Kill this podcast?

Summary

Podcast Summary: Next Comes What – "Kill this podcast?"

Host: Andrea Pitzer
Date: September 25, 2025

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Episode Overview

In this urgent and thought-provoking episode, Andrea Pitzer—author and historian—examines the rise of authoritarian leaders globally, focusing on what lessons Americans can draw to resist Donald Trump and his allies. Moving beyond mere criticism, Pitzer calls for concrete action to safeguard democracy, reflecting on the dangers of passive observation and the importance of taking collective responsibility. Drawing parallels with Putinism, referencing Project 2025, and spotlighting acts of resistance, she confronts both the temptation toward hopelessness and the trap of over-intellectualizing the threat.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

Escalating Authoritarianism & The Limits of Critique

• Rampant Norm Breaking:
  Andrea describes a string of recent norm-shattering actions by the Trump administration:
  • Fourth Venezuelan boat blowned up by the US, seemingly "in complete contravention of international law" (00:11).
  • Trump's politicized justice actions and firings (00:35-01:06).
  • Hateful political pageantry reminiscent of "Triumph of the Will" (00:24).
  • "It is not enough to be up to date on all the outrages." (01:14)
• Criticizing vs. Acting:
  Andrea warns: "Today I want to talk about the difference between taking action and criticizing it." (01:20)
  Merely following the news and expressing alarm is insufficient; genuine change requires participation.

The Futility of Appeasing Authoritarians

• Compromise Is Not a Solution:
  Andrea pushes back on calls for unity or bipartisan compromise, especially when it penalizes progressives or sacrifices fundamental rights (01:31, 02:23):
  “Begging the deluded voter or the hateful voter to accept you is never going to work. It’s like getting in an argument with a toddler who’s throwing a tantrum.” (03:26)
• Analysis of Democratic Over-corrections:
  Guest voices (Ezra Klein, Adam Gentleson) highlight self-doubt among Democrats—some suggest moving right to attract Trump voters, even as states decisively support progressive causes such as abortion rights (02:32-02:49).
• Conclusion:
  “The key is to have a vision ... that feels more meaningful and more powerful to voters.” (03:56-04:00)

Vision, Community, and the Power of the Margins

• What Actually Moves Voters:
  “With support from a very small percentage of the more weakly affiliated Trump voters, Democrats would win.” (04:28)
• Rejecting the Allure of Authoritarian “Strength”:
  “Our goal should not be to placate them.” (05:58)
• Uplifting Examples:
  • Democrats overperforming in post-2024 special elections (04:50).
  • 14 Democrats holding Trump-won districts by “being strong voices for their communities” (05:00).
• Notable moment:
  “Tens of millions of people [devote themselves] to a wannabe authoritarian… [but] that should not mean everyone else succumbs to that vision.” (05:32)

Acting Outside the Frame—Breaking the Authoritarian/Nihilism Cycle

• Reframing the Debate:
  Andrea repeatedly likens attempting rational engagement with hardcore Trumpism to arguing with an unyielding force. Instead, she urges stepping outside this cycle: “Knows that to stay mired in the framework of the current argument is to invite failure.” (06:31)
• Articulating a New Narrative:
  The left needs to offer “a different, better vision for the country,” not just policy tweaks (08:03).
• Empowering Examples:
  • Continued campus and local government resistance to anti-trans and anti-immigrant moves (10:33-10:47).
  • Harvard’s legal victories and other institutions (09:46-10:21).
  • Protestors enduring violence and getting more engaged—“nearly 1,000 people signed up to run for office in just the last week” (14:03).

From Information to Action—Lessons from Putin’s Russia

• Information is Not Enough:
  Drawing on the Russian slide into repression, Andrea warns: “Understanding what’s happening without acting on the information you have is pretty useless.” (12:18)
  “It’s a trap to think that being well informed will by itself stop any part of this nightmare.” (11:05)
• Active Democratic Defense:
  Citing a comparative democratization study, Pitzer notes that “a democratic breakdown does not necessarily prevent a return to democracy,” and that swift action is historically effective at reversing autocratic shifts (25:37-25:50).

