Dissent Magazine

Matt and Sam answer listener questions about post-Trump politics, the meaning of Zohran Mamdani, the fate of liberalism, and more.

Online sports gambling has been normalized at a breakneck pace. Is there any way to push back against a predatory culture of promo codes and prop bets?

While the case that resulted in the conviction of fifty-one men for the rape of Gisèle Pelicot last year was extraordinary, it is continuous with other forms of sexual violence.

The success of Organize NYC, a new initiative designed to bring a grassroots base into the guts of the governing process, will have implications for the left outside the five boroughs.

The defeat of Viktor Orbán wasn’t primarily driven by anger over the dismantling of liberal democracy. But the new government could serve as a positive example for others working to reverse democratic backsliding.

Matt and Sam discuss Peter Thiel’s lectures on the Antichrist and what they reveal about his politics and this political moment.

The borough’s arson wave in the 1970s was caused by financial forces and political priorities that continue to hold power in New York City.

The alleged sexual violence committed by Cesar Chavez cannot be understood as the failing of a single charismatic leader. It unfolded within a patterned system of organizational control over UFW members.

Progressives need to ground international commitments to democratic accountability at home and engage with social movements abroad. Few political figures have articulated this as clearly as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Matt and Sam are joined by Molly Crabapple to discuss her new book, Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund.

A live podcast event.

How did a society segregated by caste, class, and religion become an egalitarian community?

The war with Iran will not produce a freer or more democratic country.

An interview with Kathi Weeks.

The “middle powers” can band together to chart a third way between authoritarian superpowers in Washington and Beijing.

The real scandal of the Epstein saga is not that a billionaire cabal runs the world. It’s that there is a billionaire class.

Matt and Sam talk to Bill Kristol about his journey from neoconservative thought leader to anti-Trump liberal.

The fact that the war in Iran has proven so shocking to both Trump’s base and the broader commentariat reflects how distorted the popular view of Trump and MAGA has become.

Anne Hidalgo’s mayoralty illustrates the limits of local responses to national and international problems like housing and climate change. Without wider coordination, even the most successful mayor’s reach can only extend so far.

The protests and repression that preceded the U.S.–Israeli bombing campaign exposed both the fragility of the Iranian governing elite and the organizational weakness of Iranian civil society—dynamics that will continue to shape the country in the months to come.

Matt and Sam talk to Matt Duss, a leading foreign policy expert on the left, about the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran.

The end of the twentieth century left rural America shell-shocked, and residents reacted accordingly.

A letter to the editor.

Hannah Spencer’s victory in a UK parliamentary by-election is a major win for the Green Party, which aims to build a viable left-populist alternative to Reform UK and Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

Policy debates around public lands point to larger unresolved questions about the nature and function of the public trust. What should we do with this national resource at a moment of major transition?

Matt and Sam talk to writer Pedro L. Gonzalez about his break with MAGA and the New Right.

A discussion between Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, Nikhil Pal Singh, and Chris Maisano.

Brian Goldstone’s There Is No Place for Us challenges the widespread public perception of homelessness as a reflection of individual choices, but it also looks beyond the assumption that soaring home and rental prices alone are driving the crisis.

The Garland Fund was not a typical foundation, but its history shows the potential role philanthropy can play in moments of rising authoritarianism—and the tensions inherent in that role.

For decades, national policies have compelled states to pare back eligibility and benefits for social programs. Under Trump, federal austerity has become a tool to punish political enemies.

Matt and Sam talk to Jason Zengerle about his new book, Hated by All the Right People: Tucker Carlson and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind.

The pragmatism of the Milwaukee socialists was inseparable from the international world of socialism that they inhabited and helped to shape.

A response to “The Demise of Conflict Studies” from our winter issue, followed by a reply by the authors.

I am never the first person to arrive at an ICE raid. I am never the last person to leave.

The author of Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist and other biographies, Nick Salvatore leaves behind a rich legacy that both challenges and inspires us at this historical moment.

Matt and Sam discuss Venezuela, Greenland, and the “Donroe Doctrine” with the Progressive International’s David Adler and Matt Kirkegaard.

An entire industry specializing in mediation, peacekeeping, disarmament, and transitional justice has become largely obsolete.

The success of Zohran’s agenda will depend on an ambitious digital strategy that transcends social media performance.

After MAGA, the left will need to be ready with a theory of how to rebuild the federal administrative state—not as it was before Trump, but as something better.

Matt and Sam talk to Robert Draper about his reporting from the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and how the Republican Party “lost its mind” in the months that followed.

Americans tend to imagine that aversion to taxation is deeply rooted in our national political culture. Not so fast, Vanessa S. Williamson argues in her new book, The Price of Democracy.

Mike Wallace’s Gotham at War offers a guidebook to a half-vanished city, and brings to life the immense human drama that unfolded in New York during the Second World War.

While the introduction of robotics at Amazon is still in an early phase, the technological transformation underway continues existing practices of work intensification, degradation, and displacement.

Labor unions have long been central to the fight for democracy. But they can only play that role when members are engaged and trust their unions to fight for them.

Passenger rail is being remade as a luxury lifestyle product—suggesting the problem isn’t trains, but the indignity of using them when they are so badly run.

Zohran Mamdani’s successes and failures will shape how people around the country think about the viability of a socialist program, and whether socialists are capable of enacting it.

For years, Venezuelans have been trapped between two rogue states, with many reduced to hoping that one could solve the problem of the other. But it is the Venezuelan people who should decide how Venezuela is governed, and by whom.

Our most read articles this year.

A conversation with Kate Wagner about Trump’s White House ballroom project and the politics of architecture.

To expand child care, New York needs more space, more caregivers, and more government workers. It can only happen if the city works closely with existing (and aspiring) providers.