Words by Madeleine Farr PZ ’27 and Tania Azhang PZ ’25

Graphic by Genevieve O’Marah SC ’28

On the rainy afternoon of Friday, March 10, we, Madeleine Farr and Tania Azhang, had the pleasure of discussing the contemporary political landscape — particularly Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and the horrors of the tech-bro oligarchy — with Pitzer College political studies professor Shervin Malekzadeh. 

Malekzadeh is a visiting professor at Pitzer, where he’s working on a book about post-revolution schooling in Iran. He has also taught at Colgate University, Williams College, Swarthmore College, and holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in Government from Georgetown University and an B.A. in International Relations from Stanford University. A former early childhood teacher and “accidental” participant in the 2009 Green Movement (a mass protest against Iran’s disputed election, demanding democracy before being violently suppressed), Malekzadeh has frequently found himself in historically significant places at the right time. Another notable example: he was in Chile when former Chilean dictator Pinochet was arrested in London. Malekzadeh’s commentary on democracy and culture in the U.S. and Iran has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, and other major news outlets.

This interview transcript has been edited for clarity and concision.

The Outback: Tell us about yourself – what’s important for us to know about the lens through which you view the world?

Oh, wow. The Oprah Winfrey on the couch [lens]? The story I put in my syllabus?

My dad worked for Caterpillar in Iran. We immigrated to the U.S. in ‘75 during a time when Iranians didn’t leave Iran. 

After the revolution, of course, Iranians either overstayed visas or sought asylum in the U.S. for obvious reasons. We were supposed to go back after five years too. We came over when I was 10 months old. (My parents always say seven months — math doesn’t add up on their end.) When the Iranian hostage crisis happens, it’s my entry into U.S. life. I entered into kindergarten when the hostage crisis happened in 1980, so it kind of fucked me up. 

It was really traumatic. I was in a rural school in Peoria, Illinois, very idyllic… There were a lot of Iranians going to particular universities in Peoria, but in my school, I was the only Iranian. My brother and sister showed up on the scene years later, and wherever we lived up until high school, we were basically the Iranian family around. Iran is enemy number one, and will be so long as this regime lasts. I’m really fascinated in discourse around who is good and who is bad, which is basically how I served as a native informant in my kindergarten class on Khomeini. 

To synthesize this, I’m interested in culture and politics as an expression of identity and power — how that circulates. One day it’s China. What is it the next day? For a long time it was Japan as the enemy during WWII. And now, of course, we don’t even talk about Japan. 

I’m interested in cultural politics for the most part. I was a school teacher, so I’m also interested in how education links to that in the classroom: the negotiation of teacher, class, parents, principal, the state. 

OB:  [Beyond education], what do you think are the forces that drive culture?

It’s definitely entertainment, right? I did a whole lecture on Kendrick Lamar, the halftime show. The way I usually talk about how culture is driven or becomes influential is that there’s a kind of script or grammar that’s shared…

But there’s something from below too that gets captured that’s not as elite-driven or artist-driven. Politicians also drive; Trump wearing that stupid hat of his, that matters now. It becomes a signal, both of derision and of reinforcement of loyalty to him. There’s an engagement between elite and ordinary who are necessarily intertwined, not as distinct groups or state and society as intertwined entities. 

OB: You were saying earlier that you think the right is better at mobilization in culture. Why is that? 

There’s probably less hand-wringing on the right … Look at how the Democrats protested Trump. To me, that was a hot mess. The right would have had one thing, and they would have all stood up and walked out or whatever. There’s more of an authoritarian vibe there, that I’m suggesting that translates better into the mobilization around culture. Fox News gets on point, and they stay on point. 

OB: What I’m curious about is this: We’re in Trump’s second term right now, and you could argue that the creativity you’re talking about can partially be found in DOGE [Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency]. Trump was creative enough to come up with his own random department to slash an entire government budget. So, how do you think that will initiate a culture shift? I’m starting to see federal employees tweeting “Trump, I voted for you three times and just got fired. What is going on?” I’m interested in effects like those.

My model is Bush trying to privatize Social Security. Bush, like Trump, talked explicitly about this in his first press conference: it totally flamed out. He was unsuccessful. Using that as a foundation for understanding what’s happening… Trump’s gonna eat it for burning all these bridges with people like you just mentioned, right? 

But I’ve had to check myself. It’s not 2004 now, and something’s different, certainly in the media landscape. A lot of those people who support Trump are now mad at him, or so many voters in this country are distracted or not into politics. This conversation we’re having here might be icky to them, but that’s the reality of the electorate. 

I’m not condemning them or saying they’re dumb, but I don’t think [Trump’s actions are] as consequential as maybe some people on the left or the Democratic Party think. People aren’t like, ‘Oh, I have an ideology or a coherent set of values or claims, and you’re failing at that, therefore I have to punish you at the next election.’ 

Also, voting is intermittent: every two years, every four years. And one thing that’s really missing from this country is, back to my protest stuff, direct action or general strikes, [what] you might see in Europe or Latin America.

Is Trump revolutionizing the country? Is DOGE doing that? [I note] the stupidity of using that ridiculous dog meme or whatever, which I, as a Gen X, barely understand, and my brothers filled me in a little bit. I knew what it was, but do my parents or older people connect things like that? I know people are chronically online, or whatever the phrasing is. There’s a lot of that now in our body politic. I don’t know if that translates, because it’s my understanding that even college kids might not be up to date on the latest thing online because you’re living lives now. 

OB: Something I was struck by is how we came of age in the Trump era, but it also felt like popular culture was driven by liberals … Popular culture had always swung left. 

What’s an example of that for you? 

OB: All of the Women’s Marches that were happening during that first administration, celebrities coming out in droves against Trump, Netflix shows that tried too hard to be woke. There was a huge woke wave, and even those people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, my impression was they were not overtly Trump supporters … The pendulum has swung so far right in popular culture and, when you see it with the tech bros, it’s fascinating to me. All of the elites, whether they were artists, whether they were innovators, like tech bros, it felt like everyone was coming out against Trump and in general, resisting the right and conservatism … It was really shocking to see what felt like popular culture swinging right, with trad wives, for example.

I [understand] you now. Where’s this coming from and why is it sticking is your question, right? I see it online too. On Twitter, for example, people are saying we’re experiencing a conservative red wave in pop culture. 

I’m a little skeptical that the tech bros were actually ever as neutral or progressive as maybe we’re talking about here … there’s always been a libertarian vibe to that crew. 
We’re so fragmented in terms of media now. The New York Times will do a profile on that lady in that barn with 50 kids. [Check out Ballerina Farm on social media, if you so please.] She’s not actually doing agricultural labor, but she acts like it. That wouldn’t have made any sense like five years ago. Has the culture shifted as a consequence? Or is it just that this dude is in power, and they’re his hanger-ons, the shark has fish that swim along with it; they’re benefiting from his largesse or presence, and they’re trying to get a piece of that MAGA pie.