This week, we bring you an interview from a few months ago, when high-schooler Finn McElwee sat down with North Carolina State Senator Graig Meyer to talk about his decision to oppose "genocide" in Gaza.
A former educator, Senator Meyer emphasizes the importance of allowing classroom discussion of genocide against Palestinians alongside study of the Holocaust and other great crimes of the powerful.
He also provides thoughtful analysis about the danger presented by President Trump's weaponization of accusations of antisemitism.
This interview, conducted in July, remains relevant as we hope the ceasefire will hold and the past 2 years of Israel's genocidal violence against Gazans will finally end.
In addition, in this episode, Meg and Patrick analyze a New York Times article that previews the ways in which pro-Israeli propaganda will be aimed at Americans, at substantial risk to our now obviously-fragile democracy.
Both legacy news media like CBS and social media like TikTok are likely to be subject to even greater censorship. The struggle for Palestinian humanity is tied up with our fight for democracy in the US.
Links:
This week, senior members of the Biden administration presented their defense before history, explaining or pointing fingers over their support for Israel’s assault on Gaza. In this episode, we pick that defense apart and compare it to earlier justifications of US imperial crimes.
Read NPR’s article, sourced from a couple dozen senior Biden officials: “We Didn’t Do Enough”
If we understand the failings of the establishment Democratic party, we empower ourselves to overcome them. And a rising crop of challengers aim to do just that, willing to name this moral collapse and oppose it.
Plus, the enormous Global Sumud Flotilla, carrying aid to Gazans, gives us hope, even as US warships threaten Venezuela on the other side of the ocean.
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This episode features part two of our conversation with Catholic Worker organizers Lenore Yarger and Steve Woolford, and their son Quinn. From their rural North Carolina home base, they’ve spent 20 years running the GI Rights Hotline, an anonymous lifeline for soldiers looking to get out, resist, or simply not follow illegal orders. Their hotline blew up when Trump ordered National Guard deployments to Los Angeles.
What happens when the empire turns inward? What kinds of calls do they get from soldiers at the breaking point?
We also learn some history of resistance to right-wing, anti-immigrant nativism in Siler City, a small North Carolina town.
Links:
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This week, the tide may finally be starting to turn against genocide. A majority of Democratic Senators voted with Bernie to cut off some weapons to Israel. Not enough, but a major step forward.
Zohran Mamdani polls overwhelmingly ahead in the New York mayoral race, including among Jewish voters. Over in the UK, Jeremy Corbyn launched a new leftist party and immediately matched Labour’s membership. Turns out “don’t fund a genocide” is a winning platform.
But apparently, it's still a tough sell for some in Congress. And ambitious centrists seem to think they can run without strong moral opposition to forced starvation. From Roy Cooper's Senate ambitions here in North Carolina to Kamala’s resurrection tour, the "moderates" are scrambling to catch the cultural tide without getting too wet.
Then, we turn to something radical in a whole other way. Patrick, Meg, and Finn are joined by friends and Catholic Worker organizers Lenore Yarger, Steve Woolford, and their son Quinn. They talk about anarchist Catholic hospitality, voluntary poverty, and raising kids while forging an alternative to the dominant US family culture.
Part two of that conversation, on military resistance and Steve and Lenore's work with the GI Rights Hotline, is coming soon.
ALSO IN THIS EPISODE:
The rise of Zohran social media clones with none of his substance
The European hornets that attacked Patrick
LINKS:
After a brief hiatus due to vacation, COVID superspreading, and a flood event here in Chapel Hill, we’re back with our very first interview.
This week, we talk with our cousin Chiara Kimelia, Dartmouth student and freshly minted canvassing superhero, who hit the pavement for Zohran Mamdani’s historic, come-from-the-left win in NYC’s mayoral primary.
We explore the generational and community politics motivating voters to support Zohran, and how a campaign built on affordability and human dignity can beat Cuomo with a war chest.
Plus, Chiara shares what it was like watching U.S. imperialism from abroad, as she backpacked alone for a year after high school, then landed back on at Dartmouth, a university that called the cops on its own community.
Also in this episode:
LINKS:
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This week, Trump launched a full-throttle, unprovoked strike on Iran, violating U.S. law, international law, and any shred of moral credibility.
The oligarchy is flexing its muscles, but we can flex back.
We examine the opposition to this war, a populist opposition that covers the spectrum from MAGA to Bernie and the left.
CNN, Fox and other mainstream outlets start to manufacture consent, but we've got tools to fight back.
