Six months ago, we booked a date with Liza Featherstone and Doug Henwood to come back onto Speaking Out of Place and dig into the results of the elections. Back then, we had talked about the political landscape developing around the midterms, shortly before Graham Platner withdrew from the race for Senator in Maine. After that, Trump increased his efforts to press his underlings to get states to redistrict, at the same time he prepared the public for “rigged elections” and had ICE agents circle around polling places. MAGA poured millions and millions of dollars into races, as did billionaire Elon Musk, who concentrated hundreds of millions of dollars on races in Texas. And AIPAC spent historical amounts of money to defeat candidates like Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. None of that worked. Democrats took both the House and the Senate, which they now dominate with huge majorities in both; they flipped red state after red state, they won governors races, and elected a DSA candidate mayor of Los Angeles. Liza and Doug talk about the public’s dramatic turn against tech oligarchs, data centers, against ICE, against the Iran war, and for an affordable life and health care. We talk about the need for a compelling vision to move from investment in single issues and to a collective vision of democracy and people power.
Liza Featherstone is the author of Divining Desire: Focus Groups and the Culture of Consultation, published by O/R Books in 2018, as well as Selling Women Short: the Landmark Battle for Workers’ Rights at Walmart (Basic Books, 2004). She co-authored Students Against Sweatshops (Verso, 2002) and is editor of False Choices: the Faux Feminism of Hillary Rodham Clinton (Verso, 2016). She’s currently editing a collection of Alexandra Kollontai ‘s work for O/R Books and International Publishers and writing the introduction to that volume.
Featherstone’s work has been published in Lux, TV Guide, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Ms., the American Prospect, Columbia Journalism Review, Glamour, Teen Vogue, Dissent, the Guardian, In These Times, and many other publications.
Liza teachers at NYU ‘s Literary Reportage Program as well as at Columbia University School for International and Public Affairs. She is proud to be an active member of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America and of UAW local 7902.
Doug Henwood is a Brooklyn-based journalist and broadcaster specializing in economics and politics. He edited Left Business Observer, a newsletter, from 1986–2013, and has been host of Behind the News, a weekly radio show/podcast that originates on KPFA, Berkeley, since 1995. He is the author of Wall Street: How It Works and for Whom (Verso, 1997), After the New Economy (New Press, 2004), and My Turn: Hillary Clinton Targets the Presidency (OR Books, 2016). He’s written for numerous periodicals including Harper’s, The New Republic, The Nation, The Baffler, and Jacobin. He’s been working on a book about the rot of the US ruling class for way too long and needs to acquire the self-discipline to finish it.
