Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
By: Best of the Left: Perspectives on Politics, Culture, and Economics
Language: en
Categories: News, Politics, Commentary
Expertly-curated progressive politics, news, and culture produced by leftist humans, not algorithms or AI. This is an award-winning podcast that dives deeply into a wide range of national and international issues facing society and governments. We draw from hundreds of sources of progressive news and commentary. Est. 2006. Save time by listening to a range of perspectives on a focused topic in each episode and be introduced to new sources you will not have come across on your own!
Episodes
SOLVED! SAMPLE! #29 - "Don't Be Cringe": Is Gen Z's Humor a Political Warning Sign?
Dec 15, 2025Air Date: 12-10-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, and Deon (Erin was out this week) discuss:
Ch. 1 - Generational humor, and analysis of Gen Z's absurdist humor and the impact it's having
Ch. 2 - The unexpected social side effects of NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's campaign on Gen Z volunteers
Ch. 3 - The "App"stinence Movement helping people get off of social media
Ch. 4 - How the peak Millennial humor mobile game "Sword and Sworcery" has evolved with the times
SOLVED! Backstage: Behind the Algorithm: Elon Musk's "Grokapedia" reminding...
Duration: 00:22:05Life is But a Game (that you can now bet on)
Dec 14, 2025Air Date 12/14/2025
Albert Einstein said, "Life is just like a game, first you have to learn rules of the game, and then play it better then any one else." (Or just get some insider knowledge about which team is paid off to lose and bet on the game rather than playing it, am I right?) Now, while it's well known that sports gambling has great potential to corrupt the game, I'm sure being able to bet on literally anything in life all the time right from your phone with billionaires funding persuasion campaigns to convince you to...
Duration: 03:13:48War Criminal Dick Cheney's Guide to Ethical Governance and Saving Democracy
Dec 10, 2025Air Date 12/10/2025
Dick Cheney used to be thought of as Darth Vader but did he have an end-of-life conversion back to the light side of the force? No, he was bad all along and only thought Trump was worse.
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Duration: 02:59:02SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES! - "Not Everything That Counts Can Be Counted" (Original Air Date: 5-26-24)
Dec 07, 2025Re-Air Date: 12–2-25
Unless you were a member in May of 2024, this episode of SOLVED! will be brand new to you! If you were a member back then, THANK YOU and this one is worth a re-listen. We're slowing down production for a little bit to reorganize our production processes, so enjoy this episode from our archives (and B.Y: before YouTube) where Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - How supply and demand economics is not about "distribution of goods with the greatest efficiency" and is instead about nothing more than predatory greed
... Duration: 01:02:23Our Prison System is a Demonstrable Failure (Throwback)
Dec 06, 2025Original Air Date: 1-23-2024
The recent discovery of hundreds of bodies buried behind a jail in unmarked graves sparks a renewed discussion about the futility and counter-productiveness of our system of incarceration and the context of our history that has brought us to this point.
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Duration: 01:02:42Affordability: Actual Economic Populism is the Kryptonite to Fake Populism
Dec 02, 2025Air Date 12/2/2025
If you need more evidence for just how far from rationality our politics have slid in recent decades, Zorhan Mamdani is seen by many as a radical for mostly just saying that people should be able to afford to buy the things they need to live.
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Duration: 02:53:44SOLVED! SAMPLE! #28 - Big White Lies: The Impossible Promises of Supremacy
Dec 01, 2025Air Date: 11-25-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The extremists trying to create race-based neighborhoods all over the U.S. Ch. 2 - What we can learn from Ireland's history of sectarian violence Ch. 3 - How the Irish became white Ch. 4 - An inconvenient truth from Frederick Douglas (and some modern, mild misreadings) Ch. 5 - What you can do to fight back against white supremacists where you live BACKSTAGE! Beyond the Algorithm (Members Only!): Why some marginalized people cozy up to power
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Duration: 00:21:03Police violence and racism are a product of our past (Uprising, Crackdown, Authoritarianism) (Throwback)
Nov 28, 2025Original Air Date: 6–22-2020
Today we take a look at the history of racist policing which flows seamlessly into our present racist policing which itself flows into Trump's authoritarian glee at the opportunity to consolidate violent, racist power in response to protests against violent, racist power.
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Duration: 02:30:03The Epstein Files and Donald Trump, Our Predator-in-Chief
Nov 25, 2025Air Date 11/25/2025
We live in a world awash with baseless conspiracy theories but that doesn't mean there are no true conspiracies, as exemplified by Jeffrey Epstein. But it bears repeating, that we didn't need the exposure of a massive conspiracy to know that Donald Trump was a sexual predator because he said as much on tape before he was elected the first time in 2016.
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Duration: 02:38:24SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES - "The Truth Shall Set Us Free" (Original Air Date: 12-6-24)
Nov 23, 2025Re-Air Date: 11–18-25
Unless you were a member in December of 2024, this episode of SOLVED! will be brand new to you! If you were a member back then, THANK YOU and this one is worth a re-listen. We're slowing down production for a little bit to reorganize our production processes, so enjoy this episode from our archives (and B.Y: before YouTube) where Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The political origins of SimCity and how capitalism warps our choices Ch. 2 - A new video game offering a very different vision of soc... Duration: 01:25:46
What the Shutdown and Weaponized Hunger Exposed About Our Asymmetric Morality
Nov 21, 2025Air Date 11/21/2025
In an ethical political system, being willing to break the law in order to starve people amid a political dispute wouldn't be a source of greater leverage and power but it is in ours and the shutdown put the wildly different senses of ethics between the parties on full display.
