#1774 Monthly-ish Mix: Who's in Charge?—The Scramble for Control of Nations, Bodies, and Minds
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.5 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 3 March 2026
⏱️ 270 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date: 3/3/2026
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we examine the multi-front struggle for control: military force and economic coercion seizing resources abroad, institutions weaponized to constrain bodies at home, platforms and propaganda capturing minds, and the democratic resistance proving that organized people can still win.
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PART 1: TAKING WHAT THEY WANT
(00:02:31) #1762 - Trump's Imperialistic Shakedown of Venezuela
3: Trump's Piracy in the Caribbean - The Real News Podcast - Air Date 12-23-25
6: Mark Carney and the New World Order - Front Burner - Air Date 1-20-26
(00:53:33) #1764 - Wealth Inequality is Bad for Society and There's No Good Counterargument
7: The Capitalist Mindset - The Market Exit - Air Date 12-9-25
8: Where Are Americas Leaders? - Robert Reich and Inequality Media Civic Action - Air Date 1-6-26
PART 2: CONTROLLING BODIES
9: Abolish ICE - Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 1-7-26
10: ICE Is a Way to Deal With Surplus Males - Therese - Air Date 1-9-25
11: ICE Can Hack Your Phone Without You Knowing - Taylor Lorenz - Air Date 9-5-25
(01:30:58) #1763 - It's Not a Health Care System, it's a Wealth Extraction System
13: Agonizing Choices on ACA Deadline Day Part 1 - Brian Lehrer_ A Daily Podcast - Air Date 12-15-25
14: Medicare For All Non-Negotiable #3 Part 1 - UNFTR - Air Date 2-8-25
(01:57:14) #1767 - Wars Are Won By Teachers and Trump is Attacking Them Like a Foreign Adversary
16: How Trumps Agenda Hurts College Students - Right Now With Perry Bacon - Air Date 11-19-25
17: Trump Set to Garnish Wages for Student Loan Defaults - Democracy Now! - Air Date 12-30-25
PART 3: CONTROLLING MINDS
(02:20:20) #1773 - How Big Tech Captured Attention, Kids, and Democracy
18: Trouble at TikTok Part 1 - Today, Explained - Air Date 2-4-26
19: Is Social Media Having Its Big Tobacco Moment Part 1 - The Global Story - Air Date 2-16-26
20: DMs! My Kingdom For DMs! - The Muckrake Political Podcast - Air Date 2-17-26
(02:46:22) #1765 - AI Capitalism Will Not Deliver an AI Utopia
21: The AI Bubble Part 1 - Today, Explained - Air Date 10-28-25
22: Desperate OpenAI Turns To Erotica - Novara Media - Air Date 10-16-25
(03:09:13) #1772 - From Fragile to Fascist: How Broken Masculinity Feeds Authoritarianism
24: The Terrifying Rise of "Vice Signalling" - JimmyTheGiant - Air Date 1-28-26
26: The Rise of the Authoritarian-Curious - Then & Now - Air Date 2-9-26
(03:35:07) #1769 - Politics Beyond the Ballot Box: Elections and the Movements that Power Them
28: The Next Socialist In Congress with Claire Valdez Part 1 - The Majority Report - Air Date 1-22-26
PART 4: THE PEOPLE PUSH BACK
(03:48:36) #1770 - Getting in the Fight Against ICE and Authoritarianism
29: What I've Learned From Reading History - Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 1-28-26
(04:04:47) #1771 - They Need You in the Dark: Information, Journalism, and the Fight Against Fascism
32: AG Bondi Confirms FBI Executed Search Warrant at WaPo Reporter's Home - MS Now - Air Date 1-13-26
33: Why Trump Arresting Journalists Is a Sign of Weakness - Takes™ by Jamelle Bouie - Air Date 1-30-26
34: Humor Can Topple Dictators Part 1 - Why, America with Leeja Miller - Air Date 10-18-25
Produced by Jay! Tomlinson
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, call my wife. |
| 0:03.1 | Calling UK Wildlife. |
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| 0:33.3 | Welcome to this monthly schmix episode of the award-winning Best of Left podcast. In our regular episodes, we focus on one major theme, presenting our top takes in the first hour of the show before diving deeper into each of those topics in the second half. For monthly-ish-mix episodes like this one, we skim across the surface in the past couple of months as a sort |
| 0:54.7 | of quick recap and reference guide. It's well known that many have felt the need to pull back |
| 0:59.3 | from the news a bit for their mental health. If that's you, welcome. If you know someone |
| 1:03.7 | who fits that description, send them this episode. One last quick note of promotion, we've |
| 1:09.0 | also launched a new show on the Best of Left YouTube channel called Solved. |
| 1:13.7 | We use our curation skills and put them toward gathering interesting articles and ideas that collectively help us solve some of the biggest problems of our day. |
| 1:21.9 | Best of Left members get solved early and ad-free as a podcast, but anyone can check out the video version of the show on |
| 1:28.2 | the Best of Left YouTube channel. Now, for today's episode, we have four big sections and lots |
| 1:32.9 | of subtopics. If you want to skip around, reference the show notes for guidance. Section one, |
| 1:38.2 | taking what they want will open with a look at how Empire asserts itself through force and |
| 1:43.9 | finance. Bom bombs over Nigeria, |
| 1:46.5 | oil theft in Venezuela, and the global economy organized around extraction. |
... |
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