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Iran is facing upheavals at home and abroad. For more than two decades, the Islamic Republic has faced waves of protests from citizens demanding a more democratic society. Over the past two weeks, these protests have erupted with a new ferocity and are being met with violent repression. Meanwhile, the Israeli government is pushing the United States to renew bombing Iran, a military objective now being given the guise of a humanitarian mission. To discuss the turmoil in Iran and place it in the larger context of regional instability and competing visions of the future of the Middle East, I spoke with Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at The Quincy Institute who studies the region, in this special Friday edition of the podcast.
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Although only formed in 2021, Moms for Liberty, a group agitating for reactionary policies in schools, is already a major player in national politics. Republican presidential hopefuls like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are eager to speak at the group’s convention. Moms for Liberty is also receiving generous profiles in major media outlets like The New York Times.
As my Nation colleague Chris Lehmann notes in a recent column, such profiles tend to whitewash Moms for Liberty, falsely portraying it as a grassroots organization and ignoring its bigoted agenda and ties to the institutional right. On this episode of The Time of Monsters, we talk about the true nature of Moms for Liberty, as well as the way anti-trans agitation is remaking politics. In the discussion, we reference this earlier conversation I had with the historian Rick Perlstein about the deep roots of right-wing agitation over education.