I'm off this week because of a crush of personal responsibilities,

so I'm offering this encore edition of a show first broadcast in October 2019.

Some podcasts have recently gotten applause for interviewing Corey Robin about his book on Clarence Thomas,

the Supreme Court justice who's been very much in the news lately,

but is as so off in the case behind the news was their first. Thomas has been in the news mainly

for his special relationship with the reactionary Texas real estate billionaire Harlan Crowe.

Crowe, a co-founder of the club for growth, a think tank and big money pack that's obsessed

with tax and spending cuts, deregulation, and denying the results of the 2020 election,

has been showering Thomas with undisclosed gifts for the last two decades.

Aside from being an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia, including two paintings by Hitler and

a signed copy of Mein Kampf, Crowe is also a large contributor to conservative causes other

than Clarence Thomas personally. Corey's book is non-presentative and also

unfairly overlooked examination of Thomas's thought, which, while very reactionary,

is also complex and interesting, and a right-wing version of Afro pessimism.

Here's the show is originally broadcast.

Hello and welcome to Behind the News. My name is Doug Henwood. Just one guest today,

a return visitor to Behind the News, the political scientist Corey Robin, author of the enigma

of Clarence Thomas, just out from Metropolitan Books. Corey, who teaches at Brooklyn College

in the CUNY grad center, was on the show in 2013 when his book The Reactionary Mine was first released,

and again in 2017 when the updated edition was published. He's been on this show at least five

other times going back to 2004, which is almost pre-historical when he was here to discuss his book

Fear, the history of a political idea, which appeared during the wild and crazy days in the war on terror.

...