Damir is back from a sweltering Europe, where some commentators seemed to treat air conditioning as a moral failing. He opens the show with a provocation: the European aversion to AC isn’t about strained grids or shuttered nuclear plants — it’s secular theology, Christian guilt repurposed for Gaia. Shadi, on a mini-sabbatical in New York City (thermostat set well below Mamdani’s recommended 78), mostly agrees, but argues that the new American Left isn’t like the sanctimonious European mainstream. It’s joyous, affirmative, and — in Zohran Mamdani’s case — ruthlessly practical rather than self-flagellating.
That sets up the real debate. Damir presses Shadi on what he’s actually signing up for beyond Palestine: Progressive prosecutors? Wealth taxes? Bernie’s proposal for the government to take large stakes in AI companies? Shadi names his red lines — nationalizing industry — but wagers that America’s political culture of individual agency is too deeply rooted for even decades of democratic socialism to undo. Damir isn’t so sure. After Trump’s unchained second term, isn’t anything possible?
Required Reading:
Shadi’s thread about the centrality of Palestine in Democratic politics (X).
Jonathan Chait on the DSA’s long march through the Democratic Party (The Atlantic).
Democracy for Realists, by Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels (Amazon).
