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.
77episodes
Episodes
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PropagandA.I.
3d 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 LISTEN 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 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
SummaryMAHA's American Eugenics
2w ago00:30:26Summary 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
SummaryWhen Violence Is Boring — Why Nonviolence Wins
3w ago00:29:26Summary 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 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
4w ago00:35:10Summary 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/
SummaryPlanet of the Camps
Apr 900:24:47Summary readyTrump is using deportations to create an international concentration camp system. We need to shut it down. 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/planet-of-the-camps WATCH YouTube: https://youtu.be/UWjrDtHkPwg TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week, Andrea Pitzer looks at third-country deportations of immigrants under Trump—when detainees are forced out of the U.S. but can't be sent to the country they emigrated from. Washington now has agreements in place with dozens of countries, and reports about the conditions of detention are grim. Delving into the history of cross-border camps, from Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the 1940s to Operation Condor in South America decades later, Andrea shows the past harms that have occurred in these systems. Moving closer to the present day, she identifies the War On Terror after 9/11 as a pivot point for the creation of third-country black sites in the name of counterterrorism. Noting the lasting damage of those sites both to the host countries and back in the U.S., Andrea explores the current trajectory of third-country transports, which have been limited thus far. But 13,000 immigrants are currently at risk for this kind of deportation. The episode closes with suggestions on how to take action and a referral to the Third Country Deportation Watch website, as well as listing some successes in fighting back against deportation to high-risk settings like Libya. 0:00 Trump's Reckless War and the Road to Madness 0:43 Wars Abroad and Concentration Camps at Home: The Historical Link 2:44 ICE Violence, Kidnappings, and Citizens Shot in the Street 3:02 Trump and Miller's Global Concentration Camp Network 4:25 Third-Country Deportations: Exporting Cruelty Around the World 6:22 The CECOT Prison Deal: Venezuela, El Salvador, and the Disappeared 10:49 13,000 Immigrants Targeted for Third-Country Deportation 12:31 Historical Precedents: Nazi Transit Camps and Soviet Deportations 15:23 The War on Terror's Black Sites and the Legacy of US-Backed Torture 19:16 How to Fight Back: Legal Aid, Journalism, and Organizing
Summary'No Kings' Is Even Bigger Than It Looks
Apr 300:30:56Summary readyThe movement behind the biggest single-day protest in US history understands that the assignment is to save democracy. 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/does-no-kings-matter WATCH YouTube: https://youtu.be/yz-1BW4D3cA TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week's episode looks at No Kings protests, asking what role they can or can't play in freeing the country from Trump and his collaborators. Andrea Pitzer recounts last Saturday's events around the country, including her morning spent crossing the Memorial Bridge in DC with protesters. A look at research conducted over the weekend by Dana Fisher, a professor at American University, reveals who the protesters are, why they showed up, and what they're planning to do. Andrea suggests that this series of coast-to-coast demonstrations are creating a nationwide fabric knitting communities together at the ground level, bringing the rest of the country into conversation and action, mirroring successful local resistance in places like Chicago, LA, and Minneapolis. Looking at the current regime as a challenge larger than any one person or party, she points to the vast convulsion against the president and his policies as the beginning of a national reconstruction—one based on rejecting the current litany of exclusion and hatred. In closing, Andrea points to national groups like States at the Core (https://www.stacup.org/) and Indivisible and the ways they're maintaining momentum—from plans for May Day to training on how to organize on the ground where you live. She considers the community actions with long traditions that are gaining strength around the country, and new tactics that people are inventing to transform the world. Watch The Breakdown with Erica Chenoweth and Steve Levitsky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0MmLBxxziA See Dana Fischer's 'No Kings' data: https://danarfisher.com/2026/03/29/anti-war-sentiment-surges-at-no-kings-3/
SummaryThe Science of Partying Against Fascism
Mar 2600:38:12Summary readyPeople who aren't already standing up against fascism can be persuaded to. Here's how to reach them without having to embrace hateful policies. 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/no-thing-that-they-believe WATCH YouTube: https://youtu.be/oVb88YNIeBA TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@degenerateartnews This week's "Next Comes What" focuses on the work and ideas of Anat Shenker-Osorio. A cognitive linguist, Shenker-Osorio has made a career of seeing what kinds of messaging help persuade the public to support progressive issues and candidates. Host Andrea Pitzer talks to her about the tactics activists used to win abortion rights in Argentina, and how a series of campaigns in Australia helped free people seeking asylum who were held offshore in concentration camps for years. They discuss why embracing hateful views in the name of convincing "moderates" is a dead-end strategy, because moderates—at least in the way they're trotted out for these debates—don't really exist. "It's not the job of a good message to say what's popular," Shenker-Osorio says. "It's the job of a good message to make popular what we need said, because we have an agenda we need to enact, and because that's how we win." The episode closes with Shenker-Osorio herself making suggestions about effective terms for everyday folks to use in speaking out against Trump and his minions, as well as specific actions we can take to push back right now—including taking some joy in resistance. 0:00 - Why Words Matter: Introducing Anat Shenker-Osorio & the Science of Political Messaging 3:43 - What Is the Race Class Narrative and How Did It Change Progressive Strategy? 7:03 - Abortion Rights in Argentina: How Organizers Won with Values-Based Messaging 8:29 - Australia's Offshore Detention: A Case Study in Messaging Failure and Victory 11:20 - Base, Persuadables, and Opposition: How to Target Your Message for Maximum Impact 15:16 - Why Hyper-Moderation Fails: Stop Copying the Right to Beat the Right 22:08 - How Shifting Culture Shifts Votes: The Power of Social Proof and Same-Sex Marriage 26:34 - Drop "Administration," Say "Regime": The Language We Need Right Now 30:13 - Hope vs. Despair: What to Do When Change Feels Impossible 34:35 - Action Items: Protests, Boycotts, and Nonviolent Resistance You Can Join Today
Summary