Podcasts about right wing studies

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with Hilary Rantisi, one of FMEP's 2025 non-resident Fellows. They discuss Hilary's work as a longtime educator seeking to teach the critique of power, her childhood and many years living in the West Bank, and how she understands the dynamics of the current moment in the context of Palestinian history and identity, highlighting the Palestinian values of sumud - steadfastness - and return. Hilary also discusses the challenges of false accusations of antisemitism undermining the telling of Palestinian lived experience, such as by the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which weaponizes accusations of antisemitism to quash critique of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights. Resources discussed in this podcast:  FMEP resources on the IHRA definition of antisemitism: Challenging the IHRA Definition of Antisemitism – Expert Views & Resources: https://lawfare.fmep.org/resources/challenging-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism/ Lawfare/IHRA - Targeting Academia: https://lawfare.fmep.org/resources/lawfare-ihra-targeting-academia/ The IHRA Definition & the Fight Against Antisemitism: A Webinar/Podcast Series: https://fmep.org/resource/the-ihra-definition-the-fight-against-antisemitism-a-webinar-series/ Hilary Rantisi grew up in Palestine and has been involved with education and advocacy on the Middle East since her move to the US. She is currently the Associate Director of the Religion, Conflict and Peace Initiative (RCPI) and co-instructor of Learning in Context: Narratives of Displacement and Belonging in Israel/Palestine at Harvard Divinity School. She has over two decades of experience in institution building at Harvard, having been the Director of the Middle East Initiative (MEI) at Harvard Kennedy School of Government prior to her current role. She has a BA in Political Science/International Studies from Aurora University and a master's degree in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Chicago. Before moving to the US, Hilary worked at Birzeit University and at the Jerusalem-based Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center. There, she co-edited a photo essay book Our Story: The Palestinians with the Rev. Naim Ateek. She has been involved with community leadership efforts and served on many boards to build multifaceted support for Palestinian rights and a more nuanced understanding of people's lives in the Middle East region, including the Gaza Mental Health Foundation, LE.O Foundation, Friends of Mada al-Carmel, Tawassul Palestinian Art and Culture Society, Friends of Sabeel North America, Palestine Program for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University and Research and Education Collaborative with Al-Quds University. Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD, is FMEP's Director of Programs & Partnerships. She is an expert on the intersection between Israeli civil society and Palestinian civil rights and human rights advocacy as well as the ways that Jewish Americans approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She leads FMEP's programming, works to deepen FMEP's relationships with existing and potential grantees, and builds relationships with new partners in the philanthropic community. A graduate of Yale University, Sarah Anne earned her doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley and is an affiliated faculty member at UC-Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

American Friends Service Committee's Amy Gottlieb: As Mass Deportation Begins, Immigrant Rights Groups Organize ResistanceUniversity of California Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies' Lawrence Rosenthal: Trump's Pardon of 1,500 Jan 6 insurrectionists: An Endorsement of Right-Wing Domestic TerrorismPublic Citizen's Lisa Gilbert: Trump-Musk ‘Government Efficiency' Advisory Group Sued for Lack of TransparencyBob Nixon's Under-reported News Summary• Elon Musk endorses German far right party• United Healthcare reports $35 billion in profits• Embattled NYC Mayor Eric Adams attends Trump inaugurationVisit our website at BTLonline.org for more information, in-depth interviews, related links, transcripts and subscribe to our BTL Weekly Summary and/or podcasts. New episodes every Wednesday at 12 noon ET, website updated Wednesdays after 4 p.m. ETProduced by Squeaky Wheel Productions: Scott Harris, Melinda Tuhus, Bob Nixon, Anna Manzo, Susan Bramhall, Jeff Yates and Mary Hunt. Theme music by Richard Hill and Mikata.

