Is there room for patriotism within the socialist movement? What are we to make of the positions of leftists such as Ben Norton and Danny Haiphong, as opposed to Jackson Hinkle, Haz, and other PatSocs seeking to expand the sphere of socialist collaboration in the USA? Is it important to maintain ideological purity or would it be more productive to embrace working class people who may be culturally more aligned with the right? Is socialism inherently patriotic or not? The following article by Midwestern Marx argues that socialism has more than enough room to include patriotic proletarians: https://www.midwesternmarx.com/articles/in-defense-of-us-proletarian-patriotism-a-comradely-response-to-danny-haiphongs-marxist-polemic-on-patriotic-socialism-by-kayla-popuchet Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

The title of this show comes from a recent article in The Atlantic written by Tom McTague, which listeners are encouraged to read here: https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2022/08/europe-america-military-empire-decline/670960/ The show will be a discussion and critique of McTague’s major premises and analysis, which include the following: 1. The USA is in obvious decline as a superpower, yet Russia’s invasion of Ukraine reveals that “the international order” is more dependent on American power NOW than in the past. 2. Many sense that the USA is too “divided, incoherent, violent, and dysfunctional to sustain its Pax Americana,” and its fall could be sudden and catastrophic, (potentially triggered by Donald Trump). 3. As the USA disengaged from Europe, Europe’s strategy was to mitigate American decline by making trade deals with Russia and China. But then Russia invaded Ukraine and everything changed! 4. To save Europe and the “democracy” of Ukraine, and despite internal dysfunction, the USA has somehow managed to provide more military aid than any other NATO nation. 5. The power of the USA’s “military-industrial complex” and their “imperial bureaucracy” somehow managed to overcome Donald Trump’s presidency and is now able to respond to Putin’s “attempted colonization” of Ukraine. 6. Europe is weak and faced with no good alternatives. Do they cling to American power? Do they try to rebuild industry in opposition to US corporations? Do they offer to expand NATO into the Asia-Pacific to help the USA against China? 7. In Britain, in the meantime, the European panic regarding the USA’s decline is seen as a “comforting fantasy” that is used to justify the EU’s pathetic intransigence. 8. Europe must face the reality that it is irrelevant and will be “forever America’s junior partner” and “a place of secondary importance.” 9. The USA is truly in decline and if there is a sudden collapse there is really nothing that her allies can do about it. The USA alone shoulders the responsibility of “ordering the world.” --- The geo-political paradigm from which McTague writes is the paradigm of the nation-state. We will approach it from a different point of view and hopefully shed much more light on what is really going on, after which we will welcome any questions or comments. Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com