Shane Smith sits down with veteran journalist Chuck Todd, former Meet the Press moderator and current host of Sunday Night with Chuck Todd, in a deep dive on the state of American politics and media today.

Chuck opens up about his decision to leave legacy media behind and reinvent political journalism for the long-form podcast era, why Meet the Press became “an aircraft carrier that couldn’t turn,” and how he rediscovered his voice in independent media. Together, he and Shane dissect how the Democrats misread Obama’s 2012 victory, how identity politics replaced class politics, and why Gen X got “screwed” out of ever having a president of its own.

The two discuss the decline of institutional trust, the collapse of local journalism, and the growing “cold civil war” fueled by redistricting and algorithmic polarization. Todd argues that saving democracy begins at the local level by rebuilding trust through community storytelling, youth sports, and bottom-up journalism, while Shane connects the dots between sports, politics, and America’s addiction to tribalism.

The conversation moves seamlessly from Obama and Trump to Reagan and Ross Perot, from Moneyball politics to AOC’s rise, from Walter Cronkite’s myth to TikTok reality. Along the way, Chuck delivers one-liners worthy of a newsroom veteran (“A man named Craig made classifieds free, and yada yada yada, Trump became president”), while Shane pushes him into bold territory on civil war, secession, and whether democracy itself can survive the age of social media.

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