Confronting Capitalism: Why the Democrats Can’t Fight for Anything
Jacobin Radio
Jacobin
4.7 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 30 July 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
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Summary
Democratic voters are enraged by their party’s spineless “resistance” to the Trump administration’s draconian agenda. But the party’s dysfunction goes far deeper than just cowardly, uninspiring leaders.
On this episode of Confronting Capitalism, Vivek Chibber speaks with Philip Rocco about how the Democrats’ abandonment of organized labor has resulted in a party that is ineffective at fighting the right or putting forward a compelling political vision.
Read Philip Rocco’s essay here: https://catalyst-journal.com/2025/07/why-the-democrats-are-so-useless
Confronting Capitalism with Vivek Chibber is produced by Catalyst: A Journal of Theory and Strategy, and published by Jacobin. Music by Zonkey.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Confronting Capitalism. I'm Jack Finn contributing editor, Kale Brooks, and I'm here, as always, with Vivek Chibber, a professor of sociology at NYU, and the editor of Catalyst, a journal of theory and strategy. How are you, Vivek? |
| 0:31.6 | I'm very good, Kail. Good to be back in New York. You left the States for a few weeks, and in the meantime, New York City became a socialist outpost. We might really see socialism in our lifetime. Yeah, well, it looks like I was the one |
| 0:42.2 | holding everything back, and now that I'm here, maybe it can move forward in spite of my presence. |
| 0:48.1 | Yeah. Well, of course, we're talking about Zulran Mamdani's recent primary victory in New York City, |
| 0:53.3 | which looks great here, but when we look to the national level, things aren't looking so great. |
| 0:58.9 | In fact, they're looking pretty horrible. And on that note, today, Vivek, as editor of Catalyst, will be speaking with one of his contributors from the most recent issue of the journal, which you can access online or via the print |
| 1:11.6 | issues. Catalyst Journal provides essential insights and analysis on contemporary politics, |
| 1:16.2 | and the new issue covers how the global left has struggled to oppose a rising right. |
| 1:20.9 | For this episode, Vivek is joined by Philip Rocco. |
| 1:23.8 | Philip is Associate Professor of Political Science at Marquette University and the author of a new |
| 1:28.3 | catalyst essay titled Why the Democrats Are So Useless. |
| 1:32.0 | Together, they'll be talking about why the Democrats have not only failed to provide any kind of resistance to Trump's second administration, |
| 1:38.3 | but are unable to craft their own reform agenda. Enjoy. |
| 1:45.7 | So Phil, welcome to the show. |
| 1:47.6 | Hey, good to be with you. |
| 1:48.9 | We're going to talk about the article you wrote for the latest catalyst, which makes a really |
| 1:53.0 | compelling case for why the absence of what might be called a resistance, a resistance |
| 1:59.4 | 2.0, since this is Trump 2.0, |
| 2:02.5 | why that absence is not at all surprising, given the structure of the Democratic Party |
| 2:07.8 | and its relationship to movements, to social groups, to organized interests. |
| 2:13.1 | So to get us going and to start us off, why don't you lay out for us how the, what's called |
| 2:18.4 | the resistance today, which means the resistance to Trump, is different from the first |
... |
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