Next Comes What

Every day, people are showing how we can stop Trump's dismantling of our laws and norms by using both to fight back.
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Our episode this week looks at how the current administration has violated both laws and customs on every front to try to profit from government positions and maximize Trump's power across the board. Andrea Pitzer shows how, from business corruption to ICE detention and the war in Iran, it's nearly impossible to keep track of the ways in which the president is destroying the rule of law and any willingness to respect precedent, in and out of courts. Exploring the use of the rule of law as a weapon against vulnerable and targeted groups since the country's founding, Andrea outlines why the law itself has often been a force for wrong. She nevertheless argues that the history of authoritarianism shows that when existing law is ignored or dismantled through dictatorial power grabs, it consistently exacerbates the crisis faced by vulnerable groups, and others as well.
 
Andrea then goes through recent broad reviews of everything from ICE detention practices to court cases brought by the DOJ. While precedent is being ground down, and the legal system remains under tremendous strain, Andrea points out how the law is still being used successfully to deny Trump and his allies the unlimited power they want. She looks at how communities are establishing and upholding norms as well. From a refusal of a New Jersey town council to do business with a bank partnering with major ICE contractors to a Baltimore rugby team that is standing by its trans players, there are examples everywhere of everyday people finding effective ways to push back against hatred and corruption. 



00:00 — Executive Corruption & The Kazakhstan Mineral Deal
 
02:30 — Alien Terrorist Removal Court & Iran War Casualties
 
06:15 — Human Rights Violations in ICE Youth Detention
 
09:40 — ACLU Report: Law Enforcement Liability & Abuse
 
12:20 — Supreme Court Forces E. Jean Carroll $5.6M Payout
 
14:50 — Federal Judges Block DOJ Voter Roll Seizure
 
17:15 — Failed DOJ Prosecutions: Marimar Martinez & David Hern
 
20:00 — Holding ICE & Stephen Miller Accountable in Court
 
22:10 — Grassroots Victories: Montclair $91M Bank Divestment
 
24:30 — Local Resistance: Communities Protecting Trans Athletes

A new U.S. government call for contractors aims to set up a global network of concentration camps, and your representatives likely don't know about it yet.
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This week's episode of "Next Comes What" looks at a new U.S. government document seeking private contractors for disturbing partnerships. A lot of the "statement of work" describes maintaining an air fleet and permits to support deportation operations, but the document also makes reference to 1,000-bed sites, "detention facilities," and "detainees" in other countries. Andrea Pitzer walks listeners through key passages in the document, first discovered by Charles Davis, and shows how it will lead to the creation of a global network of concentration camps run by the United States.
Recounting the Trumpist use of third-country deportation networks, Andrea explains how the improvised partnerships are hardening into trafficking relationships with other countries, soon to be followed by dedicated detention facilities. She explores the history of prior offshore camps, from Guantanamo to Australian payments to other nations for detention on Manus and Nauru. In each case, the lack of oversight and direct access resulted in tremendous harm. The U.S. appears to be up to a year away from executing this plan, giving everyday people a chance to intervene and stop it. The episode closes with suggestions on how to take action now.
0:00 Introduction: ICE's Secret Plan for Global Detention Camps 2:05 Breaking Down the SAM.gov Contractor Solicitation 5:32 What Are "International Staging Areas" (ISAs)? 8:58 The CECOT Blueprint: How El Salvador Became the Template 14:50 Third Country Detention: 21,000 Deported and Counting 16:04 Lessons from History: Guantanamo, Australia's Nauru, and Operation Condor 19:10 The Privatization Problem: Who Profits from Offshore Detention 22:42 How to Stop This Before It's Too Late

Support for authoritarianism can spread person to person, like a disease. Here's how to stop it.
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In this week's episode, Andrea Pitzer looks at recent research suggesting that support for authoritarianism spreads socially from person to person. Researchers from the University of Oslo in Norway and the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment surveyed recruits before and after boot camp and found that those assigned to peers with greater support for authoritarian rule would end up adjusting their views to support strongmen too. The authors also surveyed Norwegians outside the original military setting, as well as 25,000 others from nearly 30 countries.
Andrea considers the results in light of other ideas about authoritarianism and ponders how the reverse effect might work—whether making others aware of one's rejection of authoritarian rule might likewise be "contagious." The episode closes with a list of ways to think about reestablishing democracy and better safeguarding it in the US.
Get ONE LONG NIGHT: A Global History of Concentration Camps by Andrea Pitzer
https://bookshop.org/p/books/one-long-night-a-global-history-of-concentration-camps-andrea-pitzer/ea53c06c993f6ad0?ean=9780316303569 

