According to Vince Mancini of
UPROXX and Derek Robertson of
Politico, Blowback was "painstakingly researched" and didactic in its approach, "bombarding the listener with the host's
sturm-und-drang argument about the Iraq War as a portal to hell that directly caused our modern-day political ills". In a comparison of
Blowback and
Slow Burn,
Slate's podcast about the Iraq War, Derek Robertson of
Politico described Blowback as "an unapologetically left-wing re-examination of the war's many causes and ongoing effects".
Podcast Review called the topic of the second season "a tremendous fit for James and Kulwin's style". In a review from
Jacobin, Blowback is described as being "a thoroughly contextualized, fully explained, blow-by-blow account of how and why the United States government ginned up a case for war in Iraq — all the junk intelligence, media manipulation, and diplomatic arm-twisting — and what happened when our military got there." In a review for season 3, James Greig wrote in
Jacobin that "Blowback, while interested in excavating history, is ultimately about how these events and strategies still shape politics today and continue to determine which countries the United States positions as villains." Jake Cole, writing for
Hyperallergic, emphasizes this, "The voluminous background detail and interest in the far-reaching impacts of foreign policy could easily lend itself to conspiracy-minded extemporization, but James and Kulwin never make an assertion not backed up by considerable evidence. This also armors them against potential backlash to their openly leftist bias." == See also ==