Donald Trump is just a symptom of our national disease. We have to--and we can--change the system that coughed him up.

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Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/the-century-long-year

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews

This week, Andrea Pitzer focuses on the U.S. attack on Venezuela, looking at what we know, how recent events fit into history, and why it's important to stop Trump. But she also dives into why the president is just a symptom of what ails the country. The episode speed-runs the last two centuries of U.S. policy in the Americas, and the long history of intervention. Andrea shows how Trump's administration is mired in the rhetoric and fixations of the last century, with control over oil and anti-Communist obsessions determining how his advisors respond to almost every situation.

More importantly, she talks about Trump as merely the vessel of the real dysfunction afflicting the U.S. This illness could have wormed its way into the Democratic Party instead of the Republican Party, building a propaganda machine and bringing some virulent, billionaire-backed populism to power in some other form. But it didn't, and we are where we are. Which means we have to fight the Republicans' assault on democracy while simultaneously building a new kind of national governance that rejects the rot at the core of the current system. Andrea quotes her former editor Laura Helmuth arguing that we need to "move slow and build things." The episode closes by referencing a handful of the evidence-based policies that would transform everyday Americans' lives, and encourages listeners to work for one long-term change that matters to them.

The tactics Trump allies are using to gin up hate against trans people reveal how propaganda works and why it's so dangerous.

Why the Trump administration (and a lot of other people) are trying to kill journalism, and what we can do to stop them.

Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer's Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/shredding-public-knowledge

Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/s768y0SrCp8

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews

In this week's episode, Andrea Pitzer looks at a new report on journalism from the Roosevelt Institute that reveals how corporate interests have prioritized power and profit, shattering news organizations and journalism itself. She goes further than the report to suggest that the current attack is not just on journalism but all public institutions in the US, from universities to public schools, hospitals, and the very idea of independent knowledge. This suppression of the right to know facts and establish reality is a hallmark of authoritarians, and Andrea outlines a few past examples from around the world. Journalism in the US has faced creeping destruction for decades, but now it's all accelerating with devastating speed, not only on the corporate side, but as a direct result of White House actions: through personal attacks on journalists, the recent White House "media bias" project, the stripping of credentials from any real Pentagon Press Corps, and more.

The Roosevelt Institute report outlines how public-interest obligations have been ignored, and media institutions have been made vulnerable to capture in ways that leave them unable to withstand authoritarian pressure. Andrea looks at those reporters and outlets who are still fighting the good fight, and closes with what you can do to help.

Get the full report: https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/political-economy-of-us-media-system/