0:00 Why Trumpism Is Contagious: Democracy Under Siege 0:25 Rush Limbaugh, Fox News & The Collapse of American Democracy 1:40 How Propaganda Shapes Authoritarian Movements Worldwide 2:26 The Study: Is Support for Authoritarian Rule Contagious? 3:29 Norway Boot Camp Experiment: How Peer Pressure Spreads Authoritarianism 6:32 The Psychology Behind Why People Support Strongmen 8:54 Cultural Backlash: Pippa Norris on the Rise of the Authoritarian Right 13:33 The Three Components of Authoritarianism Explained 16:01 How Populist Rhetoric Destroys Trust in Democracy 19:58 How to Fight Back Against the Authoritarian Contagion

Trump's goons got the oppression flowchart backward. Now they're trying to fix it, but we can foil their plans.
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This week's episode looks at the typical arc of concentration camp societies, laying out how authoritarian governments use violence against both scapegoated communities and their political opposition. Andrea Pitzer outlines how strongmen often start with destroying the ability to dissent before rounding up whole communities of scapegoated groups. Then she discusses the ways in which the second Trump administration has reversed this order. Coming out of the gate in 2025 with massive roundups of immigrants into camps, his team didn't successfully clamp down on protests and free speech beforehand. As a result, they revealed their weakness and the strength of the majority of the country that disapproves of their mission or their tactics.
 
Andrea describes the shift in tactics as Trump's allies try to reverse this error, moving from scattered, mostly incompetent attempts at prosecution into a more targeted and dangerous phase. Their best hope lies in ending dissent before the November elections, so the coming months will likely become even more dangerous. The episode closes with ways to respond, underlining the importance of showing up and speaking out.
 
0:00 — How Trump's Second Term Tried to End Democracy—and Where It Went Wrong
0:41 — The Speedrun to Authoritarianism: Why Trump's Power Grab Is Failing
2:53 — Mass Deportations, ICE Violence, and the Overreach of Trump's Second Term
5:58 — Ideologues vs. Mercenaries: The Split Inside the Trump Administration
6:14 — How Concentration Camps Get Built: Lessons from History for Today's America
7:52 — Why Crushing Dissent Requires Crushing Opposition First—and Trump Skipped That Step
11:34 — The Crackdown on Protesters: From Sandwich Guys to Terrorism Charges
12:51 — Media Censorship, Algorithmic Suppression, and the War on Free Speech Under Trump
19:47 — The Most Dangerous Moment in Decades: What Comes Next in Trump's Power Grab
24:52 — How to Resist the Trump Authoritarian Project Before the 2026 Elections

We are in the midst of the deliberate worsening of every aspect of existence. But we don't have to accept it.
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This week, "Next Comes What" considers the enshittification of the world. Andrea Pitzer lays out Cory Doctorow's theory of how the internet got ruined and then extends that concept to the deliberate destruction of nearly every aspect of modern life by government and tech companies globally. (You can read more about the concept in Doctorow's book, Enshittification.) Andrea considers the enshittification of detention in the U.S., and the parallel destruction of any functioning parts of immigration in the country. Together, those have led to the expansion of concentration camp detention through ICE campaigns and DHS policy. 
She also takes on the enshittification of health care and climate policy, and discusses how these shifts make the public more dependent on authoritarian leaders just to survive. People become reluctant to demand more, for fear that the system will unleash even more punishment. Andrea considers the ways that the unmasking of secret meetings under the auspices of tech giants reveal how the stage is set for further disempowerment and enshittification of daily life. The episode closes with a look at the importance of radical hope and ways to imagine a better world, which can begin with tackling specific, concrete policies close to home.
0:00 – What Is Enshittification? Cory Doctorow's Term Explained
1:27 – Google's Enshittification: How Search Results Got Worse
2:44 – Enshittification Beyond Tech: From Politics to Daily Life
5:51 – Fascism and Enshittification: A Century-Old Playbook Returns
9:06 – Policing, Detention, and the Weaponization of Concentration Camps
11:17 – Immigration Policy Enshittified: Refugees, Detention, and Global Crackdowns
17:09 – Climate Crisis, Water Bankruptcy, and the Manufactured Supercrisis
18:11 – Healthcare Under Attack: DOGE Cuts, Medicaid, and the NHS
19:14 – Propaganda, AI, and the Billionaire War on Reality
24:35 – How to Fight Back: Civil Rights, Renewable Energy, and Demanding Better