In the schizoid turbulence of our Donald Trump Era, America’s media and political class has been trying to get a handle on where this upsurge of racism and alt-right radicalization is coming from. What’s the deal with all these nativist mass shootings? Why are European rightwing movements on the rise? How come fascists are suddenly marching in major American cities? Why is it all happening right now?
Trump is constantly blamed. Even more often, the threat of a malign foreign influence is dangled in our faces. Racism, white nationalism, nativism — these things are supposed to be alien to western liberal democracies, right? So they must have been forced on us from abroad. Naturally, Russia is a prime suspect. As the supposed source of just about everything that ails western democracies, Russia must be the hive where all this rightwing bile and corruption originates. We’re under siege! At least that’s the message you get from countless articles, TV broadcasts, op-eds, and thinktank reports — including a widely cited New York Times expose from just the other month that pins the blame on the global “rise of far-right nationalism” almost entirely on Russia and Vladimir Putin. It’s as if racism and nativism didn’t exist in the west, not until Putin’s Russia came along.
But while people obsess with finding an external source for our racist and nativist movements, I’m launching a new project that investigates America’s own relationship to the global right.
Most people probably don’t know that over the past 70 years America has done more to promote nationalism and far-right ideologies around the world than any other country on earth. I say this without exaggeration. No one else even comes close.
Weaponizing nationalist ideas abroad while empowering nationalist communities here at home — this has been a major plank of United States foreign policy going back to the very end of World War II. (more...)
Trump and Tariffs and Political Taboos w/Joe Costello
Thursday, April 10, 2025
We talk to our friend Joe Costello about Trump’s tariffs, democracy, deindustrialization, the Yeltsinification of America, and the innate human desire for a communal life… We discuss globalization, why being against it has been such a political taboo until Trump, and why these tariffs... .. read more..
Trump channeling the Yeltsin Mindset
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
There’s one more thing that reminds me of the Yeltsin Mindset in relation to Trump Beautiful Tariffs Plan: His belief in the beautiful power of the freemarket. .. read more..
Just two romantics — Ayn Rand and Joseph Stalin
Monday, April 7, 2025
Rand's Romantic Realism is the flipside of Stalin's Socialist Realism. .. read more..
The Shitocracy Doctrine
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Trump, Yeltsin, and degrowth .. read more..
Shitcoins for shitocracy w/Jacob Silverman
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Listen now | People compare Trump to Hitler or to Putin. But for us the closest historical comparison is Boris Yeltsin. .. read more..
The source of my morality
Monday, March 31, 2025
Looking at the source of my own morality. .. read more..
Sense and Senility
Friday, March 28, 2025
Yasha and I recently talked to Alexander Melamid, one of the few high priests of the art world who talks shit openly about it and got disenchanted with the cult of art long ago. .. read more..
Signal, the CIA's wokest deepest state chat app
Thursday, March 27, 2025
I know no one cares about opsec and privacy anymore, but bear with me…because I feel like I gotta comment on this given that I have such a long history with Signal and the whole gross, spooky world that underpins it. .. read more..
Nobody likes being a loser w/Will Menaker
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Evgenia and I talk to Will Menaker about the left-right whiplash of the post-Bernie years. .. read more..
Russian films about Soviet collapse
Friday, March 21, 2025
...made in the 1990s about the 1990s. .. read more..
Russians Against Politics
Friday, March 21, 2025
Since we’ve had a lot of new subscribers lately, I wanted to repost the very first podcast episode Evgenia and I recorded back in 2020. .. read more..
Art Church w/Alexander Melamid
Thursday, March 20, 2025
We talk with Alexander Melamid, the most famous Soviet-American artist of his generation. .. read more..
The nihilism trap
Monday, March 17, 2025
The race for New York City mayor is heating up. .. read more..
AGAINST NIHILISM LIVE!
Saturday, March 15, 2025
We’re doing a live event in NYC at the KGB Bar — NEFARIOUS RUSSIANS AGAINST NIHILISM. .. read more..
Vibe Shifts w/Mark Ames
Friday, March 14, 2025
We talk to our friend Mark Ames about nihilism, cynicism, culture wars, Red Scare, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Russia of the 1990s, and the vibe shifts of America’s political culture — from punk to the podcasts of today. .. read more..
Against Nihilism
Wednesday, March 12, 2025
Politics in the age of stupidity. Against the senile vibe shift. .. read more..
Red Scare Bonus Pillow Talk
Friday, March 7, 2025
We recorded this in bed over a week ago while we were in Miami — mostly for our ourselves…to talk through some ideas and concepts. .. read more..
Justice for Tessa Dick
Thursday, March 6, 2025
"The true measure of a man is not his intelligence or how high he rises in this freak establishment..." .. read more..
"Anora" and Russians at the Oscars
Tuesday, March 4, 2025
We record an emergency ep to talk about Sean Baker’s sweep at the Oscars with his new film Anora. We talk about Sean Baker’s sentimental style and his “changemaker” interest in stories of marginalized people. He comes from good New Jersey suburb but the only layer of Ameri... .. read more..
Red Scared
Sunday, March 2, 2025
We continue our discussion of Red Scare’s turn into a real red scare platform. .. read more..
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