The Vast Majority, a Podcast from Jacobin

By
Micah Uetricht

The Vast Majority is hosted by managing editor Micah Uetricht.

The Left is on the rise in the United States and around the world; I’ll be talking with writers and organizers about the key issues that rising left is facing.

The plan for the podcast is pretty simple: I’ll interview writers from Jacobin and our sister publications like Catalyst and Tribune about their articles (as well as socialist organizers and whoever else I feel like interviewing) in short, conversational episodes once a week.

“The Socialist Case for Open Borders” with Suzy Lee

May 28, 2019: Apple • Blubrry • Stitcher

What should the Left say about borders? Free flow of people across borders has always been a key topic for leftists, perhaps never more so than right now — especially given the realities of climate change. Some on the Left advance a maximalist demand of completely open borders; others (including, recently, Sen. Bernie Sanders) argue that social-democratic policies like Medicare for All require some restriction on the flow of people who can enter a country and access those goods.

Suzy Lee is no fan of the latter argument. In “The Case for Open Borders” in the Winter 2019 issue of our journal Catalyst, she argues that the Left can’t give any credence to restrictionist arguments by accepting the need to restrict people from entering the US or any other country.

Further reading:

“Socialism: The Movie” with Yael Bridge

May 20, 2019: Apple • Blubrry • Stitcher

Yael Bridge is one of the filmmakers behind the forthcoming documentary Socialism: An American Story. She talks with Micah about what she’s trying to do with the film as well as her own transformation from a liberal into a socialist through the Bernie Sanders campaign.

Learn more at the Socialism: An American Story kickstarter page.

“Chicago’s Socialist Surge” with Carlos Ramirez-Rosa

May 14, 2019: Apple • Blubrry • Stitcher

Chicago recently made international headlines for the victories of six — six!! — members of the Democratic Socialists of America running for city council. It’s an astonishing victory, the biggest socialist victory in any American city in probably a century.

These victories matter both for Chicago, which has seen growing working-class pushback to neoliberalism in recent years, but also for socialist organizers in cities around the country, who can learn from how Chicago won so many elections on a left platform.

One of the six victors in the April elections was Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, who represents Chicago’s 35th Ward, a gentrifying area on the city’s northwest side. Carlos was the only incumbent socialist city council member (or “alderman”); despite being attacked repeatedly by the area’s wealthy real-estate developers, he won re-election comfortably.

Further Reading:

“Bernie Sanders Wants You to Fight” with Meagan Day

May 7, 2019: Apple • Blubrry • Stitcher

If we want to transform the United States in a socialist direction, we’re going to need to do much more than elect Bernie Sanders as president. Nobody harps on this point more than Bernie himself. You can see it in his “not me, us” campaign slogan, or his emphasis in stump speeches on how massive industries like health insurance companies would mobilize against Medicare for All. President Bernie couldn’t do much without a mass working-class movement at his back.

But that doesn’t mean that such a movement and the Sanders campaign are two separate things — Bernie’s campaign can help and has already helped bring those movements into being. Micah talks with Jacobin staff writer Meagan Day about it.

Further Reading:

“The Socialist Manifesto” with Bhaskar Sunkara

April 30, 2019: Apple • Blubrry • Stitcher

It’s the first episode of The Vast Majority, which will be bringing you conversations on American and international politics from a socialist perspective. So who better to have on than Bhaskar Sunkara, Jacobin’s editor, publisher, and founder. Bhaskar is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality, which is out today, April 30. Micah talked to Bhaskar about the state of the socialist movement, socialism’s relationship to liberalism and markets, and Bhaskar’s utopian vision of a Buffalo Wild Wings on every corner.

Further Reading: