Welcome to The Radicalist, a newsletter on political extremism, philosophy, and history. Here you’ll find news analysis, interviews, essays, and more. All opinions are strictly my own or those of my guests.
My name is David Josef Volodzko and I am a Russo-Caribbean who grew up in the Bahamas and the American South. I studied English literature as an undergrad and human behavior as a grad student, then spent most of my adult life in Asia—four years in Japan, six in South Korea, three in China, one across Southeast Asia, and two in India and Nepal. I have also lived in Denmark, Israel, and Peru, have visited almost 50 countries, and speak half a dozen languages or more, depending on how you count.
Along the way, I’ve had more than a few adventures—interrogated by Vietnamese soldiers, shot at by Peruvian military, lived homeless on the streets of Mumbai, traveled Mongolia by motorbike, camped with Berbers in the Sahara, fished with an Amazonian tribe, and studied Shaolin at temples in the remotest parts of China.
In a former life, I was a professor of English, logic, debate, and rhetoric. I then entered journalism and have spent my career since covering politics and economics, with an emphasis on Asia and authoritarianism.
I am the former China writer for The Diplomat, national editor of the New York Times sister paper in South Korea the Korea Joongang Daily, U.S. correspondent for the leading North Korea-focused news outlet NK News, Korea correspondent for China’s top news outlet South China Morning Post, and senior editor at the financial analysis outlet Brightwire, where my subject-matter expertise included China’s regulatory crackdowns, energy shortages in key Asian markets, and Brazil’s Lava Jato scandal.
When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, I immediately booked a flight and covered the war. I wrote an essay for New York Magazine about how remote therapy saved the life of a Ukrainian woman and her family. I also covered the genocide in Ethiopia for The Nation, and my work became one of the most viral reports on the issue.
Upon moving back the States for the first time in almost 20 years, I took a job as editorial board member and columnist at The Seattle Times—but was fired less than two months later after an online mob falsely accused me of being a Nazi and a Holocaust denier. My good friend Vladislav Davidzon wrote about the ordeal for Tablet magazine in a piece titled “Hitler and The Seattle Times,” and I later wrote an essay about the experience for The Free Press.
I have since profiled the Oakland activist Seneca Scott and the veteran neo-Nazi hunter Kris Goldsmith for The Free Press, and have expounded on my controversial argument regarding Lenin for Konstantin Kisin.
I am now the news editor and senior writer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), where I proudly spend my days defending free speech rights for Americans, regardless of their political beliefs. I live in Washington, D.C. with my wife and daughter, and when I’m not working on this blog, my hobbies include the Classics, gastronomy, chess, cognitive behavioral therapy, powerlifting, and film.
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