The Secondhand Life—Dangers of Passive Consumption

• From Armchair to Organizing:
  “There’s a real danger among the general population of mistaking online engagement itself for action. It’s a trap set for all of us now by those who don’t have the public’s interest at heart.” (17:18)
• Secondhand Experience as Political Sedation:
  “If you’re experiencing your political reality that way...with no sense of your being a player or able to actually change anything...it’s a disaster for the country and for the world.” (20:53)
• Examples given:
  • Twitch streamers, React media, AI-powered virtual companions—“closed loops” and “small dopamine hits,” but disconnected from real agency (20:06-20:42).

Authoritarian “Action,” Democratic Small Steps

• Beware the “Cult of Action”:
  Andrea explains fascism reveres effect itself—often regardless of harm: “The opposite of this senseless application of violence is not to remain perpetually in a critical mode and avoid action.” (15:42)
• Small Real-world Actions Matter:
  Encourages listeners: “It’s fine to just go and try simple things.” Even small acts—volunteering, organizing locally—are antidotes to nihilism and passivity (22:23-23:52).

The Right’s Calculated Planning: Project 2025

• Intentionality from the Far Right:
  Project 2025 and related conservative blueprints are not spontaneous; they represent organized efforts to reshape federal power structures (23:40-24:43).
• The Left’s Trap—All Thought, No Action:
  Democrats risk becoming all talk: “The Democratic Party seems to have adopted items from the manual that the OSS put together … about how to derail political meetings … You can’t live in that space.” (24:43)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Andrea Pitzer, on endless outrage:
  “I regret to inform you that it is not enough to be up to date on all the outrages.” (01:14)
• On engaging with Trumpism:
  “Begging the deluded voter or the hateful voter to … accept you is never going to work. It’s like getting in an argument with a toddler who’s throwing a tantrum.” (03:26)
• On vision vs. compromise:
  “The key is to have a vision ... that feels more meaningful and more powerful to voters.” (03:56)
• On information vs. action:
  “Understanding what’s happening without acting on the information you have is pretty useless.” (12:18)
• On the danger of political passivity:
  “If you’re experiencing your political reality that way, with no sense of your being a player ... it’s a disaster for the country and for the world.” (20:53)
• On social media & AI replacing real engagement:
  “We live in a reality in which social media companies are competing to create virtual AI friends for you instead of fostering real life connections.” (17:42)
• On hope in democratization:
  “A democratic breakdown does not necessarily prevent a return to democracy, especially if autocratization is halted and reversed relatively quickly.” (25:50)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:11 – Ongoing violations of international law; example: Venezuelan boats blown up
• 01:14 – The insufficiency of being outrage-informed; need for action
• 03:26 – On futility of persuading core Trump supporters
• 04:50 – Democrats’ electoral overperformance and strategic lessons
• 08:03 – Why policy isn’t enough; necessity for a compelling vision
• 10:33 – Institutions resisting the administration, e.g. Harvard, Fairfax County
• 12:18 – Dangers of ‘understanding without acting’ (Putin's Russia parallel)
• 14:03 – Evidence of ongoing resistance: 1,000 new candidates
• 17:18–20:53 – The peril of the secondhand (digital) life and political passivity
• 23:40–24:43 – Explaining Project 2025 and the right’s careful blueprint
• 24:43–25:37 – The left’s risk of “all thought, no action”
• 25:37 – Study showing democratic reversals are possible, odds are on the side of acting

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Tone & Style

Andrea Pitzer’s delivery is direct, urgent, and critical—she pulls no punches on Trumpism or the perils of Democratic indecision. Yet, she strikes a pragmatic, occasionally hopeful note, emphasizing individual and collective agency. The presence of Trump’s voice and guest commentary (some factual, some satirical) gives a sense of the barrage of noise and pressure facing listeners. Andrea grounds each point in recent news and historical context, encouraging strategic hope rather than naive optimism.

