Podcast
The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
Hosted by Driftglass and Blue Gal · EN
"Fiercely and unapologetically progressive, and definitely NSFW. 'The Professional Left' features award-winning bloggers Driftglass and Blue Gal as they skewer right-wing absurdities and dismantle mainstream media mealy-mouths with razor-sharp wit and zero filter. From mercilessly mocking partisan hacks to elevating stories the media ignores, it's the profane, unflinching political commentary you didn't know you needed. More at http://ProLeftPod.com."
58episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Ep 1009 The Wall
3d ago01:11:36Tap to summarizeEpisode 1009 asks what happens when you're 20 miles into the political marathon and there's no cavalry coming over the hill to save the day. Driftglass and Blue Gal explore the difference between American "hero arrives just in time" storytelling and the harder truth found in movies like Spotlight and Lincoln—where victory comes from grinding, patient work, not a last-minute miracle. The episode confronts what it feels like to hit The Wall after decades of activism that moved the needle but not nearly far enough, while also finding real hope in how DSA ideas about time, freedom, and healthcare are quietly winning the battle of ideas. It's about exhaustion, endurance, and why you should never take political advice from your enemies. This week, thanks again to Hal Sparks who had Driftglass on Monday. Bob Cesca and Nicole Sandler who put up with him for an hour each, back to back, on Wednesday. Hal Sparks https://www.youtube.com/live/QPVAxnKjtV4Bob Cesca show https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-7-22-26/Nicole Sandler show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2acNSp9cNVgMore links from the episode: https://patricemersault.substack.com/p/part-2-i-went-to-a-meeting-of-young https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/dont-take-advice-from-your-enemieshttps://campaign-trails.ghost.io/punching-left/The Internet Kitty’s book, “Futura” https://michaellaser.com/?books=futura Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1008: Reality Remains Undefeated
6d ago00:56:22Tap to summarizeEpisode 1008 continues the "No Fair Remembering Stuff" retrospective: Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the throughline from Biden's early economic wins and Republican obstruction, through the January 6th hearings, to broke state GOP parties and Bari Weiss's billionaire-funded "anti-woke" grift. This sad yet hilarious episode reveals how the same media failures—perpetual surprise at good economic news, endless both-siderism, and refusal to name who actually funds Republican radicalization—keep repeating no matter the year. It's proof that the receipts have been there all along, for anyone willing to look.Link for this episode:Driftglass on Hal Sparks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPVAxnKjtV4 Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1007: Happy Birthday Blue Gal Retrospective, Part I
2w ago01:16:39Tap to summarizeEpisode 1007 celebrates Blue Gal's birthday with a nostalgic trip through 16 years of podcast archives, revisiting what was happening in politics on or around her birthday each year since 2010. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace a remarkable through-line from the Tea Party's rise and the "Evil, Stupid, or Crazy" game, through Obama-era both-siderism, Trump's 2016 takeover, and the pandemic's collapse of conservative respectability. The episode reveals how the same cast of media enablers and Republican radicals keeps reappearing decade after decade, proving some patterns never change even as the crises get bigger. It's part one of a two-part birthday retrospective, with 2021 through 2026 still to come.Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1006: Pump Up The Venom
2w ago01:05:13Tap to summarizeEpisode 1006 uses the beloved 1990 teen rebellion movie "Pump Up the Volume" to ask a deeper question: what happens when you take "Truth is a virus" and unrestricted free speech into the real world, where the fascists aren't outsiders trying to break in—they're already running the show? Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the death of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 through the rise of Hate Radio, Gingrich's language wars, Citizens United, and the collapse of every institution that was supposed to protect democracy from tyranny. The episode explains why lying became profitable, why corporate media's "Both Sides" obsession taught citizens that democracy was somebody else's job, and why an uninformed public is the only thing tyranny has ever needed. It's about how free speech got inverted, and why the FCC villain in a 1990 teen movie may have been onto something after all.Links for this episode: The movie “Pump Up The Volume” (1990) is streaming ($) on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home. Clips are available on YouTube. Music from the “Pump Up The Volume” soundtrack can be found at this YouTube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjDvaXwceFJTg_uhw4cymaJGtBdJZT7OJ&si=RxUS9h7X1OeGsbY2 Music clips from this episode: Was Not Was: Dad, I’m In Jail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MZKkz4xefk Above the Law: Freedom of Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q338zPrnwGw The movie “Pump Up The Volume” (1990) is streaming ($) on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home. Clips are available on YouTube. Driftglass on other podcasts! Nicole Sandler https://nicolesandler.com/7-8-26/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1005: Meanwhile, In Local News...
