Consequences of Norm Decay in U.S. Politics

If you caught the live show you know we had some significant audio trouble. We remixed the portions of the live show to enhance the audio as best we could. While it's not perfect, this version is significantly better than that version on the live tab of the YouTube channel. We hope to have the audio issues resolved soon. Our apology for the trouble.

What happens when you tug at the thread of a nation’s favorite story? We open with Daryl Cooper’s new MartyrMade series reframing World War II from the German perspective and explore why questioning the “Good War” myth shakes the foundations of America’s modern identity. If FDR, Truman, and Eisenhower are the real architects of the current state, then our sacred narrative doesn’t just sit in museums—it drives policy, budgets, and the way the press polices debate.

Glenn Greenwald jumps in to break down the John Bolton indictment with the kind of specificity most headlines skip. We talk alleged Gmail and AOL spillage of crown-jewel secrets, how Iran reportedly exploited those lapses, and why the Espionage Act keeps crushing conscience-driven whistleblowers while sparing the powerful. From Petraeus’s slap on the wrist to Panetta’s Hollywood handoffs, we map a two-tier secrets system and ask whether this case finally dents elite impunity. We also trace Bolton’s role in wrecking the North Korea deal that nudged Pyongyang toward the bomb—proof that bluster can be more dangerous than it looks.

Then we look south. Carrier groups, F-35Bs, Poseidons, Reapers, and Night Stalkers in the Caribbean don’t spell “routine.” The stated drug-war rationale rings thin when northern Mexico would be the obvious target. Oil interests, China’s footprint, and a familiar search for pretext suggest a risk of sliding into a conflict that won’t resemble Panama—more like a grinding regional mess with real costs and no clear gains. It’s the same pattern: narrative first, justification second, escalation third.

Across it all, we connect the dots between myth, law, and power. Reframing history tests the permissions our leaders claim. Prosecuting Bolton tests whether insiders finally face the rules they wrote for everyone else. Posturing near Venezuela tests whether we’ve learned anything from the last twenty years. Join us, challenge the story, and if this conversation hits a nerve, subscribe, share the show, and leave a review so more people can find it.