Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democr

Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democr


Latest Episodes

#1636 The Supreme Court Is In Bad Shape. Like, Really Bad. And SCOTUS Is Going To Take Us All Down With Them
June 14, 2024

Air Date 6/14/2024 We're in the middle of Supreme Court opinion season, which is not going well for non-extreme conservatives in the country, at the same time as scandal, corruption, and justices Thom

#1635 Democracy on the Decline: The US is not alone in facing threats to democracy, others countries are showing how democracies fail
June 11, 2024

Air Date 6/11/2024 Democracies don't break all of a sudden in a moment of crisis, they fail slowly over time and only by knowing the warning signs and responding effectively to the threat before it's

Bonus Sample #307 Uncertain and Powerless
June 09, 2024

Air Date: 06-09-24 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - how focusing on the "politics" of an event trivializes the impact that event has on real people - the detrimental effects combining the

#1634 Abortion as the Tip of the Iceberg: the fight for privacy, bodily autonomy, and functional democracy after Dobbs overturning Roe v Wade
June 07, 2024

Air Date 6/7/2024 Banning abortion is wildly unpopular and also one of the primary motivators for the group most strongly supporting the Republican Party and Donald Trump, the Christian Right, which h

#1633 Fights for Fair Pay, Journalism vs Sensationalism, Billionaire Bailouts, and Addiction Capitalism: Sports are a Microcosm of the Ills of Society
June 04, 2024

Air Date 6/4/2024 The problems that arise within the systems of sports are the same problems we all face everywhere which makes them a good lens through which to understand the mechanisms of broader s

Bonus Edition #305 Solved It! Conspiracy Theorists, Comment Sections, and Trump
June 02, 2024

Air Date: 6-2-24 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - How one MIT study used AI to reduce belief in conspiracy theories - How a new AI tool is attempting to make comments sections less awful

​#1134 Unnatural Disasters (Hurricanes and Humans) (Throwback)
May 31, 2024

Original Air Date: 9/19/2017 Today we look not so much at hurricanes and the climate science behind them (though we touch on that as well) but focus more on what we can see more clearly when its illu

#1632 SiliCON Valley: The False Promises, Enshittification Economics, and Misguided Adventures of the Twits of Tech
May 28, 2024

Air Date 5/28/2024 Today we look at the most disappointing yet most idolized false heroes of our day, the titans of tech and the zany hijinks they've been getting up to recently. Leave us a message or

Bonus Sample #304 Not everything that counts can be counted
May 26, 2024

Air Date: 5-26-24 Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss: - the con of supply and demand economics being about distributing goods with the greatest efficiency, and is instead nothing more than pre

#1631 Body Neutrality in the World of Ozempic: Reassessing Weight, Body Positivity, Physical and Mental Health, and even the Economics of Body Size
May 24, 2024

Air Date 5/24/2024 Assessing the impacts of new diet drugs on physical and mental health in the context of our unhealthy food system and societal fat phobia Be part of the show! Leave us a message or