#1774 Monthly-ish Mix: Who's in Charge?—The Scramble for Control of Nations, Bodies, and Minds
Air Date: 3-3-26
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we examine the multi-front struggle for control: military force and economic coercion seizing resources abroad, institutions weaponized to constrain bodies at home, platforms and propaganda capturing minds, and the democratic resistance proving that organized people can still win.
Read more#1773 How Big Tech Captured Attention, Kids, and Democracy
Air Date: 2-23-2026
Today we examine how the platforms that monetize your attention are merging with state power. We'll hear how TikTok's new owners include Trump ally Larry Ellison, how DHS sent hundreds of subpoenas to unmask anonymous ICE critics, how Ring's Super Bowl ad cheerfully introduced AI-powered neighborhood surveillance, and how the social media addiction trials that are being likened to the Big Tobacco settlement of the 90s, are finally exposing what these companies knew about the harmful nature of their products all along.
Read more#1746 What an actual attack on free speech looks like
Air Date: 10-25-2025
Trump's attacks on free speech, particularly with the use of the Federal Communications Commission, goes far beyond the Jimmy Kimmel story. We're in the middle of an all-out assault on freedom of speech, a free and unbiased press, and freedom of association.
Read more#1728 The Lawfare Presidency: The Case of Trump v. Journalism
Air Date: 8-10-2025
Trump has been condemning the media for all of his professional life and is pretty open about doing it so that people won't believe the negative press he so richly deserves. Now, with the power of the presidency, he's turned his battle with the press into a protection racket complete with payoffs and side deals in an attempt to turn the media into pro-Trump propaganda.
Read more#1727 Super-Powered Men For Good and Ill: Fascism, Media, and the Manoshpere
Air Date: 8-6-2025
Today's slate of topics may feel disjointed at first until you realize that they're not. We set out to produce an episode in which we explored powerful men and those who look up to them from various angles and so that ended up including both real and fictional men from supervillains to superheroes.
Read more#1689 The Media and the Moguls: Corporate Media is not equipped for Trump
Air Date: 2-7-2025
Transcript
Trump came in with a plan to subdue the media and large swaths of the media came in with a plan to acquiesce. But it's important to understand why because it's not a conspiracy or people wanting to do harm, it's structural to the system.
Read more#1682 Looking Back to Trump 1.0 (Remix)
Air Date: 1-11-2025
Today, we look back to the warnings we gave ourselves at the beginning of the first Trump administration. In 2017 there was concern about corruption and his business dealings, ethics around his nominees, and the inability of the media to cover him properly.
Read more#1672 Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brains fall out
Air Date: 11-26-2024
In a world of infinite information but a finite amount of time to check your facts, we're living the logical conclusion of an online environment that favors false information over truth and the most popular online media reflects that reality perfectly.
Read more#1668 We Are Going Back: Team post-election analysis
Air Date: 11-8-2024
The Best of the Left team holds a special post-election discussion available to all listeners to present the initial takes on the election as well as our own reactions and suggestions for how to move forward.
Read more#1663 Recovering from Disaster(ous) Policy Amid Disinformation: Hurricanes and Wild Fires at the forefront of our climate emergency
Air Date: 10-15-2024
Just as COVID tended to expose the preexisting fractures and inequalities in our society causing undue harm, supercharged by disinformation, so do natural disasters. And the impact of disinformation and conspiracy has only grown in recent years.
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