Podcast
Next Comes What
Hosted by Andrea Pitzer · EN
Author Andrea Pitzer reveals what we can learn from the rise of strongmen around the world to thwart Trump and his allies.
80episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Profiting off forced labor in ICE camps
5d ago00:30:42Summary readyConcentration camps using forced labor are alive and well today in America. But there's a lot we can do to put an end to them. Support Next Comes What + Get Andrea's posts FIRST: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/forced-labor-in-concentration-camps Listen everywhere: https://pod.link/1779885475 WATCH TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week's episode of "Next Comes What" tackles the use of forced labor of detainees at ICE facilities around the country. Andrea Pitzer looks at the massive expansion of profit from the country's two largest detention contractors, GEO Group and CoreCivic, and details the hunger and labor strikes detainees have been conducting nationwide. She also considers the history of forced labor in concentration camps around the globe in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Beginning with German genocide on Shark Island in what is today Namibia, she also describes how mandatory work was used in Soviet Russia, under British rule in Kenya, in post-Revolutionary China, and elsewhere. In each country, the international trend of concentration camps fused with preexisting local history and culture to create different models of forced labor. In the case of the U.S., Andrea suggests that mandatory work in ICE detention rises out of the long use of prison labor. Noting that the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution left in place a slave-labor exception for convicts, she traces the way that arrests and convict leasing continued the work conditions of slavery for many Black men and boys in the wake of the Civil War, despite emancipation. Yet forced labor in ICE detention adds another layer of injustice, in that the vast majority of people held in immigration detention don't even have charges filed against them, let alone a conviction. Andrea closes the episode with a look at ways that people have fought back under extraordinary conditions in the past and are resisting now--including ideas for those looking to eliminate forced labor in the US and to abolish ICE. 0:00 Introduction – Delaney Hall strikes & forced labor in ICE detention today 3:13 Overview – A survey of forced labor in concentration camp settings 5:45 Nazi work camps – Forced labor from 1933 through WWII 6:55 Why detention makes forced labor worse – expendability, punishment, profit 9:44 Pre-Nazi precedents – Shark Island / German Southwest Africa (early 1900s) 10:33 World War I – Ukrainian Canadians interned as "enemy aliens" in Alberta 12:09 The Russian Revolution & Gulag – Forced labor under the Bolsheviks 12:26 The Gulag system – Expansion, quotas, starvation rations, the Dead Road 15:01 Post-WWII & the Iron Curtain – Western vs. Soviet models of camp labor 18:00 US domestic roots – Slavery, the 13th Amendment exception, convict leasing 22:01 Scale of deportation – The administration's 15–20 million target 24:46 Resistance – Gulag uprisings, Free Alabama Movement, the Menocal lawsuit 27:42 What you can do – Calls to action, spotlighting strikes near you 30:21 Outro .
Summary
White solidarity dooms democracy
2w ago00:30:10Tap to summarizeRace nostalgia has infected nearly every political argument made today. A look at what it is and how to stop it. Support Next Comes What + Get Andrea's posts FIRST: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/race-nostalgia-as-social-blight LISTEN wherever you get podcasts: https://pod.link/1779885475 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week, Andrea Pitzer considers the prioritization of white South Africans in US refugee policy, noting that they make up literally the only refugees currently being admitted to the United States. She explores how that policy is part of a larger map of racial grievance that has already led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people of color around the globe--a choice enthusiastically embraced by the current administration. Laying out a theory of the angry daddy as the model deliberately adopted by Trump and his fellow travelers, Andrea explores how it gets injected into politics as a promise to not only provide for the chosen followers of the leader, but also to punish those deemed less worthy. Walking listeners through the ways that solidarity with racially aggrieved white communities frames the entire political enterprise running the government today, Andrea then turns to the ways the same concept likewise animates the strategies adopted by those who see themselves as opposing Trump. She questions the tendency to seek macho white male candidates, as if these are the only politicians capable of securing democracy. Looking at the recent expanded damage to the Voting Rights Act inflicted by the Supreme Court and the frenzy of gerrymandering it has unleashed, Andrea explains how the tendency to raise up white men as savior candidates on the left will only speed and amplify the disappearance of candidates of color from office nationwide. The episode closes with some way to think about taking action to address the corruption and crony networks that make this kind of resegregation possible. 0:00 White South African Refugees and Trump's Race-Based Immigration Policy 1:16 The $100 Million Taxpayer Cost of Afrikaner Refugee Policy 3:27 White Solidarity and the Roots of MAGA Race Nostalgia 7:22 Strict Father Politics: How Authoritarian Psychology Drives Voter Behavior 12:25 Strategic Racism: How Politicians Use Dog Whistles to Divide America 17:26 USAID Cuts and the Hidden Cost of White Refugee Policy 20:42 Andrew Sullivan, Demographic Change, and the Eugenics Trap 23:41 Democrats Adopting White Solidarity Tactics to Win Back Voters 28:18 How to Fight Corruption and White Supremacy at the Local Level
Transcribe →What should Democrats be doing? NOT THIS!
