The Catturd Deficit

No need to imagine the misery Trump/Vance would unleash on us. They're already living it in Alabama. Robin Marty is playing the long game. As the executive director of West Alabama Women’s Center (WAWC) and the author of “New Handbook for a Post-Roe America,” she is living the nightmare of Project 2025 in Tuscaloosa. Every day, she sees the purposeful misery of a system ruled by right-wingers who’d rather people be sick than vote. Yet she still believes abortion will be legal again one day in Alabama.  That’s why she’s determined to keep the WAWC open, ready to help any Alabamian who needs it.  But she needs your help. $10-a-month donors are helping her clinic and her patients stay alive, providing birth control, preventative care, and now gender-affirming care.  In this conversation, Robin explains the Post-Roe mess we’re in and not just in Alabama or the South, and she offers the only way out.  She also provides the best and most hopeful analogy for how America’s experiment with abortion bans can and should end. And she also convinced me to become a $10-a-month donor to the WAWC. I hope you’ll join me. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter of this podcast, please join us here at the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

It is almost impossible to comprehend Donald Trump's political rise and fall and rise without the work of Kevin M. Kruse. Kevin is a historian who specializes in segregation and the civil rights movement, the rise of religious nationalism, and the making of modern conservatism. He co-edited the book Myth America: Historians Take on the Biggest Legends and Lies of Our Past and is the author of White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism and One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America.  His scholarship makes him the perfect person to discuss the RNC, the DNC, and the whitewashing of January 6th. He also has exceptional insights into the wild significance of the first Black woman presidential candidate taking on an insurrectionist casino owner from Queens who has become the braying avatar of Christian Nationalism and the Southern Strategy. And Kevin’s passion for myth-busting makes him the perfect person to pierce the BS histories reactionaries invent to justify their victimhood and their support for the ultimate victim, Donald Trump. You’re probably already following him on Bluesky and Threads where he makes both apps worth joining. I also have to personally thank Kevin for boosting Downballot for Democracy, our effort to ensure people know the smartest places to put their money so freedom wins in November. We’re nearing $50,000 raised, and we couldn’t have done a tenth of that without him. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here.

Tech billionaires want to disrupt democracy, and their sick philosophy is closer to the presidency than most of us want to admit. If two things go terribly wrong, Gil Duran may be covering the biggest political story in US history. A few tech billionaires with a worldview that imagines themselves as the bad guys in almost every dystopian sci-fi story have handpicked the Republican vice presidential nominee. And that nominee’s running mate is, in case you haven’t heard, old. Like almost Joe Biden old, and possibly already embalmed. JD Vance wasn’t installed as Donald Trump’s possible successor for charm and charisma, for JD has neither. He wasn’t picked because he underperformed the GOP ticket in Ohio by 9% the one time he sought elective office. He wasn’t picked because he seems like a guy who might lust after the crevasses in upholstery.  JD Vance was in the position to become a vice presidential candidate because of the patronage of one billionaire, Peter Thiel. When Gil Duran, a former Editorial Page Editor of The San Francisco Examiner who currently publishes Nerd Reich and the FrameLab newsletter with the legendary Dr. George Lakoff, first wrote about tech authoritarianism for The New Republic, it seemed like a wacky curiosity. Almost fun. Like HBO’s Silicon Valley without the punchlines.  Now, it’s on the verge of having delivered America one of the most corrupt bargains in our history. And we all need to know what that could mean. That's why everyone needs to follow Gil Duran's work—because you never know where it, or we, could go next. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter of this podcast, please join us here at the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

The rhetorical analyst who wrote the book on Trump's demagoguery explains the power of positivity and weirdness. 2016 was the year we all became pundits. 2024 may be the year we all become rhetoricians. And no one is better at explaining how words help create and destroy democracy than Jennifer Mercieca.  The author of DEMAGOGUE FOR PRESIDENT: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump can tell you why our wannabe American dictator has been so effective on the stump. But this conversation ended up being more about why he’s flailing now. In February, Mercieca advocated for “weirdifying” fascism, and the new Democratic nominee for vice president, Tim Walz, has embraced a cousin of that strategy. She also told us in our last conversation how the MAGA plan was to turn Biden into a “beta male,” and we explored how that strategy may have worked too well for Trump. And we talked about how the forces of freedom can learn from Swifties. There’s also some fun stuff for history buffs, though you may never look at the 1824 election the same way. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter of this podcast, please join us here at the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

How we feed fascism by surrendering rural districts to Republicans The Democratic Party's official stand for one year of this century—2008—was that Democrats should compete everywhere. Look up what happened! Since then, Democrats have let negative partisanship and the far right’s devouring of rural America scare them away from competing in too many places. And when that happens, it leads to things like JD Vance in the U.S. Senate. Michele Hornish, the executive director of Every State Blue, wants to change this. Her post “Do Not Obey In Advance: How Democrats Have Broken the First Rule” sold me on her mission. And we think everyone needs to know what Blue Ohio is doing and how small donors can make a big difference. This movement requires a long-term investment. However, it can also have almost immediate payoffs by helping turn out voters who could help send Sherrod Brown back to the Senate. Which really matters. Look it up. Listen and find out if you have broken the first rule. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter of this podcast, please join us here at the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