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Conclusion

"Kill this podcast?" is a clarion call to move beyond despair, commentary, and “secondhand politics.” Andrea Pitzer offers a sobering diagnosis of rising authoritarianism, the dangers of both accommodation and passivity, and the necessity of meaningful, grounded action. The odds, she insists—with precedent and data in hand—favor those who act swiftly and strategically to defend democracy.

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For more episodes and to support Andrea Pitzer’s work, visit: andreapitzer.com

Transcript

[Donald Trump]

Foreign.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It's not an accident that just when you think something has to give, more happens.

[Donald Trump]

The teleprompter is not working in.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Last week we've seen a fourth Venezuelan boat blown up by the US in an apparent ongoing complete contravention of international law.

[Donald Trump]

Your countries are going to hell.

[Andrea Pitzer]

HHS has imploded.

[Donald Trump]

I'm really good at this stuff.

[Andrea Pitzer]

There was the hateful pageantry of the memorial for Charlie Kirk, which recalled nothing so much as a very US Reboot of Triumph of the Will.

[Donald Trump]

I remember it so well.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Trump ousted the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District, apparently for refusing to bring charges against Letitia James many years ago.

[Donald Trump]

A very successful real estate developer in New York known as Donald J. Trump. I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United nations complex who.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Successfully prosecuted a case against the President.

[Donald Trump]

You can't do that.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And he is now promoting the idea of bringing in a personal attorney, attorney and White House aide to be the replacement for that attorney.

[Donald Trump]

Do you have to end it now?

[Andrea Pitzer]

Are you up to date on these outrages and all the ones since?

[Donald Trump]

Look where we are right now in just a short period of time?

[Andrea Pitzer]

Well, I regret to inform you that it is not enough to be up to date on all the outrages.

[Donald Trump]

We call them the water drugs.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Today I want to talk about the difference between taking action and criticizing it.

[Donald Trump]

Never use the word coal. Only use the words clean, beautiful. Cole.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I am going to address why we're stuck in an endless loop of rhetoric in which we're asked to compromise with Trump supporters. That can happen, which is not, in my opinion, the actual way out of this crisis.

[Donald Trump]

It will happen today.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I want to talk about understanding what's happening versus doing something about it. We're seeing so many calls from Democrats for bipartisan action that punishes Democrats.

[Guest Commentator]

I think voters feel like Democrats have sort of been assholes to them.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We're seeing people like Adam Gentleson, former staffer for John Fetterman, saying the folks who are most to blame about Trump are the ones who pushed Democrats to take indefensible positions.

[Guest Commentator]

What we've done is we've gotten out in front of the public opinion, not just on one or two or three issues, but on five to 10 issues. And that is a big part of why Democrats have come to find themselves out of power as we have today.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We see Ezra Klein suggesting taking political positions.

[Guest Commentator]

It'll make it more likely to win Senate seats in Kansas and Ohio and Missouri running pro life Democrats.

[Andrea Pitzer]

These are all states that have voted to enshrine abortion rights in the last three years. It may be that he just forgot those states came out to support choice.

[Guest Commentator]

But one of my biggest frustrations with many people whose politics otherwise share is.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Or perhaps he's just suggesting compromising for.

[Guest Commentator]

The sake of compromise, the unwillingness to match the seriousness of your politics to the seriousness of your alarm.

[Andrea Pitzer]

In either case, it seems to me this kind of approach is a bad one. A majority of Trump voters are never going to change their mind.

[Donald Trump]

I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them.

[Andrea Pitzer]

They simply have to be defeated.

[Donald Trump]

I'm sorry.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Begging the deluded voter or the hateful voter to. To accept you is never going to work. It's like getting in an argument with a toddler who's throwing a tantrum.

[Donald Trump]

They're agitators. They're paid agitators.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Their political support does not rise out of a rational process that can be reversed with rational methods.

