Episodes

  • Bonus Sample: How To Talk To Your Son About Fascism (Pt 2)

    Bonus Sample: How To Talk To Your Son About Fascism (Pt 2)
    Apr 28 2025
    Part 2 of Matthew’s conversation with historian Craig Johnson (PhD Berkeley), who hosts Fifteen Minutes of Fascism, which covers the global rise of the radical right. He’s the author of an excellent new book, How to Talk to Your Son about Fascism, a guide for parents and educators on keeping young men out of the extreme right wing. Today we tackle strategy. To debunk or not to debunk? How do you derail the coolness of fascism? How do we theorize the agency of kids becoming political actors? How do we maintain trust while engaging with a family member sliding to the right? Show Notes How to Talk to Your Son about Fascism - 1st Edition - Craig A. Johnson Fifteen Minutes of Fascism YouTube Stream Fifteen Minutes of Fascism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    8 mins
  • Brief: How To Talk To Your Son About Fascism (Pt 1)

    Brief: How To Talk To Your Son About Fascism (Pt 1)
    Apr 26 2025
    Historian Craig Johnson (PhD Berkeley) hosts Fifteen Minutes of Fascism, which covers the global rise of the radical right. He’s the author of an excellent new book, How to Talk to Your Son about Fascism, a guide for parents and educators on keeping young men out of the extreme right wing. In this first of a two-part interview, Matthew and Craig discuss definitions of fascism, why it appeals to young men (or how masculinity is socially constructed), irony poisoning, and whether fascism can be fought through accelerating cringe cycles. Part 2 drops in Patreon on Monday. That episode centers on an exploration of strategy: how do we theorize the agency of kids becoming political actors? How do we maintain trust while engaging with a family member sliding to the right? Show notes How to Talk to Your Son about Fascism - 1st Edition - Craig A. Johnson Fifteen Minutes of Fascism YouTube Stream Fifteen Minutes of Fascism Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • 254: The Great MAHA Purity War of 2025

    254: The Great MAHA Purity War of 2025
    Apr 24 2025
    Someone’s got dirt on RFK Jr. MAHA voters went MAGA because Bobby said he was going to end vaccine mandates—their code for ending vaccines, period. No longer would food be dyed and oils be made of seeds. Everyone would get free gym memberships. America’s chronic disease epidemic would end overnight, as he’s repeatedly claimed. Then Mr Kennedy goes to Washington only to declare that antisemitism is a public health crisis? And to say that the MMR vaccine is the most effective way to prevent measles? How could he say such a thing when, as Mikki Willis recently claimed, this “version” of measles is a bioweapon designed to infect the Mennonite population? This week we look way too deeply into Candace Owens’s recent episodes about the blackmailing of RFK Jr, a story that quickly spread its tentacles into the microphones of a number of contrarian right-wing podcasters. We’ll give you the lowdown on the story and how, like a children’s game of telephone, it repeatedly got distorted and reframed with every mind it touched. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 20 mins
  • Bonus Sample: God is a Cloned Alien Love-Machine!

    Bonus Sample: God is a Cloned Alien Love-Machine!
    Apr 21 2025
    When the aliens landed, they told a young musician and wannabe race car driver that he was the chosen one, and they were the real gods. He should build them an embassy with a UFO landing pad in order to prepare humanity for their arrival. They taught him the secrets of sex meditation and cloning DNA as a way to keep switching bodies and never die. Not much in his story was original, but this was the 1970s, so free love hippies flocked to his French commune—then it all turned to shit. Somehow Claude kept landing on his feet. He took his schtick to Quebec, then Japan, and even found thousands of followers in Africa. Still no embassy, no divine alien arrival, no cloned human babies—but he kept raising funds from the gullible and living like a king with a ballerina bride 40 years his junior. For the latest installment in Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian muses on the epic tale of the Raelians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    6 mins
  • Brief: The Cult of Crossfit

    Brief: The Cult of Crossfit
    Apr 19 2025
    When cultural and psychological anthropologist Katie Rose Hejtmanek set out to study Crossfit, she knew she had to throw herself into it fully. For seven years, she traveled to “boxes” around the world while committing herself to her local Brooklyn box. What she uncovered was a rabid fan base that deeply values community and a business model that offers a refreshing response to unfettered capitalism—as well as the misogyny, racism, and militarized Christian themes that inform this beloved and despised fitness regimen. She joins Derek to discuss her new book, The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon. Show Notes The Cult of CrossFit: Christianity and the American Exercise Phenomenon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    36 mins
  • 253: The Politics of Abundance

    253: The Politics of Abundance
    Apr 17 2025
    "In order to have the future we want, we have to build and invent more of the things we need." That’s the central claim of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s new book, Abundance. They argue that Democrat-run cities and states have suffered self-inflicted wounds that are causing a mass exodus to red states, where life is simply more affordable. To stop the bleeding, Dems need to take action on a bold new vision that cuts through red tape to improve people’s lives and address the crises in housing, climate, healthcare and politics. But many on the left are suspicious. Is this just Reaganomics wrapped up in the intellectualized language of the NY Times? Is Abundance the privileged prosperity gospel for white liberals? Show Notes The Abundance Agenda: Neoliberalism’s Rebrand Abundance: The Left Hates It Summary of Abundance Critiques Politico: False Choice Between Abundance and Antitrust Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins
  • Bonus Sample: We Already Know What September Will Bring

    Bonus Sample: We Already Know What September Will Bring
    Apr 14 2025
    It's been quite the week at HHS with Robert F Kennedy Jr in charge. Derek considers what's been going on: Bobby's announcement that he's going to "determine" the cause of autism by September; his social media marketing-driven visit to grieving families in Texas; his pivot on the MMR vaccine; and his recommendation to the CDC that fluoride be removed from public water supplies. Show Notes RFK Jr. says HHS will determine the cause of autism by September RFK Jr. says he plans to tell CDC to stop recommending fluoride in drinking water What RFK Jr. Told Grieving Texas Families About the Measles Vaccine Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    6 mins
  • Brief: Karma & Christ at the NIH

    Brief: Karma & Christ at the NIH
    Apr 12 2025
    Jay Bhattacharya, Covid contrarian and co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, is now the Director of the NIH. The day before beginning his new job, he gave his first official interview to Bari Weiss on her podcast, Honestly. Derek and Julian discuss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    38 mins
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