3w ago01:04:15Tap to summarizeEpisode 1005 of The Professional Left makes the case that if you really want to understand America — not a focus group of twelve Trump voters in Florida, not three congressional primaries in Brooklyn, not the punditocracy's endless parade of confident predictions about things they fundamentally don't understand — you should probably be paying attention to Illinois, the most statistically representative state in the country, which the elite media treats as flyover country and nothing more. Driftglass and Blue Gal dispatch the Maine Senate mess quickly and cleanly, remind everyone of the crucial difference between how Democrats handle scandal and how Republicans do, and then spend the bulk of the episode doing what almost no one else in political media bothers to do — reporting on what an actual Democratic majority government looks like when it's governing well. The episode also takes a long, hard look at the prediction industrial complex and why mistaking a focus group for a national trend, or a New York City primary for a Democratic Party revelation, is not journalism — it's just filling airtime between mattress ads. Illinois, it turns out, has all the answers. Too bad nobody's asking.Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1004: The MAGA Merry-Go-Round
4w ago01:07:08Tap to summarizeIt goes in circles but never gets anywhereIt’s all horses’ assesAnd there is no brass ring.Driftglass on the Bob Cesca Show : https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-7-1-26/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1003: Science Fiction University - Trust
4w ago01:04:06Tap to summarizeScience Fiction University returns at long last, with an extended deep dive into one of the oldest and most unsettling questions in the genre — who can you trust when the threat is wearing a human face? The episode traces the theme of trust through three very different versions of the same story: John W. Campbell's 1938 novella "Who Goes There?", Howard Hawks' 1951 Cold War-era adaptation "The Thing from Another World", and John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece "The Thing" — showing how the same basic plot was transformed by the very different Americas that produced each version. Along the way there are detours through the nature of storytelling itself, the difference between trust and faith, the rise of the "mad scientist" trope, and why Carpenter's bleak, exhausted ending hits so differently than Campbell's optimistic one. If you've ever wondered why the 1982 version of The Thing feels so much more modern and unsettling than its predecessors, this episode will explain exactly why — and the answer has everything to do with Vietnam, Watergate, and the slow collapse of American institutional trust. Links for this episode: John W. Campbell’s book/novella "Who Goes There?" (1938) is available from major ebook retailers. Also, many libraries offer a physical or digital borrowing option. "The Thing from Another World" (1951) is currently streaming on Criterion Channel, Tubi, The Roku Channel, YouTube, Amazon, and Apple TV."The Thing" (1982) is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and YouTube. Answers to our QUIZ! Terminator 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ8nofcN1gI Dr. Who: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQvn5sWNVtk Star Trek – Picard: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsDg01EuniQ Batman Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a71VqHpza58 The Thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmqVrB1TTGo Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1002: It’s Still the Republican Party
Jun 2601:02:20Tap to summarizeNo rebranding! They cashed all those checks with the Tea Party. Episode 1002 of The Professional Left opens with a pop quiz, and the reveal says everything you need to know about how this particular cycle always ends. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the long, depressing, and darkly funny history of Republicans who were "done with Trump" until they weren't — Beck, Cruz, Graham, Vance, Ingraham, and a cast of dozens — making the case that what looks like a new political reckoning is actually just the same old rebranding operation being assembled from the same wreckage by the same people. Two classic films provide the episode's organizing metaphors: one about building a new plane out of the pieces of the one that crashed, and one about the uncomfortable truth that you can't put an entire party into a lifeboat when the entire party is the problem. The Republican Party didn't get captured by its worst impulses — it revealed them. Driftglass was also on two other podcasts this week! The Nicole Sandler Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NlPMu5Y29QThe Brad Cast with Desi and Digby: https://bradblog.com/?p=17822 Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1001: 119 Billion Kilometers and Counting
Jun 2401:14:15Tap to summarizeEpisode 1001 of The Professional Left kicks off the post-1000 era with a reading from Octavia Butler — written in 1993, about a fictional America that looks uncomfortably like the one outside your window right now — and uses it as the jumping-off point for a clear-eyed reckoning with why the country got here and who is responsible. The opening of the Obama Presidential Center was a wonderful occasion by almost any measure, but the sight of a certain former president celebrated as a beloved elder statesman on that stage is something Driftglass and Blue Gal simply cannot let pass without comment — because the problem with the Republican party was never Trump, and it didn't start in 2016, and pretending otherwise is just the next chapter of the same lie. The episode traces a straight, unbroken line from the failures and crimes of the Bush years through the racist primal scream of the Obama era to the inevitable arrival of Trump, making the case that every institution now preparing to rehabilitate the post-Trump Republican party is getting ready to run the exact same con all over again. Our job, as it has always been, is to remember — and to keep saying so out loud.Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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Ep 1000: For Your Consideration...
Jun 1801:22:10Tap to summarizeEpisode 1000 of The Professional Left opens with the countdown finally hitting zero — and instead of a victory lap, Driftglass and Blue Gal do exactly what they've been doing for 999 episodes: explain the thing hiding in plain sight that everyone else is too polite, too complicit, or too invested in the status quo to say out loud. The Trailer Trash Woodstock that took over the White House lawn gets put in its proper historical context — not as something shocking and new, but as the entirely predictable result of decades of Republican appeasement of its worst impulses, a straight line running from Rush Limbaugh's Lincoln Bedroom sleepover to the rubble of the East Wing. A brief but devastating tour through PBS's Friday night ritual of performative Both Siderism — featuring everyone's favorite human pretzel, David Brooks — makes the case that the cage match on the White House lawn and the quiet dinner-table tones of public television are actually serving the same purpose for two different audiences. And after 1000 episodes of being told they were alarmists, crackpots, and too angry, Driftglass and Blue Gal are still here, still right, and just getting started.Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show
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