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<... Duration: 03:59:13SOLVED! SAMPLE! #27 - Watch what you say! How weaponized language changes our reality
Nov 16, 2025Air Date: 11-10-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps"
Ch. 2 - "Politically correct"
Ch. 3 - "Ethnic cleansing"
Ch. 4 - "Meritocracy"
Ch. 5 - Our current "wealth pump" crisis and how it has been solved throughout history
BACKSTAGE! Beyond the Algorithm (Members Only!): The best words to articulate the current moment
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Reigniting the Nuclear Arms Race: Fat Man, Little Boy, and Donald Trump
Nov 14, 2025Air Date 11/7/2025
The most dangerous part of nuclear weapons has always been the people in charge of them. As we potentially enter a new arms race, some of the worst people in the world are in charge of the vast majority of nuclear weapons.
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Duration: 03:24:04Monthly-ish Mix: Institutions Fall, Reality Breaks, Empire Rises
Nov 11, 2025Air Date: 11/11/25
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we examine how power is being quietly consolidated across institutions, how propaganda and AI are reshaping our sense of reality, and how division and fear are fueling both domestic repression and global aggression. From the Supreme Court to state media manipulation, from dismantled voting rights to foreign influence campaigns, we trace the machinery of authoritarian control—and spotlight the journalists, educators, and activists still pushing back to keep truth and democracy alive.
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Duration: 03:47:06#1750 "America's Backyard" - The War on Terror Meets the War on Drugs
Nov 07, 2025Air Date 11/7/2025
The United States claiming a divine (and imperialist) right to tamper in the politics of South American countries is nothing new. As is so often the case with Trump, the biggest difference is that he's doing proudly and in the open what used to be done only shamefully and in secret.
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Duration: 03:05:57SOLVED! FROM THE ARCHIVES - "Transgressive Thoughts in a Villain Era" (Original Air Date: 1-6-25)
Nov 06, 2025Re-Air Date: 11–6-25
Unless you were a member in January of 2025, this episode of SOLVED! will be brand new to you! We're slowing down production for a little bit to reorganize our production processes, so enjoy this episode from our archives (and B.Y: before YouTube) where Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - Why people love villains Ch. 2 - How plutocracy kills Ch. 3 - Why the path forward is through membership organizations
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<... Duration: 01:10:06Democracy: In Theory, In Practice, and Under Threat
Nov 04, 2025Air Date 11/4/2025
Elections are always coming up, some sooner than others, so we thought we would take a look at the state of our democracy and what we must do to maintain it in the face of the greatest direct assault on our institutions we've seen in our 250 year history.
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Duration: 03:02:14Patriotism in Peril: Democracy, the Military, and the Fight Over What America Means
Nov 02, 2025Air Date 11/02/2025
A lot of people on the left aren't feeling the love for their country right now and that's understandable but we have some thoughts on more productive ways to channel those conflicting feelings toward a country that is currently falling far short of living up to its founding ideals.
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Duration: 03:41:05Racism in the United States, it turns out, is a problem
Oct 28, 2025Air Date 10/28/2025
As we were looking for episode topics, I came across an article making the case that racism is a real problem in the country and that there were lots of recent examples that proved the point. And I was like, "Racism? In the US?! In Trump's Republican Party?? That doesn't sound like the country I've heard of." (sarcasm) But then we looked into it and it turns out racism is everywhere and also quite bad. (true)
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Duration: 03:10:15What an actual attack on free speech looks like
Oct 25, 2025Air Date 10/25/2025
Trump's attacks on free speech, particularly with the use of the Federal Communications Commission, goes far beyond the Jimmy Kimmel story. We're in the middle of an all-out assault on freedom of speech, a free and unbiased press, and freedom of association.
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Duration: 03:12:46#1374 Tell Stories, Not Myths: Columbus and the Centrality of Colonialism (Throwback)
Oct 22, 2025Original Air Date: 10/13/2020
Today we take a look at the myths of Columbus and American Exceptionalism™ that we cling to and turn our gaze to some of the less-understood but more accurate and important aspects of our collective history
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Duration: 01:01:14SOLVED! SAMPLE! #25 - Trump's "State Capitalism" is Just a Grift, NOT Socialism
Oct 21, 2025Air Date: 10–14-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The cartoonish conservative and libertarian responses to Trump's state capitalism
Ch. 2 - Trump's interest in sovereign wealth funds, and the lie the right sells its supporters about getting money back
Ch. 3 - The left spectrum of reactions to Trump's state capitalism
Ch. 4 - Why Trump is definitely, 100%, not in any way a socialist
SOLVED! BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm: Ayn Rand's nearly psychotic opposition to altruism
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Duration: 00:19:24Fake New World: The Age of AI Slop, AI Education, and AI Fascism
Oct 20, 2025Air Date 10/19/2025
Robber Barons™ of The Gilded Age™ told themselves stories about how they were ushering in progress for all which is why, they argued, they shouldn't be constrained by things like safety regulations or worker unions - impoverishing millions while injuring and killing thousands in the process. It took a stock market crash, the Great Depression, WWII, and The New Deal to finally wrench the power away and redistribute it for the sake of building a middle class that could work in relative safety in the US. Today's Robber Barrons™ ushering in techno-feudalism under the banner of AI...
Duration: 04:18:56Sell Outs, Shills, and Scandals: Saudi Arabia and Israel are buying the credibility they can't earn honestly
Oct 15, 2025Air Date 10/15/2025
It's said that money can't buy a variety of things like peace, happiness, loyalty, and, relevant for today; integrity and trust. But in a world in which impressions (a very multilayered word, in this case) can be bought and sold on the open market and an audience's loyalty to influencers, entertainers, and athletes can be leveraged in an attempt to transfer the credibility from the talented to the tyrannical... you better believe places like Saudi Arabia and Israel are going to try.
