4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 21 October 2025
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Air Date: 10–14-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The cartoonish conservative and libertarian responses to Trump's state capitalism
Ch. 2 - Trump's interest in sovereign wealth funds, and the lie the right sells its supporters about getting money back
Ch. 3 - The left spectrum of reactions to Trump's state capitalism
Ch. 4 - Why Trump is definitely, 100%, not in any way a socialist
SOLVED! BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm: Ayn Rand's nearly psychotic opposition to altruism
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REFERENCES:
The Danger of Trump Seizing Private Companies - Time magazine
Trump's "State Capitalism … a Hybrid Between Socialism and Capitalism" Won't Make America Great Again - Cato Institute
Trump Is Embracing 'Daddy State' Economics - Reason
Trump's brand of US capitalism faces 'socialist' backlash from conservatives - BBC
Trump, national-capitalism at bay - Heterodox
Don't Let Trump Define What State Capitalism Can Be - The New Republic
What State Capitalism Can Do—and What It Can't - The American Prospect
Unfortunately, Donald Trump is Not a Socialist - Current Affairs
EXTRAS
Were the Nazis Socialists? - Britannica
r/AskHistorians: "Is Nazism right wing or left wing?"
Interview with Hitler - Interviews (Anthology 1859-1993)
BACKSTAGE
I've spent my entire career studying stress—the No. 1 cure for it might 'surprise' you - CNBC
Leonard Peikoff - Wikipedia
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast, although today we're sharing a sample of this week's episode of our other show, solved. |
| 0:11.9 | Best of Left members get solved early, ad-free, and complete with a members-only backstage segment all via podcast. |
| 0:19.7 | But we're also putting the show out on the |
| 0:21.8 | Best of Left YouTube channel where we're attempting to find a new audience. Consider supporting |
| 0:26.4 | us directly by signing up for a membership or help us grow on YouTube by subscribing to |
| 0:31.2 | the Best of Left YouTube channel and catching every episode of Solved there. And now here's a few |
| 0:36.9 | minutes for free to wet your appetite, but just like Best of the Left, |
| 0:40.4 | the real benefits kick in when you hear the whole show, which is greater than the sum of |
| 0:44.9 | its parts. |
| 0:46.3 | We are now definitely turning to the left in the analysis, and this is from Thomas |
| 0:52.0 | Pickety, author of Capital in the 21st century, from this |
| 0:56.1 | article, Trump, National Capitalism at Bay. And Pickety says, quote, the dream of prosperity |
| 1:03.5 | promised by national capitalism always ends up disappointing public expectations because it is, |
| 1:09.6 | in reality, built on exacerbated social hierarchies |
| 1:13.6 | and an ever-growing concentration of wealth. |
| 1:18.1 | I was like, oh, no, when Trump realizes that he's just like completely accidentally going |
| 1:23.6 | to concentrate even more wealth into the hands of the already wealthy. He's going to have |
| 1:28.1 | like such egg on his face. Someone should let him know. They're like, oh, you should read up on |
| 1:34.5 | this, sir. And then Pickety continues, quote, if the Republican Party has become so nationalistic |
| 1:40.8 | and virulent toward the outside world, it is first and foremost due to the |
| 1:45.5 | failure of Reagan era policies, which were supposed to boost growth, but only slowed it and |
| 1:52.1 | led to stagnating incomes for most, end quote. Which is just a, you know, short way of saying |
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