#1833 Extreme Wealth Is a WMD: Insecurity Breeds Fascism, So Tax the Billionaires
Air Date: 11-11-2026
Today we look at billionaires, wealth inequality, money in politics, and what happens to a society when those things get far out of whack. Outside spending on our elections has grown roughly 12-fold since 2008, and the same concentrated wealth that buys elections leaves governments answering to the ultra-wealthy while everyone else struggles with rising prices. That insecurity is the precise recipe that makes authoritarianism look viable. The last time inequality was this extreme was the Roaring Twenties, and what followed the crash was the New Deal era of steep taxes on the rich that built a healthy middle class for decades. We're due for a reset.
Watch: Wealth Inequality in America (Updated 2026)
Books from this episode (affiliate links: buying through them supports the show):
This week's guests discuss their new books:
Country of Lords by Kim Phillips-Fein: print at Bookshop.org · audiobook at Libro.fm
Anti-Fascist Economics by Isabella Weber: print at Bookshop.org · audiobook at Libro.fm
End Times Fascism by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor: print at Bookshop.org · audiobook at Libro.fm
Read more#1832 Zionism and Nationalism Built What Their Jewish Critics Feared in Israel and Palestine
Air Date: 11-4-2026
Israel was formed to create a safe haven for Jews in the wake of World War II, an admirable goal. Since then, there have been major wars every decade, terrorist attacks, and Netanyahu has been warning about Iran getting a nuclear weapon since 1992. There were prominent Jews at the time, including Albert Einstein, who saw all of this coming and warned against the creation of a Jewish state with borders and an army, because they feared exactly what has come to pass because of the peril it would put Jews in and the damage that Jewish nationalism would do to the Jewish faith. The tragedy of Israel is that those warnings were not heeded and then that this perspective was effectively removed from the discussion entirely, making the path to true safety for Jews and everyone else, essentially invisible. We're exploring that history and those perspectives today.
Read more#1831 Midterm Madness: Defending the Vote, the Count, the Results, and the Certification
Air Date: 10-30-2026
Today we look at the midterm machinery. The administration's attempts to mess with the election continually lose in court, but the tampering attempts will keep coming: whose ballots get thrown out, which winners get certified, who ultimately gets seated. Voting too big to rig, early and in overwhelming numbers, is only the beginning, followed by people being ready to show up and protect the count.
Read moreMonthly-ish Mix #13 Off the Hook: How the Powerful Duck the Blame and Where They Still Have to Answer
Air Date: 10-27-2026
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on the news from September and October without being overwhelming! Organized around a single idea: when something goes wrong, follow where the blame lands. Republicans staged a hearing over Anthony Fauci's diary while a food-borne parasite sickened more than 1,500 people after the Trump administration gutted the systems that track outbreaks. Housing costs get pinned on rent control, and the paperwork of being poor eats hours the wealthy pay someone else to spend. Meanwhile Boulder, Colorado is taking Exxon to court over what the company knew about climate change fifty years ago. The mix closes with the people organizing to protect the midterms and with what Occupy Wall Street left behind.
Covering: September–October 2026
Read more#1830 Power Play: The Women's Sports Boom Is About Power, Not Ratings
Air Date: 10-23-2026
Today we look at the women's sports boom as a power story and explain how women's sports were held back on purpose, from England banning women's soccer for fifty years to colleges spending next to nothing on their women's teams, primarily because the men feared the competition.
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