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Duration: 02:36:52SOLVED! #25 - Trump’s “State Capitalism” is Just a Grift, NOT Socialism
Oct 15, 2025Air Date: 10–15-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The cartoonish conservative and libertarian responses to Trump’s state capitalism Ch. 2 - Trump’s interest in sovereign wealth funds, and the lie the right sells its supporters about getting money back Ch. 3 - The left spectrum of reactions to Trump’s state capitalism Ch. 4 - Why Trump is definitely, 100%, not in any way a socialist SOLVED! BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm: Ayn Rand’s nearly psychotic opposition to altruism
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Duration: 01:39:29SOLVED! SAMPLE! #24 - Attacking the Medium is the Message: Trump's Media Oligarchs and the Assault on Free Speech
Oct 14, 2025Air Date: 10–5-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The state of American media consolidation Ch. 2 - The debate over free speech and the how the history of the right proves they have never been in favor of it. Ch. 3 - The Trump administrations latest aggressive anti-free speech moves, and the Jimmy Kimmel suspension Ch. 4 - A look at how independent media was absorbed in the early days of Putin's regime, and the dire importance of not complying in advance Ch. 5 - A perspective on why the Trump administration will lose the w... Duration: 00:24:32
Trump and Project 2025: Blitzkrieg Against America
Oct 10, 2025Air Date 10/10/2025
The strategy that Trump and the masterminds behind Project 2025 are following is to move as fast as possible to implement their agenda because they know perfectly well how unpopular it is and will be as time goes on. It's hard to argue that anything good will come of this but I'm going to try during my comments anyway.
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Duration: 03:15:00Captured Court, Captured Nation: SCOTUS Serves Trump's Authoritarianism
Oct 07, 2025Air Date 10/7/2025
The Trump administration has been doing what we knew it would: breaking laws and losing about 95% of their court battles. And the conservatively stacked Supreme Court has been doing what we knew it would: overwhelmingly ruling for Trump to cover his tracks because that's what they were put there to do.
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Duration: 03:15:22Global Uprisings: Dissatisfaction Roiling France, the UK, and Nepal
Oct 03, 2025Air Date 10/3/2025
People around the world are angry, often for different reasons and even more frequently based on falseities - though not always. For instance, the Right in the UK and France are upset about immigration though most of those who are angry are wrong about the facts. But there's also widespread dissatisfaction with national governments and pessimism about their ability to make life better over the short term which is leading to much less predictable politics.
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Duration: 03:19:32Monthly-ish Mix: The Enemy Within and the Enemy Without—America's Two-Front
Sep 30, 2025Air Date: 09/30/25
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we track the dangerous convergence of domestic collapse and international chaos by looking at political violence and martyrdom accelerating division, institutional capture from the courts to the media, the dismantling of voting rights and public health infrastructure, military deployments at home and wars abroad, plus the resistance movements fighting back through town halls, labor organizing, and revolutionary art despite overwhelming odds.
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Duration: 03:52:04SOLVED! SAMPLE! #23 - ROBBING YOU BLIND: 'Buy Now Pay Later' and Mass Consumer Manipulation
Sep 28, 2025Air Date: 9–24-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - Intro, and quick follow up on bad satire
Ch. 2 - The new culture of 'buy now pay later' and how these companies are manipulating the public to normalize the culture of overconsumption
Ch. 3 - How companies pass the environmental toll of their products on the public, and the rise of "cute" debt
Ch. 4 - The way heavy 'buy now pay later' marketing has dramatically changed people's impression of how they spend their money
Ch. 5 - Wh...
Duration: 00:19:01#1526 A History of Political Violence in the US (Throwback)
Sep 26, 2025Original Air Date: 11/15/2022
Today, we take a look at our extremely steady history of political violence from the Revolution, through the Civil War, Reconstruction and Jim Crow, into the Civil Rights era, the Militia Movement and domestic terrorism, and now to our current once-again-radicalized, right-wing movement willing to use and tacitly condone violence as a political tactic.
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Duration: 01:20:44The Charlie Kirk Assassination and the Plans to Weaponize It
Sep 23, 2025Air Date 9/23/2025
All that is happening in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination was quite predictable because we've actually seen this game plan play out before. The only thing we didn't know was what would be the catalyst to really put the autocracy into high gear.
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Duration: 03:29:37SOLVED! #22 - The Culture Wars at 10,000 Feet
Sep 22, 2025Air Date: 9–20-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The right-wing's continued attempts at satire Ch. 2 - Manufactured outrage about male cheerleaders and sorority dances Ch. 3 - How political outsiders always adopt new tech, and how that ties to pushing back against misinformation Ch. 4 - Final thoughts on how when bad actors make gains, there is always a reaction SOLVED! BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm: The doctor exposing insurance companies' worst behaviorFOLLOW US ON:
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Duration: 00:18:51Escalations: Russia, Israel, And What We Are Allowed to Say About It
Sep 20, 2025Air Date 9/20/2025
The escalations are happening so fast now that even though this episode is about Russia increasing tensions by violating NATO airspace in Poland with drones and Israel intensifying their belligerence by bombing inside Qatar, those aren't even the most recent incidents now that Russian jets have entered NATO airspace in Estonia and Israel has launched a new attack on Gaza City while Netanyahu says he wants Israel to become like the doomed city-state of Sparta, which was weird.
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Duration: 03:28:50State of the Resistance: Labor, Anger, and Knowing That We've Been Here Before
Sep 16, 2025Air Date 9/16/2025
Between recent Labor Day rallies and Republican Town Hall meetings, we're seeing that resistance to Trump's deeply unpopular policies is alive and well. Plus we're going to look at some historical legacies of resistance movements that can both inform and inspire us today.
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Duration: 03:31:51Not the Opposition Party the Country Need Right Now
Sep 11, 2025Air Date 9/11/2025
I've always learned the high-level understanding that the Nazis were partly able to come to power because the opposition at the time was too caught up with infighting to create a coherent resistance. With hindsight, it's easy to lament how badly they miscalculated the circumstances but living through the modern day and watching the Democratic Party struggle gives even more clarity to how that kind of inability to get organized in the face of existential threats to democracy can happen.
