Ta-Nehisi Coates and Hasan Minhaj Define Empire | The Left-Populist Wave | UAE As Sub-Imperial Power | Interview w/ William Lawrence
What is the meaning of empire? Ta-Nehisi Coates commiserates with Hasan Minhaj about living unaware of American imperialism for too long, and I confess why coming to consciousness about empire was key to my personal political awakening.
The UAE is facilitating a genocide in Sudan, and it’s doing so as a sub-imperial power of the United States. Chris Van Hollen is among the members of Congress trying to change that.
Left-populist candidates won 11 out of 18 electoral campaigns this week, ushering in a wave that will transform American politics one way or another.
And in the back half of the episode, I dig up my late 2024 interview with William Lawrence, who just won the Democratic Party’s nomination for Congress in Michigan and now heads to the general. Among the questions we explore:
What is primacy and how did it become an American strategy?
What are the contradictions in US industrial policy?
What alternative economic policies would be available if the US were not committed to primacy?
What makes Stuart Hall my sensei?
How does primacy relate to China and great-power competition?
What kind of international order is emerging?
What is the political coalition that can keep us out of catastrophe?
Catch the episode wherever you get podcasts, or watch on YouTube.
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