American Friends Service Committee's Amy Gottlieb: As Mass Deportation Begins, Immigrant Rights Groups Organize ResistanceUniversity of California Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies' Lawrence Rosenthal: Trump's Pardon of 1,500 Jan 6 insurrectionists: An Endorsement of Right-Wing Domestic TerrorismPublic Citizen's Lisa Gilbert: Trump-Musk ‘Government Efficiency' Advisory Group Sued for Lack of TransparencyBob Nixon's Under-reported News Summary• Elon Musk endorses German far right party• United Healthcare reports $35 billion in profits• Embattled NYC Mayor Eric Adams attends Trump inaugurationVisit our website at BTLonline.org for more information, in-depth interviews, related links and transcripts and to sign up for our BTL Weekly Summary. New episodes every Wednesday at 12 noon ET, website updated Wednesdays after 4 p.m. ETProduced by Squeaky Wheel Productions: Scott Harris, Melinda Tuhus, Bob Nixon, Anna Manzo, Susan Bramhall, Jeff Yates and Mary Hunt. Theme music by Richard Hill and Mikata.

In Berkeley Talks episode 211, Bradley Onishi, a scholar of religion, an ex-evangelical minister and the co-host of the politics podcast Straight White American Jesus, discusses Project 2025, Christian nationalism and the November elections.“Project 2025 is a deeply reactionary Catholic vision for the country,” said Onishi, who gave the 2024 Berkeley Lecture on Religious Tolerance on Oct. 1. “It's a Christian nationalism fueled by Catholic leaders, and in many cases, reactionary Catholic thought.”Many see Trump's vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance, a first-term senator from Ohio, as bolstering Trump's outsider image, said Onishi. But it has gone mostly unnoticed that Vance is a radical religious politician, even more so than former Vice President Mike Pence. “Vance's Catholicism has barely registered as a driving factor in his political profile, and yet it serves as an interpretive key for understanding why Vance was chosen and how he brings a populist radicalism to a potential second Trump presidency — and a direct link to Project 2025,” he said.The UC Berkeley event was sponsored by the Endowed Fund for the Study of Religious Tolerance, the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion, the Center for Race and Gender, the Institute for the Study of Societal Issues, Social Science Matrix and the Center for Right-Wing Studies.Listen to the episode and read the transcript on UC Berkeley News (news.berkeley.edu/podcasts/berkeley-talks).Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr.Music by Blue Dot Sessions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with Nour Joudah, Assistant Professor at UCLA and one of FMEP's 2024 Palestinian Non-Resident Fellows. Nour speaks of her background, her Palestinian identity, and her research that looks not only at indigenous survival but at indigenous life, knowledge, and duration. She discusses the meaning of this moment in time for Palestinians and Palestine and encourages the listener not to surrender to fatalism but instead to insist that there is another path forward. Nour Joudah is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Asian American Studies at UCLA and a former President's and Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Geography at UC-Berkeley (2022-23). Dr. Joudah completed her PhD in Geography at UCLA (2022), and wrote her dissertation Mapping Decolonized Futures: Indigenous Visions for Hawaii and Palestine on the efforts by Palestinian and native Hawaiian communities to imagine and work toward liberated futures while centering indigenous duration as a non-linear temporality. Her work examines mapping practices and indigenous survival and futures in settler states, highlighting how indigenous countermapping is a both cartographic and decolonial praxis. She also has a MA in Arab Studies from Georgetown University, and wrote her MA thesis on the role and perception of exile politics within the Palestinian liberation struggle, in particular among politically active Palestinian youth living in the United States and occupied Palestine. Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD, is FMEP's Director of Programs & Partnerships. She leads FMEP's programming, works to deepen FMEP's relationships with existing and potential grantees, and builds relationships with new partners in the philanthropic community. Sarah Anne earned her doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley and is an affiliated faculty member at UC-Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin talks to Rania Batrice, political strategist, activist, coalition builder, and one of FMEP's 2023-2024 Palestinian Non-Resident Fellows. Rania discusses her background, the vision and values guiding her wide-ranging work, and the urgent and high-stakes political opportunities for Palestinians and their allies in this US election year.  Rania Batrice is the daughter of Palestinian immigrants, an activist and strategist for progressive change, a public relations specialist, and a political consultant. Rania has worked as a Democratic operative for over twenty years, lending her expertise across political, non-profit, legislative strategy and crisis management both in the United States and around the world. For Bernie Sanders' 2016 run for president, she served as Iowa Communications Director, the National Director of Surrogates and as Deputy Campaign Manager. In addition to Rania's expertise in strategy, policy and communications, her portfolio includes over 15 years of experience in conflict resolution, mediation, and organizational development. Her firm, Batrice and Associates, has worked for social justice through a variety of avenues, collaborating with organizations including Human Rights Watch, the Arab American Institute, March for Our Lives, Color of Change, March For Science, Sunrise Movement, and NDN Collective and more. Rania has been a featured speaker for a wide range of events, including addressing climate change at the Social Good Summit, the UN Youth Climate Summit and the UN General Assembly. Rania has received numerous accolades and awards for her work in the progressive movement, including the “Exceptional Woman of Excellence” award presented by the World Economic Forum and the “Woman of Purpose” award presented by the Purpose Project. Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD, is the Director of Programs & Partnerships. She leads FMEP's programming, works to deepen FMEP's relationships with existing and potential grantees, and builds relationships with new partners in the philanthropic community. Sarah Anne earned her doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley and is an affiliated faculty member at UC-Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

