Podcast / American Prestige / Dec 30, 2025

Masculinity, the Manosphere, and Climate Politics

On this episode of American Prestige: Daniel Waite Penny discusses the new season of Carbon Bros.

The Nation Podcasts
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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.

Masculinity, the Manosphere, and Climate Politics w/ Daniel Waite Penny | American Prestige
byThe Nation Magazine

Danny and Derek speak with journalist and cultural critic Daniel Waite Penny to discuss the relationship between masculinity, the manosphere, and climate politics, as explored in the new season of Drilled, Carbon Bros. They talk about the “manosphere,” libertarians promoting techno-fixes, and Silicon Valley elites pushing solutions like space colonization; how gendered ideas about strength, autonomy, and grievance have fused with climate denial and hostility toward environmental regulation; where these dynamics fit within broader shifts in political economy and the interests of fossil capital; and the roots of these alignments, their role in contemporary right-wing politics, and what they mean for efforts to build public support for climate action.

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Pumpjacks lift oil from wells at the Midway-Sunset Oil Field, California’s largest, in Fellows, near Taft, on October 17, 2025.

(Robyn Beck / AFP via Getty Images)

Danny and Derek speak with journalist and cultural critic Daniel Waite Penny to discuss the relationship between masculinity, the manosphere, and climate politics, as explored in the new season of Drilled, Carbon Bros. They talk about the “manosphere,” libertarians promoting techno-fixes; Silicon Valley elites pushing solutions like space colonization; how gendered ideas about strength, autonomy, and grievance have fused with climate denial and hostility toward environmental regulation; where these dynamics fit within broader shifts in political economy and the interests of fossil capital; the roots of these alignments, their role in contemporary right-wing politics, and what they mean for efforts to build public support for climate action.

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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.

Special – International Law and the War on Iran w/ Maryam Jamshidi | American Prestige
byThe Nation Magazine

Derek welcomes back legal scholar Maryam Jamshidi to discuss the legal aspect of the U.S.–Israel war on Iran. They talk about the administration’s shifting legal justifications, why the administration’s claims about Iranian threats and nuclear weapons fail under international law, the legal limits of self-defense, how the conflict fits within the laws of war, and the broader humanitarian and political consequences of the war for Iranian civilians and the country’s future.

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Daniel Bessner

Daniel Bessner is an historian of US foreign relations, and cohost of American Prestige, a podcast on international affairs.

Derek Davison

Derek Davison is a writer and analyst specializing in international affairs and US foreign policy. He is the publisher of the Foreign Exchanges newsletter, cohost of the American Prestige podcast, and former editor of LobeLog.

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