TAKE ACTION. CAIR has an easy set of action alerts that make it easy to contact your Representative and your Senators.
We remind ourselves how to innoculate our minds against manufactured consent to war, dissect the liberal feminist Trojan horse arguments for “liberation by airstrike,” and remind folks that this exact imperial playbook led us into Iraq.
Also this week:
Palestinian student activist Mahmoud Khalil is finally out on bail after ICE disappeared him for leading campus protests.
The Senate Parliamentarian tells Republicans that they can't cut food stamp cuts.
The Democrats once again show they hate nothing more than a charismatic leftist by throwing everything they've got against Zohran Mamdani. (Go VOTE if you're a New Yorker!)
Subscribe, rate, and share with your friends. Visit us at TheLeftUnsaid.net to follow the action.
Links
This week on The Left Unsaid, we skip the burgers and throw something juicier on the grill: the imperial myth machine.
It’s a Father’s Day edition, so naturally we’re spending it exactly how Dad likes—tearing into bipartisan war propaganda and the elite penchant for fascist-adjacent pageantry.
Finn and Patrick debrief from their trip to DC where The Left Unsaid crew filmed CodePink giving Congress hell and glimpsed Trump’s weak military cosplay.
We then returned home to experience the odd pageantry of surburban liberal resistance at our local “No Kings” protest, with its awkward fusion of patriotic aesthetics and moral outrage.
Also:
This Father's Day, we'll recommmend 2 books:
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This week, we keep it a little shorter, since Finn, Patrick and Meg are deep in work on a documentary about Gaza solidarity in the high schools.
On the podcast, we cover:
AI and the Big Dumb Bill. The House passed a monster benefits-cut bill. Half of them didn’t even read it. it is bad in almost every way, EXCEPT, it finally kicked off the divorce between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. We discuss the latest insults flying between them.
ICE in LA. Trump is sending the military and the National Guard to break up sanctuary cities. Protesters fight back. A union leader gets hospitalized. Tiananmen Square, but worse, as a protestor is run down by an ICE van. (disturbing)
Travel Ban Redux. Trump revives the Muslim ban idea and ends protections for hundreds of thousands.
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Since we recorded, Israel has boarded the ship and detained and deported its activists. Greta was on board, our hero. Read their latest updates here.
Mexico Elects Its Judges, So Naturally It’s a “Dictatorship” Now. The Western press flips out over a democratic reform that is overcoming judicial corruption.
Dockworkers vs. Empire. French unions block weapons shipments to Israel.
Mamdani Rising. NYC’s most charismatic DSA candidate wrecks Cuomo at the debate. He’s surging in the polls and he already raised enough money, so he's just asking for your time now. See the fun debate where everyone beats up on Andrew Cuomo.
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This week, The Left Unsaid bursts out of the living room and into the headlines. Literally.
Our youngest co-host and resident teenage rabble-rouser, Finn, organized a Walkout for Palestine at Chapel Hill High School and made the front page of the local paper.
We bring you the exclusive on how it all went down. You'll be impressed by these students.
But first:
Israel's documented use of Palestinians as human shields
This one’s for the kids. And for hoping that the grown-ups finally decide to grow up.
Links:
Contact us or get involved: info@TheLeftUnsaid.net
Calls to Action:
This week, the McElwee family returns to the belly of the beast - domestic politics - to rip apart Trump’s $4.5 trillion “budget” bill, aka oligarchic looting plan. We break down what’s in the bill, how it’s quietly murdering people with paperwork and poverty, and a truly massive expansion of fascist border law enforcement.
Meanwhile, the genocide rages on in Gaza, two Israeli consulate employees are shot in DC, and the ADL blames it on our favorite Twitch streamer.
Also in this episode: Ms. Rachel inspired Meg to speak out more loudly for Palestine, and should inspire you too! Columbia’s president gets drowned out during her commencement address. (Free Mahmoud!) And the U.S. empire continues to kneecap its own soft power by going after Harvard’s international students.
This one’s packed. Listen in, leave us a comment, call your senator (you can do it after 5pm, introverts), and if you’re able, support us at TheLeftUnsaid.net. No paywalls, no ads, just one semi-functional family trying to tell the truth.
Links:
This week, we start with the deranged plot twist of the Duck Dynasty guy teaming up with Homeland Security to turn immigration into reality TV. For these people, The Hunger Games was a how-to manual.