Recorded on March 23, 2023, this talk featured Phil Gorski, Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at Yale University, discussing his new book (co-authored with Samuel Perry), The Flag and the Cross: White Christian Nationalism and the Threat to Democracy. The respondent was David Hollinger, Preston Hotchkis Professor Emeritus of History at UC Berkeley. Carolyn Chen, Co-Director of the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion and Professor of Ethnic Studies, moderated. The talk was jointly sponsored by the Berkeley Center for the Study of Religion (BCSR), the Center for Right-Wing Studies, and Social Science Matrix. The event was part of the BCSR Public Forum on Race, Religion, Democracy and the American Dream. About the Speaker Philip S. Gorski, Frederick and Laura Goff Professor of Sociology and Religious Studies at Yale University, is a comparative-historical sociologist with strong interests in theory and methods and in modern and early modern Europe. His empirical work focuses on topics such as state-formation, nationalism, revolution, economic development and secularization with particular attention to the interaction of religion and politics. His other current interests include the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences and the nature and role of rationality in social life. Among his recent publications are The Disciplinary Revolution: Calvinism and the Growth of State Power in Early Modern Europe (Chicago, 2003); Max Weber's Economy and Society: A Critical Companion (Stanford, 2004); and “The Poverty of Deductivism: A Constructive Realist Model of Sociological Explanation,” Sociological Methodology, 2004. Gorski is Co-Director (with Julia Adams) of Yale's Center for Comparative Research (CCR), and co-runs the Religion and Politics Colloquium at the Yale MacMillan Center. About the Book Most Americans were shocked by the violence they witnessed at the nation's Capital on January 6th, 2021. And many were bewildered by the images displayed by the insurrectionists: a wooden cross and wooden gallows; “Jesus saves” and “Don't Tread on Me;” Christian flags and Confederate Flags; even a prayer in Jesus' name after storming the Senate chamber. Where some saw a confusing jumble, Philip S. Gorski and Samuel L. Perry saw a familiar ideology: white Christian nationalism. In this short primer, Gorski and Perry explain what white Christian nationalism is and is not; when it first emerged and how it has changed; where it's headed and why it threatens democracy. Tracing the development of this ideology over the course of three centuries—and especially its influence over the last three decades—they show how, throughout American history, white Christian nationalism has animated the oppression, exclusion, and even extermination of minority groups while securing privilege for white Protestants. It enables white Christian Americans to demand “sacrifice” from others in the name of religion and nation, while defending their “rights” in the names of “liberty” and “property.” White Christian nationalism motivates the anti-democratic, authoritarian, and violent impulses on display in our current political moment. The future of American democracy, Gorski and Perry argue, will depend on whether a broad spectrum of Americans—stretching from democratic socialists to classical liberals—can unite in a popular front to combat the threat to liberal democracy posed by white Christian nationalism.

Former President Trump has returned to New York, ahead of his surrender tomorrow after being indicted by a grand jury.  The charges against Mr. Trump will be unsealed tomorrow, amid extraordinary security and a heavy police presence around the courthouse in Lower Manhattan. The former president has railed against his prosecution unrelentingly since word of his indictment leaked last week, warning of “death and destruction” if Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg proceeds with this case, rallying his supporters to oppose what Trump calls “political persecution,” and raising campaign cash through constant emails. After he's booked and arraigned tomorrow shortly after 11 in the morning our time, Trump plans to fly back to Mar-a-Lago in Florida and deliver a speech, around 5pm our time.  For more on what's coming and what could happen next, Doug Sovern, Brett Burkhart, and Patti Reising spoke with Dr. Larry Rosenthal, Chair and Lead Researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, at UC Berkeley.  

