234: Trump’s Conspiracist Cabinet

Exvangelical author Tia Levings joins Matthew to discuss her harrowing memoir of indoctrination, abuse, recovery, and advocacy, The Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. It’s a wild GenX journey that tells us a lot about the logic of evangelical support for Trumpism, and how those caught within it can see their way clear the gender terror, rape culture, and fantasies of retribution.  Show Notes Tia Levings  This season, Patreon is checking some big things off your wish list Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

7 Dec 202441min

If you’ve spent one minute on social media in the last few months, you’ve probably heard that seed oils are extremely toxic, food dyes are the reason for rising obesity rates—oh wait, that’s glyphosate—and vaccines are still causing autism. Nevermind the fact that the supposedly criminal preservative, thimerosal, was removed from almost all vaccinations in 2001. Clinical research is irrelevant in MAHA, RFK Jr’s Make America Healthy Again MAGA ripoff. Wellness acolytes have found a champion in Kennedy, who’s going to immediately end chronic diseases and reduce obesity rates by…checks notes…making sure every American has a gym membership. We’ve covered Bobby a lot on this podcast, so today our fearless correspondent, Mallory DeMille, returns to investigate one very vocal and very relieved cohort, the MAHA Mamas. They just know Kennedy is going to truly save the children, science be damned. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Dec 202458min

An essay from Matthew on how MAGA religiosity obscures the religious nature of liberalism, and how both obscure the underlying religion of capitalism.  Inspired by Walter Benjamin, who in 1921 wrote: One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. Capitalism is a pure religious cult, perhaps the most extreme there ever was. Within it everything only has meaning in direct relation to the cult: it knows no special dogma, no theology. Show Notes Mutual Aid Hub  Martin Luther King Jr: Dialectics, Materialism, and the Black Radical Critique of Racial Capitalism with Andrew J. Douglas and Jared A. Loggins  230: How Did We Get Here? Walter Benjamin, "Capitalism as Religion [Fragment 74],"  Max Weber and Walter Benjamin Without Dream or Mercy  Has Capitalism Become Our Religion? On the Concept of History - Walter Benjamin  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2 Dec 20246min

The Free Press founder, Bari Weiss, recently hosted Peter Thiel on her podcast. While The FP markets itself as as a return to independent and non-partisan real journalism, Julian and Derek point out that's not the case at all—especially when the organization's $15M in funding comes from rightwing and libertarian VCs. Will Weiss factcheck Thiel's misinformation in real-time, as a "non-partisan" outlet should? Show Notes Lapdogs Of The "Counter-Elite" Authoritarians Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Nov 202445min

Matthew here with the fourth installment of Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.  Rob Schenck joined me in Episode 199 to discuss his deradicalization from the Evangelical anti-abortion movement. Today he joins me to discuss some things he’s learned about hope, faith, resilience and building community in hard times. Show Notes Costly Grace - Rob Schenck  199: Inside Anti-Abortion Christian Nationalism (w/Rob Schenck) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

26 Nov 202419min

The climate denialist who exposed the so-called “censorship industrial complex” returns, this time at another congressional hearing. Michael Shellenberger has come to blow the whistle on Big Government’s UFO cover-up.  Nancy Mace, Lauren Boebert, and Anna Paulina Luna alternate between showing off their knowledge of fantastical History Channel “documentaries” and playing bad cop interrogators. Reverse-engineered UFO’s! Recovered alien “biologics!” Interdimensional beings! Organic machines that defy the laws of physics!  Shellenberger and his fellow “witnesses” provide precisely zero evidence for any of these earth-shattering claims. Welcome to the Government Oversight and Accountability Committee circus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

25 Nov 20246min

AG1 built a billion-dollar brand in large part by tapping into the fitness and wellness podcast and YouTube markets. Recently, AG1’s founder, Chris Ashenden, resigned after a decades-old real estate scam in his native New Zealand came to light. While Chris has mentioned it in passing, he’s always claimed to have paid full reparations for his crime—and it was a crime. Turns out that he hasn’t paid it all, as uncovered by New Zealand journalists Jonathan Milne and Mike Wesley-Smith. They join Derek to discuss their year-and-a-half long investigation that resulted in a billionaire founder leaving one of the most well-known supplements brands in the world. They also talk about why journalism still matters in a world seemingly run by billionaires.  Show Notes AG1 founder Chris Ashenden resigns amid scrutiny of NZ criminal history DELVE: Powder Keg podcast on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | iHeart Trump sues for billions from media he says is biased against him Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

23 Nov 202438min