Justifying Authoritarianism

A vast circuit of tax payer dollars has flowed to the weapons industry, or directly to Israel, to pay for the bombs that have rained down on Gaza, ultimately enriching tech billionaires and private equity firms in the West. Similarly in Yemen, the Saudi war on that country has led to many hundreds of thousands killed and many more displaced, while generating enormous returns for arms manufacturers. Ruth Rohde and Jack Cinamon delve into the secretive, lucrative, and deadly business of arms. Andrew Feinstein, Ruth Rohde, and Jack Cinamon, Making a Killing: How the West Profits From Slaughter in Gaza and Yemen Verso, 2026 Photo credit CC BY-SA 4.0 The post Gaza, Yemen, and the Profits of War appeared first on KPFA.

The Trump administration has built a vast infrastructure of surveillance and prosecution against critics and protestors, justified and enabled by National Security Presidential Memorandum 7.  Shilpa Jindia and Nora Benavidez discuss how to put the breaks on what is likely the largest apparatus of repression in U.S. history. Shilpa Jindia and Nora Benavidez, “Enemies of the State: NSPM-7 and the Trump Plan to Crush Dissent” Free Press, October 2026 Photo credit: Bill Scheer The post Reining in Trump’s Repressive NSPM-7 appeared first on KPFA.

The allegations are explosive: that the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia set up a secret fund for Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, to finance proxy wars hidden from democratic oversight. Journalist Matthew Cole delineates his claims involving, among others, autocratic Gulf leaders, Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, and the disgraced mercenary Erik Prince. Matthew Cole, Princes and Thieves: Jared Kushner and Mohamed bin Zayed’s Secret Plot to Remake the Middle East Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2026 Photo by Ryan Johnson CC BY-SA 2.0 The post Jared Kushner and the Reshaping of the Middle East appeared first on KPFA.

It’s no mystery that the fortunes of the very rich have soared under this administration, but the concentration of wealth in the hands of the very few is a hallmark of capitalism itself. Economist Rob Larson returns to discuss wealth and power in the United States, as well as the massive build out of AI data centers. World Inequality Database Photo by Jingming Pan on Unsplash The post Wealth, Power, and the Trump Administration appeared first on KPFA.

This month marks the 100th anniversary of the arrest of the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci and his incarceration in a fascist prison. Jordan Camp argues that Gramsci’s writing on the so-called southern question was the kernel for an alternate tradition of anti-authoritarianism and anti-fascism, reformulated by thinkers like C.L.R James and Ruth First, Walter Rodney and Stuart Hall, which can help illuminate the present. Jordan T. Camp, The Southern Question: Anti-Fascism and the Global Conjuncture UC Press, 2027 The post Anti-Fascism and Southern Marxism appeared first on KPFA.

The terrorizing and mass deportations of immigrants under the Trump administration may seem an unprecedented descent into an racist order where Constitutional protections no longer apply. But, as historian Kelly Lytle Hernández argues, from early on the U.S. immigration system was exempted from the guardrails of the Constitution. She illustrates how these laws were put in place first to protect enslavers — and then elites more broadly — from the insurgent radicalism of migrants, starting with the Haitian Revolution. (Full-length interview.) Kelly Lytle Hernández, Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control W. W. Norton, 2026 Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue from Minnesota, USA, CC BY 2.0   The post Immigration Control as Counterinsurgency appeared first on KPFA.

While Trump’s brand of reactionary politics is crude and often incoherent, a group of intellectuals have sought to legitimize his authoritarianism in the service of the greater good. Historian Hannah Gurman describes the ideas and influence of postliberalism, promulgated through publications like Compact and counting J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio as fellow travelers. Hannah Gurman, The Opportunists: The Post-Liberals and the Reinvention of Reactionary Politics New Press, 2026 Photo credit: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0 The post Justifying Authoritarianism appeared first on KPFA.

Over the last decade, employees in the tech industry defied stereotypes — opposing contracts with ICE and the US military, even organizing to bargain collectively. Their employers, led by Elon Musk, responded by laying them off en masse and moving further to the right. Tech organizers J.S. Tan and Clarissa Redwine reflect on lessons from the flowering and then stifling of tech worker militancy. Clarissa Redwine and J.S. Tan, Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry Haymarket Books, 2026 The post Tech Worker Militancy appeared first on KPFA.

There’s not a person on earth who does not have PFAS, or Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, in their blood. Mariah Blake reflects on the how these chemicals came to pollute the world and the remarkable grassroots movement — much of it coming from working class communities in red states — that has arisen to ban them. Mariah Blake, They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals Crown, 2025 Photo by Maria Baranova on Unsplash The post Exposing Forever Chemicals appeared first on KPFA.

Our era is marked both by mass protest and the increasing criminalization of protest — driven by private interests, as well as states and the federal government. Annie Leonard, longtime activist, discusses the rich tradition of protest in this country and why we need to defend it, in the face of SLAPP suits, anti-protest bills, and diktats from the Trump administration. Annie Leonard and Andre Carothers, Protest: Respect It Defend It Use It Patagonia, 2026 Photo credit: Angus McIntyre The post Criminalizing Protest appeared first on KPFA.