In this episode of the Occupied Thoughts podcast, Dr. Maha Nassar speaks with FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin about how to talk about Zionism and anti-Zionism in ways that acknowledge different definitions of Zionism and, at the same time, take seriously the power asymmetries between anti-Zionists and Zionists/supporters of the state of Israel in Israel/Palestine and the U.S. public spheres. Speaking from experience as an educator, advocate, and scholar, Maha discusses how she navigates different audiences and invitations as well as her thoughts on anti-normalization, engaging with campus Hillels, and why and how it is imperative to keep returning to Palestinian lives and experiences. Dr. Maha Nassar is an associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies at the University of Arizona, where she specializes in the cultural and intellectual history of the modern Arab world. Her award-winning book, Brothers Apart: Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World (Stanford University Press, 2017), examines how Palestinian intellectuals connected to global decolonization movements during the mid-twentieth century. A 2018 Public Voices Fellow with the OpEd Project, Dr. Nassar's analysis and opinion pieces have appeared in numerous publications, including The Washington Post, +972 Magazine, The Conversation, and The Hill. She lives in Tucson, Arizona, with her husband, son, and daughter, and she is working on her next book, a global history of Palestine's people. Follow Dr. Nassar on Twitter @mtnassar Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD is the Director of Programs & Partnerships at FMEP. She is an expert on the intersection between Israeli civil society and Palestinian civil rights and human rights advocacy as well as the ways that American Jews approach the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She leads FMEP's programming, works to deepen FMEP's relationships with existing and potential grantees, and builds relationships with new partners in the philanthropic community. She earned her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley for research focusing on the sociology of emotion, nationalism, and Jewish Americans' relationships with Israel/Palestine and is an affiliated faculty member at University of California, Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies. She tweets @saminkin. Original music by Jalal Yaquoub.

In this episode of Occupied Thoughts, FMEP's Sarah Anne Minkin speaks with FMEP Fellow Jehad Abusalim about the aftermath of the most recent escalation, the relationship between the Nakba and the ongoing violent realities of Gaza, and questions of how to talk about and envision Gaza within broader frameworks of Palestinian liberation and freedom.  Jehad Abusalim is the Education and Policy Coordinator of the Palestine Activism Program at the American Friends Service Committee. He is completing his PhD in the History and Hebrew and Judaic Studies joint program at New York University. His research focuses on Arab and Palestinian intellectual discourse on Zionism, antisemitism, and the plight of the Jewish people in Europe between 1870 and 1948. Jehad also studies the social and political history of the Gaza Strip, focusing on the continuing impact of the Nakba on life in Gaza before and after 1948. Mr. Abusalim has been published in the Washington Post, al-Jazeera, the New Arab, and Vox.  Sarah Anne Minkin, PhD is FMEP's Director of Programs & Partnerships. She leads FMEP's programming, works to deepen FMEP's relationships with existing and potential grantees, and builds relationships with new partners in the philanthropic community. She is an affiliated faculty member at University of California, Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies.  Resources from Jehad Abusalim:  Twitter profile: @JehadAbusalim, and his threads about the recent Gaza assault.  Most recent publication, the co-edited anthology Light in Gaza: Writings Born of Fire, published by Haymarket books.  May 2021 Washington Post article, The Gaza cease-fire is no excuse for the world to look away May 2020 Journal of Palestine Studies article, The Great March of Return: An Organizer's Perspective An AFSC resource for learning more about Gaza: https://gazaunlocked.org/ Original Music by Jalal. Yaquoub.

