The Dig Folgen

Donald Trump won the presidency in significant part by pledging to do something that his predecessors had already mostly accomplished: building a big, beautiful wall on the border with Mexico. For liberals and centrists, the wall now shares a toxic association with Trump. But until recently, militarizing the border with Mexico was accepted as a core piece of the commonsense, bipartisan establishment immigration and drug policy agenda. Today, my guest is Peter Andreas, a professor at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown and the author of seminal book Border Games: Policing the US-Mexico Divide. Thanks to our supporters at University of California Press: http://www.ucpress.edu/

The drug war is winding down and heating up all at the same time. States are legalizing recreational weed while prosecutors around the country are charging dealers, including small-time ones, with murder when their drugs contribute to someone else’s fatal overdose; attorney Jeff Sessions has instructed US Attorneys to go to the max on severe mandatory minimum sentences. Rick Lines, executive director of Harm Reduction International, lays out what an alternative to the drug war should look like.

What’s the matter with Appalachia? Many liberal elites think they know the answer. Since Trump’s campaign first took off, the region has become a symbol of all that is wrong with Red State America: guns, bigotry, a willingness to get swindled by right-wing snake-oil salesmen. There is, indeed, a lot wrong with Appalachia. But what’s most wrong is that a region where people waged militant labor struggles has now been devastated by coal company greed, automation, shifts in global commodity markets and, of course, by Republican reaction and neoliberal malign neglect. Sarah Jones, social media editor at the New Republic, explores the possibilities for left-wing revival in Appalachia. Read the full transcript from Jacobin here.