Center for International Policy, back to the show for a conversation on the fractured foreign policy consensus in the Democratic Party. They talk about Rahm Emanuel's recent Tel Aviv speech, the primacist versus restraint divide in the party, accountability for Blinken and Sullivan's Gaza policy, the Iran war and the collapse of the JCPOA, China and Taiwan, and the contradiction of supporting Ukraine while enabling the Gaza genocide.

Read Matt’s piece for The Nation, “Rahm Emanuel’s Spee...

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Danny and Derek always use their good side when posing for a Flock cam. In this week’s news: Trump backs off of his latest threat against Iran amid a potential Hormuz deal (2:01); in Gaza, the Board of Peace’s Hamas disarmament deal collapses within a day (13:22); Red Sea shipping falls after new Houthi attacks (18:16); in Sudan, the RSF mobilizes tribal levies to make up for lost troops (20:26); the TPLF and federal forces clash again in Tigray (24:45); Ukraine runs out of Patriot missile interceptors (27:39); a migr...

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Derek welcomes back to the show his very own co-host, Danny Bessner, to talk about his new book, ⁠Imperialist Realism: Politics and Culture at the End of the American Century⁠, and how we see imperialist realism in American foreign policy and popular culture. They talk about the concept’s inspiration from the video game Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, the end of mass politics, the decline of grand ideology in U.S. foreign policy, the core features of imperialist realism, the Protestant missionary roots...

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Derek once again speaks with Mark Ames, co-host of Radio War Nerd, this time to talk about the state of the war in Ukraine and the current upheaval in Zelenskyy’s government.  They discuss Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil refineries and infrastructure, the PR campaign behind the "turning the tide" narrative, the situation in the Donbas and the fall of Kostyantynivka, the firing of Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov and army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi, corruption and factional fighting within Ukraine's drone industry, the Ukrainian strike on an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea...

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AP headquarters is seriously considering upgrading the video content to IMAX. In this week’s news: the U.S. and Iran resume strikes after a brief pause (3:25); Gaza talks are close to an agreement on Hamas disarmament and an Israeli withdrawal (10:59); Saudi-Ansar Allah/Houthi attacks escalate (13:37); the U.S. and Saudi Arabia strike Iraqi militia sites (17:10); a drone strike hits two gas ships at Egypt’s Damietta port (21:01); Ukraine attacks an Iranian ship in the Caspian Sea (22:58); the Sudanese army seizes the Omdurman–El Obeid highwa...

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Danny and Derek speak with historian Brad Simpson about the history and evolving meaning of self-determination in international politics and law. They talk about the Wilson-Lenin debate, the Atlantic Charter, the Nazi appropriation of ethno-nationalist self-determination, the decolonization movements of the mid-20th century, the failure of the new international economic order, and the idea's continuing relevance to places like Palestine and Greenland.

Get Brad’s book The First Right: Self-Determination and the Transformation of International Order, 1941–2000.

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Joel Christensen, professor of classics at the CUNY Graduate Center, joins Danny and Derek for a discussion about Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey. They talk about the scholarly debate over Homer as an idea rather than an individual; the mythic Trojan War; guilt and moral responsibility in Homer's Odysseus vs. Nolan's; the roles of Penelope, Telemachus, and Agamemnon; the film's monsters, casting choices, and depictions of the gods; and how Nolan's ending departs from that of the original. 

Be sure to check out Joel’s book Why Odyss...

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American Prestige HQ continues to roll the dice on iceberg lettuce. In this week’s news: Iranian strikes kill four U.S. service members in Jordan and Iraq, and the Pentagon conceals dozens of additional casualties (2:09); Trump threatens to hit an Iranian nuclear facility and warns of attacks on civilian infrastructure (6:32); the Houthis blockade Saudi Arabia and strike two oil tankers in the Red Sea (14:20); the U.S. and Saudi Arabia announce a civilian nuclear deal (18:23); in Lebanon, the IDF begins a “pilot” withdrawal from three southern villag...

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Danny and Derek speak with historian Andrew Preston about the origins and development of the American national security state as we know it. They discuss the original meaning of “national security” in the early days of the republic; the idea of free security; the New Deal and the relationship between social security and national security; World War II, the Cold War, and the expansion of the security state; liberalism and American empire; and what national security looks like moving forward.

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Danny speaks with writer Ann Manov about the right’s attempts to reshape the humanities and the crisis facing American higher education. They discuss Republican-backed civics programs, the Great Books model, falling academic standards, campus culture wars, the bleak prospects for students, the economics of higher education, and AI’s impact on the future of universities.

Read Ann's piece for Harper's, ⁠"Republican Machines."⁠

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Canada’s wildfires rage on, so Danny and Derek are here to be your breath of fresh air. This week’s news: In Iran, the U.S. reimposes its blockade and intensifies strikes (2:04), Trump announces and then backs off a Hormuz toll (5:44), and the White House issues threats of further escalation (9:17); in Yemen, the Houthis/Ansar Allah and Saudi Arabia trade strikes (13:37) as the former might become involved in the Iran war (16:28); Lebanese-Israeli talks talks wrap up, but progress is uncertain (17:45); in Israel, a date is set for an election (19:18), plus the...

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Danny and Derek welcome to the show journalist and author Robert Wright to talk about the potential and pitfalls of the AI revolution. They discuss how neural networks learn, the differences between predictive and generative AI, machine consciousness, job displacement, the environmental costs of data centers, how capitalism is shaping the AI race, and the need for international regulation.

Read Robert’s new book The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning.

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Danny and Derek welcome to the show historian Matt Avery Sutton to talk about evangelical support for Donald Trump and the power of the religious right in U.S. politics. They discuss Trump as a religious figure, the religious right’s ascendance, race and abortion in Republican politics, Christian apocalypticism, fears of the Antichrist, conservative Catholic converts, Christian Zionism, and whether an alliance with Trump will weaken the evangelical movement.

Read Matt’s book Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity.

Note: This episode was...

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Danny and Derek’s FIFA officiating careers have been tragically cut short since Javier Milei’s checks started bouncing. In this week’s news: the NATO summit ends on a high note (4:46); in Iran, new fighting erupts as Trump declares the end of the ceasefire (12:01), plus estimates of the war’s cost increase (16:49); in Gaza, Hamas dissolves its government (18:22) as the Board of Peace prepares a “humanitarian zone” (20:37); Trump appears ready to sell Turkey F-35s (23:47); Syria is officially removed from the state sponsors of terrorism list (28:17); in Sudan, civilians flee fighting in...