[Donald Trump]

Every sign is identical, comes out of a top level print shop. That's not the signs that are made in somebody's basement. Those are paid for by very bad people.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The key is to have a vision.

[Donald Trump]

Bernie.

[Guest Commentator]

Senator.

[Andrea Pitzer]

That feels more meaningful and more powerful to voters.

[Guest Commentator]

Bottom line is, which is going to fall on your shoulders if and when.

[Andrea Pitzer]

You win one that is more attractive.

[Guest Commentator]

Than the autocrats is an enormous responsibility to show the world and people throughout this country that our value system can govern well and efficiently, that we can fight for justice, that we can create a better world for all people, not just for the 1%.

[Andrea Pitzer]

With support from a very small percentage of the more weakly affiliated Trump voters, Democrats would win.

[Guest Commentator]

Now, I think when you get inaugurated, you're probably not going to have the three richest people in the world sitting right behind you, right? I think not.

[Andrea Pitzer]

We don't need the hardcore Trump voters.

[Guest Commentator]

Washington Democratic Congresswoman Susan Delbene joins me now. She is the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And so far, Democrats are in fact overperforming across the country in most of the races that have taken place since the 2024 general election, Democrats are running 15 points ahead because people are rejecting the Republican agenda. It can be hard to let go of an irrational fixation. We actually have 14 Democrats right now who represent districts that Donald Trump also won in 2024. And why did they win in those districts? Because they are strong voices for their communities. We all have them. But most Americans don't devote their political identity to submitting to a wannabe authoritarian.

[Guest Commentator]

Please welcome to the stage Stephen Miller.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And that tens of millions of people do so should not mean that everyone else succumbs to that vision in one way or another or offers up someone else's rights as their compromise with an opponent.

[Guest Commentator]

Those tears have been turned into fire in our hearts, and that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Our goal should not be to placate them.

[Guest Commentator]

They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Anyone who has worked or lived with that toddler or with someone with dementia.

[Donald Trump]

Whoever'S operating this teleprompter is in big trou.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Knows that to stay mired in the framework of the current argument is to invite failure.

[Guest Commentator]

What do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It's critical to step outside the pre existing conflict.

[Guest Commentator]

You are wickedness. You are jealousy. You are envy. You are hatred. You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Reframe the situation.

[Guest Commentator]

I mean, just the other day, our friend Mr. Musk is in line. I mean, it's so insane. What was it, 8, $900 billion? He would be a trillionaire. And yet in this city, you got people sleeping out on the streets and people can't afford health care and offer.

[Andrea Pitzer]

A more appealing alternative.

[Guest Commentator]

I'll tell you what's giving me hope. And this is not just rhetoric. It's real. I have had the opportunity to be in every state in the United States of America, and I have met so many extraordinary people. And the bottom line is, you know what? This country consists of a lot of very, very good people.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Those who would counter Trump don't need to accommodate his platform, much of which is irrelevant to voters, regardless if he told them to do the opposite.

[Donald Trump]

Tomorrow we may be banning TikTok.

[Guest Commentator]

President Donald Trump said late Friday he would sign an executive order to ban TikTok in the United States.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Most of them would comply.

[Guest Commentator]

White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt confirms to me that there will be a signing at the White House tomorrow of this TikTok deal that's been in the works.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The real differences are not over policies. Instead, the left needs to offer a different, better vision for the country.

[Guest Commentator]

Look, nobody is an island into himself or herself, right? We all got it from somebody else, and I got it from other people, and they got it from somebody else. And the fight for justice has gone on for a few thousand years.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The policies the left adopts should flow from that, concrete policies that rise from that vision, policies that will directly benefit voters. Civilians in the US as a group still have more than enough power to keep authoritarianism from solidifying and undermining democratic rights completely. It is simply a fact there are not yet enough law enforcement officers to crack down on the whole country. The Trump administration is unpopular.

[Guest Commentator]

43% approval rating for Trump. That is pretty much at the level it's been now for a few months for much of the second term for Donald Trump. And even it's sort of been similar to the level we saw back during his first term.

