Bungacast

/491/ Squeezed Between Two Empires ft. Maciej Szlinder

On Poland's election, its history, its self-conception.

Philosopher Maciej Szlinder joins us to talk about Polish politics, society and history. Maciej is a member of the general council of the left-wing political party Razem ("Together"), as well as the president of the Polish Basic Income Network, so we discuss these matters as well as the general context.

• How did Poland represent a beacon of neoliberal democracy to Western liberals in the 80s and 90s – and what happened next?

• What does Poland represent, to Poles and to the rest of Europe, today?

• Is the political duopoly of the centrist Civic Platform and the right-wing Law and Justice falling apart?

• Why is political turnout up – and what anti-establishment parties are the young voting for?

• Why is Poland the most pro-American country in Europe, and how does Trump affect that?

• What is Poland's huge economic success felt like on the ground?

• How does precarious employment and emigration impact Polish politics?

Links:

• In the Polish Mirror, Gavin Rae, New Left Review

• In Poland, Presidential Hopefuls Battle for Young Voters Who Don’t Like Them, NY Times

/490/ Reading Club: Who Is Anti-Nationalist?

On the former Yugoslavia and the ethnography of anti-nationalists.

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[Reading Club LIVE: Sat 14 June, 9am LA, 12am NY, 5pm London, 6pm Berlin]

In the third installment of this block on inter/nationalism in the 21st century, we take a look at the other side of nationalism, through scholar Stefaan Jansen's “Anti-nationalism: Post-Yugoslav Resistance and Narratives of Self and Society”.

• Who are the Somewheres and Anywheres in post-Yugoslavia?

• How does Jansen understand the marginalisation of anti-nationalism in Serbia and Croatia?

• Is understanding nationalism and anti-nationalism as discursive practices a useful lens for understanding post-Yugoslav identities?

• Why is the act of forgetting or misremembering significant in the context of post-Yugoslav anti-nationalist narratives?

• How did the contrast between pre-war Yugoslavia and post-war realities shape anti-nationalist identities?

• Must individuality be anti-nationalist?

Reading Club 2024/25 Syllabus: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TRn6kWzICbqUBo64Jp-c8TS0K4axTy3M/view

/489/ Boomer Death Rattle

On the end of the (very) long 1960s.

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Contributing Editor Lee Jones joins Alex and George to talk through the themes and stories of the month, including MAGA's war on universities, right-populists in power, and culture war. Plus we deal with your questions and comments on: lawfare, video games, and the 'new class'.

• What is TACO (Trump Always Chickens Out)?

• How should we respond to rightist attempts to rewrite the past?

• Why are Angela Merkel and Donald Trump representative of the age, in similar and different ways?

• Are people sick of subversion and just want order?

• What happens as the Boomers leave public life? Can we bracket 1960-2020?

• When should we throw the book at politicians?

Links:

• Trump’s Tariff Gamble and the Decay of the Neoliberal Order, Lee Jones, American Affairs

• The Techno-Populist Convergence, Alex Hochuli, Compact

• How Labor won the preference war (and screwed the Greens), Financial Review

• Saving Britain’s Universities: Academic Freedom, Democracy and Renewal, Lee Jones and Philip Cunliffe, Cieo

/488/ Homo-Techno, Homo-Solo ...Post-Homo? ft. Alex Gendler

On tech and the last hu-men.

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Writer Alex Gender is back, talking to Alex and George about his recent essay, "Homo Algorithmicus", as well as reflecting on how incel culture has widened and deepened in the past five years.

• How does healthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione exemplify a “rationalist” worldview?

• What is "TESCREAL" and how are those distinct ideologies underpinned an anti-human rationalism?

• Is "tech" or Silicon Valley split between liberal effective altruists and neo-reactionary libertarians?

• Is tech moving from trying to escape the state to trying to capture it?

• What is it about “Gen Z boss and a mini” that generated such ire among "masculinists"?

• What is to be done about the Man Question?