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Duration: 03:38:26Trump's Making Friends of Enemies and Enemies of Neighbors (Foreign and Domestic Wars)
Sep 07, 2025Air Date 9/7/2025
Trump has been setting a new tone both at home and abroad which is shaking up everything from the war in Ukraine to threats of force against Mexico, Venezuela, and our own American cities with the militarization of domestic policing. And we made all of this before Trump posted an Apocalypse Now meme about using the Department of War against Chicago.
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Duration: 03:48:33SOLVED! #21 - GerryF**ked: How to Fix Congressional Representation and End Homelessness
Sep 05, 2025Air Date: 9–3-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - The surprising origins of Gerrymandering
Ch. 2 - The options we have to improve congressional representation for everyone in the country
Ch. 3 - Democratic states response to Republican gerrymandering threats
Ch. 4 - The argument for DC statehood and the people to blame for why it hasn't happened yet
Ch. 5 - How to end homelessness and what you can do to help those being targeted in DC
SOLVED! BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm: The only correct op...
Duration: 00:21:07How to Sell an Immoral Economic System to the Masses (Throwback)
Sep 03, 2025Air Date: 6–20-2023
Today, we take a look at the story of how neoliberalism was born, how corporations were organized to help push it into the mainstream, and how the courts were reshaped to permanently tilt the rules in favor of corporate power.
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Duration: 01:03:13Where is the Revolutionary, Anti-Fascist Art?
Sep 01, 2025Air Date 9/1/2025
The way people consume almost every variety of media, entertainment, and art is different now than it was only 10-15 years ago. That means that the way protest music, revolutionary art, and even mass market productions and performances are going to be different, feel different, and likely find you in different ways than in the past. But the drive to create never dies and art will always be part of the resistance to oppression.
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Duration: 03:11:37SOLVED! #20 - America's Brain Drain: How Scientific Empires Fall
Aug 29, 2025Air Date: 8–28-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch. 1 - How scientific empires fall Ch. 2 - How fascists of the past have destroyed their country's scientific progress in fear of inconvenient truths Ch. 3 - How other countries are taking the opportunity to poach American scientists Ch. 4 - Living in a society that is shifting away from believing in evidence based science Ch. 5 - The 1938 pro-science manifesto that defended democracy against fascism BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm - Trump's eugenicist mindset and what we didn't have time for from our main articles
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Duration: 00:26:57The Impossible Promise of Make American Healthy Again: MAHA vs MAGA
Aug 27, 2025Air Date 8/27/2025
RFK Jr. and the Make America Healthy Again movement aren't completely wrong about everything, they often identify the larger structural problems with the US health industrial complex even if their proposed solutions are wildly off the mark. But the problem they failed to see coming when partnering with Trump and the Republicans is that they're only going to be allowed to misguidedly defund and dismantle parts of the government that support health which is in line with the broader burn-it-all-down vibes of the MAGA movement, but under no circumstances will they be allowed to implement...
Duration: 03:09:37It's Never Just About the Kids (Online Censorship, Age Verification, and the Project 2025 Agenda)
Aug 24, 2025Air Date 8/24/2025
The nature of politics and public policy is that there's always a need to balance opposing interests. Almost nowhere is there a more intractable set of opposing interests than in the attempt to protect children from harmful content on the internet while maintaining free access to adults, particularly because people wildly disagree about what qualifies as harmful and what degree of privacy invasion is an acceptable tradeoff.
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Duration: 02:53:34Raw Power, the Presidency, the Courts, and Democracy in the Balance
Aug 20, 2025Air Date 8/20/2025
There's been a faction of conservatives who have been trying to instill king-like powers into the presidency for a long time, so it shouldn't be surprising that Trump is getting so much help from the packed court and the apparatchiks in the states who are more than happy to turn their precious federalism on its head as long as their king is in charge.
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Duration: 03:41:10SOLVED! #19 - Big Data: Putting Digital Fingerprints in the Pie of Freedom
Aug 19, 2025Air Date: 8–19-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Ch.1 - The Trump administration's unprecedented attempts to get your data from the states Ch. 2 - Why Trump's new private health tracking system is a wolf in sheep's clothing Ch. 3 - How HIV patients suffering in the 80s, 90s and early 00s from constant health data breaches is a hint of what could come Ch. 4 - Why a new UK law trying to protect children from seeing terrible things online is doing more harm than good Ch. 5 - Tips on keeping your digital privacy intact as be... Duration: 00:16:35The Axis of the Dark Personality Triad: Unfit Leaders and the Suffering They Cause
Aug 16, 2025Air Date 8/16/2025
There's the old Douglas Adams quote stating that, "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job" which is a good general rule to live by. But then there are the real baddies, those would-be leaders who possess one or more of the dark triad of traits that spells real doom for the societies that elevate them to power: narcissism, psychopathy, and machiavellianism. Today we compare and contrast Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Xi Jinping also fits nicely on this list as an...
Duration: 03:52:59Monthly-ish Mix: Layers of Authoritarian Control and the Rising Resistance
Aug 12, 2025Air Date 8/12/2025
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month, we're covering the full spectrum of authoritarian threats—military in the streets, surveillance in our phones, conspiracies in our feeds, and corruption at the top—before turning to the grassroots organizers and Democratic Socialists who are building the resistance and winning.
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Full Show Notes
...
Duration: 03:48:40SOLVED! #18 - How to Live Under Fascism
Aug 11, 2025Air Date: 8–10-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, and Deon (Erin was on vacation!) discuss:
How modern fascism does not look like the jarring and brutal images people think of, and the "rituals of conformity" in Nazi Germany that remind us of another era we've lived through How despotism affects the citizen psyche and how to counter those effects The importance of countering Orwellian language under fascism Advice on living under authoritarianism, with a big focus on community for sanity and resistance BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm (Members Only): A look at the way societies have collapsed throughout history an... Duration: 00:21:55The Lawfare Presidency: The Case of Trump v. Journalism
Aug 10, 2025Air Date 8/10/2025
Trump has been condemning the media for all of his professional life and is pretty open about doing it so that people won't believe the negative press he so richly deserves. Now, with the power of the presidency, he's turned his battle with the press into a protection racket complete with payoffs and side deals in an attempt to turn the media into pro-Trump propaganda.
