Give Them An Argument

"Canceling Comedians While the World Burns: A Critique of the Contemporary Left" is officially out now! In these clips from the online book launch, Ana Kasparian, Nando Vila, Ryan Lake, Daniel Bessner, and David Griscom stop by to chat--and to talk about the book. Ben reads a short extract from it at the end. If you (ahem) want to pick up a copy yourself, it's available at all the usual book places but here's a link to order it from the worker-owned bookstore Red Emmas: https://redemmas...

For this week's patron bonus episode: Ben talked to Fredrik deBoer, author of "The Cult of Smart," about a bunch of his Substack essays. Two of these essays are "a bad partner is worse than rain" about Israel and Palestine and "Perhaps We Cannot Do Both" which talks about the George Floyd and BLM protests and Meghan Markle and the difference between symbolic fights and real big change.https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/.....

Chess teacher Nick Manley joins Ben to talk about the history of chess in the Soviet Union.Independent creators rely on your support to create the content you want!Support Give Them An Argument on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis...

Ben and Forrest were both traveling this week, hence no new regular GTAA episode on Monday or patron ep on Thursday, but here's Ben's complete appearance on MR to talk about his new book and how the left should think about cancel culture.Independent creators rely on your support to create the content you want! Support Give Them An Argument on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis...

Independent creators rely on your support to create the content you want! Support Give Them An Argument on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis. Patrons get a bonus episode every Thursday, access to the Discord server, a “Sopranos” Recap Bonus Episode every month with Mike Recine, Nando Vila, and Wosny Lambre, a monthly Discord Movie Night, and "Discord Office Hours" (regularly scheduled group voice chats). Follow Ben on Twitter: https://twitter...

Erkan Ekin joins Ben to read through and talk about Herbert Marcuse's correspondence with Martin Heidegger about Heidegger's role in the Third Reich. Find Ekin Online: https://twitter.com/ekinerkan4 Independent creators rely on your support to create the content you want! Support Give Them An Argument on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis...

Kurt Hackbarth talks to Ben about the reforms that Mexico's governing left party MORENA has implemented in the last three years. (In the rest of the episode, they get into drawbacks, limitations, and looming problems.) To get the full episode and every other Thursday patron episode, as well as the Monday postgames, support Give Them An Argument on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/benburgis...

Ben is joined by Rick Perlstein, author of “Reaganland,” and they discuss a group of weird right-wing economists that developed theories around supply-side economics in the mid-‘70s. The Laffer Curve, the two Santa Claus theory, and other supply-side theories unfortunately were stupid and did not work. That was the downside. Luckily, Jimmy Carter won the presidency, cancelled a bunch of Single Santa Claus projects, and also ruined that side of economics. Not a great period all around...

It has somewhat recently come to light that the NFL created a different scoring scale for Black players versus players of other races when it came to deciding how affected a player was by traumatic brain injuries occurring during their time on in the NFL. If a player was Black, they needed to demonstrate a higher level of impaired cognitive function than players of other races...

Ben had to be gone tonight due to a family situation. Cale Brooks & Harvey J. Kaye kindly stepped in with a History Q&A.