Links:

• Homo Algorithmicus, Alex Gendler, The Point Magazine

• /215/ Organize the Incels?! ft. Alex Gendler

• The perennial surplus, Alex Gendler, Substack

• The New Legislators of Silicon Valley, Evgeny Morozov, The Ideas Letter

/487/ Did JD Vance Kill the PMC? ft. Christopher Lasch's Angry Ghost

On what is next for 'PMC theory'

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The social media avatar known as Christopher Lasch's Angry Ghost joins us to unpick the conjuncture: as the Trump administration makes cuts and seeks to do away with progressives in bureaucracies, where does that leave the left-wing critique of the PMC?

• What would Lasch's ghost be telling us now?

• Is the PMC a class? Is it distinct people? Or is it more like procedures, and ways of thinking?

• Is woke over? Will the MANGOs (media, academia, NGOs) carry on?

• Can the PMC still advance oppositional politics or it hopeless compromised?

• What will be the effect on AI doing away with professional class jobs?

• Is vice-signalling replacing virtue-signalling?

Links:

• Death of a Yuppie Dream, Barbara Ehrenreich, RosaLux (pdf)

• It’s Our Fault, Dustin Guastella, Damage

• Trump’s purge of the professionals, Ryan Zickgraf, UnHerd

• This obsession with a ‘new elite’ hides the real roots of power, Kenan Malik, The Guardian

• The Techno-Populist Convergence, Alex Hochuli, Compact

/486/ Romania Is Following the Script ft. Enikő Vincze

On Romania's annulled election – and the repeat.

Academic and housing activist Enikő Vincze talks to Alex about why December 2024's election result was annulled, and how Romanian politics is following the script of European politics: lawfare, misinformation, techno-populism, and "sovereigntists" who provide the same neoliberal solutions.

• Who are the contenders in the May 2025 election and what do they represent?

• To what extent do Simion and AUR represent an 'anti-system' candidacy? How do they compare to other European radical rightists?

• Is Romanian politics really torn between Brussels and Moscow, or is something else at play?

• How is the Ukraine War, and EU militarisation, playing out in Romania?

• Why does the Right's promise of sovereignty only provide new capitalist alternatives to neoliberal globalism?

• What is the state of the Left and of struggles over housing in Romania?

Links:

• Romanian elections and the agony of neoliberalism: militarization and austerity, with or without “sovereigntists”, Enikő Vincze, Internationalist Standpoint

• Fractured Romania, Costi Rogozanu, Sidecar

• Romania Redivivus, Alexander Clapp, New Left Review

 

/485/ Can Games Teach Us Agency? ft. Pawel Kaczmarski

On the promise of videos games.

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Pawel Kaczmarski – a literary critic who teaches modern and contemporary Polish literature at the University of Wrocław – talks to George and Alex about his piece in Damage, "The Promise of Video Games".

• How are things gearing up for Poland's election later this month?

• Are video games moving culturally "upstream"?

• How does a game like Helldivers 2 promise to teach us agency but fails?

• Is the problem with video game criticism, and literary criticism, not so much their difficulty but rather that they are boring today?

• Has anyone managed to write a good "novel of the internet"?

Links:

• The Promise of Video Games, Pawel Kaczmarski, Damage

• /162/ Gaming & Politics ft. Jonas Kyratzes

• Gospels of the Flood

/484/ No Justice in Politics ft. David Broder

On the charges against France's Marine Le Pen.

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Alex and George discuss some main stories from the past month. After the death of Pope Francis, what's behind left-wing sympathy for the late Pope – and more widespread appreciation for Catholicism? Why do we want a progressive Pope, and would a reactionary one be better for us? Why is the US deporting people to Nayib Bukele's Salvadorian prisons, and what makes this so dystopian?

Then Alex calls up Jacobin's Europe editor David Broder to understand the charges against Marine Le Pen.

• Is Marine Le Pen a victim of lawfare, or has she been hoist by her own petard?