När det nynazistiska partiet NDP fick hela två procent av rösterna i valet till förbundsdagen 1965 gick en chockvåg genom stora delar av det tyska samhället. Ett par år senare håller den tysk-judiske filosofen Theodor Adorno ett berömt föredrag på Wiens universitet. Författaren Lars Hermansson har läst föredraget, och letar i den här essän efter likheter och skillnader med dagens högerradikalism. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna. Jag går in köket där min dotter står och tömmer diskmaskinen, och jag säger, som den stundom docerande far jag är: Vet du vad som är fascismens främsta utmärkande drag? Anledningen till att jag fått lust att föreläsa just den här dagen är att jag läst klart den tysk-judiske filosofen Theodor Adornos föredrag, som han håller på Wiens universitet 1967. Nej, vad är fascismens främsta, utmärkande drag, säger dottern. Och jag: att ingjuta skräck för framtiden i den stora massan. Men, säger dottern: det är ju också ett utmärkande drag för miljörörelsen. Det ligger något i det. Frågan är: kan ett utmärkande drag vara som en tom form som fylls med innehåll av den som tillämpar den? Fascister lika väl som miljöaktivister. Nästa utmärkande drag hos högerextremismen är enligt Adorno att propagandan är målet. Det viktigaste är att höras och synas så ofta och mycket som möjligt genom att ständig förfina den masspsykologiska maktapparaten, inte att ha något att förmedla. Tvärtom, ju mindre du har att förmedla desto bättre, eftersom ett tankeinnehåll kan få folk att tänka, och det är, enligt Adorno, fascismens tredje utmärkande drag: att få folk att sluta tänka, att inte bry sig om sakförhållanden och rationella argument, utan helt enkelt tro på den som hörs och syns mest. Samtida exempel på en sådan strategi saknas som bekant inte. Det där att propagandan är målet påminner en del om Marschall McLuhans idé om att mediet är budskapet The medium is the messege som han utvecklar i boken Understanding media från 1964. McLuhan menar i sin ryktbara bok att ett meddelandes innehåll inte har samma djupgående verkan på våra samhällen och medvetanden, som själva det medium genom vilket det uttrycks. I det perspektivet är det ingen större skillnad mellan Hitlers Mein Kampf och t. ex Lina Wolffs senaste roman. Bägge är böcker, tryckta medier, beståndsdelar i det McLuhan i en annan bok benämnde Guthenberg-galaxen. McLuhans teorier är kanske inte till någon större hjälp om man vill förstå fascismens väsen. Fascismen är ju inget medium. Däremot är det intressant att undersöka huruvida dess idéinnehåll passar bättre eller sämre i det medium som dagens fascismer frodas i: internet. På Berkeley Center for Right Wing Studies gör man just det; sedan 2009 har ett tvärvetenskapligt studium givit upphov till en mängd rapporter och texter om cyberfascism och bredbandsterrorism. Den organisatoriska utspriddhet och nyckfullhet som tycks gälla alla internetbaserade rörelser, från vänster till höger, svär förstås mot den klassiska fascismens vurm för militär disciplin och tydlig beslutsordning, men den tycks inte ha ändrat innehållet i fascismernas minsta gemensamma nämnare, som de tyska sociologerna Holger Marcksoch Maik Fielitzi essän Digital Fascism: Challenges for the Open Society in Times of Social Media formulerar så här: föreställningen om en hotad gemenskap som behöver återfödas med hjälp av extraordinära åtgärder. Kanske kan man säga att det är radikaliteten i de extraordinära åtgärderna som avgör om en rörelse bör kallas fascistisk eller inte. Att Sverigedemokraterna bygger sin politik kring bilden av en hotad svensk gemenskap är svårt att förneka. Däremot är kanske deras extraordinära åtgärder inte lika radikala som Trumps försök att rasera grunderna för det offentliga samtalet genom införandet av kategorin alternativa fakta och det ständiga tjatet om fake news eller Victor Orbans nedmontering av rättsstaten genom censur och anti-demokratiska ingrepp i rättssystemet. Dessutom kan man förstås hävda att även andra partier i Sveriges riksdag ibland längtar tillbaka till 1974, även om förtecknen då inte handlar om svenskhet. All nostalgi är ju inte fascistisk. Däremot är all fascism, tror jag, nostalgisk. Det tycks alltid finnas ett mytiskt förflutet då män var män, kvinnor kvinnor, folket stod enat mot fienden och den lilla människans strävsamhet byggde landet  det senare en viktig beståndsdel också i den tillbakablickande delen av socialdemokratin, och kanske i all nationalism. Adorno säger i sitt föredrag att fascismen inte förtjänar beteckningen ideologi, eftersom den är för irrationell och ointresserad av andra frågor än att erövra och behålla den politiska makten. Den har ingen teoretisk överbyggnad värd namnet. Kan så vara, men visst finns det en del välkända innehållsliga drag som förenar Trumps, Putins och Orbans rörelser med historiens fascismer, som till exempel nationalism, misogyni, rasism, förakt för svaghet, allt inbäddat i den där idén om en hotad gemenskap som måste återfödas med hjälp av extraordinära åtgärder. Men hur var det med den där tomma formen som kan fyllas med innehåll av såväl fascistisk som miljöaktivist art? Är jag och min dotter helt fel ute om vi antyder att Fridays for future till exempel delar utmärkande drag med fascismen? Vad är ens ett utmärkande drag? Adorno går inte närmare in på saken i sitt föredrag, men låt säga att ett utmärkande drag inte kan vara något man delar med nästan alla. För en individ kan det till exempel inte vara att ha armar och ben, för en politisk rörelse kan det inte vara att vilja förändra samhället. Men att skrämma folk till lydnad är hyfsat specifikt, och borde kunna kvala in under beteckningen. Man kan hävda att miljörörelsen inte alls vill skrämma utan bara informera. Det kan å andra sidan en fascist också hävda. Om informationen är skrämmande så är den det. Vad det kokar ned till är alltså vad du som politisk varelse finner mest skrämmande: mänsklighetens undergång eller nationens. Men mer oroande än de strukturella likheterna mellan miljörörelsens skrämselpropaganda och fascismens, är det Adorno urskiljer som fascismens enda egentliga tanke: att till varje pris erövra och behålla makten. Där riskerar hela den representativa demokratin av idag att framstå som fascistisk genom dess ständiga oheliga allianser och kovändningar från helvetet. Adorno varnade redan 1967 för en disproportion mellan rationella makttekniker och irrationell eller frånvarande ideologi. Han säger: Jag tror att just denna kombination av rationella medel och irrationella syften motsvarar en tendens hos hela civilisationen, som ju till stora delar går ut på perfektion hos teknik och medel, allt under det att samhällets hela syfte lämnas därhän. Just där, i frånvaron av ett genomtänkt syfte med samhällsbygget, frodas, tror jag, fascismen. Lars Hermansson