[Andrea Pitzer]

At this point, the widespread deployment of the military against US Civilians conducting peaceful demonstrations in opposition to Trump would make the current government's hold on power more unsteady, not less. But that window is not open indefinitely. In the last eight months, we've seen Supreme Court back up kidnapping people from the streets, specifically on the basis of perceived race and language. We've seen institution Columbia University will pay.

[Guest Commentator]

$200 million to settle allegations from the.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Trump administration after institution.

[Guest Commentator]

My next guest was an associate at the firm Skadden Arps, but she resigned on March 20, stating that she was concerned with the way the Trump administration was already targeting corporate law firms that.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Could help to protect Americans bow down before Trump, preemptively apparently willing to take no risks at all. I am so disappointed by the lack of leadership on this. I am grateful for the opportunity to speak about these things, but I think that it's frankly ridiculous that a third year associate is the one that's having to lead the charge on this. Some organizations have been taking real risks to help those that they're in a position to protect, despite weeks of reporting suggesting that they were going to cave. Harvard won its case against the administration over federal funding being yanked.

[Guest Commentator]

Tonight, it's Harvard 2 TRUMP 0 though.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It'S still unclear whether the university will be able to extricate those funds from the federal government.

[Guest Commentator]

It's the same judge who blocked Trump's ban on international students at the school.

[Andrea Pitzer]

In June in Virginia, Fairfax county schools where my kids used to go, have joined with other counties to protect the rights of trans kids. And we should absolutely crow about and applaud these behaviors and others.

[Guest Commentator]

This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But far too many institutions are not standing up. And if we the people don't express our displeasure by disrupting the Trump administration's agenda targeting the most vulnerable among us, we can't expect to keep the ability to protect anyone in the long run, including ourselves. Nearly a year into doing this podcast and unfortunately writing a history of concentration camps is probably a pretty good practice to at least start to organize, thinking about what comes next. Honestly, sometimes I wrestle with continuing it. I'm going to try to anchor this in some concrete things because I think there's a lot of really valid anxiety and some also some panicking, and I don't want to contribute to that. It's important to be well informed. We are seeing a return to power, kind of of a past that never got left behind in the world. But it's a trap to think that being well informed will by itself stop any part of this nightmare. And the example I want to use today for that is Vladimir Putin. As a books person, as a reading, I often feel like if I can get a mental handle on an argument or an idea or some piece of history. When he resumed that office is when we began to see the worst of the worst thing happen. I've gained some kind of not exactly mastery or control, but some sense of achievement. We had Crimea seized. We had the early destabilization of Ukraine. That led us to the later one. I feel transformed. And intellectually that may be true. We see the building up of domestic police to suppress domestic dissent. So that protest becomes really dangerous and no effective movement can grow. But when the world around you is falling to pieces in ways you understand to be at least partially preventable, understanding what's happening without acting on the information you have is pretty useless. When I used to teach self defense and karate for a living, I did all kinds of sexual assault workshops. And somebody deciding to attack you is never your fault. And we want to always remember that there are strategies that we can have and there are things that we can do, and focusing on what's possible and not what somebody's about to try to do to you, but what you can do instead, I think is probably our best way to move forward each week. I tend to tell you there are still things we can do to stop this authoritarian power grab, and I name what they are. But if that reassures you so much that it keeps you from doing anything yourself, I might be doing more harm than good in the world right now. Still, I take heart in hearing how many of you and how many people overall are out there taking action. As if to underline the line from the book of James, faith without works is dead.

[Donald Trump]

It's called Christianity.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Reverend David Black protested US Government abuse against immigrants in Chicago, taking a projectile strike to the head and what looked like pepper spray to the face over the weekend. And Amanda Lippman's Run for Something noted that nearly 1,000 people signed up to run for office in just the last week. It's more in the last 10 months than we did in the entirety of Trump's first term. It's possible to be aware of the bad acts underway without letting them paralyze you. Instead, let it remind you how important it is to do something, and that publicly doing your part can help turn the tide.