• What are the consequences for the Rassemblement National, and for French politics?

• What has the European radical right's response been to Trump II so far?

And we respond to your questions and comments from the past month on:

• Holding politicians to account on free speech

• Listening to poetry

• Redistribution as the obvious solution to the crisis

• Clientelism and hyperpolitics

/483/ Reading Club: Why Invent Traditions?

On the mass-production of loyalty.

***

We are exceptionally making this episode of the Reading Club freely available. See the full syllabus here: 2024/25 Reading Club. If you'd like to join, subscribe at patreon.com/bungacast/membership.

***

The second reading in this block on Inter/Nationalism in the 21st Century is The Invention of Tradition (eds. Eric Hobsbawm & Terrence Ranger, 1983), specifically Hobsbawm's chapter "Mass-Producing Traditions: Europe 1870-1914".

• How much did ordinary people buy into invented national traditions?

• Why did industrialisation allow for mass-producing traditions?

• Does the sense of belonging fostered then still exist today?

• If nation-states don't require active participation any more, what does this mean for the mass-production of loyalty?

• Are things like social media campaigns, national holidays for diversity, or even global events like the Olympics the new “mass-produced” traditions?

/482/ The Philippines' Dynasty & Duterte's Arrest ft. Walden Bello

On Filipino politics and geopolitics.

Renowned public intellectual Walden Bello talks to Alex and contributing editor Lee Jones about his recently published memoirs, former president Rodrigo Duterte's arrest, warring political dynasties and more.

• What's behind Duterte's arrest? Is it lawfare?

• How did the Philippines comes to be an ‘anarchy of families’?

• What are the barriers to doing left-wing political work in the Philippines?

• How has Walden been involved with the social-democratic party Akbayan?

• What does China's rise mean for developing countries and the global South?

• What are Walden's key lessons for the ‘end of the End of History’?

Links:

• GLOBAL BATTLEFIELDS: Memoir of a Legendary Public Intellectual from the Global South, Walden Bello, Clarity

• Duterte Is Right to End the U.S.-Philippine Military Exercises, Walden Bello, NYT

• /52/ Duterte’s Despotism ft. Nicole Curato

• /351/ Eating the Left’s Lunch? ft. Cecilia Lero & Tamás Gerőcs

/481/ Everything is Plausible: Oligarchy – or Worse ft. Corey Robin

On Trump's government, his motives and his modus operandi.

Political theorist Corey Robin talks to Alex H and contributing editors Lee Jones and Alex Gourevitch about Trump II from a domestic perspective. We look at the three main things he's done so far: cutting the civil service, imposing economic sanctions domestically, and his immigration terror politics.

• Is Trump a strong president? Does the reliance on executive orders indicate weakness?

• What happened to the #Resistance?

• Why has the tariff issue, instead of uniting Republicans as in the 19th century, divided them?

• Is the bond market the main force limiting Trump's agenda?

• Has Bernie Sanders' prediction come true – this is now an oligarchy?

• Does Trump just represent patrimonialism and even gangsterism? A degradation of democracy?

• What does reaction looks like when there’s very little left to react against?

Links:

• /129/ The Right Is Weak ft. Corey Robin | Bungacast

• Notifications, Corey Robin, Sidecar (on Trump & tariffs)

• Corey Robin's facebook posts

• The Hollow Parties: The Many Pasts and Disordered Present of American Party Politics, Daniel Schlozman and Sam Rosenfeld, Princeton UP

/480/ Reading Club: 21st Century Internationalism

On Perry Anderson's "Internationalism: A Breviary".

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We kick off the second block/theme of the 2024/25 Reading Club on Nations & Internationalism in the 21st Century by looking at a 2002 essay which charts nationalism against internationalism from the Atlantic revolutions through to the age of globalisation. It is particularly apposite to revisit this text in light of an acceleration in de-globalisation brought on by the second Trump presidency.

• What are the cultural aspects of "internationalism"?

