Half Step's Best of 2025 Media Picks!
A Half Step to the Left
Happy new year, everyone, and welcome to a new semester of the show! In today's episode, which was orignally slated to be our end-of-year holiday special but has turned out to be a new years special in which we discuss our favorite media from 2025. Our selections are divided into four categories: books, television shows, movies, and YouTube channels. Come along as we re-experience the greatest moments of our 2025 media consumption experience! In our next episode, which will come out sometime next month, we will resume our regularly-scheduled show format of going in-depth on a particular...
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Bernie's Burn Book | Fight Oligarchy Book Discussion
A Half Step to the Left
Hello again, everyone! Welcome back to Half Step to the Left. In today's episode, we follow up on our conversation last month about the current state of Democratic Socialism in the United States with a discussion about Bernie Sanders' most recent book, Fight Oligarchy, which came out this October. The book primarily focuses on defining oligarchy and how it came to be so prevelant in the United States, and then how we can build a progressive political movement to counter it by advocating for the rights of the working class and future generations. Bernie Sanders has been a figure in leftist...
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Zohran Mamdani | The Future of Democratic Socialism in America
A Half Step to the Left
Hello again! Welcome back to Half Step to the Left. In today's hastily-prepared-for episode, Alex and Fox eagerly discuss the recent election of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani to the mayoral office of New York City. But our discussion is more than just fan-girling (it's a lot of that), we discuss the difficulties that lie ahead for Mayor Mamdani in accomplishing his stated policy goals and how best he can use the leverage he has built up for his political purposes. We then turn our attention to a few other notable progressives running for office, specifically Kat Abughazaleh in Illinois'...
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Fox has a crush on Kali | Ministry for the Future Book Discussion
A Half Step to the Left
As promised last time, in this second episode of our podcast Fox and Alex discuss Kim Stanely Robinson's 2020 scifi novel, The Ministry for the Future, which offers a grimly hopeful outlook on how humanity may, perhaps, solve climate change and build a better and more equitable world. Alex read this book last year, and he thought it was very on-theme for our previous episode about climage change. This is how our episodes will go from here on out: at the beginnning (roughly) of each month we will have an episode dedicated to some political topic or another, for which we will do research...
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Pilot Episode | Good Climate News?
A Half Step to the Left
Hello everyone! Welcome to the very first episode of our podcast! It can only go up from here, so please keep listening. Bellow you will find a comprehensive (hopefully) list of links to sources, other things we mentioned in the episode, etc. For our next episode, which will hopefully come out in a few weeks time, we will be discussing our thoughts on the book club book for this episode's topic: Kim Stanely Robinson's The Ministry For the Future. If you're interested in reading the book yourself in preparation for that episode, you should still have plenty of time! Please direct any questions,...
info_outlineFor our next episode, which will hopefully come out in a few weeks time, we will be discussing our thoughts on the book club book for this episode's topic: Kim Stanely Robinson's The Ministry For the Future. If you're interested in reading the book yourself in preparation for that episode, you should still have plenty of time!
Please direct any questions, comments and/or feedback to halfsteptotheleft@gmail.com and we will be sure to address it in the next episode along with our own reflections!
New York Times: 50 States 50 Fixes Climate Article Collection
Simon Clark: How much progress have we made on climate change? (A Lot)
Climate Action Campaign: Tracking Trump's Actions on Climate Change so far
USA Today: Before you buy an electric vehicle
USA Today: Here's why EVs are so heavy
Forbes: Synthetic Fuels Critique
Green Car Future: Electric Car Batteries
Reuters: July 2025 Energy Transition Check-up
Thanks so much for listening! We hope to see (hear?) you next time!
Alex & Fox