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“Renters Are the Sleeping Giants of LA Politics”—Plus the Hidden History of AIDS

On this episode of Start Making Sense, Peter Dreier reports on the fight for control of LA, and Kai Wright and Lizzy Ratner talk about “the plague in the shadows.”

Jon Wiener

February 21, 2024

Nithya Raman won a Los Angeles City Council seat as a progressive political newcomer.(Richard Vogel / AP)

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“Renters are the sleeping giants of LA politics,” plus the Hidden History of AIDS | Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

A political battle is underway in Los Angeles, where landlords, multi-millionaires, and the police are trying to defeat the leading progressive on the city council. Their key issues are protection for renters and new taxes on mansions.

Also on this episode of Start Making Sense: A new podcast brings us stories from the early days of HIV & AIDS. It's about how the epidemic decimated poor communities of color and the people who refused to stay out of sight. WNYC's Kai Wright and The Nation's Lizzy Ratner are behind the new show, Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows.

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A political battle is underway in Los Angeles, where landlords, multimillionaires, and the police are trying to defeat the leading progressive on the City Council. Their key issues are protection for renters and new taxes on mansions. Peter Dreier has the story for us.

Also on this episode of Start Making Sense: A new podcast brings us stories from the early days of HIV & AIDS. It’s about how the epidemic decimated poor communities of color and the people who refused to stay out of sight. WNYC’s Kai Wright and The Nations Lizzy Ratner are behind the new show, Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows.

Subscribe to The Nation to support all of our podcasts: thenation.com/podcastsubscribe.

The Nation Podcasts

Here's where to find podcasts from The Nation. Political talk without the boring parts, featuring the writers, activists and artists who shape the news, from a progressive perspective.

Elon Musk’s First Political Contributions of 2025; plus The History of Culture Wars | Start Making Sense
byThe Nation Magazine

The first big election of 2025 will be in Wisconsin, which elects a new Supreme Court Justice on April 1. Elon Musk is spending hundreds of millions in that race. That’s both a threat, and an opportunity for Democrats. On this episode of Start Making Sense, John Nichols will comment.

Also: How did we end up with Trump back in the White House? We got here in part because Republicans built a movement over several decades centered on what are called “the culture wars.” But there’s a long history behind the culture wars, going back at least a century to the Scopes Trial, in 1925, about teaching evolution. It’s still an issue today. Adam Hochschild is on the show to explain.

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Jon WienerTwitterJon Wiener is a contributing editor of The Nation and co-author (with Mike Davis) of Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties.


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