Coming up in July

Hey there. Good to see you again – or if you’re new, welcome and thanks for joining.

Here’s what’s coming up in July:

• Are the Erdogans, Modis, and Bolsonaros of this world different from your Trumps and Le Pens? We have the authors of a book on the radical right in the global periphery to ask whether what’s going on in Turkey or the Philippines is coming to a Germany, say, or a Canada.
• Did anyone say ‘degenerate radicalism’? We examine what happened when an earlier radical wave lost its bearings by re-examining the 2008 Uli Edel film, The Baader-Meinhof Complex
• We hope to have a recording of a Bungacast co-hosted event in which George hosted regular Bunga guest Catherine Liu and Dan Evans in talk about the Professional-Managerial Class’s politics
• Phil talks to leading Hegelian Marxist scholar Sean Sayers about what makes Hegelian Marxism necessary and distinct from the other possible configurations of Marxism
• People talk about ‘legitimacy’ all the time but what does it mean? And how is it lacking today? We kick off the second section of the 2023 Reading Club by examining Jurgen Habermas’ 1973 classic, Legitimation Crisis

Bunga Elsewhere

• Alex wondered – in the New Statesman – whether the upcoming fight between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg proved the techno-feudal thesis correct
• George reflected for The Northern Star on why - in the seven years since the referendum - Brexit’s democratic energy has dissipated and what can be done about it
• Building on his recent book Taking Control: Sovereignty and Democray After Brexit (co-authored with George and others), Phil wrote for UnHerd about how the potential of Brexit has been squandered; and, for the Briefings for Britain website, on why the politics of Brexit still lies ahead of Britain, not behind it.
• And Alex guested on the Left Reckoning podcast, talking about the defeat of left-populism; as well as talked to Dain Fitzgerald (pt 1 and pt 2) about the elitist, anti-universalist turn in pro-market thinking, and why capitalism doesn’t promise anything anymore.

ICYMI

A period of mourning at Bungacast as our evil patron saint, Silvio Berlusconi, went to the big bunga bunga party in the sky. We compiled a (very popular!) oral history of the man, featuring contributions from seven Italians from a range of ages.

And THREE subscriber-only shows!

• The ever popular/controversial topic of the PMC was the centrepiece of the discussion when Phil interviewed Matthew Goodwin about his new book Values, Voice and Virtue: The New British Politics.
• Amber A’Lee Frost was on again to look at the ‘other side’ of feminism to that which we discussed the month before. We debated Mary Harrington’s ‘reactionary feminism’.
• And a bumper edition of Aufhebonus Bonus, taking your criticisms of us and our guests seriously.

As always, this is all there to be debated. We look forward to engaging with you all over the next month, so do make sure to post your thoughts and send in your questions.

Love from the Bunga boys,

Alex, George, Phil