DIAGRAMMES

This interview was conducted in English.Find this interview and its explanatory dossier at https://www.diagrammes.fr/en/folders/postdemocracy-in-america Duration: 2h01Joe Lowndes is a prominent scholar of American politics, specializing in the study of right-wing movements, populism, and race. He holds a PhD in Political Science from The New School for Social Research and is currently a Visiting Distinguished Lecturer at Hunter College, after having served as Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon. Lowndes is the author of influential works such as “From the New Deal to the New Right: Race and the Southern Origins of Modern Conservatism” and, with Daniel Martinez HoSang, “Producers, Parasites, Patriots: Race and the New Right-Wing Politics of Precarity”. His ongoing research includes co-editing “The Politics of the Multiracial Right” and writing “Adventures in Post-Democracy”, an ethnographic exploration of the growing authoritarian tendencies within American political culture.In our interview, Joe Lowndes traces the evolution of the American right from the early 1990s to the present, highlighting key moments such as Pat Buchanan’s failed 1992 campaign, the rise of the Tea Party during the Obama years, and the transformation of the Republican Party under Donald Trump. He offers a striking analysis of how events often portrayed as crises—such as the Charlottesville rally, the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter protests, and the January 6th Capitol assault—have, paradoxically, served to radicalize and embolden Trump’s base. Lowndes also examines the emergence of a multiracial far-right, evidenced by increased minority support for Trump and the participation of activists of color in extremist groups, while emphasizing that racism and xenophobia remain central to Trump 2.0. Finally, he reflects on the blind spots and avoidance techniques of both liberals and the left, noting their reluctance to confront the challenges posed by the new configuration of the American political landscape.A profound and indispensable analysis for understanding the ongoing transformations of American democracy—and the political challenges they pose far beyond the United States.CHAPTERS:00:00:00 – Introduction to Revolutionary conservatism00:06:49 - (Chap.1) The paleoconservative challenge00:27:21 - (Chap.2) The tea party Obama’s fixation00:44:43 - (Chap.3) The fear of a majority-minority nation00:53:41 - (Chap.4) From Charlottesville to the capitol - The view from MAGA01:06:07 - (Chap.5) The rise of a multiracial far-right01:29:14 - (Chap.6) The masculinist factor01:43:03 - (Chap.7) The Democrats’ debacle01:50:23 - (Chap.8) Is it fascism?Interview by Michel Feher and William CallisonDirected by Justin Luis Denis and Thierry CorroyerProduced by Vladimir GurewichDossier: Aurélie Windels and Michel FeherVisual Research : Sophie LinerMusic by Laz Lo, Eeryskies, Damiens SimonsVoice : Amanda BayPodcast production : Deborah Le GrandSubscribe to our monthly newsletter.To support us, follow and us on social medias:Youtube ‪@Diagrammes‬Instagram : instagram.com/diagram.me.sBluesky : bsky.app/profile/diagrammes.bsky.social#Diagrammes #JoeLowndes #PostDemocracyInAmerica  

