Podcast / The Time of Monsters / Jan 5, 2025

The Paranoid Style of David Samuels

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, David Klion and Matt Duss on a popular right-wing fabulist.

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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.

The Paranoid Style of David Samuels | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

On this episode of The Time of Monsters, David Klion and Matt Duss on a popular right-wing fabulist.

Has former president Barack Obama secretly been running the American elite — including the media and wide parts of the government — for nearly 20 years? Has he been doing so on behalf of a subversive agenda to empower Iran and undermine American exceptionalism? That’s the argument made by David Samuels in a much-read piece in The Tablet

On this episode, I dissect Samuels arguments with two friends of the podcast, David Klion and Matt Duss. We not only look at the problems with Samuels’s reactionary fable, but also take up why it is so popular on the right and even draws on conspiratorial ideas that have a wider purchase among centrists and conservative liberals.

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President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama

(Evan Vucci, Pool / AP Photo)

Has former president Barack Obama secretly been running the American elite—including the media and wide parts of the government—for nearly 20 years? Has he been doing so on behalf of a subversive agenda to empower Iran and undermine American exceptionalism? That’s the argument made by David Samuels in a much-read piece in The Tablet

On this episode, I dissect Samuels‘s arguments with two friends of the podcast, David Klion and Matt Duss. We not only look at the problems with Samuel’s reactionary fable but also take up why it is so popular on the right and even draws on conspiratorial ideas that have a wider purchase among centrists and conservative liberals.

The Nation Podcasts
The Nation Podcasts

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.

The Perils and Promise of Trump’s Middle East Gamble | The Time of Monsters with Jeet Heer
byThe Nation Magazine

On his latest trip to the Middle East, Donald Trump is making big news. He’s indicating a receptiveness to making a deal with Iran trading normalization for nuclear non-proliferation. He ended the bombing campaign against Yemen and is also pushing for normalization with Syria. Further, the White House has sidestepped Israel in order to have direct talks with Hamas. These moves have angered some hawks in the GOP as well as the Israeli government. But will Trump’s attempt to shift America’s policy in the Middle East pay off, especially given his record of erratic attention to details and sudden shifts in direction?  To assess the situation I spoke with Trita Parsi of The Quincy Institute, who recently wrote about these matters for The American Conservative

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Jeet Heer

Jeet Heer is a national affairs correspondent for The Nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, The Time of Monsters. He also pens the monthly column “Morbid Symptoms.” The author of In Love with Art: Francoise Mouly’s Adventures in Comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: Reviews, Essays and Profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American Prospect, The GuardianThe New Republic, and The Boston Globe.

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