On this episode of Start Making Sense, the author of Hope in the Dark looks ahead, and Danny Goldberg explains how the Rodney King riots led to greater control of the LAPD.
Protesters rally during the “No Kings” national day of protest in Los Angeles, California on October 18, 2025.(Frederic J. Brown / AFP via Getty Images)
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No Kings Day on Oct. 18 was the largest peaceful protest in American history. Rebecca Solnit comments, and refutes Republican statements about violence on the left. Her most recent book is “Orwell’s Roses.”
Also: the fight to control the LA police: a decades long effort that culminated in 1992, after the Rodney King riots, when longtime police chief Darryl Gates was forced out. Danny Goldberg comments – at the time he was board chair of the ACLU of Southern California Foundation, and his new book is “Liberals With Attitude.”
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No Kings Day on October 18 was the largest peaceful protest in American history. Rebecca Solnit comments, and refutes Republican statements about violence on the left. Her most recent book is Orwell’s Roses.
Also: the fight to control the LA police: a decades long effort that culminated in 1992, after the Rodney King riots, when longtime police chief Darryl Gates was forced out. Danny Goldberg comments—at the time, he was board chair of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, and his new book is Liberals With Attitude.
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Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.
Is the resistance to data centers a new kind of mass politics? David Wallace-Wells explains why the answer is “yes.” He’s a writer for The New York Times Opinion pages and author of the unforgettable book “The Uninhabitable Earth.”
Also: How to be a dissident in an age of fear – Ami Fields-Meyer has thought a lot about that. For starters: don’t start from scratch; don’t try to do it alone. Ami is co-author of the new book “On Courage.”
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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.