3w ago00:28:33Summary readyWhy are elected Democrats punishing the very people who voted for them? Support Next Comes What + Get Andrea's posts FIRST: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/when-leaders-don-t-lead WATCH: https://youtu.be/lQZseXoDs7E LISTEN ANYWHERE: https://pod.link/1779885475 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week's episode tackles the tendency to criticize Democrats when Republicans are the principal drivers of authoritarianism in the U.S.right now. Andrea Pitzer tries to answer the perennial question "What do you want Democrats to do, if they don't control any branch of government?" Her response boils down to giving examples of harmful actions from several Democrats voters had hoped would do more. She considers Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer's recent appearance with Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has endorsed genocide against Palestinians and encouraged violence in the West Bank. She also considers recent actions taken by three governors: Abigail Spanberger of Virginia, Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, and Jared Polis of Colorado. These Democratic governors have undercut their party and democracy alike—in one case by pardoning an unrepentant criminal election denier who betrayed her office, in others by inviting the state police to brutalize demonstrators or by ignoring the will of the people and the legislators of her own party. 0:00 – What Do Voters Want From Democrats Right Now? 1:18 – Democrats Acting Like an Opposition Party: Early Examples 5:35 – Chuck Schumer's Failure to Lead 7:18 – Schumer at the Israel Day Parade With Bezalel Smotrich 8:59 – Virginia Governor Spanberger's Veto Spree Against Her Own Party 12:53 – Colorado Governor Polis Frees Election Denier Tina Peters 15:33 – Delaney Hall: What's Happening Inside the Newark ICE Detention Facility 21:27 – Mayor Ras Baraka vs. Governor Sherrill: Who's Actually Fighting Back? 26:23 – Why Democratic Politicians Must Oppose Authoritarianism — Lessons From History
SummaryPropagandA.I.
4w ago00:31:57Summary readyFour hundred years of propaganda is way too much. Here's how we can push back. Support Next Comes What + Get Andrea's posts FIRST: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/the-propaganda-loop Find Next Comes What wherever you get podcasts: https://pod.link/1779885475 WATCH YouTube: https://youtu.be/6j2g3hP4A6o TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week, Andrea Pitzer traces the introduction of the idea of propaganda and its role in nearly everything bad that's being sold to the American people today. She begins with the pope's recent encyclical warning of the dangers of AI, and then steps back to another pope, one from the seventeenth century, who introduced the idea of propaganda to the world. In between, she looks at Edward Bernays, the nephew of Sigmund Freud, who created wartime propaganda and then made a killing using the same tactics to sell cigarettes to women. From misrepresentations to stunt marketing, the half-truths and open lies of propaganda are still very much with us. All these tactics boil down to treating human beings as things, cheating people, and dividing humanity. Andrea considers the useful tool that machine learning could have been if the billionaire class had been satisfied to develop it for use in the big-data, tech, and science worlds that reflect its actual usefulness. Instead, they've sought to maximize profits by selling humanity a lie about how it can be a companion, a therapist, and a creative genius. Andrea closes with how to recognize the dangers and build a world that's more resistant to propaganda. 0:00 – AI, Propaganda, and the World Being Built Without Your Consent 0:40 – Pope Leo's Encyclical: What the Catholic Church Gets Right About AI 1:57 – Edward Bernays: The Father of Propaganda and the World He Made 5:52 – Cigarettes, Coups, and Corporate Manipulation: Bernays' Real Legacy 8:04 – How Social Media Primed Us for a Concentration Camp Society 16:16 – AI Is the New Propaganda: Tech Billionaires and the Myth of Intelligence 23:08 – Father Coughlin to Trump: A Century of Demagogues and Groupthink 26:24 – How to Think Beyond Propaganda and Build the World You Actually Want 26:46 – The AI Resist List: Global Movements Pushing Back on Big Tech 28:36 – Say What You See: Anti-Propaganda as a Radical Act
SummaryMAGA's American Eugenics
May 2100:30:26Summary readyWild-eyed extremists running our government have resurrected hateful pseudoscience. Support Next Comes What + Get Andrea's posts FIRST: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/maha-s-american-eugenics WATCH: YouTube: https://youtu.be/y6jjSW-1J6A TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews Get Next Comes What wherever you get podcasts: https://pod.link/1779885475 This week, "Next Comes What" looks at the various ways that the administration has adopted discredited historical views on eugenics and turned them into policies that have already killed hundreds of thousands of people. From RFK Jr. undermining vaccine programs and environmental regulations here at home to DOGE cutting lifesaving USAID programs abroad, the US government is actively dismantling the nation's public health apparatus. Andrea Pitzer talks about her reporting decades ago on the history of American eugenics and the legendary Buck v. Bell case that the US Supreme Court used to allow involuntary sterilization of people deemed defective. The episode has a cameo from someone Andrea met back then: Paul Lombardo, a leading US voice on bioethics and the history of eugenics. Lombardo frames the current administration's policy as not just influenced by our eugenic legacy but as actually adopting eugenics. Andrea also addresses the ways that current obsessions with fertility, purity, and genetic superiority are reanimating discredited principles of eugenics. Though the federal government's footprint in public health is too massive a lift for local programs to replace through small-scale efforts, the episode closes with ideas on how to keep a record of what's happening, push back politically, and stem the effects of the current eugenic tide until this administration can be consigned to the dustbin of history. 0:11 — MAHA's American Eugenics: How Trump and RFK Jr. Are Reviving a Dark History 2:26 — The Origins of American Eugenics: From Francis Galton to Madison Grant 4:57 — RFK Jr. as HHS Secretary: Anti-Vax, Germ Theory Denial, and Public Health Sabotage 6:17 — Purity Culture and Pseudoscience: The Eugenic Logic Behind MAGA Health Policy 10:01 — Carrie Buck and Buck v. Bell: The Supreme Court Case That Enabled Mass Sterilization 12:27 — What a Leading Eugenics Scholar Says About the Trump Administration 14:40 — USAID Cuts and Global Eugenics: How Foreign Aid Destruction Fits the Pattern 16:50 — Pro-Natalism, Birth Rates, and the Billionaire Push to Control Who Reproduces 21:55 — Negative Eugenics in Immigration Detention: Disease, Neglect, and Population Control 28:59 — What You Can Do: Protecting Public Health in Your Community
SummaryWhy Nonviolence Wins
May 1400:29:26Summary readyWhen times get grim, it's tempting to resort to political violence. But what if nonviolence packs a bigger punch? Listen & Subscribe Support Next Comes What + Get Andrea's posts FIRST: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Full post: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/on-violence Apple, Spotify, and wherever you get podcasts: https://pod.link/1779885475 WATCH YouTube: https://youtu.be/AOwdAIDU7tg TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews About This Episode This week's episode looks at Cole Allen, who's facing federal charges after trying to bring weapons into the White House Correspondents Dinner at the Washington Hilton in April. Andrea Pitzer talks about the desperate times we face as a country and lays out why she chooses nonviolent responses. She walks through a handful of reasons that frame her decision to reject violence, from the effectiveness of past nonviolent movements at home and abroad to nonviolent tactics' greater precision as a tool. And she shares her personal conviction, after growing up in a violent household, that she doesn't want to inject more violence into a system already saturated with it. Andrea also frames violence as hardly attention-getting in the US at this point. It's intended to be dramatic theater, but it's so omnipresent, it can become background noise to Americans. Considering the divide between Stephen Miller's ultraviolent approach on immigration, and Tom Homan's less spectacular violence, Andrea looks at how Trump embraces violence and has a solid understanding of how to use it for political theater. But what if nonviolent theater is more surprising and more effective in response? The episode closes with ways to think about using nonviolent tactics in your own community and the larger world. Chapters 0:00 Cole Allen's Weapons Arrest at the White House Correspondents' Dinner 3:20 Why Political Violence Tends to Backfire 3:47 Assassination, WWI, and the Unintended Consequences of Violence 5:37 Why Strategy and Discipline Are Essential for Real Change 8:26 America's Policed Society: How Violence Becomes the Default 17:58 Trump's Relationship with Violence: Rhetoric, Power, and Impunity 19:31 Why the Civil Rights Nonviolence Model Still Applies Today 22:09 Stephen Miller vs. Tom Homan: The Politics of Immigration Violence 24:34 Nonviolent Theater as the Most Powerful Counter to Authoritarian Power
SummaryHow to Treat a Sick Society