This interview was conducted in English.Find this interview and its explanatory dossier at https://www.diagrammes.fr/en/folders/revolutionary-conservatism Duration: 1h56Melinda Cooper is currently professor in the School of Sociology at the Australian National University. She earned her Doctorate from the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-St-Denis) in 2001. She is the author of Life as Surplus: Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era (2008), Clinical Labour: Tissue Donors and Research Subjects in the Global Economy (with Catherine Waldby, 2014), Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism (2017) and Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance (2024).Her most recent book Counterrevolution exposes the logic of neoliberal public finance, which mandates crushing austerity for wage earners alongside extravagant fiscal and monetary generosity for asset holders. The book demonstrates how this dual imperative has transformed the DNA of capitalism, turning capital gains into the primary profit form and, by that token, precipitating the advent of a new “gilded age.”In this video, Melinda Cooper’s applies her incisive analysis to the most recent transformations of capitalism. As the neoliberal counterrevolution reaches its limits, what lies ahead is neither a return to Keynesianism nor a break with a capitalism, but a new phase in the mutation of neoliberalism: one marked by the unprecedented concentration of capital in the hands of a new generation of “robber barons.” The multinationals of the past are being replaced by former startups, now publicly traded yet still entirely controlled by their founders.To maintain their unchecked power, these oligarchs rely on the backing of political leaders such as Donald Trump, who are likewise committed to dismantling the counterpowers that define the rule of law. This is what Melinda Cooper calls revolutionary conservatism: a project that blends nostalgia for a mythical past with a cult of the visionary entrepreneur, in pursuit of the final liquidation of democracy.An essential analysis for understanding the political stakes of our time.CHAPTERS:00:00:00 – Introduction to Revolutionary conservatism00:05:32 - (Chap.1) All the President’s men00:13:09 - (Chap.2) Hybrid companies00:35:29 - (Chap.3) On patrimonial capitalism00:49:08 - (Chap.4) Cannibalization of the Republican Party00:57:42 - (Chap.5) The little guy vs the fat cats01:13:30 - (Chap.6) The social neoliberalism of the Democratic party01:26:30 - (Chap.7) Hegemony trouble01:36:28 - (Chap.8) Project 2025 and the destruction of the administrative stateInterview by Michel FeherDirected by Thierry Corroyer and Meredith WilliamsProduced by Florence Mention and Aurélie WindelsDossier: Alexandra BucherVisual Research : Sophie LinerMusic by Laz Lo, Eeryskies, Damiens SimonsVoice : Amanda BayPodcast production : Deborah Le GrandSubscribe to our monthly newsletter.To support us, follow and us on social medias:Youtube ‪@Diagrammes‬Instagram : instagram.com/diagram.me.sBluesky : bsky.app/profile/diagrammes.bsky.social#Diagrammes #MelindaCooper #RevolutionaryConservatism

This interview was conducted in EnglishFind this interview and its explanatory dossier on our website.Duration: 1h52Thea Riofrancos is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College and a Strategic Co-Director of the Climate and Community Institute. Her research focuses on resource extraction, climate change, the global lithium sector, green technologies, and the Latin American left. She is the author of Extraction: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism and Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador, and the coauthor of A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal.In our conversation, Thea shows how renewable and fossil extractivism is not merely a localized operation of resource removal, but an enduring political and economic regime. She highlights the growing fusion of climate goals, industrial imperatives, and geopolitical strategies. It marks a new phase of green capitalism that displaces the failures of market-based mechanisms with tensions of its own.This interview reframes contemporary resource politics within the long arc of extractive geoeconomics, from the oil crisis to Biden’s green policies and Trump 2.0.CHAPTERS:00:00:00 – Introduction to Extractivism, green and brown00:05:58 - (Chap.1) What is extractivism?00:15:27 - (Chap.2) Green and brown mining00:24:30 - (Chap.3) The Security-Sustainability nexus00:40:10 - (Chap.4) Green Capitalism01:03:31 - (Chap.5) History of Geoeconomics01:15:25 - (Chap.6) Ecomodernism vs Degrowth01:23:39 - (Chap.7) Trumps’s Energy Emergency01:28:28 - (Chap.8) Insecurity and unsustainability under Trump 2.001:33:10 - (Chap.9) Critical Mineral Deals from Ukraine to Rwanda01:40:20 - (Chap.10) From Opportunistic Greening to Fossil FascismInterviewed by Marius BickhardtDirected by Sam JonesEditing by Thierry CorroyerProduced by Vladimir GurewichDossier : Marius BickhardtVisual Reasearch : Sophie LinerMusic by Laz Lo, Eeryskies, Damiens SimonsVoice : Amanda BayPodcast production, editing and mixing : Deborah Le GrandSubscribe to our monthly newsletter.To support us, follow and us on social medias:Youtube ‪@Diagrammes‬Instagram : @diagram.me.sBluesky : @diagrammes.bsky.social#TheaRiofrancos #Extractivism #Climate #GreenCapitalism #Diagrammes

This interview was conducted in EnglishFind this interview and its explanatory dossier at LATE NEOLIBERALISM - DIAGRAMMESDuration: 1h57Quinn Slobodian is a professor of history at Boston University and a specialist in neoliberal thought. He is the author of Globalists.The End of Empire and the Birth of Neoliberalism, Crack-Up Capitalism, Market radicals and the Dream of a World Without Democracy, and Hayek’s Bastards. Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right.Diagram[me]s invited him to trace the genealogy of trumpism. Rather than portraying Trump as a champion of a populist break with the neoliberalism of the late 20th century, Slobodian depicts him as a beneficiary of that doctrine’s transformations. He shows how the libertarian wing of the neoliberal movement came to stake the future of economic liberalism on curbing migration flows, rehabilitating race-based IQ theories, and strengthening the executive branch at the expense of the rule of law.He also shows how the reconfiguration of financial capitalism after the 2008 crisis first allowed tech entrepreneurs to amass enormous fortunes, and then encouraged them to seize the levers of political power.CHAPTERS:00:00:00 – Introduction to Late Neoliberalism00:05:16 - (Chap.1) The Trump administration: Family Portrait00:16:41 - (Chap.2) The neoliberals’ post-cold war blues00:31:11 - (Chap.3) Human capital management: nativism, IQ, natalism00:51:23 - (Chap.4) Movement of goods: The praise for tariffs 01:07:41 - (Chap.5) On warding off inflation: Gold and Cryptocurrencies01:32:42 - (Chap.6) From legislative encasement to executive privilege01:40:24 - (Chap.7) Nostalgia and technofuturism01:50:19 - (Chap.8) Wrestling as allegoryInterview with Michel FeherConducted on February 1st, 2025Directed by: Thierry CorroyerProduced by: Florence Mention and Aurélie WindelsVisual research: Sophie LinerMusic: Laz Lo and Boni (Introduction); Laz Lo, Eeryskies and Damiens Simons (Credits theme)Voice: Amanda BayPodcast production, editing and mixing : Deborah Le GrandSubscribe to our monthly newsletterTo support us, follow us on social medias:Youtube : ‪@Diagrammes‬Instagram : @diagram.me.sBluesky : @diagrammes.bsky.social#QuinnSlobodian #neoliberalism #trump

Hello and welcome to Diagrammes, an independent bilingual media based in Paris and New York. Because resisting the world’s rightward drift requires us to take the measure of it, Diagram[me]s offers every three weeks, in free access, one or more in-depth interviews with scholars, journalists, and activists.The world is moving rightwards at a staggering pace. Leading this race to the worst is a breed of rulers who make their countries great again by cracking down on their own cities, brutalizing their neighbors and licensing their favorite oligarchs to plunder the planet. Taken alone, however, the ways of a few strong men and their cronies cannot fully explain our current trajectory. Other enablers include moderate politicians ready to reach across any aisle, reasonable experts who confuse impartiality with complacency, and large constituencies eagerly absorbing the phobias stoked by the entrepreneurs of resentment.To hinder these global trends, the first task at hand is to get a better understanding of them, even as the spaces devoted to the critique of common sense are rapidly being defunded or closed. Diagrams thus seeks to join a resilient network of sites still attempting to diagnose our contemporary condition – one where freedoms are corroded in the name of liberty and inequalities are celebrated in the name of the people.With a new episode released every three weeks, Diagrams features in-depth interviews with scholars, journalists and activists. Our aim is to showcase research that illuminates the present and to gain a more lucid perspective on the fault lines of our brave new world.Join us on all major listening platforms, explore the dossiers on our website, subscribe to our monthly newsletter and follow us on social media :Youtube : ‪@Diagrammes‬Instagram : @diagram.me.s Bluesky : @diagrammes.bsky.social Production, editing and mixing by Deborah Le Grand