Political commentators have always sought historical comparisons to contemporary political moments. Most common of late is a comparison to Germany’s Weimar Republic and the chaotic times before the rise of Nazism. However, as Jacobin contributing editor and historian Matt Karp argues in his essay, “The Politics of a Second Gilded Age,” in many ways our political environment — characterized by intense economic inequality coupled with high turnout, intense negative partisanship, and partisan and cultural-identity driven voting patterns — is a repeat of America’s own nineteenth-century Gilded Age.

Jen Pan and Paul Prescod sat down with Karp on The Jacobin Show, our weekly YouTube broadcast, to discuss his essay, as well as his broader political analysis of the early Biden administration. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.