Listen to Best of the Left Podcast Episodes

Air Date: 4-28-25 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - Why the “manly” manufacturing jobs Trump and MAGA want are never coming back - Why incels love Trump’s tariffs - The sad flails of the “Make America Manly Again” movement - The “Sigma…

Air Date 4/26/2025 For those of us who knew that Trump was lawless and deeply racist in his desire for mass deportations of brown people, we're getting exactly what we expected. For others, at least the lawlessness is coming as a bit of a surprise, and yet,…

Air Date 4/22/2025 George W. Bush proposed privatizing Social Security and didn't succeed. But, as with appointing Justices that would eventually overturn Roe V. Wade, groundwork was being laid as part of a multi-decade effort that would, they hoped, pay off…

Air Date 4/18/2025 Before the election, I heard interviews and statistics about Trump supporters responding to his stated desire to weaponize the government against his political enemies. Their response was that 1) they didn't want him to do that and 2) didn't…

Air Date 4/14/2025 Everything, it turns out, is a double-edged sword. Democracy and freedom are great but it also contains the keys to its own destruction. Love is pretty good but it turns out that only love can break your heart. And technology, which has…

Original Air Date: 3/5/2019 From 2019: Today we take a look at how the illiberalism of the Israeli government has alienated the vast majority of democratic nations and individuals who support human rights, leaving the country with some of the most far-right,…

Air Date 4/5/2025 Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. And with Trump in place, the Christian Nationalists are looking to rewrite history to their liking in order to create the dystopian future they desire. Be…

Air Date 4/2/2025 Love them or loathe them, the Democratic Party is the political institution available to the left to structurally take on Trumpism but we need a whole lot of new energy and new commitments to the fight to turn them into an opposition worthy…

Air Date 3/28/2025 You might not be trans yourself but that's just like how coal miners aren't canaries because when they saw that the canaries were under threat, they knew the danger was all around them. Fascists always start with those who are the easiest to…

Original Air Date: 3/29/2022 Today we take a look at the current iteration of the cynical culture wars being waged by conservative Republicans against LGBTQ kids for political gain. The current wave of anti-trans and anti-gay legislation sprouting across the…

Air Date: 3–24-25 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - Our new game Satire Showdown - The authoritarian takeover of the term common sense - How Americans actually feel about DEI initiatives - The right’s turn on Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney…

Air Date 3/21/2025 If you've been paying attention, the weaponization of the government against Trump's political and ideological enemies is exactly what you would have seen coming and now it's here. Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at…

Air Date: 3–19-25 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - A special little ditty Jay put together - The legitimate problems that helped birth the damaging MAHA movement - Sherrod Brown’s OpEd on how the Democrats lost their way - What Jay learned…

Air Date 3/18/2025 In this special Podcasthon episode, we're joining thousands of podcasts around the world in taking the opportunity this week to support a cause or organization that we believe in. In this time of fighting fascism, Best of the Left has chosen…

Air Date 3/15/2025 It always bears repeating that the progressive perspective on the state of the world is not that everything was going just fine before Trump showed up but there's a world of difference between the leftist desire to improve things and Trump's…

Air Date 3/12/2025 The (Approximately) Monthly Mix is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we look at the future for Gaza, Trump's plans for mass deportations, the decline of the US on the international stage, the…

Air Date: 3–9-25 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - The Founding Fathers’ prophetic concerns that we don’t ever talk about - FDR VP Harry Wallace’s op-ed on American fascism from 1944 - Philosopher Richard Rorty’s chilling predictions from…

Air Date 3/7/2025 Corruption, for those who indulge, isn't just a perk of power, it can also be a method of maintaining it. Trump is not bothering to hide the corruption he's working to facilitate or how it's geared toward supporting his desire for unchecked…

Air Date 3/4/2025 An old proverb says that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and we're all about to see how dangerous as know-nothings and science skeptics take over the government agencies staffed by doctors and scientists with the goal of keeping the…

Air Date: 3-2-25 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - How “entrepreneurialism” has gained unearned adoration and disempowered labor organizing - The 100-year-old “New Thought” era and how it shaped our current culture of work - The social…

Original Air Date: 615/2022 The many reasons why we are experiencing a housing crisis in the US and beyond but it mostly comes down to treating housing as a commodity to be profited from rather than a basic human need or, if you're feeling radical, a basic…

Air Date 2/25/2025 Racism is at the core of most of what Trump believes so it should be no surprise when he aligns himself and the country with explicitly supremacist projects like the perceived Jewish superiority over Palestinians and the assumed "reverse…

Air Date: 2-23-25 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - The heavy influence of a Nazi political theorist (propagandist) on the MAGA movement - How our disagreements on baseline reality lead us to devastatingly different conclusions - What many Trump…

Air Date 2/21/2025 There is nothing other than racism at the heart of Trump's immigration policy. He wants to deport as many brown people as possible, stop as many immigrants and refugees as possible unless they're White people from South Africa or the nearly…

Air Date 2/18/2025 Democracies slide into dictatorship in two ways, first slowly and then all of a sudden. We have been sliding in this direction for at least as long as I have been paying attention to politics and we're finally at the moment where that slow…

Air Date: 2-16-25 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - Why we may be forced to bring back bullying - The impact of algorithms and what we can do about it - Democrats and the meaning of 'the medium is the message' - The unbelievable stupidity of…

Original Air Date: 8/4/2015 The dysfunctional state of the US immigration system and the political fight brewing over what to do about it Be part of the show! Leave us a message or text at 202-999-3991 or email Jay@BestOfTheLeft.com Full Show Notes…

Air Date 2/11/2025 The very rich, as has been noted before, are not on the side of regular people. And even if you think that the federal government needs a major reboot, no one but the ultra-wealthy are going to be happy with what they build in the aftermath…

Air Date: 2-10-25 Today, Jay! and Amanda (Deon and Erin were sick) discuss: - Why you should be using an RSS reader  - The danger of Mystification as humans try to cope - Musk and Trump's flagrant law breaking - What Dems and you can do, with some tips from…

Air Date 2/7/2025 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. Be…