From there, we drag our mics out of the simulacra and into the real: the criminalization of journalism, the surveillance of dissent, and borders as literal and ideological weapons.
We discuss famous left-wing streamer Hasan Piker’s interrogation at the airport, Jeremy Scahill’s consistent moral and journalistic brilliance, and Mr. Rogers's humanist commitments.
Plus: Keir Starmer cosplays as Trump, beloved online educator Ms. Rachel get burned for supporting children's right to live, and Trump’s alternative Oligarchy Tour through the Middle East provides both opportunities and traps for global justice.
Also: weird French philosopher Jean Baudrillard,, climate apartheid, trad wives, and the AI-generated Trump Gaza real estate ad.
Links:
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Use the yellow mic button at TheLeftUnsaid.net to drop us a question or righteous rant
Meg returns for a Mother’s Day episode that is warm, weird, and wildly enraging.
We start with a ceasefire (India and Pakistan) and end with state violence (ICE kidnapping a mom in Massachusetts). In between, we explore the imperial roots of the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, why caste and colonialism still matter, and how U.S. immigration law is a eugenics project in bureaucratic drag.
Other things we cover:
Don’t just listen. Organize, radicalize, and leave us a 5-star review that would make Karl Rove proud (but maybe don’t use his name this time).
Links:
This week, it’s just Patrick and Finn—no Meg, but plenty of rage, history, and dark humor.
Starting with the unspeakable horrors coming out of Gaza, they explore not only the U.S.’s financial and political complicity but also why this particular atrocity demands our attention. It’s not “just another war.” It’s a stress test for precious, hard-won moral frameworks: international law, human rights, even the idea of civilization itself.
We follow the bloody trail from the Spanish conquest to Israel’s assault on Gaza, with stops in Nicaragua, Ireland, apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. Senate. Along the way, we talk about what it means to be “special carriers” of anti-colonial memory, how ideological tools constrain power, and how we can build that toolbox, even if we have thus far failed to stop the genocide.
Links
In this episode of The Left Unsaid, Pat, Meg, and Finn take a wild, unbalanced joyride through the myths we’re taught in school — from the sacred veneration of the Founding Fathers to the soothing bedtime stories spun by Ken Burns documentaries.
We dig into:
How the Trump administration is pushing "patriotic education" (read: mandatory nationalistic myth-making).
How liberal takes on history (hello again, Ken Burns) sometimes aren’t that far off from the conservative ones — just with better music.
What the 1619 Project gets wrong.
Why critical thinking about history matters more than ever, as authoritarianism erupts into the classroom.
And why the Constitution isn't the sacred text you were told it was in 8th grade civics class.
If you're tired of fairy tales disguised as history, grab your headphones. Let's complicate the past together — and maybe complicate the future too.
Links:
Trump administration on education:
Executive Order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”
The 2nd Place Winner in the Senior Individual Documentary category of the National History Day competition in 2024, which we noted tied decolonization in Africa to the unfolding of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.
Historian Tad Stoermer’s takedown of Ken Burns on the American Revolution.
The Dig episode on the Constitution and how Americans have viewed/worshipped it over time, with Aziz Rana.
James Oakes, respected historian of slavery and abolitionism in US history, critiquing the 1619 Project and pointing out that history textbooks were actually pretty good, at least in the 80s and 90s.
Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States.
Incredible new history: America, América, by Greg Grandin.
In this episode of The Left Unsaid, your favorite intergenerational think tank—Pat, Meg, and Finn—dive headfirst into the authoritarian fever dream that is U.S. higher education under pressure from the Trump administration. From threats to Harvard’s funding to the criminalization of pro-Palestinian student speech, we trace how empire comes home to roost.
Also:
Finn contemplates his college prospects as a politically aware white guy.
the rise and fall of soft power, and how U.S. “aid” is often economic sabotage in a humanitarian costume.
Plus, a brief return of the Dutch East India Company, because imperialism loves a reboot.
And yes, because it's 2025, we fulfill our legal obligation to talk about artificial intelligence. Imagine the State Department run by ChatGPT, where generative coups require no redactions and zero moral reflection. The Trump administration has a plan.
In this debut episode, Patrick, Meg and Finn sway to the vibes of our current political moment: killer robot dogs dressed as cartoons, Mahmoud Khalil and predictive political repression, why "not obeying in advance" might be our most important survival skill.
And of course, because it's now legally required of all podcasters, we talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Join our attempt to briefly escape the inanity of it all through cozy, family conversation.
Free Palestine.