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Duration: 03:09:37Super-Powered Men For Good and Ill: Fascism, Media, and the Manoshpere
Aug 06, 2025Air Date 8/6/2025
Today's slate of topics may feel disjointed at first until you realize that they're not. We set out to produce an episode in which we explored powerful men and those who look up to them from various angles and so that ended up including both real and fictional men from supervillains to superheroes.
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Full Show Notes
Check out our new...
Duration: 04:39:49Confronting Climate Chaos with Action and Adaptation (Throwback)
Aug 03, 2025Original Air Date: 7–22-2023
Today, we take a look at the action needed to curb and adapt to the extreme weather that climate change is already delivering
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Ch. 1: Cli...
Duration: 01:07:33SOLVED! #17 - How to Use the Bullsh*t Machine: A.I. LLMs' insertion into childhood, school, work, and movements
Aug 02, 2025Air Date: 8-1-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
The impact of A.I. LLM "friend" bots on childhood development How using A.I. LLMs negatively impacts critical thinking and information retention The importance of understanding how A.I. LLM tools work before using them The ways in which A.I. LLM tools could and shouldn't help movements on the Left, and evaluating the risks BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm (Members Only!) - The Gen Z Stare, and the incidents of A.I. LLM-induced psychosis
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Epstein Forever: Trump flails as criticism finally comes from inside the MAGA house
Jul 31, 2025Air Date: 7/31/2025
Who would have thought that a political movement built almost exclusively on conspiracy theories and a cult of personality would end up being threatened by the cult leader being implicated in the biggest and worst conspiracy coverup… even though it's been well documented for decades?
Content warning for detailed accusations leveled against Trump and Epstein by their alleged victims.
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Duration: 03:29:05A Flood of Disinformation: A World of Climate Change and Conspiracies
Jul 28, 2025Air Date: 7-27-2025
Back when I worked in the climate movement, just after the turn of the century, we knew that the extreme weather we were warning about would become ever-more clear to see in people's lived experiences and assumed that any doubts people had about the science of climate change would be wiped away with the evidence they could see with their own eyes as weather became more intense and less predictable. Of course, we didn't foreseen that we were headed straight into the eye of a storm of partisan conspiracism that would fully take...
Duration: 02:58:47How to Socialism: Einstein liked socialism, you think you know better?
Jul 23, 2025Check out our new show, SOLVED! on YouTube!
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KEY POINTS
KP 1: Old Democrats Must Go or Trump NEVER Will - UNFTR Media - Air Date 7-15-25
KP 2: 'The Economy Is Rigged": Robert Reich on Zohran Mamdani, The Democratic Party, Inequality, and Trump - Democracy Now! - Air Date 6-26-25
KP 3: Why We...
Duration: 03:47:42SOLVED! #16 - Under Pressure: Aiming Higher to Fix Societal Problems
Jul 22, 2025Air Date: 7–22-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
The need for universal childcare and the pressure release valve of fighting your employer over working from home The need for universal benefits and the pressure release valve of gig workers fighting for a patchwork of crumbs from giant corporations The need to get rid of the business model of tipped jobs and the pressure release valve of fighting over tipping culture and taxing The need for expanded social welfare programs and better wages and the pressure release valve of expanding food banks The need for ef... Duration: 00:20:26The Militia Movement is Having a Moment (Throwback)
Jul 18, 2025Original Air Date: 10–16-2020
Transcript
Today we take a look at the history and origins of the American militia movement right up to the recent plot to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, the likelihood of more violence and the high probability that they will show up at polling places on Election Day.
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Duration: 01:09:48Scam Nation: Trumpism is the Art of Screwing You Over in Every Way Possible
Jul 16, 2025Air Date 7/16/2025
It increasingly feels like we are completely past the era of legitimate differences in political philosophy and policy preferences. Now that the Republican governing style has been completely consumed by Trumpism, we've entered the era of scam politics which fits nicely with Trump's traditional retail scams, capitalism's continual reinvention of financial scams, and the new age of crypto scams.
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Full Show Notes<...
Duration: 04:39:27SOLVED! #15 - This is Propaganda Country: The Grotesque, Cruel, & Artificial Aesthetics of Modern Fascism
Jul 14, 2025Air Date: 7–13-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
⁃ The calculated, propaganda motives behind "Mar-a-Lago face"
and bizarre MAGA hyper-femininity
⁃ How MAGA uses Kristi Noem's "Border Barbie" vibes to attempt to
soften its vicious immigration policy, and project victimization
⁃ How bad AI imagery is now the look of modern fascism
⁃ The cruelty of the White House X account - a propaganda
machine of memes (run by Groypers)
⁃ The Right's psychopathic treatment of immigrants, and bracing
ourselves for what's coming next<...
Duration: 00:19:11Imbalance of Powers: The Supreme Court and Executive Branch Collude for Unchecked Power Grab
Jul 12, 2025Air Date 7/12/2025
The idea of the founders was to separate and balance the powers of the federal government and that, as Madison wrote, that ambition would counteract ambition. The problem we face now is that the ambition of the Supreme Court is to give as much power as possible to the executive branch because, ironically, they seem to be nostalgic for a king.
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Duration: 03:18:29The Evolution of the Military Industrial Complex: Now with AI!
