Start Making Sense

This is when people-powered movements matter most.In this episode of A People’s Climate, host Shilpi Chhotray sits down with Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, artist, abolitionist, and author. They explore the deep connections between racial justice, environmental justice, and the fight for a more just and caring world. From her childhood experiences in Los Angeles to organizing around police brutality, climate justice, and cultural work, Patrisse shares why her vision is rooted in care, creativity, and nonviolent action. Together, they unpack what it means to build coalitions across movements, resist systemic violence, and imagine a future beyond just survival.Learn more at apeoplesclimate.org Resources:- Patrisse Cullors DEI Manifesto- Patrisse Cullors Website- Dignity and Power Now- Learn more about Cop City in the Shilpi Chhotray hosted “People over Plastic” podcast episode: The Hot Seat.- Learn more about Cancer Alley in the Shilpi Chhotray hosted  “People over Plastic” podcast episode:

Subscribe now to skip the ads and get more content.Don’t forget to vote for AP in the 2025 Signal Awards!Danny is back on American soil and joins Derek to bring you the news. This week: Trump circulates a Gaza ceasefire proposal with Hamas’ response pending (2:39), Israel issues its final evacuation notice for Gaza City (9:30), and the Samud flotilla is intercepted (11:04); Trump forces Netanyahu to apologize to Qatar while also giving Doha a NATO-style defense pledge (14:06); the UN reimposes sanctions on Iran (16:55); Trump pushes to retake Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan as the country briefly loses internet access (20:49); starvation worsens in Sudan’s al-Fashir (27:02); “Gen Z protests” erupt in Madagascar and Morocco (29:56); Trump declares Ukraine can retake all lost territory (33:13) while the EU eyes frozen Russian assets (37:04); Argentina’s Milei seeks a U.S. bailout (39:51); Washington considers strikes inside Venezuela (42:51); and Pete Hegseth’s generals’ rally falls flat as Trump muses about usi

Paris Marx is joined by Tina Nguyen to discuss the divisions within the American far-right between the Trump administration, the wider MAGA movement, and the tech executives trying to show they’re on their side. Tina Nguyen is a senior reporter at The Verge and author of The MAGA Diaries: My Surreal Adventures Inside the Right-Wing (And How I Got Out).Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

For the Senate Democrats this is a big week for defiance. At last they are making popular demands as part of a deal to pass a budget and avoid a government shutdown. But Trump still holds a lot of cards. Harold Meyerson will comment.Also: None of us were prepared for the double whammy of last week's White House press conference, where Trump made false claims not only about vaccines, but also about Tylenol causing autism. We’ll have analysis from Gregg Gonsalves. He teaches at the Yale School of Public Health; he's been an AIDS activist for 30 years; and he's also a MacArthur Fellow -- class of 2018. And he's The Nation's public health correspondent. Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Don't forget to ⁠vote for American Prestige ⁠in the Signal Awards!Danny welcomes to the show journalist and historian Garrett Graff, host of the podcast Long Shadow. They talk about the show’s latest season on the internet, tracing how its promise of democratization and liberation devolved into an engine of polarization and conspiracies. Topics include: Facebook’s cynical algorithmic choices, Watergate’s enduring influence on American political culture, the economic wreckage of deindustrialization and deregulation, the rise of Trumpism as a “burn it down” vote, and the coming AI disruption that threatens white-collar work.Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

For over 50 years, Bob Woodward has had an uncanny ability to get sources talking—and to sell books. From Watergate to Trump, no political era has gone by without at least one Woodward tome promising to peel back the curtain on how Washington really works. Now, Woodward is out with his latest, the bluntly titled “War.” It’s billed as a look at the end of the Joe Biden presidency and beginning of the second Trump era. But what it really shows is what happens when a reporter evolves from a muckraker into a reputation-launderer for the establishment.Joining us on the podcast today is Matt Duss, executive vice president of the Center for International Policy and former foreign policy adviser to Bernie Sanders. Duss’s review of War is in the October books issue of the Nation. Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

