KPFA - Against the Grain

Why do poor, often sick, rural people vote for Republicans even after they slash funding for Medicaid and close rural hospitals? Michael Shepherd describes how conservative politicians and media have successfully built support for those cuts by claiming programs like Medicaid only help city dwellers, people of color, and immigrants.
Michael E. Shepherd, Rural Pain, Republican Gain: How the Republican Party Is Killing Rural America and Why Democrats Are Blamed University of Chicago Press, 2026
Photo by Engin Akyurt on Unsplash
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When we think of world makers, we’re unlikely to picture a flower. Yet flowers completely transformed our planet, giving us rain forests, altering coastlines, producing the food we eat, and enticing our pre-human ancestors to climb down from the trees. And they did that partially through reshaping the formerly adversarial relationship between plants and insects into one of mutual aid and cooperation most of the time. Biologist David George Haskell enumerates our debt to flowers. (Full-length presentation.)
David George Haskell, How Flowers Made Our World: The Story of Nature’s Revolutionaries Viking, 2026
Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash
The post Unlikely World Makers appeared first on KPFA.

The struggle for labor across the color line has often been credited to white activists. However, as sociologist Cedric de Leon argues, the black labor movement, independently organized outside of the official union movement, propelled such efforts. He discusses the black labor movement’s divisions, including in the face of the state’s attempt to destroy it. (Encore presentation.)
Cedric de Leon, Freedom Train: Black Politics and the Story of Interracial Labor Solidarity UC Press, 2025
The post The Black Labor Movement appeared first on KPFA.

Jessica Mitford revived muckraking journalism in the United States, shaping generations of investigative writers who followed her. She also lived a committed life on the left, despite her ultra-reactionary English upper class origins. Carla Kaplan argues that Mitford is woman for our times.
Carla Kaplan, Troublemaker: The Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford Harper, 2025
The post Queen of the Muckrakers appeared first on KPFA.

Big Tech’s owners see themselves as visionaries — as singularly capable of understanding and shaping the future — in contrast to the rest of us. Adrian Daub explores the worldview of Silicon Valley’s owners.
Adrian Daub, What Tech Calls Governing Stanford University Press, 2026
Photo by Igor Shalyminov on Unsplash
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