It’s Casual Friday! Sam and Emma host Ari Rabin-Havt, former deputy campaign manager for Sen. B

ernie Sanders (I-Vt), to discuss his recent book The Fighting Soul: On the Road with Bernie Sanders. Then, Sam and Emma are joined by Matthew Film Guy! Ari, Emma, and Sam first dive into what his roles were traveling with Bernie throughout the 2020 campaign, particularly in the wake of Ari’s arrival on the team in the wake of his 2016 run. Ari Rabin-Havt then explores what it’s like to have that intimate perspective, particularly when it comes to Bernie’s atypical relationship to his popularity, which jumped to unprecedented levels in 2016, and in his reflections on bringing the magic from his previous campaign into 2020. After touching further on Bernie’s evolution between the two elections, Ari reflects on the role of Democratic leadership in completely leaving Bernie out to dry when it came to his fight with Jeff Bezos in 2018 and giving him the inside lane there, and discusses how the relationship between Bernie and Elizabeth Warren developed over the course of the second campaign, from the launch of their campaigns, to Bernie’s heart attack, and all the way through the well-documented clash on the Iowa debate stage. Sam, Emma, and Ari briefly touch on any massive changes to the campaign that would’ve been made in reflection two years later, from the first debate to Super Tuesday, before they wrap up the interview by discussing the central importance of a movement of workers to actually carry and support the progressive agenda, the importance of supporting actual organizers, and what possibilities remain around a third Bernie presidential campaign. Then, Matthew Film Guy (AKA Film Guy Matthew) discloses his BTS drama in his most recent movie, and walks through THREE movie recommendations, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Syndromes and a Century,” Joanna Hogg’s romance in the time of Thatcher “The Souvenir,” and Luchino Visconti’s work “Rocco and his Brothers.” Sam gives Matthew his Disney World tips, and Sam and Emma cover re-juiced military aid to Ukraine, Biden’s tiptoe tapdance with student debt relief, and the absurdity of means-testing.

And in the Fun Half: Sam and Emma do their darndest to decipher Elon Musk’s take on twitter’s “left-wing bias” (not liking anti-semitism?) and Sam dives into the incompatibility between the right-wing (driven by a sense of grievance, desire to own the libs) and an exclusively right-wing social media (nobody to claim is attacking them, nobody to then own). OK State Sen. Warren Hamilton objects to women receiving life-saving medical procedures, Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald discuss Russia’s (really the Democrats’) invasion of Ukraine, and why Putin (really the Democrats) did this, plus, your IMs!

Check out Ari’s book here: https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631498794

Check out Matthew’s Letterboxd account here.

Check out Matthew’s film discussion group at CommonPoint Queens here.