DC shows how to push back against a government clamping down on vulnerable Americans, and how to stand up for what we believe in. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and read Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/what-do-you-stand-for [This week's episode was recorded before Charlie Kirk's assassination, so you'll find only one reference to it in a brief clip here. But Andrea Pitzer will cover it further in her written post on Friday for Degenerate Art: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/.] This week, Andrea considers the value of letting others know what you stand for and building community together, in public. She outlines the ways that the preemptive caving we've seen from corporations, universities, and local governments is a response to the government's own vice signaling, which needs to be opposed. Narrating her afternoon at the "We Are All DC" march in Malcolm X Park in DC last weekend, Andrea describes the many groups that showed up and the ways people found to show what matters to them. She addresses the symbolic value of Sandwich Guy's actions in August, which happened just a few blocks away. Pointing out that the mushy middle can never be represented by politicians looking to court that sector for votes, because it doesn't stand for anything, Andrea talks about the role of everyday people in establishing ethical norms for the country. It's possible to use virtue signaling as a spur to action and set an agenda for a new and true American democracy.
--------
30:41
--------
30:41
Why Journalists Ignore Reality
Journalism is reverting to a pre-kindergarten state in the face of Trumpism, but we can still get the word out. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and read Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/see-no-evil This week's episode considers how coverage of Trump's second administration by journalists and public intellectuals is failing Americans on an institutional level. Andrea Pitzer walks through recent coverage that refuses to analyze the framework offered by the president for sending the National Guard to DC. Flashing back to her years teaching martial arts and self defense, she explains how she coached pre-kindergartners to "spot the con" in dangerous situations, even though their minds weren't yet developed enough to be able to rely on abstract thinking to connect the dots on a higher level. She laments how some veteran journalists appear to be afflicted with the same limitations today. Sharing historical examples of betrayals by journalists who refused to see what was happening right before their eyes, she describes Soviet writer Maxim Gorky's betrayal of concentration camp detainees held at the Solovetsky Islands in 1929, and the passive collaboration of Walter Lippmann and other journalists with the whitewashing of correspondent George Polk's death in Greece in 1948. Criticizing the response made by Semafor's Ben Smith to a question about whether democracy is currently in danger, Andrea runs through a whole series of examples in which the press seems to be willfully blind to the present threat. The episode closes with a list of news outlets that are meeting the moment and need support, as well as some concrete ways listeners can themselves get the word out to their fellow Americans.
--------
25:36
--------
25:36
One Day Trump Will Be Gone
A look at the ways that lives of tyrants come to an end, and how that might shape what you should be doing now. Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/t0Trm8k1lgc?si=mZGNVV8-UrAB-PdX Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/when-trump-is-gone Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and read Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe This week, Andrea Pitzer looks at Trump's recent signs of mental and physical decline and addresses the long history of authoritarians hiding infirmity and the resulting costs of their deception. She considers how the last Shah of Iran misled nearly everyone about his cancer, destabilizing his country, the Middle East, and a U.S. election in the wake of his lies. Andrea recalls officials' obsequiousness toward a series of late-Soviet leaders from Brezhnev to Chernenko, and the comic ways that leaders have lied to the nation. As Trump continues to dismantle so much of what's good about the U.S., with old outrages grinding on while new ones seem to arrive hourly, running from crisis to crisis can feel like using a thimble full of water to put out a forest fire. Considering the Miccosukee people of Florida's recent victory against the concentration camp in the Everglades, Andrea uses their focus on their values and their way of life to suggest an approach for people nationwide to find meaningful and effective paths to respond to Trumpism. One day, he'll be gone. What do you want to bring into being in the world that will outlast him?
--------
24:45
--------
24:45
5 Ways Concentration Camps Close
The ways that concentration camps get closed down and how we can make that happen. Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/how-does-this-end Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and read Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Watch this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oRXkA4kF-9Q This week's "Next Comes What" explores patterns in what's forced concentration camp systems around the world to close in the past. Andrea Pitzer mentions a few larger systemic issues present in most countries where concentration camps are able to take root, but spends the episode focused on how camps themselves get shut down. She explores examples in which defeat in war, the death of a "cult of personality"–style leader, international pressure, court intervention, or internal dissent have been the triggering force. Andrea reviews the administration's stated goal of detaining and deporting tens of millions of people currently in the country, and notes the logistical impossibility of any humane detention and deportation project of that scope. Even when peak detention levels have been reached, and the population held by a given country in camps is on the decline, she notes, it frequently takes years to dismantle any large system. Analyzing the role that various triggers might play to halt or reverse Trump's rapidly expanding detention network, Andrea emphasizes that in the U.S. more than in many of the countries she's studied, it's likely to come down to everyday people taking action. The episode closes with suggestions on how to do that.
--------
27:24
--------
27:24
How We Got to Fascism
What history best explains the authoritarianism surging in the U.S. today? Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/the-origin-story-for-a-villain Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Watch this episode: This week's "Next Comes What" considers where the expanding oppression in the U.S. comes from. America has centuries of experience with genocide, incarceration, and racism to rely on as the government embraces authoritarianism. Yet Trump and his most fervent followers also mimic the rhetoric and actions of twentieth-century fascist movements in Europe and elsewhere. Andrea Pitzer looks at the roots of the misery being deliberately inflicted on vulnerable populations in the country today. She recalls a Kurt Vonnegut line about villains and society that suggests one way to think about what's happening now. The truth is that there's no hard line between domestic and international political violence against civilians. In fact, technology over the last century has evolved quickly and led us to a place where these movements are cross-pollinating and global, even as local and national culture still shape violence in critical ways on the ground. Andrea turns this around to note that the repetition of these abuses in many places and times also sparked countless forms of resistance that have worked in the past and offer hope for us going forward.
USA