Varn Vlog

97:04

From Dawn to Decadence: The Decadent Society

Varn Vlog ·

2026/10/05

Welcome to a special, long-form collaboration: The Regrettable Century and VarnVlog combined in our Captain Planet team of pessimism. Today, we are opening up a comprehensive multi-part investigation into New York Times columnist Ross Douthat's landmark 2020 thesis, The Decadent Society: How We Became the Victim of Our Own Success. Drawing its name and conceptual infrastructure from Jacques Barzun’s classic From Dawn to Decadence, Douthat’s work defines a decadent society not as a spectacula...

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142:59

Brandon Lightly on the New Democracy and National...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/10/01

In this episode of Varn Vlog, you and Brandon Lightly analyze the failures of the "New Democracy" and "National Front" strategies as globalized Marxist frameworks. Key points include: Indonesia: D.N. Aidit’s PKI collapsed because they mistakenly empowered a mass movement while failing to neutralize the military's hostile command structure. The Philippines: The NDFP’s program prioritized state-regulated capitalism and tariff protection for domestic bourgeoisie over systemic socialist transf...

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135:07

Ben Burgis on Confessing Class Reductionism

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/28

Today, we are joined by philosopher, columnist, and host of Give Them an Argument, Ben Burgis, for a wide-ranging, deeply analytical dive into his recent Sublation pamphlet, Confessions of a Class Reductionist, and his upcoming co-edited volume on the legacy of G.A. Cohen. In the contemporary landscape, the accusation of "class reductionism" is routinely hurled at anyone who prioritizes materialist, universal frameworks over demographically targeted identity politics. Burgis clears the ideol...

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98:09

The Shadow Court and Protecting Democracy with Julie Suk

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/24

The Supreme Court is supposed to decide disputes, not run the country, so why does it feel like nine unelected justices can rewrite constitutional meaning with a single opinion? We sit down with Dr. Julie Suk, Fordham Law professor and author of The Shadow Court: Rescuing Democracy from the Supreme Court, to unpack how the Court became a primary constitutional lawmaker and why that transformation puts popular sovereignty under real strain. We dig into the mechanics and the history: Marbury v...

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80:35

Alabama Prisons At A Breaking Point with Matthew...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/21

Today, we are joined by independent journalist, oral historian, and qualitative researcher Matthew Vernon Whalan to dissect his vital book out from Kersplebedeb: Bullock: Chronicles of Deprivation and Despair in the American Prison. While mainstream political commentary frequently fixates on explicitly private, corporate-run prisons, Whalan shifts our focus to the state-run system. Drawing on my own professional background as a former corrections officer in Georgia, we expose a deeper, more p...

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110:39

Egypt After The Revolution with Hossam el-Hamalawy

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/17

Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by acclaimed Egyptian journalist, activist, and labor historian Hossam el-Hamalawy to discuss his vital text out from Verso Books, Counter-Revolution in Egypt: State and Barracks. A common mistake among Western commentators is to view the regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as a simple replication of the old Mubarak-Sadat dictatorship. El-Hamalawy lays bare why this historical framing is fundamentally wrong: counter-revolutions do not restore old orde...

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80:42

What Happens To Class Politics In A Service Economy...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/14

Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by Dr. Annie McClanahan (Associate Professor of English at UC Irvine) to discuss her groundbreaking book, Beneath the Wage: Tips, Tasks, and Gigs in the Age of Service Work. While some spaces on the internet are still stuck rehashing old 19th-century debates about whether service workers even count as part of the working class, our current economic reality shows that services account for 60% to 80% of the entire workforce. The standard, hourly g...

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118:29

Green Politics After The AI Boom with James of Prole...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/10

Welcome back to VarnVlog. Today, we are joined by James of Prole Kult for an extensive, two-hour interrogation of eco-socialist strategy, environmental geopolitics, and the escalating ecological costs of the modern tech economy. Our theoretical baseline is his essential text out from Iskra Books, For the Land: Capital as Extinction. We confront a terrifying contemporary reality: under the spectacular weight of the large language model (LLM) and generative AI revolution, large swaths of the g...

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92:40

Maoism Without The Myths with Black Red Guard

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/07

Welcome back to the blog. Today, we are staging an uncommon but necessary conversation to slice through the amateurishness of internet leftist subcultures. We are joined by Chris—better known online as Black Red Guard (BRG)—a prominent Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (MLM) political educator and active cadre inside the St. Louis chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). To the average onlooker, the word "Maoism" conjures images of uncritical support for Deng Xiaoping's reforms, Xi Jinpi...

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151:50

Trade Wars As Social Wars with Benjamin Studebaker

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/07

Welcome back to the vlog. Today, we are staging an exhaustive, macro-analytical conversation with political theorist and author Benjamin Studebaker to unpack his recent landmark intervention in Isonomia Quarterly: "Trade Wars or Social Wars?" While modern political commentators treat the rising economic friction between the United States and its Western allies as a series of isolated commercial disputes, Studebaker argues that these tensions are deeply structural. Ever since successive U.S. ...

