Listen to Best of the Left Podcast Episodes

Air Date: 5/15/2026 Today we examine what it would actually take to claw back democracy from billionaire capture — and why some people think it's more possible than it looks. We'll hear about California's proposed billionaire wealth tax, AOC's vision for…

Air Date: 5/12/2026 Today we examine the redistricting scramble unleashed by the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act. We'll hear how Southern states moved within days to crack majority-Black districts, how Tennessee banned public input to rush…

Air Date: 5–9-2026 Today we examine how political violence has always been woven into the fabric of American life and who gets to decide what counts as violence in the first place. We'll hear about presidential assassinations, the assassination of Fred…

Air Date: 05-06-2026  Today we examine how the U.S. war on Iran is producing an economic crisis with echoes of the 1970s stagflation era which explains why Trump is now less popular on inflation than Jimmy Carter. We'll also be exploring various element of…

Air Date: 05/01/2026 The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we open with Jesse Jackson's death as a reckoning with the multiracial coalition America chose not to build, trace the American…

Air Date: 4–29-2026 Today we explore the extraordinary clash between Pope Leo XIV and the Trump White House — a feud involving military threats, medieval papal history, and an American-born pope who refuses to back down. We'll hear why analysts say MAGA's…

Air Date: 4/24/2026 Today we explore how Viktor Orban spent 16 years transforming Hungary into a blueprint for 21st-century autocracy, how that blueprint traveled directly to the United States and what Hungary's stunning defeat of Orban can teach Americans…

Re-Air Date: 4-21-2026 Original Air Date: 1–18-2020 Today we take a look at The Afghanistan Papers which reveal in stark detail much of what the anti-war movement has known or strongly suspected since the beginning. Going beyond the scope of The Pentagon…

Air Date: 4-8-26 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:   Ch. 1 - The history of the war on poverty in the U.S. Ch. 2 - How the wealthiest 9.9% are keeping the rest of us down with their heads in the sand Ch. 3 - The history and revival of the workers'…

Air Date: 4/17/2026 Today we examine how the U.S. war with Iran has exposed the deep structural rot at the heart of American power, the global economic catastrophe quietly building beneath the surface, and the cuts felt at home in order to pay for it all. Be…

Air Date: 4/14/2026 Today we examine the legal battles shaking the foundations of American citizenship and voting rights as Trump's legal team uses the courts as a weapon against democratic participation — and how advocates are fighting back. We'll hear…

Air Date: 4/10/2026 Today we examine the ideology quietly driving Silicon Valley — a worldview that treats growth, extraction, and the erasure of human messiness as virtues. We'll hear how tech leaders from Sam Altman to Larry Ellison embody a kind of…

Air Date: 4-1-26 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:   Ch. 1 - How to boycott better Ch. 2 - Why REI workers have voted to boycott the upcoming May sale and how you can help Ch. 3 - Why meatpacking workers are striking in Colorado Ch. 4 - Comparing…

Re-Air Date: 04-07-26 Original Air Date: 1-15-2025 Elon Musk is leading the way for his class of tech broligarchs anxious to take over the MAGA movement and shape it to their own ends of deregulation, tax cuts, and lucrative government contracts. The…

Air Date: 4/3/2026 Today we examine how decades of U.S. policy toward Cuba set the stage for the current crisis, we explore the human cost of the U.S. oil blockade on Cuba's 11 million people, and how the U.S. justifies an illegal siege while claiming to act…

Air Date: 3–31-2026 Today we examine how money and power have captured American sports from every angle — gambling platforms operating as unregulated casinos, private equity turning franchises into financial assets, leagues suppressing player pay while…

Air Date: 3–26-26 Welcome to ALMOST SOLVED!, the show that's almost like SOLVED! but one or more things are missing, namely the guarantee of a solution at the end and possibly also one of our cohosts.   Today, Jay!, Amanda, and Deon discuss:   Ch. 1 -…

Air Date: 3/27/2026 Today we examine the relationship between labor education, moral ambition, and the possibility of a better world. We'll hear about IWW members building a "Philosophy 101" for organizers, a historian's argument that humanity is fundamentally…

Air Date: 3/24/2026 Today we explore what happens when people reject religious dogma but still hunger for ritual, meaning, and the concrete benefits of community. We'll hear from secular assemblies building "church without creed," atheist Quakers finding…

Air Date: 3–18-26 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss: Ch. 1 - The dark history of money in politics, aka: corruption Ch. 2 - What the left must do to actually win Ch. 3 - What the rest of the world can teach America SOLVED! BACKSTAGE: Beyond the…

Air Date: 3/19/2026 Today we explore the long history of technological disruption — from the Industrial Revolution to the rise of software engineering — and ask whether AI is genuinely different this time, all while autonomous weapons dissolve…

Air Date: 3/15/2026 Today we examine how a century of foreign intervention created incompatible national memories between the US and Iran and how Netanyahu exploited that history to maneuver Trump into a war he didn't understand, promising a quick decapitation…

Air Date: 3/11/2026 Today is episode 1776, in the year of our nation's 250th birthday, and we thought the occasion called for something big. So, we're tracing the full arc — from the constitutional compromises that made this country possible to the…

Re-Air Date: 01–26-25 Unless you were a member in January of 2025, this episode of SOLVED! will be brand new to you! If you were a member back then, THANK YOU and this one is worth a re-listen. We're working on slowly increasing our production again, but,…

Air Date: 3/7/2026  Welcome to this episode of the Award-Winning Best of the Left Podcast. Today we examine the life and legacy of Reverend Jesse Jackson civil rights icon, two-time presidential candidate and one of the most consequential political figures…

Air Date: 3/3/2026 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…

Original Air Date: 3-1-2024 We don't have to think too hard to understand the fears of a world in which work, and the ability of millions to support themselves, are lost to automation and artificial intelligence. But that is only a capitalist future in which…

Original Air Date: 1/31/2023 Today, we take a look at just some of the nearly infinite ways in which our society, culture and economy are infused from top to bottom with Scam Culture™ that is bleeding us dry both financially and mentally. Be part of the…

Air Date: 2-17-26 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:   Ch. 1 - The "dual state" concept coined by German Jewish political scientist and labor lawyer Ernst Fraenkel in his 1941 book "The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship" Ch.…

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…