The Dig is an American podcast by Daniel Denvir featuring scientific and political analyses of politics, history, and economics from the perspective of the American Left. The Dig is published by Jacobin magazine and affiliated with Verso Books. The episodes are available free of charge, and the podcast is primarily funded by voluntary contributions from listeners on the Patreon platform. The podcast features interviews, mostly conducted by Daniel Denvir, with scholars, theorists, and political organizers, which enable an in-depth examination of individual topics from a socialist, unorthodox Marxist perspective and serve as political education for left-wing movements.
Content and orientation The aim of the podcast, which is broadcast from Denvir's garage in Providence, Rhode Island,Andrew Marantz, “The Deep End,” in: The New Yorker, November 3, 2025. is to bring together the intellectual and academic left with the practical political left. The Dig aims to serve a new socialist movement which, according to Denvir, “must understand the world in order to change it.” Well-known guests have included Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Bernie Sanders, Nancy Fraser, and Quinn Slobodian.
Denvir initially worked as a journalist for the Philadelphia City Paper, The Atlantic's CityLab, and Salon.com. Shortly before the presidential election in November 2016, in which Donald Trump was elected US president, he lost his job at Salon. Together with Alex Lewis as producer and his partner, political scientist Thea Riofrancos, he now revived an old idea (a single episode had already been broadcast in September 2015): a podcast that aims to combine the intellectual and academic side of the left with that of practical organizing:
The first episode was released on December 6, 2016, shortly after the presidential election, and attempted to answer the question Why Trump Won in an interview with feminist historian Stephanie Coontz and historians and racism researchers Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Matt Karp.Why Trump Won: Stephanie Coontz, Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Matt Karp, The Dig, Dezember 6, 2016. Already at this point, a frequently recurring theme of the podcast emerged: a profound analysis and critique of current American politics, encompassing not only the political right around Trump, the Republican Party, and right-wing movements, but also the Democratic Party leadership, which is understood as neoliberal.On the history of the podcast Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, “Is The Dig the Most Important Podcast on the Left?,” in: The Nation, February 4, 2023.
From both a practical political and a theoretical (materialist) perspective, the podcast also consistently critiques what it understands as the idealism of liberal politics. In doing so, it not only draws on classical Marxist class analysis, but also combines it with anti-racist, queer-feminist, and anti-imperialist analyses, as well as perspectives on climate justice and eco-socialism. It addresses both current local politics in the US, such as the successes and future prospects of organizing in Philadelphia (interview with organizers from Reclaim PhiladelphiaReclaiming Philadelphia, The Dig, October 3, 2018.), and international politics, for example in analyses of Chinese history, politics, and society by Ho-fung Hung.China Boom w/ Ho-fung Hung, The Dig, March 18, 2022; Clash of Empires w/ Ho-fung Hung, March 23, 2022; cf. China and the US with Tobita Chow and Jake Werner, December 19, 2020. During the Gaza war in 2023 and 2024, the podcast placed a strong focus on the background of the Middle East conflict from an anti-Zionist perspective, in particular with the 16-part series Thawra, a 40-hour discussion with historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti on Arab radical movements.Thawra, The Dig, February 1, 2024 – September 13, 2024. The episodes on the Middle East conflict had reached a quarter of a million listeners by August 2024.Sammy Feldblum, “His socialist podcast became a surprise hit. Now he’s an uncommitted Democratic delegate,” in: The Guardian, August 13, 2024.
In 2023, Denvir described the podcast as an attempt to continue the intellectual and political work of Mike Davis (who was a guest on the podcast several times), who died in 2022:
Distribution and influence The podcast has been downloaded over 20 million times (as of December 2025).The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin Magazine on the website of Alex Lewis, producer of The Dig, accessed on December 30, 2025. According to the weekly newspaper The Nation, it is considered to be “an essential part of a radical education” and one of the most popular podcasts on the American left.Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, “Is The Dig the Most Important Podcast on the Left?,” in: The Nation, February 4, 2023. The Guardian describes the podcast as “a hub of the left-wing media ecosystem.”Sammy Feldblum, “His socialist podcast became a surprise hit. Now he’s an uncommitted Democratic delegate,” in: The Guardian, August 13, 2024. Andrew Epstein, a staff member of the successful campaign team of socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, notes: “In my world of left-wing organizers, former academics, and political campaign staffers [...] the show is incredibly influential.”Quoted in Andrew Marantz, “The Deep End,” in: The New Yorker, November 3, 2025.
References Sammy Feldblum, “His socialist podcast became a surprise hit. Now he’s an uncommitted Democratic delegate,” in: The Guardian, August 13, 2024. Andrew Marantz, “The Deep End,” in: The New Yorker, November 3, 2025. Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins, “Is The Dig the Most Important Podcast on the Left?,” in: The Nation, February 4, 2023.
Notes