The United States continues to be roiled by political violence, with the recent shooting at an ICEfacility in Dallas coming hot on the heels of the assassination of Charlie Kirk and a schoolshooting in Colorado committed by a neo-Nazi. Some of the best reporting on these events hasbeen done by Ken Klippenstein for his Substack. I spoke with Ken about what he’s discoveredwhen he interviewed those who knew the alleged shooters, how his findings go against thesimplistic partisan interpretations offered by both the left and right, as well as the dangerousways the Trump administration is using the shootings for a crackdown on civil liberties.Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In this episode of A People’s Climate, Shilpi Chhotray sits down with Diane Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimper and relentless environmental activist, to explore her decades-long fight against Formosa Plastics—a $250 billion petrochemical giant polluting the Texas Gulf Coast. From hunger strikes to scaling the White House fence, Diane’s unwavering activism has not only won a historic $50 million settlement, but transformed her community’s fisheries and galvanized citizen-led environmental justice. Her story is a masterclass in persistence, civil disobedience, and the power of ordinary people to create extraordinary change.Learn more at apeoplesclimate.org Resources:- Diane Wilson- Nurdle Patrol- CODEPINK- Texas Jail ProjectPresented by Counterstream Media and The NationPowered by Wildseeds FundOur Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek speak with historian Gretchen Heefner about how the US military (unsuccessfully) set out to conquer extreme environments and what those efforts reveal about empire, climate, and power. They discuss the US Army training for a desert war that turned out to be mud, the Pentagon’s disastrous attempts to master Greenland’s ice, early blueprints for building on the moon, efforts to gather “environmental intelligence” across the globe, and other failed endeavors showing the limits of American military power.Read Gretchen’s book Sand, Snow, and Stardust: How U.S. Military Engineers Conquered Extreme Environments now!Our Sponsors:* this is a paid advertisement from BetterHelp. Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Paris Marx is joined by Ed Niedermeyer to discuss the mission to turn Elon Musk into the world’s first trillionaire, Tesla’s growing interest in making robots instead of cars, and how other automakers are coming for the EV market it once dominated.Ed Niedermeyer is the author of ⁠Ludicrous⁠ and co-host of the ⁠Autonocast⁠.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Trump is trying to block speech that criticizes him. Last week began with JD Vance complaining about an article in The Nation that criticized the ideas of Charlie Kirk. Two days after that, ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel. And a few days after that, a protest movement forced ABC to put him back on the air. Bhaskar Sunkara comments on the fight over freedom of speech - he's president of The Nation Magazine.Also: Attacking Harvard is not unique to Trump -- for decades, indeed for centuries, American politicians have made hay by going after Harvard. Historian Beverely Gage talks about what’s familiar, and what’s new, in Trump’s efforts – based on a reconsideration of Richard Hofstadter’s classic 1963 book “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life.”Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek once again speak with historian Greg Grandin about his recent book, America, América: A New History of the New World. In this second part of the conversation, they follow US–Latin American relations from the American Civil War through the present. The discussion covers the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the contradictions of U.S. expansion cloaked in the language of human rights, the Mexican Revolution as a defining challenge to US power, Woodrow Wilson’s and FDR’s occupations and the Good Neighbor Policy, the Cold War, the neoliberal turn, the endurance of social movements in the face of American-backed violence, and why contemporary Latin American politics still display revolutionary undercurrents.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Donald Trump and his MAGA movement haven’t just taken over Republican politics. They’ve also taken over Republican fashion.Gone is the stuffy, genteel uniform of the elite. In its place: a loud, anti-establishment, even vulgar sartorial agenda. But what does this style actually say about MAGA politics? What do these clothes suggest about the authenticity of the movement’s leaders—especially when so many of Trump’s policies remain old-school conservative? And what messages do these looks send when their words often mean something else entirely?To help us unpack the fashion evolution of the political establishment, we’re joined by Derek Guy—better known online as the Menswear Guy and creator of the blog Die Workwear!Derek has written for The New York Times, the Financial Times, and other outlets. His essay, “From Blazers to Belligerence,” appears in the October books issue of The Nation.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivac

Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, has often been profiled in the media, but usually in a superficial way that focuses on her personality and disputes with fellow journalists. She is currently on the cusp of great power, reportedly working on a deal to sell The Free Press and take a senior position at CBS. David Klion, Nation columnist and frequent guest on the podcast, has written an exceptionally trenchant analysis for The Guardian of Weiss’s politics and the way they align with the Trump administration’s war on critical voices. I was pleased to talk to David about Weiss’s career and how she has used her influence as an ideological enforcer, one that has the support of many wealthy patrons and powerful political allies.Our Sponsors:* Check out BetterHelp: https://betterhelp.com/THENATIONAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Derek is joined once again by guest co-host Alex Jordan to bring you the news. This week: in Israel-Palestine, Israel commences its ground operation in Gaza City (1:50), a UN commission rules that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza (8:14), and Netanyahu touts a “Sparta” model for Israel while Smotrich talks Gaza real estate (9:39); fallout from Israel’s strike in Qatar continues (15:04); nuclear talks between Iran and European nations make little progress (20:39); India’s Maoist rebels suspend their insurgency (23:28); Nepal elects a new interim prime minister via Discord (25:52); the US and China produce a “framework” for the TikTok sale (28:32); Australia commits billions to its AUKUS submarine investment (30:58); the RSF in Sudan advances on Al-Fashir (34:04); Libya’s Tripoli-based government cuts a deal with a hostile faction (37:30); the US and EU clash over Russia sanctions (40:49); the US admits to blowing up at least one more Venezuelan boat (47:32); Trump decertifies Colombia as a drug war partner

“A People’s Climate” is a new climate podcast by Counterstream Media and The Nation. Hosted by Shilpi Chhotray. This isn’t climate talk as usual. This is environmental justice. Over nine powerful episodes, we bring together activists, organizers, and movement leaders who are fighting on the frontlines. Every conversation reveals not only why the fight matters, but how communities are already putting solutions into practice and power back in the hands of the people. The future we need is being built from the ground up. Not by corporations. Not by billionaires. By us. The people demanding justice, reclaiming power, and rebuilding what’s been broken.New episodes every Saturday starting Sept 27, 2025.Learn more at apeoplesclimate.org Presented by Counterstream Media and The NationPowered by Wildseeds FundAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

In suburban DC, southern Pennsylvania and Iowa, Democrats have won special elections by significant margins – and the polls for this year’s upcoming elections for mayor in New York City, governor in Virginia, and redistricting in California show Democrats well ahead. Also: J.D. Vance attacks The Nation. John Nichols comments.Also: Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT and one of our leading progressives, explains “Why Fascists Hate Teachers” – the title of her new book.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Danny and Derek welcome back historian Greg Grandin to talk about his recent book, America, América: A New History of the New World. In this first part of the discussion, they explore how the Spanish conquest produced unprecedented violence while also sparking debates about human rights, the role of Bartolomé de las Casas and the Salamanca School, how English settlers dealt with their own brutality, and the emergence of social democracy in Latin America. They also discuss the Monroe Doctrine, the Panama Congress, and the Mexican-American War as early flashpoints in US–Latin American relations.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s high-profile labor minister, has managed a tightrope walk unthinkable in the country’s recent history. Much to the astonishment of her critics, she’s mitigated inflation while staving off the far right and delivering material improvements for the people of Spain.Can her model of leadership and reform be adopted by a broader leftist international movement, as she hopes?Labor journalist Sarah Jaffe wrote about Díaz in the latest issue of The Nation and joins us to discuss these questions. Shortly after we recorded this episode, the Spanish parliament shelved Díaz's proposal to shorten the workweek by two and a half hours.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Matt Duss, vice-president of the Center for International Policy, wrote an excellent review for The Nation of Bob Woodward’s book War, which is a celebration of Joe Biden as a foreign policy sage. Duss is rightly skeptical of the book. We discuss Biden’s actual record on Ukraine and especially Gaza. Matt’s essay on this topic for Foreign Policy is also worth reading.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy