Varn Vlog
by C. Derick Varn
Latest episode
Peronism Explained with Brandon Lightly
Peronism Explained with Brandon Lightly
About this podcast
Abandon all hope ye who subscribe here. Varn Vlog is the pod of C. Derick Varn. We combine the conversation on philosophy, political economy, art, history, culture, anthropology, and geopolitics from a left-wing and culturally informed perspective. We approach the world from a historical lens with an eye for hard truths and structural analysis.
Episodes
The newest 50 of 439 episodes
- Peronism Explained with Brandon Lightly · 1 h 51 min · Season 2 Episode 116In this installment of the National Fronts series on VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn is joined by writing partner Brandon Lightly to deliver a comprehensive historical and materialist…
- Wired For Authoritarianism with Charles Derber · 1 h 42 min · Season 2 Episode 116In this episode of VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn is joined by veteran sociologist, author, and activist Dr. Charles Derber (Boston College) to discuss his book Wired for…
- Anti-Politics Still Explains Politics with Tad Tietze · 1 h 34 min · Season 2 Episode 115In this episode of VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn is joined by psychiatrist, writer, and political commentator Dr. Tad Tietze (co-author of Left Flank) to unpack the evolving dynamics…
- How Conservative Media Moved From Magazines To Platforms with Howard Polskins · 1 h 6 min · Season 2 Episode 114In this episode of VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn is joined by Howard Polskin, veteran media analyst, journalist, and founder/chief curator of The Righting. Polskin details his daily…
- Liberal Socialism Explained with Matt McManus · 1 h 28 min · Season 2 Episode 113In this episode of VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn is joined by political scientist and author Dr. Matt McManus (Spelman College) to discuss his books What Is Liberal Socialism?…
- Neoplatonism For Real People with Max Wade · 1 h 58 min · Season 2 Episode 112In this episode of VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn sits down with scholar Max Wade to dive deep into ancient philosophy, exploring the evolution, metaphysics, and lasting legacy of…
- An Inconvenient Woman and the Reactionary South with Keri Leight Merritt · 1 h 24 min · Season 2 Episode 111In this episode of VarnVlog, host C. Derick Varn sits down with historian, writer, and independent scholar Dr. Keri Leigh Merritt (author of Masterless Men: Poor Whites and…
- Green Scare And The Radical Environmental Movement with Scott Parkin and Thomas Zietzoff · 1 h 31 min · Season 2 Episode 110In this episode of VarnVlog, host C. Derick Varn is joined by Scott Parkin (organizing director at Rainforest Action Network and co-host of the Green & Red Podcast) and Dr…
- Silicon Empires: How Big Tech Is Re-Mapping Geopolitics and Labor with Nick Srnicek · 1 h 31 min · Season 2 Episode 109In this episode of VarnVlog, host C. Derick Varn sits down with political economist, academic, and author Dr. Nick Srnicek (King's College London) to cut through the extreme hype…
- Leninism in the Age of Populism: Anti-Economism, Strategy & The Left with PK Gandakin · 2 h 15 min · Season 2 Episode 108In this episode of VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn sits down with PK Gandakin, editor-in-chief of Geese Magazine and communist organizer, to discuss the state of the American left, the…
- The Masculinity Vacuum with Bram Geiben · 3 h 24 min · Season 2 Episode 107In this episode of VarnVlog, C. Derick Varn is joined by Bram Geiben, editor at Revol Books and host of Strange Exiles, to discuss the evolving crisis of masculinity, the limits…
- From Dawn to Decadence: The Decadent Society · 1 h 37 min · Season 2 Episode 106Welcome to a special, long-form collaboration: The Regrettable Century and VarnVlog combined in our Captain Planet team of pessimism. Today, we are opening up a comprehensive…
- Brandon Lightly on the New Democracy and National Fronts · 2 h 22 min · Season 2 Episode 105In this episode of Varn Vlog, you and Brandon Lightly analyze the failures of the "New Democracy" and "National Front" strategies as globalized Marxist frameworks. Key points…
- Ben Burgis on Confessing Class Reductionism · 2 h 15 min · Season 2 Episode 104Today, we are joined by philosopher, columnist, and host of Give Them an Argument, Ben Burgis, for a wide-ranging, deeply analytical dive into his recent Sublation pamphlet…
- The Shadow Court and Protecting Democracy with Julie Suk · 1 h 38 min · Season 2 Episode 103The Supreme Court is supposed to decide disputes, not run the country, so why does it feel like nine unelected justices can rewrite constitutional meaning with a single opinion?…
- Alabama Prisons At A Breaking Point with Matthew Vernon Whalan · 1 h 20 min · Season 2 Episode 102Today, we are joined by independent journalist, oral historian, and qualitative researcher Matthew Vernon Whalan to dissect his vital book out from Kersplebedeb: Bullock…
- Egypt After The Revolution with Hossam el-Hamalawy · 1 h 50 min · Season 2 Episode 101Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by acclaimed Egyptian journalist, activist, and labor historian Hossam el-Hamalawy to discuss his vital text out from Verso Books…
- What Happens To Class Politics In A Service Economy with Annie McClanahan · 1 h 20 min · Season 2 Episode 100Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by Dr. Annie McClanahan (Associate Professor of English at UC Irvine) to discuss her groundbreaking book, Beneath the Wage: Tips…
- Green Politics After The AI Boom with James of Prole Kult · 1 h 58 min · Season 2 Episode 99Welcome back to VarnVlog. Today, we are joined by James of Prole Kult for an extensive, two-hour interrogation of eco-socialist strategy, environmental geopolitics, and the…
- Maoism Without The Myths with Black Red Guard · 1 h 32 min · Season 2 Episode 97Welcome back to the blog. Today, we are staging an uncommon but necessary conversation to slice through the amateurishness of internet leftist subcultures. We are joined by…
- Trade Wars As Social Wars with Benjamin Studebaker · 2 h 31 min · Season 2 Episode 98Welcome back to the vlog. Today, we are staging an exhaustive, macro-analytical conversation with political theorist and author Benjamin Studebaker to unpack his recent landmark…
- Education, Literacy, and the Limits of Reform with Freddie deBoer · 1 h 43 min · Season 2 Episode 96Five years after their initial discussion, we are back with Freddie DeBoer—author of The Cult of Smart and the upcoming book All in Your Head—to revisit the state of American…
- Policing American Slavery: How the Slave Power Weaponized Society and the State with Gautham Rao · 1 h 37 min · Season 2 Episode 95How did the legal machinery of early America enforce human bondage? Dr. Gautham Rao joins the channel to discuss his book Policing American Slavery and the state's role in…
- Rewriting Columbus From The Taino View with Andrew Rowen · 1 h 20 min · Season 2 Episode 94Why does mainstream history completely erase the stories of the Indigenous leaders who actively fought back against European conquest? How did the fluid, complex politics of the…
- Geopolitics of the Data Economy: Tech Monopoly, Neoliberalism, Resource Wars with ProleKult · 2 h 10 min · Season 2 Episode 93Why are tech monopolies quietly building massive, "war-eating" data centers in global deserts? How does the infrastructure of artificial intelligence directly intersect with…
- Brandon Lightly on the Mass LIne and New Democracy, Part 2 · 1 h 27 min · Season 2 Episode 92In part two of our deep dive into China (and part four of our socialist organization series), we break down how Mao attempted to dialectically sublate a national front and a…
- Writing and Revolution: Cultural Production vs. Neoliberal Aesthetics with Sudip Bhattacharya · 2 h 25 min · Season 2 Episode 91How does ruling-class hegemony quietly dictate the boundaries of our creative imagination? Can art still serve as a weapon for genuine political transformation, or has it been…
- The Cultural Marxism Myth with A.J.A. Woods · 3 h 39 min · Season 2 Episode 90Where did the "Cultural Marxism" talking point actually originate? How did obscure 20th-century sectarian group battles evolve into the foundation of today's right-wing culture…
- A People’s History of the Mets: Urban Planning, Labor, and Radical Politics with A.M. Gittlitz · 1 h 22 min · Season 2 Episode 89Why are the New York Mets the ultimate team of the working-class underworld? Author A.M. Gittlitz joins the channel to discuss his new book, Metropolitans, and pitch why leftists…
- Cold War Cinema — History, Propaganda, and Left-Wing Film Analysis with Jason Christian & Tony Ballas · 2 h 32 min · Season 2 Episode 88How did decades of geopolitical paranoia, nuclear anxiety, and state-sponsored propaganda completely reshape the landscape of global filmmaking? In this episode of Varn Vlog, we…
- Gerontocracy in America: Samuel Moyn on Aging Wealth and Shifting Power · 1 h 19 min · Season 2 Episode 87Welcome back to the Vlog. Today, we are joined by acclaimed legal scholar and historian Dr. Samuel Moyn (Chancellor Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University) to…
- Why Jordan Peterson is Wrong About Jung with Rob Faure Walker · 2 h 31 min · Season 2 Episode 86Why are so many political activists crashing into severe burnout and depression? Can the deep psychology of Carl Jung provide a radical toolkit for modern survival without…
- Brandon Lightly on the Mass Line and New Democracy, Part 1 · 1 h 51 min · Season 2 Episode 85In this episode of VarnVlog, we are joined by Brandon Lightly to discuss the complex and often misunderstood history of Maoism. We dive deep into the theoretical underpinnings of…
- Screened Realities and the Complicit Lens: Robin Andersen on Media Complicity in Gaza and Beyond · 1 h 11 min · Season 2 Episode 84While the atrocities in Palestine and Gaza have been live-streamed by courageous on-the-ground journalists, American legacy media have operated in an entirely different reality…
- Real Internationalism: Inside the RAIZ International Project · 1 h 8 min · Season 2 Episode 83In this special episode, we are doing something a little different by introducing an urgent, concrete internationalist political project. We are joined by two representatives…
- Grade Scandals, Bureaucracy, and the Truth About the Teacher Shortage with Chris Papst · 46 min · Season 2 Episode 82Why are public school budgets skyrocketing while student proficiency scores tank? How do districts artificially inflate graduation rates while leaving children entirely…
- Solidarity or Silence?: How Leftist Politics Often Overlooks the Disabled with Anthony David Vernon · 1 h 29 min · Season 2 Episode 81This podcast and YouTube episode features an in-depth conversation with Anthony David Vernon, a philosopher and educator, exploring the intersection of disability studies…
- Karl Marx’s Ethics of Human Flourishing with Sam Badger · 1 h 49 min · Season 2 Episode 80In this episode of Varn Vlog, we sit down with Sam Badger to explore the moral philosophy hidden within Marxian theory. While Karl Marx is famously derisive of "moralism," this…
- The Stranger Side of Ancient Philosophy: Materialism & Metaphysics with Max Wade · 2 h 12 min · Season 2 Episode 79What did "materialism" actually mean to the ancients, and how does it differ from our modern scientific understanding? In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Max Wade (Ph.D…
- Revolutionary Strategy Today with the Angry Workers Collective · 1 h 15 min · Season 2 Episode 78The working class is everywhere now. So why does it keep slipping out of view the moment we try to talk about power, strategy, and organization? We sit down with Marco from the…
- Up vs. Down: Bypassing the Two-Party Sorting Mechanism with Travis Misurell · 53 min · Season 2 Episode 77Is American democracy broken, or is it just rigged? In this episode of VarmBlog, we sit down with Travis Misurell, founder of the Think: The Future is Now Coalition (Fink), to…
- Decoding the Tragedy of Noam Chomsky with Dr. Chris Knight · 1 h 8 min · Season 2 Episode 76In this episode of Varn Vlog, we welcome back British anthropologist and activist Dr. Chris Knight, author of Decoding Chomsky, to discuss the startling revelations surrounding…
- The Prospects of DSA: Party Building, Power, and the Marxist Unity Group · 1 h 24 min · Season 2 Episode 75Approximately two years into the second Trump administration, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is at a critical crossroads. In this semi-annual check-in, we sit down…
- Communist Unity in Oceania: The Future of Socialist Organizing in Australia · 2 h 15 min · Season 2 Episode 74You can learn a lot about the health of the left by asking one simple question: what happens when people disagree? We sit down with three organizers from Communist Unity to talk…
- The Quest for Narrative From World Travels to Technology with Miles Spencer · 48 min · Season 2 Episode 73Is our digital legacy the final frontier of storytelling? In this episode, we sit down with Miles Spencer, a serial entrepreneur, world traveler, and the founder of Reflecta AI…
- The Castaneda Con with Ru Marshall · 1 h 16 min · Season 2 Episode 72Is it anthropology or a high-stakes hoax? In this episode of the Varn Vlog, we dive deep into the enigmatic life of Carlos Castaneda with author and visual artist Ru Marshall…
- The Left-Wing Deadbeat with Nurse John · 1 h 17 min · Season 2 Episode 71A lot of people can quote the right theory, wear the right shirt, and post the right meme. Then the moment arrives when you have to sit down with a coworker, ask what they need…
- The K-Shaped Decade with Matt Borka · 1 h 38 min · Season 2 Episode 70“Why does life feel poorer when the economy looks rich?” That question drives our talk with Hungarian-born creator and entrepreneur Matt Borka, who has lived and worked across…
- From Dawn To Decadence, Part 6: Aufheben's Decay · 1 h 33 min · Season 2 Episode 69In Part 6 of our series "From Dawn to Decadence," we examine the intellectual trajectory and eventual "decay" of the Aufheben collective. This episode explores the group's early…
- German Romanticism and Idealism Beyond Nostalgia And Reaction · 1 h 38 min · Season 2 Episode 68Romanticism gets treated like a synonym for nostalgia, and German Idealism gets shrunk to a few brand-name thinkers. We push back on both habits by talking with Christopher…