Jul 09, 2025Air Date 7/9/2025
It's an old joke that "military intelligence" is a good example of an oxymoron so I just asked an AI chatbot to finish a joke about what a military becomes when they implement artificial intelligence. It said, "an oxymoron squared - or as the generals call it, "strategically enhanced stupidity with a confidence interval of 95%" which is not funny but still managed to be pretty on point regarding the dangers of overconfidence that inevitably follows from the implementation of new technology.
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Duration: 03:10:12SOLVED! #14 - How to Be An Imperfectionist: Fighting the infighting and building a resilient Left movement
Jul 08, 2025Air Date: 7–7-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Some advice on understanding how to identify imperfect allies vs. true opponents Good-faith critiques of (and agreements with) socialist NYU Professor Vivek Chibber's views on identity politics on the Left Working Families Party head Maurice Mitchell's ideas on "neoliberal identity" politics for those in the Left movement How Gov. Wes Moore rejected our political "charade" and what we should do instead …and more in BACKSTAGE: Beyond the Algorithm (MEMBERS ONLY!)
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Duration: 00:20:41#1376 Tell Stories, Not Myths- America is a Force But Not Always For Good (Throwback)
Jul 04, 2025Original Air Date: 10-21-20
Today we take a look at some of the many zany foreign misadventures the United States has had over the past 100 years. And by "zany misadventures" I mean the naked pursuit of capitalism at any cost, the support of military coups and other undemocratic overthrows of foreign governments and wars for oil and resources in an unabashed attempt to keep America wealthy and the rest of the world less so - all while maintaining an anti-imperial, pro-democracy, pro-freedom, live-and-let-live poker face
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Duration: 01:01:36Building an Organized Left, the Eternal Oxymoron
Jul 02, 2025Air Date 7/2/2025
The militarization of Trump's deportation regime and response to protesters is the clearest example of his desire to implement a fully authoritarian government. Pure and simple.
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...
Duration: 04:01:42#13 - How to Make Enemies and Influence People
Jul 01, 2025Air Date: 6–30-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
Shifting the way we think and talk about the benefits of peaceful nonviolence at anti-fascist protests The unlimited patience for capitalism vs. the knee-jerk "Impossible!" for left-wing ideas The centrists Democrats (and their consultants) missing the forest for the trees An antidote to decades of neoliberal approaches to policy (and we reject Ezra Klein's "Abundance")
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Nostr public key: npub1tjxxp0x5mcgl2svwhm39qf002...
Duration: 00:21:56The Fascist Playbook: Immigrants, Brown Shirts, and the Backlash
Jun 28, 2025Air Date 6/28/2025
The militarization of Trump's deportation regime and response to protesters is the clearest example of his desire to implement a fully authoritarian government. Pure and simple.
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Duration: 04:12:04On the Path to Destruction: Israel Attacks Iran as Support for War on Gaza Drops
Jun 25, 2025Air Date: 6-25-2025
We thought we were going to have an episode about the war Israel is conducting ready for you last week but then they started another war. So, it would have felt odd to release an Israel episode without the latest major updates including Iran. I can only imagine what will happen between the time I speak these words and when you hear them that will make this episode feel out of date.
What Happens When Bereaved Israelis and Palestinians Share Their Pain? Listening from the HeartBe part of the show...
Duration: 03:56:42SOLVED! #12 - Back to the…1980s? The Power of Nostalgia and Trump's Reaganitis
Jun 24, 2025Air Date: 6–23-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
The long history of nostalgia in politics as we find ourselves reliving the 1980s How MAGA Youth have a lot in common with Reagan Youth (a la Alex P. Keaton) without the context Trump's Reaganitis: All the ways Trump is just straight up copying Reagan and how he could fail like him too The "Landlord in Chief" and how to fight back against the new feudalism
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Duration: 00:20:30Monthly-Ish Mix: Wealth Concentration, Knowledge Suppression, and Identity Exploitation: The Systems of Control of the Authoritarian Playbook
Jun 21, 2025Air Date 6/21/2025
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month, we're focusing on the way authoritarian movements operate across multiple fronts simultaneously to reshape society.
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Duration: 03:11:29The Fight for Workers: Oligarchy and its Bipartisan Enablers
Jun 18, 2025Air Date 6/18/2025
Critics of capitalism like us often advocate for the system to come to an end and be replaced with another that aligns better with human needs and continued existence. Well, it's possible that the system is close to having run its course and will be making way for something different. Unfortunately, the natural course of capitalism is to concentrate wealth and, by extension, power so that's what's happened and we're now getting close to basically reinventing feudalism. So, wrong direction.
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Duration: 03:26:08New Tech and the New Luddite Movement; Inequitable Distribution of Benefits from New Technology Always Sparks Demands from Labor and AI is Rekindling the Old Arguments (Throwback)
Jun 13, 2025Original Air Date: 2-20-2024
"Luddite" should never have become the epithet that it is as the Luddites were never afraid of or opposed to technological advancement, they only opposed the exploitation of workers and the degradation to society that came with the unfair distribution of the benefits of the targeted technology.
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Duration: 00:58:19The Weaponization of Antisemitism and Counterproductive Violence
Jun 11, 2025Air Date: 6-11-2025
Following the 2023 attack and counterattack between Israel and Hamas which brought the simmering conflict into the mainstream of American politics, we're now living with the opportunistic weaponization of antisemitism being used as a pretext to crack down on anti-Israel protests and universities that just aren't teaching a Trump-aligned curriculum. Meanwhile, genuinely inexcusable antisemitism is being either condemned or excused by Israel supporters based more on political affiliation than the danger posed to Jews.
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Duration: 02:36:28SOLVED! - Culture War Distractions While the Oligarchs Rob You Blind
Jun 10, 2025Air Date: 6-8-25
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Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
The right's attack on free speech and academic freedom Trumponomics, men, and tradwives The lessons to learn about culture wars from the fight for gay marriage How the internet and Trump force us to live in and re-litigate the past How the left can avoid Trump's culture war trapsFOLLOW US ON:
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Duration: 00:24:25
Trump's Anti-Knowledge Agenda is Inviting the Next Authoritarian Dark Age
Jun 06, 2025Air Date 6/6/2025
Today, Trump's administration is doing everything in its power to end the era of educational dominance the US has enjoyed for decades. The simple fact that explains the change is that democracy used to be valued across the political spectrum while todays Republican Party is authoritarian and understands that an educated public is a public that demands democracy while an uneducated public is much easier to manipulate and oppress.
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Duration: 03:50:49The rise of fascism around the world driven by economic insecurity (Throwback)
Jun 03, 2025Original Air Date: 12-8-2023
Neoliberalism has created a lot of economic suffering and insecurity in addition to weakened social ties over the past few decades. And now, in what may be the most devastating result of the ideology yet, neoliberalism may be leading much of the world toward fascism bolstered by legitimate grievances about economic precarity which are coopted by the false promises of right-wing populism.
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SHOW NOTES
Ch. 1: Far-right extremism on the rise around the globe...
Duration: 01:03:12SOLVED! - The Old Guard is Dying
Jun 02, 2025Air Date: 6–2-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon, and Erin discuss:
The role of art in political movements and moments under capitalism The problems with the Democratic Party that go far beyond Biden The Democrats' gerontocracy that is literally dying and allowing Trump legislation to pass Our response to the latest DNC Executive Committee Meeting (held May 29th in Little Rock, AR)
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REFERENCES:
Don't Expect Art To Save Us - Curr...
Duration: 00:23:26Yes, GOP Policies Really Are That Bad: Trump's Corruption and the One Big Beautiful Bill Act
May 30, 2025Air Date 5/30/2025
Given the overwhelming weirdness of Trump and his malfeasant style of governance, it would be perfectly understandable for casual observers to believe that his signature piece of legislation, weirdly named in reality the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," was itself also likely to be pretty weird; a potential departure from usual Republican Party policy priorities. In reality, what's weird is how deeply normal it is: take from the poor and give to the rich while letting corporations get away with murder.
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Duration: 03:12:04Eugenics Redux: A Gilded Age Ideology Brought Back for the Second Gilded Age
May 27, 2025Air Date 5/27/2025
Slippery slope arguments persist because good ideas taken to extremes become bad ones. Eugenics exemplifies this—often starting with good intentions.
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KEY POINTS
KP 1: The movement that inspired the Holocaust - Alexandra Minna Stern and Natalie Lira - TED-Ed - Air Date 3-10-22
KP 2: MAHA's So...
Duration: 03:25:11SPECIAL MEMBERS EDITION! Myths, Vampires, and Sinners (the movie!) - SPOILERS!
May 26, 2025Air Date: 5-26-25
*CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE "SINNERS"*
You thought you were going to listen to SOLVED! today, and you're not alone. We also thought we were going to make an episode of SOLVED!, but this turned into something a little bit different. So, we're calling it a "special" in which Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss storytelling and mythology in general, and the extremely relevant and fascinating themes of the new Ryan Coogler film "Sinners," in particular. Because storytelling is the process by which humans attempt to understand ourselves, it is, by...
Duration: 00:17:13I Can't Breathe, The Three Words That Define an Era (Throwback)
May 24, 2025Original Air Date: 6/29/2020
From 2020: Today we take a look deeper at the concept of "I can't breathe," going beyond the literal utterances by victims of police brutality and COVID-19 sufferers to the metaphorical epidemic of exhaustion, burnout, depression and disaffection in the US and around the world.
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Duration: 01:11:28How It Started, How It's Going- Assessing the Flooded Zone Full of Shit
May 21, 2025Air Date: 5-21-2025
A popular MAGA refrain is, "promises made, promises kept." The key is having known which promises to take seriously. Weaponizing the government against his enemies and attempting to wield dictatorial power, sure. Benefit his supporters or the working class more broadly, or rid the government of waste, fraud, or corruption... not so much.
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Duration: 03:05:15SOLVED! - A Pale Blue Dot of Anxiety
May 19, 2025Air Date: 5-19-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, and Deon (Erin was on vacation) discuss:
The origins of and problems with "the one way" Christian mindset Why Finland's happiest country title and happiness itself are terribly misunderstood by Americans How our globalized world is messing with perceptions of our cultural similarities and differences The link between genocides, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories Naomi Klein's analysis on the problems with how we talk about the Holocaust How we get back to humanization and recognizing our core similarities as beings floating on a rock in space Some Finnish wisdom that... Duration: 00:19:00The past is never dead. It's not even past. Race, Religion, Culture and the Stories we Tell
May 18, 2025Air Date 5/18/2025
The full quote from today's title is from one of the most celebrated writers of Southern American literature, William Faulkner, who said, "The past is never dead. It's not even past. All of us labor in webs spun long before we were born, webs of heredity and environment, of desire and consequence, of history and eternity." The new film, Sinners, set in the Jim Crow South, attempts to take on some of the subjects that make up that web of history and consequence. The theme of today's episode is an attempt to dig into many...
Duration: 02:54:03Marketing, Messaging and Mass Shootings (Throwback)
May 14, 2025Original Air Date 6/4/2022
Today we take a look at some of the obvious steps we need to take to reduce gun violence in the United States, debunk some of the favored propaganda supporting unfettered gun ownership and explore the origins of how Gun Culture™ was invented by corporations as the frontier era need for guns began to vanish pushing them to convert guns from tools that were needed but not loved into items that were loved though no longer needed.
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Duration: 01:20:11So, Marxism. What is that all about? (Throwback)
May 09, 2025Original Air Date 5/24/2019
As the neoliberal order collapses from the pressure of its failures to provide for working people, we take a look at the much-maligned, rarely-understood field of economic and social study known as Marxism.
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SHOW...
Duration: 00:54:37#1709 Monthly-ish Mix: Government Power, Vulnerable Communities, Transformations, Opposition & Resistance
May 06, 2025Air Date 5/6/2025
The Monthly-ish Mix™ is here to get you caught up on recent news without being overwhelming! This month we look at government surveillance overreach, challenges facing immigrant and refugee communities, the shifting landscape of American culture brought on by Christian Nationalism and the emerging broligarchy, and grassroots movements challenging institutional power.
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PART 1: GOVERNMENT POWER & ITS MISUSE
#1697 The Trump Worl...
Duration: 03:13:04SOLVED! #8 - PART 2: Drowning Men Will Clutch at Straws: Masculinity in a MAGA world
May 05, 2025Air Date: 5-5-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin continue our discussion on masculinity and dive into:
- The dangers of the online obsession with Patrick Bateman from American Psycho
- John Adams' famous quote that could give some insight into today's incels
- The Matt Walsh/Megan Kelly skirmish that exposes Walsh's siloed world-view
- A small but interesting group of former Trumpers who seem to have woken up to the bullshit of traditional gender roles
- The studies that show women have better sex...
Duration: 00:18:01Rent Asunder: From the Moderation of Pope Francis to Extremism of JD Vance, the Catholic Church is Deeply Divided
May 02, 2025Air Date 5/2/2025
We're taking the passing of Pope Francis as an opportunity to explore the deeper political implications of the extremist, rightward turn for some in the Catholic Church, including many recent converts.
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KEY POINTS
KP 1: Why Pope Francis successor could have great influence on U.S. politics...
Duration: 02:50:47Tariffied: Exposing Trump's Artless Deal
Apr 29, 2025Air Date 4/29/2025
The economic and political fallout of Trump's misguided tariffs, exposing his self-proclaimed deal-making prowess as a fraud and his grasp of the relevant issues to be childlike at best.
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...
Duration: 03:18:59SOLVED! #8 - PART 1: Drowning Men Will Clutch at Straws: Masculinity in a MAGA world
Apr 28, 2025Air Date: 4-28-25
Today, Jay!, Amanda, Deon and Erin discuss:
- Why the "manly" manufacturing jobs Trump and MAGA want are never coming back
- Why incels love Trump's tariffs
- The sad flails of the "Make America Manly Again" movement
- The "Sigma grindset" guys' obsession with - and complete misunderstanding of - disturbing fictional movie characters
- Cliffhanger! Jay explains our upcoming schedule
- SOLVED! SONG! "Blinded" (Directly inspired by this episode!)
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Trump's Kafkaesque Deportation Nightmare is the Shame of the Nation
Apr 26, 2025Air Date 4/26/2025
For those of us who knew that Trump was lawless and deeply racist in his desire for mass deportations of brown people, we're getting exactly what we expected. For others, at least the lawlessness is coming as a bit of a surprise, and yet, here we are.
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Duration: 03:38:23Threatened Social Safety Nets Are Foundational to Healthy Societies
Apr 22, 2025Air Date 4/22/2025
George W. Bush proposed privatizing Social Security and didn't succeed. But, as with appointing Justices that would eventually overturn Roe V. Wade, groundwork was being laid as part of a multi-decade effort that would, they hoped, pay off in the future. So don't be surprised when they come for your earned benefits programs just as they came for the fundamental right to bodily autonomy.
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Duration: 03:06:26Weaponization and Capitulation: Trump vs Immigrants, Universities, and Media
Apr 18, 2025Air Date 4/18/2025
Before the election, I heard interviews and statistics about Trump supporters responding to his stated desire to weaponize the government against his political enemies. Their response was that 1) they didn't want him to do that and 2) didn't think he would.
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Duration: 03:57:14The Broligarchy and the Rise of Techno-Feudalism
Apr 14, 2025Air Date 4/14/2025
Everything, it turns out, is a double-edged sword. Democracy and freedom are great but it also contains the keys to its own destruction. Love is pretty good but it turns out that only love can break your heart. And technology, which has freed people from countless hours of menial labor also has the power to subsume our economy, our politics, and much of our everyday lives. It may even be said to have supplanted capitalism itself.
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Duration: 02:54:05Israeli right-wing politics has lead to some strange, fascist bedfellows (Throwback)
Apr 08, 2025Original Air Date: 3/5/2019
From 2019: Today we take a look at how the illiberalism of the Israeli government has alienated the vast majority of democratic nations and individuals who support human rights, leaving the country with some of the most far-right, fascist, white-supremacist, anti-Semitic people in the world as their only remaining allies.
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Duration: 01:02:45Destroying Education, Boosting Christian Nationalism: Rewriting the Past and Hamstringing the Future
Apr 05, 2025Air Date 4/5/2025
Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past. And with Trump in place, the Christian Nationalists are looking to rewrite history to their liking in order to create the dystopian future they desire.
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Duration: 03:06:00Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way: Installing the Backbone Democrats Need
Apr 02, 2025Air Date 4/2/2025
Love them or loathe them, the Democratic Party is the political institution available to the left to structurally take on Trumpism but we need a whole lot of new energy and new commitments to the fight to turn them into an opposition worthy of the moment we face.
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Duration: 03:14:05Dehumanizing Trans People is Always the First Step for Fascists
Mar 29, 2025Air Date 3/28/2025
You might not be trans yourself but that's just like how coal miners aren't canaries because when they saw that the canaries were under threat, they knew the danger was all around them. Fascists always start with those who are the easiest to dehumanize but they never stop there.
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Duration: 04:10:13Torturing Children and Families in the Name of Protecting Them (Trans Rights Throwback)
Mar 26, 2025Original Air Date: 3/29/2022
Today we take a look at the current iteration of the cynical culture wars being waged by conservative Republicans against LGBTQ kids for political gain. The current wave of anti-trans and anti-gay legislation sprouting across the country is not about protecting kids and is absolutely nothing new.
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Duration: 01:08:36