Dr. Lawrence Rosenthal, Founder and Chair of UC Berkley's Center for Right Wing Studies, joins Democracy Nerd to discuss the history of right-wing populism in American politics, the Jan. 6th domestic terrorist attack on the U.S. Capitol, and his recent book "Empire of Resentment: Populism's Toxic Embrace of Nationalism."

Lawrence Rosenthal runs the Center for Right Wing Studies in Berkeley, California. He and Metta agree that the basis for the resentment that fuels right-wing populism is a resentment of cultural and status differentials. You can watch this series (or listen to them as audio podcasts) on our website, then discuss here: https://tosavetheworld.ca/videos/#comments.

Since Trump's victory and the UK's Brexit vote, much of the commentary on the populist epidemic has focused on the emergence of populism. But, Lawrence Rosenthal argues, what is happening globally is not the emergence but the transformation of right-wing populism. Rosenthal, the founder of UC Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies, suggests right-wing populism is a protean force whose prime mover is the resentment felt toward perceived cultural elites, and whose abiding feature is its ideological flexibility, which now takes the form of xenophobic nationalism. In 2016, American right-wing populists migrated from the free marketeering Tea Party to Donald Trump's "hard hat," anti-immigrant, America-First nationalism. This was the most important single factor in Trump's electoral victory and it has been at work across the globe. In Italy, for example, the Northern League reinvented itself in 2018 as an all-Italy party, switching its fury from southerners to immigrants, and came to power. Rosenthal paints a vivid sociological, political, and psychological picture of the transnational quality of this movement, which is now in power in at least a dozen countries, creating a de facto Nationalist International. In America and abroad, the current mobilization of right-wing populism has given life to long marginalized threats like white supremacy. The future of democratic politics in the United States and abroad depends on whether the liberal and left parties have the political capacity to mobilize with a progressive agenda of their own. Rosenthal discusses his new book, Empire of Resentment, with sociologist Harry Levine. ________________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.

The presidential debate held on Sept. 30 will be remembered as the first time that an American president openly allied with white supremacists. “The remarks addressed to the Proud Boys stood out as a kind of bellwether of something pretty severe and to be taken seriously,” says Lawrence Rosenthal, the founder of the Center for Right Wing Studies at UC Berkeley and author of Empire of Resentment: Populism's Toxic Embrace of Nationalism. “He was giving them orders: Stand down, stand by. He was also giving orders to his army of pollwatchers…a force of intimidation. Trump last night crossed the Rubicon.” Trump also claimed that former Vice President Joe Biden is a socialist and part of the “radical left.” John Judis, editor-at-large of Talking Points Memo and author of The Socialist Awakening: What's Different Now About the Left, asserts that Biden “is not in any sense a doctrinaire socialist.” But he adds that Biden, who may be forced by the pandemic to expand national health care and other social welfare programs, might “tend toward policies that put the public first, that put the public interest before profits and that shift the balance of power in America.” Judis also says that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, together with Eugene V. Debs, are the "two great figures in the history of American socialism."

As America enters the final stretch of the 2020 election, many of the debates and issues that continue to dominate the campaign at the national and local levels stem from a resurgent global right-wing populism that led to the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Four years later, this aggressive form of right-wing populism, infused with xenophobic nationalism, remains a powerful influence in the United States and around the world. Perhaps no one knows these issues better than Lawrence Rosenthal, the founder of the University of California Berkley's Center for Right-Wing Studies. In his new book Empire of Resentment: Populism's Toxic Embrace of Nationalism, Rosenthal paints a vivid sociological, political and psychological picture of the transnational quality of this movement, which is now in power in at least a dozen countries. In America and abroad, the current mobilization of right-wing populism has given life to long marginalized threats like white supremacy and anti-immigration fervor. In 2016, renowned UC Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild was among the first major sociologists to help explain Trump's election. Her award-winning book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, helped readers understand why so many American voters were attracted to Trump's populist message and its negative undertones. Please join us for a special conversation between two UC Berkeley stars—Rosenthal and Hochschild—as they discuss the how the transformation of the American far right made the Trump presidency possible—and what it portends for the future just two months out from the 2020 election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPEAKERS Lawrence Rosenthal Founder, Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies; Author, Empire of Resentment: Populism’s Toxic Embrace of Nationalism Arlie Hochschild Professor Emerita, University of California Berkeley; Author, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right—Moderator In response to the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak, this program took place and was recorded live via video conference, for an online audience only, and was live-streamed by The Commonwealth Club of California from San Francisco on September 9th, 2020.

Featured Interview: Right-wing populism in COVID-19 era -코로나19 시대 극우 포퓰리즘 확산 추세 Guests: Professor Brian Porter-Szucs, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of History, University of Michigan Dr. Lawrence Rosenthal, Chair and Lead Researcher of the Berkeley Center for Right-Wing Studies, UC Berkeley

