#1791 Jim Crow 2.0 — SCOTUS Kills the Voting Rights Act and Unleashes the Gerrymandering War
Air Date: 5–12-2026
Today we examine the redistricting scramble unleashed by the Supreme Court's gutting of the Voting Rights Act. We'll hear how Southern states moved within days to crack majority-Black districts, how Tennessee banned public input to rush through new maps, and why every governor's race, state legislative seat, and secretary of state contest in 2026 is now a redistricting fight.
Read more#1790 Assassin Nation: How Political Violence Got Normalized And How To Reverse It
Air Date: 5–9-2026
Today we examine how political violence has always been woven into the fabric of American life and who gets to decide what counts as violence in the first place. We'll hear about presidential assassinations, the assassination of Fred Hampton, the MOVE bombing in Philadelphia, and the long history of state-sanctioned violence. And I'll discuss the only real way to bend the curve back away from endemic violence in the US.
Read more#1789 Boomcession: Why the Economy Looks Great on Paper and Hurts in Real Life
Air Date: 05-06-2026
Today we examine how the U.S. war on Iran is producing an economic crisis with echoes of the 1970s stagflation era which explains why Trump is now less popular on inflation than Jimmy Carter. We'll also be exploring various element of the structure of our economy, including how GDP became a deeply misleading measure of welfare, why consumer spending increasingly goes toward things people don't want to buy, and how gambling and junk fees are literally counted as economic growth.
Read more#1787 The American President vs The American Pope: Leo XIV, Trump, and the MAGA-Catholic Rift
Air Date: 4–29-2026
Today we explore the extraordinary clash between Pope Leo XIV and the Trump White House — a feud involving military threats, medieval papal history, and an American-born pope who refuses to back down. We'll hear why analysts say MAGA's religiosity is pure aesthetic, and what that hollowness means for the millions of Americans still taking their faith seriously.
Read more#1786 Defeating Viktor Orbán in Hungary and the Authoritarian Playbook Worldwide
Air Date: 4–24-2026
Today we explore how Viktor Orban spent 16 years transforming Hungary into a blueprint for 21st-century autocracy, how that blueprint traveled directly to the United States and what Hungary's stunning defeat of Orban can teach Americans about fighting back against authoritarianism.
Read more#1784 Who Gets to Be American, Who Gets to Vote, and Who Decides
Air Date: 4–14-2026
Today we examine the legal battles shaking the foundations of American citizenship and voting rights as Trump's legal team uses the courts as a weapon against democratic participation — and how advocates are fighting back. We'll hear about the three-D playbook of deceive, disrupt, and deny used by authoritarians and being deployed by Trump ahead of the midterms, and what ordinary people can do right now to protect their votes before November.
Read more#1683 Oligarchy Unmasked: President Musk, the crackup of capitalism, and the MAGA meltdown (Throwback)
Re-Air Date: 04-07-26
Original Air Date: 1-15-2025
Elon Musk is leading the way for his class of tech broligarchs anxious to take over the MAGA movement and shape it to their own ends of deregulation, tax cuts, and lucrative government contracts. The disappointment that is inevitable for the MAGA populists is coming even faster than expected.
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#1778 AI, the Pentagon, Labor and Capitalism: The Fight Over Who Controls the Future
Air Date: 3–19-2026
Today we explore the long history of technological disruption — from the Industrial Revolution to the rise of software engineering — and ask whether AI is genuinely different this time, all while autonomous weapons dissolve accountability for the militaries using them and capitalism prevents AI companies from maintaining their ethical aspirations.
Read more#1777 How Christian Nationalism, Oil, and Zionism Built The War Against Iran
Air Date: 3–15-2026
Today we examine how a century of foreign intervention created incompatible national memories between the US and Iran and how Netanyahu exploited that history to maneuver Trump into a war he didn't understand, promising a quick decapitation strike while knowing full well it would become a months-long regional conflict, at minimum.
Read more#1776 Trump's Pharaoh Complex, Our Flawed Constitution, and the 250th Anniversary
Air Date: 3–11-2026
Today is episode 1776, in the year of our nation's 250th birthday, and we thought the occasion called for something big. So, we're tracing the full arc — from the constitutional compromises that made this country possible to the authoritarian vanity project that those compromises eventually also made possible. We're talking about the history, the structures, and the insecure current-but-temporary president who thinks a $400 million ballroom and a coin with his face on both sides will make him a pharaoh.
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