On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Casey Johnston to discuss why she pared back on social media, made her smartphone much dumber, and what she learned about how bodies are treated online through her fitness journey.

Casey Johnston is the creator of the She’s A Beast newsletter and author of A Physical Education: How I Escaped Diet Culture and Gained the Power of Lifting.

Rural America is Trump country. Last November Trump carried 93 percent of rural counties.. How can Democrats change that? Anthony Flaccavento and Erica Etelson, co-founders of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, have a strategy to accomplish that.

Also: 20 minutes without Trump: We know a lot about the bad things J. Edgar Hoover did, but it turns out there’s a lot we didn’t know. In this episode from the archives, Historian Beverly Gage will explain. Her award-winning book is “G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover & the Making of the American Century.” (originally aired in December, 2022)

On this episode of American Prestige, Writer and researcher ⁠Joshua Craze⁠ returns to the program to talk about the situation in South Sudan. They cover the collapsed 2018 “peace deal,” the elite forces vying for power, the Nuer White Army, figures like Salva Kiir Mayardit and Riek Machar, how South Sudan’s troubles have been impacted by the war in Sudan, external actors like the United Arab Emirates and Uganda, and the humanitarian crisis in the fragmented country.

For sports fans in the US, betting has never been more common, or more accessible. But beneath the surface of this booming pastime, a darker story is unfolding. Writer John Semley joins the podcast to examine the implications of all this access, not just in American sports, but across global betting markets, and how our era of gambling reflects a new world order some economists are calling "casino capitalism." Semley’s feature, “Casino Capitalism 2.0,” appears in the June issue of The Nation.

The late David Horowitz, who died in April at age 86, was often dismissed as a fringe figure not just by liberals and leftists but even many on the right. Horowitz would often complain that his books — crude polemics with titles such as BLITZ: Trump Will Smash the Left and Win (2020) and The Enemy Within: How a Totalitarian Movement Is Destroying America (2021) — were ignored by respectable conservative publications such as National Review and Commentary. Horowitz got one thing right: that both his friends and foes underestimated him. In truth, as David Klion notes in an obituary for The Nation, Horowitz for all his shrillness and absurdity, had an enormous influence on right-wing politics and deserves to be seen as a precursor to Trumpism. Among other claims to infamy, Horowitz was the mentor of Trump’s anti-immigration advisor Stephen Miller.

I talked to David about Horowitz’s long shadow and tumultuous journey from being a red-diaper baby to a New Left radical to an right-wing polemicist who tried to revive the very McCarthism that damaged his parent’s life. Horowitz left a terrible legacy but was also a figure whose impact can’t be ignored.

This week in the American Prestige news roundup: the Ukraine peace talks collapse (3:30) as Trump stuns European allies with his sudden pivot back to positions beneficial to Russia (7:21); in EU elections, a Romanian centrist wins the presidency (11:06), a Polish centrist wins the first round of the presidential election leading to a runoff (13:27), and the Portuguese center-right wins that country’s parliamentary election (14:46); India continues to threaten Pakistani water levels (17:05); South African president Ramaphosa’s visit to the White House goes awry (20:04); in Israel-Palestine, the IDF begins Operation Gideon’s Chariots (23:58), the Israelis allow “minimal” aid into Gaza, but no distribution (27:13), and a European backlash follows the IDF’s operation and a West Bank shooting incident involving diplomats (31:18); Israel again appears to be preparing to strike Iran (35:17); Evo Morales is excluded from the presidential ballot in Bolivia (38:23); a New Cold War update featuring China pledging additional money to the WHO after a pandemic agreement (40:57); and Trump announces the Golden Dome project (43:47).

On this episode of Tech Won't Save Us, Paris Marx is joined by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna to discuss some of the harms caused by generative AI, address the industry's ploys to keep the public invested while companies flounder under the weight of unmet promises, and what folks can do to push back.

Emily M. Bender is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at University of Washington. Alex Hanna is Director of Research at the Distributed AI Institute. They are the authors of The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want.

“A rally a day keeps the fascists away” – that’s what Jamie Raskin says. He’s the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and he talks about Trump’s “world historical grift,” and why we shouldn’t be pessimistic about defeating his efforts.

Also: 20 minutes without Trump: 1925 is being celebrated this year as the centenary of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzerald -- but we’re interested in some of the other books published that year. So we turn to Tom Lutz – his new book is titled “1925: A Literary Encyclopedia.” It’s 800 pages long, and only 7 are on “Gatsby."