Current Affairs
A podcast of politics and culture, from the editors of Current Affairs magazine.
- Update frequency
- every 3 days
- Average duration
- 42 minutes
- Episodes
- 600
- Years Active
- 2018 - 2025
The Terrifying and Stupid Ideas of "Neoreactionaries"
A recent article in Vanity Fair about the National Conservatism Conference profiles figures on the "New Right," including Peter Thiel, J.D. Vance, Blake Masters, and a deeply unpleasant individual ca…
Santa Claus for Alaska
Santa Claus is the mayor pro-tem of North Pole, Alaska. Yes, he's real, and he's a democratic socialist running for Congress in the special election against Sarah Palin. Current Affairs is honored to…
How Do We Overcome Capitalism?
Tom Wetzel's forthcoming book Overcoming Capitalism: Strategy for the Working Class in the 21st Century (AK Press) is both a primer on the basic left critiques of capitalism and a handbook for creati…
How Corporations Get Away With Criminality—And How to Stop Them
Jennifer Taub is a law professor whose book Big Dirty Money: Making White Collar Criminals Pay is about the double standard in American law that harshly punishes street crime while giving a free pass…
The Life and Crimes of Winston Churchill
Tariq Ali is the author of two dozen books and his career as a public intellectual and activist stretches back to the 1960s. His new book Winston Churchill: His Times, His Crimes is an effort to demo…
A View of British Government From the Inside w/ former Labour MP Chris Mullin
Chris Mullin served from 1987 to 2010 as a Labour MP in the British parliament. During that time, he kept a daily diary of his observations, which has since been published in three acclaimed volumes.…
Dr. Mark Vonnegut on the Soullessness of Modern Medicine
Mark Vonnegut MD has been a pediatrician for over 30 years. He is the author of the books The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So, and most recen…
How the Amazon Labor Union Defeated the Bezos Behemoth
Justine Medina is a member of the organizing committee for the Amazon Labor Union and a packer at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island. The ALU recently won a historic victory, defeating Amazon's mult…
Why Are So Many Pedestrians Getting Killed in America?
Angie Schmitt is a transportation writer and planner whose book Right of Way: Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America examines the shocking and disturbing growth in pedes…
Noam Chomsky on How to Avoid World War 3
Noam Chomsky is "arguably the most important intellectual alive," the founder of modern linguistics, one of the most cited scholars in history, and the author of over 100 books. He is currently laure…
How Finance Ate The Economy - w/ Grace Blakeley
Finance expert Grace Blakeley is a staff writer for Tribune magazine. She has served as economics commentator for the New Statesman and as a fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research's Centr…
Aviva Chomsky on Why "The Science" Isn't All We Need To Know About Climate Change
Prof. Aviva Chomsky teaches history and Latin American studies at Salem State University and has authored and edited numerous books including Central America’s Forgotten History, A History of the Cub…
How Does Economics Corrupt The World? - Jonathan Aldred, author of "The Skeptical Economist"
Jonathan Aldred is an economist at Cambridge University, but he is a fierce critic of the mainstream of his discipline. In his books The Skeptical Economist and License to be Bad: How Economics Corru…
Are We In The Middle of A Sexual Revolution? Journalist Laurie Penny on changes in gender relations
Laurie Penny is a journalist and activist who has authored seven books including Unspeakable Things: Sex, Lies and Revolution, Bitch Doctrine: Essays for Dissenting Adults, and most recently Sexual R…
How Radical Teachers are Re-Igniting the Labor Movement - labor studies professor Eric Blanc on the Minneapolis strike
Eric Blanc's book Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strikes and Working-Class Politics is about the remarkable 2018-2019 educators' strikes that began in red states. It shows how successful labor strug…
How Pentecostal Christianity Is Taking Over The World - an interview with Elle Hardy, journalist and author of "Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity is Taking over the World"
Pentecostalism is the fastest-growing religious faith in the world—by one estimate it obtains around 35,000 new converts per day globally. It now has over 600,000,000 adherents. Elle Hardy is a journ…
SPECIAL: How Leftists Can Run, Win, and Govern - featuring interviews with six Democratic Socialists who have been elected to public office
Across the United States, over the last few years, democratic socialists have been running for office in numbers not seen for a century. The Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns may not have been vi…
Understanding Putin's Criminal War in Ukraine - interview with Russia expert and publisher of The Nation Katrina vanden Heuvel
Katrina vanden Heuvel is the editorial director and publisher of The Nation magazine, as well as a columnist for the Washington Post. She is also the president of the American Committee For U.S.-Russ…
How Companies Make Us Worship Our Work - interview with Carolyn Chen, author of "Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes a Religion in Silicon Valley"
Carolyn Chen's book Work Pray Code: When Work Becomes Religion In Silicon Valley is about how something disturbing is happening in Silicon Valley: people are becoming so totally devoted to their work…
"How Are You Going To Pay For That?" and Other Dumb Political Questions - interview with Ryan Cooper, managing editor of The American Prospect
Ryan Cooper is the managing editor of The American Prospect and co-host of the Left Anchor podcast. He is the author of the new book How Are You Going to Pay For That: Smart Answers to the Dumbest Qu…