Behind the News: The Best of 2025

Featuring Alejandro Velasco, Gabriel Hetland, and Yoletty Bracho on the US attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro. An expansive conversation analyzing Trump’s imperialist project and assessing Chavismo and its oppositions from Chávez through Maduro. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Check out equator.org for longform articles, public events, and reading groups Buy Middle Class New Deal at UCPress.com The Dig goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and political economy to imperialism and immigration. Hosted by Daniel Denvir.

Over the past year, Democrats have learned to embrace economic abundance thanks to Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s bestselling book. But is this the same kind of abundance the Left has traditionally argued for? In this episode of Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber is joined by Matt Huber, co-author alongside Fred Stafford and Leigh Phillips of a new Catalyst essay titled “The Left Has Always Fought for Abundance.” Together, they discuss the need for an energy infrastructure build out, the historic origins of stagnant state capacity, and what socialist abundance entails. Read the essay here: https://catalyst-journal.com/2025/12/the-left-has-always-fought-for-abundance The latest issue of Catalyst is out and you can subscribe for just $20 using the code CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM: https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM Have a question for us? Write to us by email: [email protected] Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy and published by Jacobin. Music by Zonkey.

Emile Torres on the transhumanists. Quinn Slobodian on eugenics and neoliberalism. Femi Taiwo on DEI and the war on it. Kristin Du Mez on white Christian nationalism. Anatol Lieven on the Trumpian worldview. Laleh Khalili on the relationship between the Pentagon and US capitalism. And Susannah Glickman on similar. Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.

Featuring Andrew Epstein on the Zohran campaign’s savvy, funny, sharp, disciplined, and moving comms operation. As one hundred thousand volunteers knocked three million doors, Andrew and a team of strategists, speechwriters, designers, and filmmakers wrote a giant love letter to New York City and inoculated voters against a lavishly-funded fusillade of smears and attacks. Support The Dig at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy After Savagery at Haymarketbooks.org Buy From Apartheid to Democracy at UCPress.com The Dig goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and political economy to imperialism and immigration. Hosted by Daniel Denvir.

Chile has just elected its most extreme far-right president since the Pinochet dictatorship. José Antonio Kast won the December 14 runoff by a commanding margin — a stunning reversal in a country that in 2019 experienced a massive social uprising over the unaffordability of life and extreme inequality. The social revolt ended with the pandemic lockdown, but the following year a broad leftist coalition swept into power, electing the 34-year-old former radical student leader Gabriel Boric, whose government promised to bury neoliberalism once and for all. How did Chile move so quickly from an anti-neoliberal social rebellion to the return of the hard right? Was this a vote for authoritarianism — or a vote against insecurity, inflation, and political stalemate? What does Kast’s victory tell us about the global resurgence of the far right, from Latin America to Europe and the United States? Suzi examines Chile’s political reversal with two Chilean analysts: Oscar Mendoza explains this electoral shift by looking at the failed constitutional process, the role of mandatory voting, media panic over crime and immigration, and the institutional constraints Kast will face in office. Pablo Abufom situates Kast’s victory in a longer historical trajectory, arguing that this is the first democratic government of pinochetismo — a project combining authoritarian neoliberalism, moral conservatism and anticommunism, now aligned with a global far-right resurgence. Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.

After World War II, political parties championing redistribution, full employment, and egalitarianism gained power across the globe, especially in Western Europe. But why did these social democrats give up the ambition to transition to socialism? In this episode of Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber explains why the golden age of capitalism was a rare period of triumph for the Left, even though the movement faced serious challenges from class enemies, state structures, and tensions within its own coalition. Any leftist trying to change the balance of class power would benefit from understanding why social democracy achieved such lasting success even as it remains in the political minority today. The latest issue of Catalyst is out and you can subscribe for just $20 using the code, CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM: https://catalyst-journal.com/subscribe/?code=CONFRONTINGCAPITALISM Have a question for us? Write to us by email: [email protected] Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, and published by Jacobin. Music by Zonkey.

Thea Riofrancos, author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism, looks at the complications of using lithium batteries to green our future. Alyssa Battistoni, author of Free Gifts, examines the weird relationship between capitalism and nature. Behind the News, hosted by Doug Henwood, covers the worlds of economics and politics and their complex interactions, from the local to the global.

Featuring Sumaya Awad, Sumathy Kumar, and Nathan Gusdorf on building power on the ground as our allies exercise it from above in the service of a larger hegemonic project to transform the United States. As Zohran Mamdani takes office on January 1, it’s time for governance—and all of the opportunities, constraints, and contradictions that entails. A recording of last week’s live Dig in Brooklyn. Support The Dig (and check out our cool new merch) at Patreon.com/TheDig Buy After Savagery at Haymarketbooks.org Buy From the Clinics to the Capitol at UCPress.com The Dig goes deep into politics everywhere, from labor struggles and political economy to imperialism and immigration. Hosted by Daniel Denvir.

The occupation of Western Sahara by Morocco has now lasted for half a century. The anniversary of the invasion passed at the beginning of November. It came just as the Trump administration was working at the United Nations to legitimize permanent Moroccan rule over the land and its people, including the indigenous Sahrawis. Today’s episode is the first part of a two-part interview on the history of Western Sahara. Part one is going to cover the experience of Spanish colonial rule and the emergence of a movement for independence before the invasion by Morocco in 1975. Part two will carry the story up to the present day. Our guest Jacob Mundy is a professor of peace and conflict studies at Colgate University. He’s the co-author of Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution. Read his piece for Jacobin, “For 50 Years, Morocco Has Denied Western Sahara Freedom”: https://jacobin.com/2025/11/morocco-western-sahara-freedom-colonialism Long Reads is a Jacobin podcast looking in-depth at political topics and thinkers, both contemporary and historical, with the magazine’s longform writers. Hosted by features editor Daniel Finn. Produced by Conor Gillies with music by Knxwledge.

Suzi talks to Oleksandr Kyselov and Alyssa Oursler about what’s being sold to the world as “peace” in Ukraine, and what it looks like from the standpoint of Ukrainians who are actually living through the war. Trump’s 28-point plan for Ukraine — drafted behind closed doors by his real estate ally Steve Witkoff and a Russian sovereign wealth fund chief — reads less like diplomacy and more like a property deal: Russia gets the land, the US takes its cut, Europe foots the bill, and Ukraine is told to choose between surrendering now or surrendering later — with little input in the process. Ukrainian political analyst Oleksandr Kyselov argues that what’s on the table is not a just peace but an “imperial carve-up,” and that Ukrainians are forced to fight for “the least unjust peace” that can realistically be won today. Then journalist Alyssa Oursler, reporting from Kyiv, describes how Ukrainians are reacting to the plan — from sudden funerals to conversations with leftists and soldiers who say Trump has prolonged the war and treated Ukraine as a bargaining chip. We ask what a real peace would look like, why Ukrainians fear being forced into this deal, and what international solidarity from the Left ought to mean now. Read Oleksandr’s Jacobin article, “Ukraine Faces and Imperial Carve-Up”: https://jacobin.com/2025/12/ukraine-russia-war-concessions-trump Support for Jacobin Radio comes from The Regrettable Century podcast: https://regrettablecentury.buzzsprout.com/220523 Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.