On American Prestige: The Gilded Age star has some things to say.
Morgan Spector on The Tonight Show on Wednesday, July 30, 2025(Todd Owyoung / NBC via Getty Images)
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Danny and Derek welcome actor Morgan Spector (The Gilded Age, The Plot Against America) to the show for a conversation on politics, Hollywood, and capitalism. They trace his political development from the Iraq War and Obama era to Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism, discuss his documentary The Big Scary “S” Word, and reflect on how Hollywood politics skew liberal but not radical (particularly when it comes to Palestine). They also explore Spector’s role as a Gilded Age robber baron, how today’s tech oligarchs compare with the 19th century’s builders, and the need for a new political vision in the age of financialization, AI, and the climate crisis.
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Danny and Derek welcome actor Morgan Spector (The Gilded Age, The Plot Against America) to the show for a conversation on politics, Hollywood, and capitalism. They trace his political development from the Iraq War and Obama era to Bernie Sanders and democratic socialism, discuss his documentary The Big Scary “S” Word, and reflect on how Hollywood politics skew liberal but not radical (particularly when it comes to Palestine). They also explore Spector’s role as a Gilded Age robber baron, how today’s tech oligarchs compare with the 19th century’s builders, and the need for a new political vision in the age of financialization, AI, and the climate crisis.
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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.
Danny and Derek welcome to the show Oren Ziv to talk about Israeli settlement expansion and political changes in the West Bank. They discuss the legal and political structure of Areas A, B, and C; the proliferation of settler outposts; displacement of Palestinian communities; state support for settlers; Bezalel Smotrich’s sovereignty plan; new settlement approvals; the weakening of the Palestinian Authority; and potential future scenarios for the territory.
Read Oren’s article in The Nation, “Erasing the Lines.”
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Daniel BessnerTwitterDaniel Bessner is an historian of US foreign relations, and cohost of American Prestige, a podcast on international affairs.
Derek DavisonDerek 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.