Episode 63: Immigration and the Right Wing

State of the Theory

This is Episode 63 of the State of the Theory Podcast. Politics. Power. Popular Culture. And other stuff, probably. In this series, we’re like super nerdy philosophical DJs: mashing up Serious Academic Questions with the most topical news and trends in pop culture. Each week, we’ll tackle a new topic and collide it with ‘critical theory’ (we’re pretty loose with our definitions, though, so expect the unexpected). Our aim is to destroy the stuff we know, explore the stuff we don’t and unsettle everything we think we know about the world. We take the obvious, the commonsensical, the certain, and then we rip it all to shreds. We are your theory doctors and we are always on call. In this episode, as we wait to see who the new British Prime Minister will be, we discuss the similarities of the right-wing shift that has occurred in British and American politics. We look at the transformation within the Republican Party and the Conservative Party, in the context of Trump and Brexit, and explore the ways in which fears around immigration have been mobilized to aid this transformation. The “New Yorker” article on Boris Johnson can be found here: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/06/24/the-empty-promise-of-boris-johnson Our theme music is "The Face of God" by The Agrarians (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/The_Agrarians/The_Jovial_Shepherd/The_Face_of_God) State of the Theory is brought to you by Hannah Fitzpatrick and Anindya Raychaudhuri Find us on Facebook (www.facebook.com/stateofthetheorypodcast) or Tweet us @drhfitz and @DrAnindyaR