Adam sits down with David Griscom, host of The Jacobin Show and Left Reckoning, and author of The Myth of Red Texas (Nation Books, 2026), to excavate the buried radical history of the Lone Star State. They start with the present: Talarico's primary win and what class-war rhetoric is proving in Texas politics. Then they go back: the proletarianized cowboy, the fence-cutting wars against British and Northern capital, the Southern Farmers Alliance, the stolen populist election. The "California hypothesis" gets debunked. And the question by the end isn't whether Texas has a radical tradition; it's why nobody told you about it.

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We're joined by Steve Maher, co-author with Scott Aquanno of The Fall and Rise of American Finance: From J.P. Morgan to BlackRock (Verso, 2024). The book argues that financialization did not hollow out the "real" economy or shrink the state. Instead, it intensified competitive discipline to maximize efficiency, profits, and the exploitation of labor, backed by an increasingly authoritarian state. That means reforming finance won't get us somewhere different. There is no postwar golden age to return to. So what do we do? Tune in to find out...

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Today we're joined by (Dr.) Danny Bessner, a professor of international studies and co-host of the American Prestige podcast, about the legacy of Cold War liberalism, its influence on US foreign policy, and what a democratic socialist approach to international affairs might entail. We dive into the contradictions of elite-driven policies, the role of class power, and the challenges faced by a potential progressive presidency in navigating global military and economic systems.

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