Aufhebunga Bunga

• Jennie Bristow, senior lecturer in sociology at Canterbury Christ Church University
• Helen Andrews, senior editor at The American Conservative
• Josh Glenn, semiotician, author, and publisher of HiLoBrow
• Jeffrey Alexander, professor of sociology at Yale University
• Holger Nehring, chair in contemporary European history at the University of Stirling
• Kristin Ross, professor emeritus of comparative literature at New York University

• Medité / A Change in My Heart / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
• Ondolut / Blumen / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
• Elliott Holmes / Bull Chase / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
• Kick Castle / Kick Down / courtesy of epidemicsound.com
• T. Morri / Nuthin' but Nuts / courtesy of epidemicsound.com

• American Pastoral Trailer © 2016 - Lionsgate
• Mai 1968 © France 3 Paris Ile-de-France
• Imitation de Daniel Cohn-Bendit © C'est Canteloup
• Baader Meinhof Complex © 2008

On lockdowns, education, and the left.

California middle-school teacher and social critic Alex Gutentag (@galexybrane) joins us to talk about the depredations of lockdown in California and the wider world.

How has lockdown affected different segments of society, and how damaging have school closures been on education? Why has the professional middle class been so in favour of widespread restrictions – and how did the left go from backing Medicare 4 All to cheering on lockdowns in the space of a few months?

Readings:

• The War on Reality, Alex Gutentag, The Tablet  
• The Great Covid Class War, Alex Gutentag, The Bellows

On cash welfarism and state investment. Plus regionalism in Belgium & the UK.

Anton Jäger is back on the pod to discuss the emerging 'transfer state'. We examine Biden's massive trillion-dollar spending plans and ask if this means we're leaving neoliberalism. What are the limitations to the 'cashification of welfare'? Also comparisons with cash transfers or lack thereof in the UK, Brazil and Belgium.

Plus Anton talks us through recent Belgian history and why its immobilism and bureaucracy has actually prevented a full-on neoliberal assault. 

[Part 2 available at patreon.com/bungacast]

Readings:

• “Welfare without the welfare state”: the death of the postwar welfarist consensus, Anton Jäger & Daniel Zamora, New Statesman
• Joe Biden Is a Transformational President, David Brooks, NYT

• Virtue Hoarders: The Case Against the Professional-Managerial Class, Catherine Liu, University of Minnesota Press, 2021
• Moral Minoritarianism from the Ashes of Left Populism, George Hoare, Damage
• Saving Britain's Universities report, Lee Jones & Phillip Cunliffe, Cieo

On American breakdown.

Editor of Damage Magazine, Benjamin Fong, joins us to talk about the lack of shared narratives in contemporary America. We discuss QAnon and conspiracy theories, Biden's authoritarian liberalism, and "pro-worker" conservatives. 

We also interrogate the use of psychological analyses of politics and reaffirm the value of psychoanalysis, in a preview of a more detailed forthcoming discussion on our patreon.

Readings:

• The Siren Song of “Pro-Worker” Conservatism, Benjamin Fong & Dustin Guastella, Jacobin
• Unpacking the Left's Culture Baggage, Benjamin Fong, Damage
• Therapy Without Therapists, Briana Last, Damage

On the Biden administration and Trumpist reaction.  

We discuss the riot at the US Capitol and why it was not a (failed) coup attempt. How serious was the event, and what next for Trumpist reaction - will it lead to a split in the Republican Party?

Our guests - journalist Amber Frost and political science academic Daniel Bessner - help us preview what the Biden administration has in store for the US. With Democratic control of both houses, it should be able to pass legislation - but does it have any substantial plans to do so? In foreign policy, we can expect more foreign adventurism and at home, an ominous anti-domestic terrorism bill. Does the alliance of the Democrats with an increasingly domineering Silicon Valley signal the coming-out moment of authoritarian liberalism?

Readings:

• Riot on the Hill, Mike Davis, NLR Sidecar blog
• Render unto Ourselves, What is Ours—or Caesar Will Seize It, Alex Hochuli, Damage
• What Experts on Extremism Want From the Biden Administration, James D Walsh, NYMag
  
• Morbid Symptoms Can Persist for a Long Time, Barry Eidlin, Jacobin
  
• Violence in the Capitol, Dangers in the Aftermath, Glenn Greenwald, Substack
• The revenge of the blob, Alex Ward, Vox
  

On the US election, a huge turnout and the end of Trump.

We survey the results of the presidential and legislative elections, peer through the exit polls and discuss some counterintuitive facts: Florida goes Trump but opts for a $15 minimum wage; California goes Biden while Uber gets its way; Trump did protectionism but it didn't help him win the Rustbelt; the Republicans win over more Latinos – but do Latinos even exist?

And the big questions: Will Biden and the Democrats have any authority now that they don't have anti-Trumpism to drive them? Is a Biden administration to be a Silicon Valley dictatorship? And will the GOP be Trumpism without Trump?

Readings:

• Are the Democrats losing on purpose? Amber Frost & Daniel Bessner, Jacobin

• We Don’t Live in Weimar Germany, David Broder, Jacobin
• The Trap The Democrats Walked Right Into, Andrew Sullivan
• The End of Anti-Fascism, David Broder, Jacobin
• What Is Trump?, Dylan Riley, NLR

On the Covid election. 

Full episode is for subscribers only. Sign up at patreon.com/bungacast 

On the Covid election. 

• We Don’t Live in Weimar Germany, David Broder, Jacobin
• The Trap The Democrats Walked Right Into, Andrew Sullivan
• The End of Anti-Fascism, David Broder, Jacobin
• What Is Trump?, Dylan Riley, NLR

On political decline and realignment.

The editor of American Affairs joins us to discuss the decay of conservatism and we ask whether this decay doesn't apply to other parts of the political spectrum too. Is today's 'class struggle' really just between the upper-middle class and the elite? And we discuss the 'late-Soviet' USA - the sense of decline embodied in the gerontocracy of the ruling class. 

Readings:

• The Real Class War, Julius Krein, American Affairs
• America’s Unhealthy Gerontocracy, Julius Krein, American Affairs
• Conservatism Is A Collection Of Losers. It Doesn’t Have To Be. Julius Krein, The American Conservative

• Conservatives’ grip on ‘red wall’ holding firm, Sebastian Payne, FT
• Lawmakers ‘Alarmed’ by Reports U.S. Envoy Told Brazil It Could Help Re-elect Trump, Ernesto Londoño, Manuela Andreoni and Letícia Casado, NYT
• “Imagine the damage a president could cause”: What would happen if Trump refused defeat?, Emily Tamkin, New Statesman

• The Triumph of Black Lives Matter and Neoliberal Redemption, Cedric Johnson, NonSite
• ‘As soon as I saw the slaveowner’s statue being toppled in Bristol, I knew the real anti-racism protest was OVER’, Lisa McKenzie, RT
• The Triumph of American Idealism, Alex Hochuli, Damage
• Alex's additional notes on his blog