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103:09

Education, Literacy, and the Limits of Reform with...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/09/03

Five years after their initial discussion, we are back with Freddie DeBoer—author of The Cult of Smart and the upcoming book All in Your Head—to revisit the state of American education. In this episode, we move beyond the usual pundits' talking points to address the material and institutional realities facing schools today. From the uniform decline in literacy scores globally to the complex economics of "cost disease" in special education, we explore why most modern reform efforts are failin...

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97:25

Policing American Slavery: How the Slave Power...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/08/31

How did the legal machinery of early America enforce human bondage? Dr. Gautham Rao joins the channel to discuss his book Policing American Slavery and the state's role in hunting fugitives. In this episode, we challenge the popular narrative that early American governance was weak, decentralized, or defined by "minimal state" intervention. Sitting down with legal historian and Law and History Review editor-in-chief Dr. Gautham Rao, we trace how the necessity of protecting property in ...

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80:52

Rewriting Columbus From The Taino View with Andrew Rowen

Varn Vlog ·

2026/08/24

Why does mainstream history completely erase the stories of the Indigenous leaders who actively fought back against European conquest? How did the fluid, complex politics of the Caribbean reshape global history long before the fall of the Aztecs and Incas ? In this episode of Varn Vlog, we sit down with historical researcher and novelist Andrew Rowen to explore the unsparing, bicultural reality of ground zero in the Americas. Andrew Rowen has spent over a decade parsing through dense ...

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130:30

Geopolitics of the Data Economy: Tech Monopoly,...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/08/17

Why are tech monopolies quietly building massive, "war-eating" data centers in global deserts? How does the infrastructure of artificial intelligence directly intersect with resource imperialism, greenwashing, and active combat zones? In this episode of Varn Vlog, James of Prole Kult fame joins us to unpack the terrifying realities of the modern geopolitical and tech economy. We kick off the conversation with a critical look at the stark environmental and spatial trade-offs of the digi...

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88:21

Brandon Lightly on the Mass LIne and New Democracy,...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/08/13

In part two of our deep dive into China (and part four of our socialist organization series), we break down how Mao attempted to dialectically sublate a national front and a united front. We explore the structural inclusion of the "patriotic national bourgeoisie" into the block of four classes (symbolized by the stars on the Chinese flag) and contrast it with classical Soviet developmental theory and orthodox Marxism. We also dive into: - The historical debate between Chen Duxiu, Li Dazhao, ...

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145:18

Writing and Revolution: Cultural Production vs....

Varn Vlog ·

2026/08/10

How does ruling-class hegemony quietly dictate the boundaries of our creative imagination? Can art still serve as a weapon for genuine political transformation, or has it been entirely neutralized by capitalist realism? In this episode of Varn Vlog, regular guest Sudip Bhattacharya returns to dissect the profound relationship between literature, cultural production, and power. We begin the conversation by addressing contemporary cultural blockages before zooming out to analyze the structural...

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219:40

The Cultural Marxism Myth with A.J.A. Woods

Varn Vlog ·

2026/08/06

Where did the "Cultural Marxism" talking point actually originate? How did obscure 20th-century sectarian group battles evolve into the foundation of today's right-wing culture wars? In this episode of Varn Vlog, we sit down with Dr. A.J.A. Woods to dissect the bizarre, interconnected history of political paranoia, conspiracy culture, and the weaponization of critical theory. Dr. Woods—a PhD graduate from the Centre for the Study of Theory and Criticism—joins the show to trace the gene...

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82:55

A People’s History of the Mets: Urban Planning,...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/08/03

Why are the New York Mets the ultimate team of the working-class underworld? Author A.M. Gittlitz joins the channel to discuss his new book, Metropolitans, and pitch why leftists should actually care about sports. In this episode, we dive deep into the Mobius strip dynamic of sports, mass culture, and radical politics. Far from just a corporate monopoly, baseball has a long history as a battleground for popular power and control over our collective leisure time. We trace the lineage of the M...

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152:55

Cold War Cinema — History, Propaganda, and Left-Wing...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/07/27

How did decades of geopolitical paranoia, nuclear anxiety, and state-sponsored propaganda completely reshape the landscape of global filmmaking? In this episode of Varn Vlog, we dive deep into the intersection of history and film with Jason Christian and Tony Ballas, the hosts of the Cold War Cinema podcast. From Hollywood blockbusters and hidden indie gems to the stark cinematic outputs of the Soviet bloc and divided Germany, our guests break down how the global standoff between capitalism ...

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79:36

Gerontocracy in America: Samuel Moyn on Aging Wealth...

Varn Vlog ·

2026/07/23

Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by acclaimed legal scholar and historian Dr. Samuel Moyn (Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University) to discuss his critical book, Gerontocracy in America. While the public focus on modern gerontocracy often centers on the visible, late-stage cognitive decline of celebrity politicians like Joe Biden or Donald Trump, Dr. Moyn argues that these figures are merely the tip of a much deeper, structural iceberg. The real-world da...

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