• While nationalism can be good or bad, internationalism is usually seen as positive. Is this still the case?

• How has internationalism accompanied, seperated from or stood against nationalism throughout the latter's history?

• How is internationalism different from cosmopolitanism today, if at all?

• How could we update Anderson's charting of internationalism along 5 coordinates: capital, geography, philosophy, nation-definition, and class relations?

Internationalism: A Breviary, Perry Anderson, New Left Review

/479/ El Tarifazo: Trump's Tariff Thwack ft. Lee Jones

On Trump's 'liberation day' tariffs and the end of globalisation.

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Contributing editor Lee Jones talks to Alex about the tariffs, as they try to reconstruct the Trump admin's thinking, and consider avenues and consequences.

• Why is this a retro-80s moment, and how much does China take the role that Japan used to in Trump's thinking?

• How much strategy is there to this? Is it possible to disentangle the competing logics?

• Is this a return to the 19th century: small state, no income tax, high tariff walls?

• How credible an attempt at reindustrialising the US is this?

• Is Trump trying to weaken the dollar? What store to put in the Mar-a-Lago accord?

• Do Europeans kick the can down the road and hope for the best?

• Is this a global restructuring or just a reset in terms more favourable to the US? The end of neoliberalism or a new iteration on it?

Links:

• Will anybody buy a ‘Mar-a-Lago accord’?, FT

• A User’s Guide to Restructuring the Global Trading System, Stephen Miran, Hudson Bay Capital 

• Is Trump 2 the End of ‘Neoliberal Order Breakdown Syndrome’?, Lee Jones, TNS 

• Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent Breaks Down Trump's Tariff Plan and Its Impact on the Middle Class, Tucker Carlson, YouTube

• Back to the ’80s?, Andrew Liu, n+1

• MAGA and the Fragmentation of Europe, Tim Pendry, Substack

/478/ Should You Listen to Satan? ft. Orlando Reade

On revolution, epic poetry, John Milton, and freedom.

George and contributing editor Alex Gourevitch talk to Orlando Reade, who teaches English at Northeastern University London.  We discuss Orlando’s new book What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost and the history of readings of John Milton’s great epic poem.

• Is Paradise Lost a poem about darkness?

• What does a poem written in the seventeenth century have to tell us about the age of Trump and the contemporary Right?

• What can we learn about freedom today from the rebellious Satan in the poem? Or the disobedient Eve?

• What did Malcolm X get from the poem and why is Jordan Peterson so hot on epic poetry?

Links:

• What In Me Is Dark: The Revolutionary Life of Paradise Lost, Orlando Reade, Penguin

• John Milton’s Paradise Lost Mourned a Revolution Betrayed, Orlando Reade, Jacobin

• Why Is the Right Obsessed With Epic Poetry?, Orlando Reade, The Nation

/477/ Talking Turkey in the Group Chat ft. Djene Bajalan

On Erdogan's World and the revolt against it.

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Historian Djene Bajalan joins George and Alex to review the past month – ceasefires in Eastern Europe and the Middle East, winning and losing US patronage, Trump's inconsistent strategy and leaks, and the gold rush. We then turn to a country exemplary of the contradictions of the end of the End of History: Türkiye. And finish by answering your questions and comments on internationalism, free speech, Die Linke, anti-immigration, and domination.

• What's driving the protests and how do they compare to past revolts against Erdogan?   

• What is the meaning of charges – corruption & terrorism – against Istanbul mayor and potential opposition leader İmamoğlu?

• Who is the opposition?

• What has sustained Erdogan's rule – repression, conservatism, modernisation, growth?

• Why is Erdogan one of the winners of the past 20 years, and how is he a world-historic figure? 

Links:

• Erdoğan's new world order, Lily Lynch, UnHerd

• /339/ Erdogone? People vs Nation in Turkey ft. Alp Kayserilioglu

• Kultur Kampf TR, Selim Koru, Substack