Maxwell Ward talks to Dr Lawrence Rosenthal, chair of the Berkeley Centre for Right-Wing Studies, about the Alt-Right’s unlikely journey into the mainstream of US politics and their more recent struggles. What are their ambitions? What do they really think of Donald Trump? And where do they go from here? But the first thing Maxwell wanted to know… who and what are the Alt-Right? Dr Lawrence Rosenthal: The Alt-Right represents what has long been called in the USA the fringe of American politics. What made them the fringe, or the very definition of the fringe, is that they are outside of the mainstream and do not have particularly a role in national politics. The kinds of ideology that we’re talking about are things that have characterised the Klu Klux Klan in this country and Neo-Nazi organisations in this country. They have not had a role in American Politics nationally since the 1920s and 1930s. But, they continued to exist and they existed in atomised corners. There would be groups in rural Ohio or rural Michigan. There would be numbers of them. But, comes the internet age, and above all social media, they networked. So that’s step one. These guys networked. Two, there were events that made these people come together beyond simply politics. That has to do with what is better understood as culture. Above all, there was a thing called Gamergate. To some extent, the base of the Alt-Right online consists of what used to be called in Social Science “alienated young men” and they were gamers online. A controversy arose around the place of women in the gamer world. It provoked an immense backlash against feminism itself. Very anti-women. That consolidated this element of what would constitute the Alt-Right. Donald Trump famously said, “Well, these online things aren’t necessarily from Russia. They could have been from some 400-pound kid lying on his mother’s bed somewhere.” The point being that there are these unhappy young men who are engaged more culturally than politically. So, you get the rise of this essentially nihilistic internet culture in which things like Pepe the frog become symbolic and there is a vast array of these symbols. Basically, the thrill of it is it’s edgy and anti-establishment and it’s anti all establishments. Left, right, etc. So you have those guys, the alienated young men and you have the formerly atomised neo-Nazi and KKK groups who have discovered social media and are now not atomised anymore but are a social network or networking on social media. Finally, you get step three which is the candidacy of Donald Trump. What happens in the world of what would become the Alt-Right is they are electrified. They are electrified because suddenly, at the level of presidential politics in the USA, somebody is talking their language. So, the experience, the decades long political experience of being marginalised, of being the fringe, has suddenly changed. Somebody who is running for president is talking about immigrants the way they talk about them, the very premise of whose campaign is anti-Mexican, anti-Muslim, anti-feminist… well, let me be clear about that, anti- “political correctness”. Donald Trump would say things like, “the biggest problem in this country is political correctness.” That, above all, had two constituent elements for the Alt-Right. One was feminism and the other was multi-culturalism. Both of which seem forced down their throats by elites and in these two, in particular, the liberal elites. Donald Trump was like a siren call from the thoroughly unexpected province of not only national politics but presidential politics. So, the Alt-Right became mobilised and a participant in the election of 2016 in a way that that kind of ideological warrior had not participated in American elections since the 1920s and 1930s. MW: You talk about these disparate groups that have come together. Would you say that, apart from that kind of combative element, that there is a thread,

Christine Trost is program director of the Center for Right-Wing Studies and associate director of the UC Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. Her co-editor is Lawrence Rosenthal, executive director and lead researchers of Center for Right-Wing Studies at Berkeley. The volume includes chapters by scholars such Alan Abramowitz (Emory University), Martin Cohen (James Madison University), Clarence Lo (University of Missouri at Columbia), but also has several chapters written by practitioners, lending the book a varied assessment on the Tea Party. These authors unearth what Trost and Rosenthal call the “stunning” emergence of the Tea Party following the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Chapters situate the Tea Party in its historical context and consider the extent to which this social movement is best understood as emerging from the grassroots or whether it is better placed into the national conservative movement. The collection is informative and deeply readable together and as individual chapters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christine Trost is program director of the Center for Right-Wing Studies and associate director of the UC Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. Her co-editor is Lawrence Rosenthal, executive director and lead researchers of Center for Right-Wing Studies at Berkeley. The volume includes chapters by scholars such Alan Abramowitz (Emory University), Martin Cohen (James Madison University), Clarence Lo (University of Missouri at Columbia), but also has several chapters written by practitioners, lending the book a varied assessment on the Tea Party. These authors unearth what Trost and Rosenthal call the “stunning” emergence of the Tea Party following the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Chapters situate the Tea Party in its historical context and consider the extent to which this social movement is best understood as emerging from the grassroots or whether it is better placed into the national conservative movement. The collection is informative and deeply readable together and as individual chapters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Christine Trost is program director of the Center for Right-Wing Studies and associate director of the UC Berkeley’s Institute for the Study of Societal Issues. Her co-editor is Lawrence Rosenthal, executive director and lead researchers of Center for Right-Wing Studies at Berkeley. The volume includes chapters by scholars such Alan Abramowitz (Emory University), Martin Cohen (James Madison University), Clarence Lo (University of Missouri at Columbia), but also has several chapters written by practitioners, lending the book a varied assessment on the Tea Party. These authors unearth what Trost and Rosenthal call the “stunning” emergence of the Tea Party following the election of Barack Obama in 2008. Chapters situate the Tea Party in its historical context and consider the extent to which this social movement is best understood as emerging from the grassroots or whether it is better placed into the national conservative movement. The collection is informative and deeply readable together and as individual chapters. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices