248: What Side Are You On?
Lately a lot of folks (including us) have been doing the fascism comparisons. The questions we ponder this week: How long it takes for fascism to fully dig its roots in, how varied is the opposition along the way, and what role does the media play? Show Notes 165: Outrage Machine (w/Tobias Rose-Stockwell) 16 October 1919 | Hitler Archive Konrad Heiden Fritz Gerlich, publicist and prophet – how did he resist the Nazis? Fritz Gerlich Nazi Germany’s Schriftleitergesetz: The End of Freedom of the Press - Arolsen Archives The illegal press – Verzetsmuseum The Liberal Media Always Fails Against Fascism — Robert Evans Can a news media that doesn’t really oppose fascism ever cover it well? Against Normalization: The Lesson of the “Munich Post” | Los Angeles Review of Books The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler Fascist-Sympathizing Newspaper Barons Were the Blueprint for Today’s Right-Wing Media Media's Failure in Times of Crisis: Election Coverage in the Interwar Period How Journalists Covered the Rise of Mussolini and Hitler | Smithsonian How Britain's Nazi-loving press baron made the case for Hitler | The Times of Israel Wahl-Jorgensen, K. (2016). Is there a “postmodern turn” in journalism? In C. Peters and M. Broersma (Eds), Rethinking Journalism (pp. 97-111). London: Routledge. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
13 Maalis 1h 16min
Bonus Sample: Sex, Lies, & Communist Spies
Subscribe for full episode The MAGA attack on government jobs, takeover of government agencies, and purge of supposed “DEI” and “woke” professionals has a long history in the US. Julian uses old-timey newsreels, biographies, and events in the public record to trace the lines from 1919 to today, making stops at the so-called Red Summer’s “race riots,” Red Scare communist panics, Hollywood Blacklist, and Lavender Scare that fired thousands for being presumed gay. Unrelated to any of this completely useless and repressive paranoid bigotry, actual Soviet spies were being apprehended and prosecuted—even then everything was not on the level. The prosecutors had their own hidden skeletons and shady bedfellows, even as they claimed the patriotic moral high ground. At the heart of this history is a lineage of men who never let truth get in the way of gaining, and wielding, power and cruelty. Julian uncovers a surprisingly direct lineage of dirty-tricks demagogue succession, from Woodrow Wilson to A. Mitchell Palmer, to J. Edgar Hoover, to Joe McCarthy, to Roy Cohn, to Roger Stone, to our current president. Editorial Note: The Paul Robeson clip that starts the episode is a re-enactment by James Earl Jones for the Zinn Education Project. It uses the transcript of Robeson’s 1956 appearance before the House UnAmerican Activities Committee. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
10 Maalis 6min
Brief: MAHA's Soft Eugenics
MAHA's response to the measles outbreak has been horrific, though expectable. Yet RFK Jr's op-ed, in which he advocated for the MMR vaccine, ripped apart his coalition—briefly. Derek looks at the responses to Bobby's moment of clarity, then contemplates what MAHA really wants now that their champion is the bureaucracy. Show Notes Dr Jessica Knurick’s video Vitamin A For Measles: Kevin Klatt Measles is not a harmless illness — complications include brain damage, immune amnesia, and death Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
8 Maalis 29min
247: The Deeper State
This week we’re looking at how folks who associated themselves with the magical and morbid QAnon memes about the “coming storm” that would destroy the Deep State have become that storm, mainly by talking about it, and are now in the position to congeal an even Deeper State characterized by more repression and control. They’re doing it both as conspiracists and as conspiracy theorists would predict: as rich guys pretending to be oppressed. This opens up the question of “Have we been here before in the US, and what happened?” The parallels are uncanny. In the late 1920s, Henry Ford had his car dealers stick copies of The Dearborn Independent newspaper in the glove compartments of new cars. That was the rag in which he published excerpts of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Today another auto baron, Elon Musk, busts out seigheils and posts Nazi memes whenever he likes. But only one of them got a White House office. Show Notes CDC Statement on Measles Outbreak US Health Secretary Kennedy calls for end to deadly Texas measles outbreak Copy of STORM is HERE Data LIVE: Kash Patel’s confirmation hearing for FBI director Kash Patel Wants to Work From Home for FBI. But Who Does He Live With? | The New Republic Kash Patel privately agreed to hire an experienced deputy FBI director. Then Trump picked a loyalist | The Independent How Dan Bongino Went From Infowars to FBI Deputy Director | WIRED How Trump’s Justice Department has gutted the government’s ability to chase public corruption | CNN Politics 123: The Red-Pilled "Academic" Who Named Our Podcast — Conspirituality Darkness Over All: John Robison and the Birth of the Illuminati Conspiracy — The Public Domain Review Conspiracy Theories Abounded in 19th-Century American Politics | Smithsonian Wealthy bankers and businessmen plotted to overthrow FDR. A retired general foiled it. Medical Mystery: What killed ‘Red Scare’ Sen. Joseph McCarthy? FBI director considering having UFC train agents in martial arts, say people familiar with plan | Reuters What We Know About the CIA's Midcentury Mind-Control Project | Smithsonian FBI Records: The Vault — COINTELPRO On campaign trail, RFK Jr. pushes 'bonkers' theory about CIA's 'takeover of the American press' - ABC News Richard Hofstadter’s “The Paranoid Style” Can’t Help Us Now Rehabilitating McCarthyism JFK, Richard Hofstadter, and the ‘Paranoid Style in American Politics’ Ford's Anti-Semitism | American Experience | Official Site | PBS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
6 Maalis 1h 2min
Bonus Sample: What’s a Nazi Salute, Really?
Former "race realist" Richard Hanania recently published an article on The Free Press claiming that all those Nazi salutes the right is waving high in the sky is really "just trolling." Derek disagrees. Show Notes Enough — John Ganz I Can Explain Why the Nazi Salute Is Back — Richard Hanania Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
3 Maalis 5min
Brief: Smooth-Talking Anti-Feminism
Is life worse for women now than in the 1950s? In a recent interview for The Free Press, author Louise Perry and journalist Bari Weiss muse on just how much women have lost since premarital sex was normalized, the pill reduced sex to consequence-free hedonism, and Roe v Wade rendered abortion as common as going to the dentist. Perry calls this “re-paganization,” delivering an eloquent longing for a lost golden age of female subservience as Weiss nods along and smiles. It’s all very heterodox. Or is it? No mention of the impacts of Project 2025, the dangerous ascendancy of Christian Nationalism, or the deadly crisis of women’s health in full swing. Julian analyses their conversation to pinpoint how digital new media dresses up traditionalist right-wing talking points as if they’re open-minded, edgy, and brave intellectual insights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
1 Maalis 35min
246: Shock Doctrine of Discovery
Trump has decreed it’s the Gulf of America, and Google agrees, at least for US users. Rep Buddy Carter has introduced HR 1161, the Red White and Blueland Act of 2025 to rename Greenland. And then, of course, there's making Canada the 51st state. Pay attention to shit like this: it's a magic spell. Trump is speaking in the old language of the Discovery Doctrine. That’s what we’ll excavate today. Show Notes Zizian Killing Spree and Arrests Zizian leader denied bail Roko’s Basilisk and Zizian beliefs/practices Feb 2023 Community Alert about Ziz on Less Wrong Project 2025 Observer Native America, Discovered and Conquered: Thomas Jefferson, Lewis and Clark, and Manifest Destiny — Richard J Miller Trump calls Canada a 'very serious contender' to become 51st state H.R.1161 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Red, White, and Blueland Act of 2025 DISCOURSE ON COLONIALISM Aime Cesaire Translated by Joan Pinkham Biography - Burnum Burnum - Indigenous Australia The fight to 'free' the Aboriginal flag Common Methods of Annexation | Snohomish County, WA Doctrine of Discovery: How the 500-year-old Catholic decree encouraged colonization Speech Acts (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Mexico's President Sheinbaum threatens to take legal action over the Gulf name change : NPR How Canada planned to invade the U.S. (and vice versa) Poilievre says Canada is broken Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
27 Helmi 1h 3min
Bonus Sample: Manners, the Machine, and Malaparte’s Technique de Coup d’État
What do we worry more about: the far-right beliefs of trolls, or the coding skills of the trolls? The split focus on Marco Elez and Elon Musk—are they Nazis, or hackers, or Nazi hackers?— highlight two prongs of emergent fascism. The ideological/aesthetic/psychological on one side, and the technocratic on the other. We can call them the manners and the machine. First, Matthew unpacks a century-old thesis by an OG fascist that says totalitarian regimes take shape when both are working together, but that ultimately, the coup d’etat is about seizing control of the machine. Then he rounds off with a rant about how easy it is liberal-centrist discourse about manners to distract from the reality of the machine. Why? It’s because in the absence of a clear analysis of how capital and power work—it’s in the sphere of manners—that liberals feel they have a fighting chance. But it’s also exactly where Musk and Elez and Vance and Trump can ignore them. Show Notes A Doomed Democracy | STANFORD magazine The October Revolution - Introduction | Marx Memorial Library Alexander Kerensky Dies Here at 89 - The New York Times Curzio Malaparte | Italian Author, Journalist & Politician | Britannica Reading the Eccentric Italian Writer Who Tried to Cover Up His Fascism ‹ Literary Hub Curzio Malaparte: The Illusion of the Fascist Revolution The Californian Ideology The Californian Ideology Personified - Truthdig Cyberlibertarianism: The Right-Wing Politics of Digital Technology on JSTOR 175: Diagonalism (w/William Callison and Quinn Slobodian) — Conspirituality Opinion | Don’t Believe Him - The New York Times Welcome to Neokayfabe — Abraham Josephine Riesman // Writer 40 Ways to Fight Fascists: Street-Legal Tactics for Community Activists — Spencer Sunshine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
24 Helmi 6min