Thanks to a 6-3 MAGA majority, Originalism is now your religion, whether you like it or not. Here's how we take our freedom back. Madiba K. Dennie has done the impossible in her new book.  The Originalism Trap tells the history of the conservative legal movement kicking freedom’s ass. Dennie deftly describes how this once-mocked doctrine now dominates our highest court and tens of millions of uteri–and may do so for the rest of our lives. Yet she manages to leave you with some optimism. This MAGA majority, perhaps more than any other Supreme Court majority in US history, is dominated by pious defenders of your right to practice their religion. And that religion is Originalism. And since this trap is now your religion, you should know where it came from, what it’s after, and how we escape it. And the perfect person to explain all this is Madiba K. Dennie. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. Transcript here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/108913125 If you want to be a supporter of this podcast, please join us here at the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

How we overcome the strategic racist demagoguery that lets billionaires divide and dominate us. Donald Trump epitomizes DOG WHISTLE POLITICS. That’s the verdict of  Ian Haney López, author of the groundbreaking book of that title that exposes the electoral strategy that has driven the Republican Party’s success in taking over the Supreme Court and engineering massive wealth inequality in the United States. But we rarely hear anyone talk anymore about how Trump deploys racism to engineer massive gains for his billionaire friends at home and abroad.  Part of that is that the left takes Trump’s racism for granted, believing it’s visible to anyone who cares to see it. Another part is Trump’s mastery when it comes to silencing the press and critics about his divisive smears by using what Haney López calls “Racist Theater.” And maybe the biggest reason is Democrats remain afraid to confront Trump’s purposeful divisiveness directly. Haney López, who is also the author of MERGE LEFT, which presents proven tactics for using a race-class narrative to oppose strategic racism. In that book and this interview, he presents a better way to defeat the favorite trick of America’s bloated, belligerent billionaires. Plus, he gets really pissed at JD Vance. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter of this podcast, please join us here at the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

How the national media snoozed on what could be one of the biggest stories in recent American history. Sarah Posner covers the Christian Right, so of course, she was one of the few journalists covering one of the biggest stories of this election so far. The Republican Party is on the verge of an election win that could allow them to enact complete and total Christian Nationalism in the United States of America. This is true even though the far right’s signature policy, mercilessly banning abortion, is more reviled than ever. Rather than backing down, evangelicals have declared war on the separation of church and state and, thus, democracy itself. Sarah Posner, author of Unholy: Why White Evangelicals Worship at the Altar of Donald Trump, clarifies how America's most potent political movement is coping with the tenuous but massive success gained through amoral matrimony with Donald Trump. And she helps us understand what the far right thinks when they see abortion rights winning big, even in Kansas. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter of this podcast, please join us here at the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

This is the third podcast we’ve done about Project 2025. And it’s the first one we’ve done after Project 2025 has become so well known that Donald Trump had to pretend to disavow it. Much of the credit for exposing the public goes to Taraji P. Henson, who made this abomination "the talk of the BET Awards.” And to John Oliver, whose full-episode deep dive into the plan to politicize the entire federal government focused on the personnel aspect of the plan.  The “how” of the plan is crucial, given that people are starting to become familiar with the ridiculously retrograde policy provisions. Swing voters – reluctant Dems and “double haters" – continually say they don’t believe Trump can make his dictatorial fantasies come true. And the mechanics of the people part of the plan prove that Republicans are ready to take Trump to the Fantasy Suite. One big reason John Oliver’s explainer was so good was that it was informed in part by Don Moynihan, who is the McCourt Chair of Public Policy at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University, at least until he moves to the University of Michigan in fall. Don focuses on “studying, teaching, and thinking about how governments function and how to make them better.” He’s also the Sultan of Schedule F, at least according to us, because he was one of the loudest voices warning about Trump’s radical plans for the federal government when they were first announced almost four years ago. Last Week Tonight picked the perfect person to talk to about Project 2025. And so did we. He gave us his perspective on how the piece came together, his view on what he would have added if there had been five more minutes in the episode, and his reaction to the avalanche of brutal anti-democratic rulings from the Supreme Court over the last month. Listen to “Taking Project 2025 personally” with Andra Watkins and “Thank you, Project 2025” with Thomas Zimmer. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter this podcast, please join the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.

You probably don’t know the name Walter Huss, but you certainly see his vision of the world alive today in the modern Republican Party. Seth Cotlar is a historian of the US Right teaching at Willamette University in Salem, OR, who is writing a book based on the 57 boxes of archival material from Walter Huss found at the University of Oregon library.  In his fantastic newsletter Rightlandia, Seth digs into Huss’ life, which includes a sudden rise to the top of the Oregon Republican Party followed by a nearly as sudden demise, along with a lifetime of trying to make a career and spark an uprising by weaponizing doubt against the government, medical science, and any minority group he could find, except fascists. Because, as you may have guessed, Huss was a fascist. Seth’s recent piece “The Art of the Racist Troll, ca. 1987” reads like a Coen Brothers movie about a Republican Party that once had an immune system that functioned enough to reject parasites like Huss. And it got me thinking about how we’re a coinflip from being ruled by a racist troll again. Seth gives us an outline of Huss’ story and why it matters. Then he indulges me in spitballing about what we could learn from Huss about defeating Donald Trump. Plus, Seth offers an excellent definition of democracy informed by his work on Thomas Paine, the greatest non-racist troll of all time. Catch up on all the episodes of “How are you feeling about democracy?” here. If you want to be a supporter this podcast, please join the earlyworm society – free or paid, your support matters.