Left politics with history under the floorboards.
The Dig treats politics as something with roots, institutions, and consequences. Its conversations move patiently through left electoral strategy, workplace organizing, enclosure, imperial power, and the fights shaping the left.
PRESS PLAY
The Dig is a long-form political interview show from Jacobin Magazine. It is serious without being sterile. The show works from the premise that today’s crises only make sense when placed inside longer histories of class conflict, empire, organization, and resistance. Daniel Denver regularly opens by establishing a broad political frame before the interview settles into detail. The result is a program that feels closer to a political seminar than a news panel. Recent episodes spend real time on the electoral left, including New York City DSA, Zohran Mamdani, Julia Salazar, Tiffany Cabán, and the hard practical work of canvassing, fundraising, staffing, media strategy, and coalition building. These conversations are interested in victory, but also in the infrastructure that makes victory possible. The show is equally comfortable with older histories. With Peter Linebaugh, it moves through the Luddites, enclosure, craft knowledge, the commons, confinement, and the formation of the working class. Those episodes connect ideas that might otherwise stay separated: land, labor, prisons, factories, schools, ships, and the disciplined habits demanded by capitalism. The international politics are not treated as distant spectacle. A Venezuela episode uses oil, PDVSA, Chavismo, U.S. military pressure, nationalism, and imperial hubris to think through sovereignty and power. The show’s left commitments are explicit. Its best moments come when urgency is slowed down enough to become analysis. It does not chase balance for its own sake. It asks what forces are moving, who has leverage, and what kinds of organization can survive pressure from money, media, parties, and the state. The pacing is measured. The vocabulary can be theoretical, but the stakes remain practical. For listeners willing to follow a long argument, The Dig offers politics with memory, structure, and purpose.
Made for: For listeners who want serious left analysis of elections, labor, empire, social movements, and political economy. It best suits people comfortable with long interviews, ideological language, and historically layered arguments.
What sets it apart: The Dig stands apart by letting political conversations breathe until strategy, history, and structure come into view. It treats campaigns, uprisings, and international crises as products of institutions and movements, not just personalities or headlines.
The Dig is a podcast from Jacobin magazine that discusses politics, criminal justice, immigration and class conflict with smart people. Please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4839800
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
The Dig turns left political debate into sustained inquiry about power, organization, history, and the practical limits of electoral strategy.
Daniel Denvir builds The Dig around probing interviews that connect immediate political contests to the institutions, histories, and organizing choices beneath them.
A Yankees beer price cap becomes a test of who controls capital; your curiosity gets the good seats.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how J.D. refocused its electoral work after layoffs and fading left enthusiasm.
The Dig pressures left electoral strategy by tying a broad political diagnosis to J.D.'s recent organizing history. Daniel Denver describes voters moving against Donald Trump and the MAGA Republican Party, while liberal voters push back against a Democratic establishment he says…
A wide-angle history of enclosure, obedience, and the institutions that sort working life.
This second half keeps Peter Leinbach on the Luddites, enclosure, and the wider machinery of confinement, moving from prisons and schools to old age homes.
A wide-ranging conversation about Venezuela, oil, and sovereignty.
This episode follows the U.S. military assault on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro with Alejandro Velasco, Gabriel Hetland, and Yoletty Bracho.
A focused campaign conversation about local media assumptions, movement organizing, and reaching voters directly.
The Dig looks at Zoran Mamdani's mayoral campaign as a test of how much local press still shapes political possibility. Daniel Denver's conversation tracks a campaign theory built for an attention economy where local coverage can matter without deciding whether a candidate…
A practical account of how canvassing experience became electoral strategy.
The Dig treats electoral work less as a burst of campaign energy than as a test of whether an organization can build real capacity over time. Daniel Denver moves through Julia Salazar's 2018 campaign, Tiffany Caban's narrow 2019 loss for Queens District Attorney, and Farah…
Czech politics with culture still in the room.
Fast briefings on authoritarian politics worldwide.
Daniel Denver opens The Dig by framing 2024 as a fight against Trump, MAGA, and a Democratic Party establishment that has failed to protect working people.
Daniel Denver opens the second and final part with Peter Leinbach.
This episode explores the concept of the commons as a historical and contemporary framework for anti-capitalist resistance against enclosure and the global financial system.
This episode features interviews with Emilia González Avalos, Greg Nammacher, and JaNaé Bates Imari discussing organizing and resistance efforts in Minneapolis.
This episode of The Dig features an interview with Aslı Bâli and Greg Grandin discussing the MAGA movement's political empire and its implications for American democracy and foreign policy.
Daniel Denver opens with the U.S.
Daniel Denver opens by placing Zoran Mamdani's mayoral campaign inside a question about finding the right candidate for office.
Daniel Denver introduces The Dig episode featuring Tasha Van Auken, field director for Zoran Mamdani's New York City mayoral campaign, which mobilized roughly 100,000 volunteers to knock on three million doors.
Daniel Denver interviews Malcolm Harris, author of 'What's Left: Three Paths Through the Planetary Crisis,' about reconciling market craft, public power, and communism as simultaneous left strategies against climate crisis.
This is a celebratory announcement for the 500th episode party of The Dig, featuring thanks to guests and listeners, a Patreon appeal, and details on an upcoming live recording event about socialist governance in New York City.
This interview with Brazilian Finance Minister Fernando Haddad explores Brazil's political economy and its position within the global capitalist system, discussing historical contexts like Lula's presidency and the coup against Dilma Rousseff.
This episode discusses Trump's intensification of police, ICE, and military repression, exploring its implications for MAGA's fascist and authoritarian tendencies.
This episode introduces Signal Hill, a new audio magazine project for left-wing stories, and promotes the book 'No Cop City, No Cop World'.
This episode features an interview with Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of the left-wing French party La France Insoumise, discussing political projects and movements.