May 700:35:10Summary readyThere are a lot of ways to cure our ailing country. Here's how to convince the patient to cooperate. 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/a-sick-society WATCH on YouTube: https://youtu.be/vNY5K9g0Qgw Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-comes-what/id1779885475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7lUaIWeKl0oET2DJVTWhy4 Everywhere else: https://pod.link/1779885475 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews Here's a link to the Duke panel on public health and families in immigration detention that Andrea mentions in the episode: https://warpwire.duke.edu/w/MUoJAA/ This week's episode of Next Comes What considers our crisis of democracy through the lens of medicine. Andrea Pitzer looks at recent rulings by U.S. courts on the Voting Rights Act and mifepristone, as well as a billionaire purchasing his second copy of the Constitution and suggests that what's wrong with our society will take more than just elections to fix (though elections remain critical!). Andrea uses a framework of public health to think about how improvements can happen. If diagnosis is understanding what's going wrong, what condition we're dealing with, prescription is figuring out what the best treatment options are. There's a lot of solid diagnosis out there from people doing incisive analysis of our democratic collapse, and a number of good suggestions on how to fix our systems and fireproof them from future authoritarian threats. But the hardest part of public health work is getting individuals and communities on board--getting people to buy in. Andrea runs through ways that do and don't work, arguing that there's no need to coddle racists or endorse hate to meet people where they're at. She argues for creating a vision of a society that people will want to be part of, one that will deliver for them and invites them to come along. In the end, we'll have to get some people involved who aren't on board yet. Andrea closes by arguing that the patient is treatable, and that in fact countless successful local examples of organizing and successful change are already happening around the country.
SummaryRE-UP: What's in a Concentration Camp?
May 100:32:56Summary readyA guide to understanding our new concentration-camp era and how to fight it. A re-release of a Next Comes What from July 10, 2025. Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/what-s-in-a-name Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer's Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Subscribe to this channel on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DegenerateArtNewsletter?sub_confirmation=1 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews In this episode, Andrea Pitzer lays out the definition of a concentration camp and breaks down each part of it. She looks at international trends in concentration camps across the last century and the specific U.S. history that has made the country vulnerable to propaganda demonizing immigrants and others. Addressing the advantages and disadvantages of comparing modern detention facilities to concentration camps and even Auschwitz, Andrea explores why what we choose to call these places matters. Coming to the conclusion that the new camp in the Everglades is a concentration camp and signals a massive expansion of extrajudicial detention that threatens all Americans, Andrea offers listeners a big-picture plan for how to strategically insert themselves into efforts to combat the concentration camp trend, from local projects to national movements.
SummaryRE-UP: One Day Trump Will Be Gone
Apr 2300:25:16Summary readyA look at the ways that lives of tyrants come to an end, and how that might shape what you should be doing now. Re-release from August 28, 2025. Get more from Andrea and support Next Comes What: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/when-trump-is-gone Subscribe to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/@DegenerateArtNewsletter?sub_confirmation=1 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews A look at the ways that lives of tyrants come to an end, and how that might shape what you should be doing now. 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?
SummaryActions to Take and Andrea's Book Break
Apr 1400:06:25Summary readyActions to take while Andrea takes the rest of April off to finish her next book, SNOWBLIND. Subscribe to support this podcast and get Andrea's posts first: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe You can find all the links Andrea mentions here: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/april-10-friday-roundup Movement Call: National Day of Action to Stop ICE Warehouse Detention, April 14 https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/event/932124/ Communities Not Cages: National Day of Action to Stop ICE Warehouse Detention, April 25 https://www.mobilize.us/notabovethelaw/event/934571/ MayDay Strong, May 1 https://maydaystrong.org/
Summary