[Guest Commentator]

A system which gives so much to so few and denies so many people the basic necessities of life, the depriving people of their rights to live full human lives, that's what's radical. So standing up for justice is what the American people want.

[Andrea Pitzer]

One other area where I think we get hamstrung is through overthinking. The Trump administration maybe has the opposite problem, in which the lack of coherent thought inhibits even their own agenda sometimes. Do you think at some point something's got to give, that companies will stop eating the tariffs and in fact, start passing it on to consumers?

[Guest Commentator]

The way I think about it, I don't worry about that at all.

[Andrea Pitzer]

At the same time, the administration blowing up boats is trying to show that action for its own sake, demonstrates power that can't be resisted, no matter how illegal or inane the application.

[Donald Trump]

And you see this, and you see it happening right before your eyes. Let's put it this way, people don't like taking big loads of drugs in boats anymore.

[Andrea Pitzer]

But the opposite of this senseless application of violence is not to remain perpetually in a critical mode and avoid action. Let's take a look at British. The Daily Mirror here that calls the speech, quote, deranged. Name calling and detailed online criticism is an exercise of freedom. Spanish daily El Pais that estimates that Trump's aim is to blow up the rules and of the international game. And Germany's D side agrees with that. The magazine says that Trump's accusations are becoming, quote, crazier every minute. But those are not sufficient to counter Trump. If they were, he never would have been elected in 2016 in the first place.

[Guest Commentator]

He appeared to mock a reporter with a disability. Take a look.

[Donald Trump]

I don't know what I said.

[Guest Commentator]

I don't remember. That reporter he is talking about is Serge Kovaleski, who now works for the New York Times.

[Andrea Pitzer]

The problem is that it can be difficult to switch modes from being armchair quarterback to actually going out to demonstrations, to running for office, organizing a diaper bank or a Covid clinic. And when I mention armchair quarterbacks, I'm not talking about journalists doing original reporting, because reporters for news outlets, you love and even others that I take issue with sometimes are often actually doing things. Even online personalities may be lawyers litigating these cases. People whose work you follow on social media are going to protests, reporting on tear gas and projectiles, sometimes getting hit themselves. You keeping up with them commenting on developments is great. And if you're a journalist, an organizer, or an educator, online engagement might be a key way to know if you're making a difference in what's happening in the US today. But in our society as it exists, I think there's a real danger among the general population of mistaking online engagement itself for action. It's a trap set for all of us now by those who don't have the public's interest at heart. I've talked before about the trap of secondhand experiences that strip you of agency. We live in a reality in which social media companies are competing to create virtual AI friends for you instead of fostering real life connections. We live in a political world in which the governing party has literally been swallowed by the cult of a strongman who has entirely detached it from reality.

[Donald Trump]

I mean, I was very proud to see this morning have the highest poll numbers I've ever had.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Generative AI may have its uses in science, but outsourcing your thinking or your creativity, or worse, reducing it to a prompt that you give a machine and calling that literature or art is a measure of how often we are no longer living our own lives or staying fully human.

[Donald Trump]

Think of that.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Think of who benefits from your dependency in these arenas.

[Guest Commentator]

Hey everyone, I want to talk about our new effort, Meta Superintelligence Labs, and our vision to build personal superintelligence for.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Everyone at less harmful levels. A lot of the culture just leans toward this kind of secondhand experience.

[Guest Commentator]

What I think an even more meaningful impact in our lives is going to come from everyone having a personal superintelligence that helps you achieve your goals, create what you want to see in the world, be a better friend, and grow to become the person that you aspire to be.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Think of all the reboots that aren't reinventions of the original concept.

[Guest Commentator]

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote, even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by.

[Donald Trump]

Drop upon the heart, until in our.

[Guest Commentator]

Own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God, but.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Merely slowly degrading repetitions of it.

[Guest Commentator]

Christ died at 33 years old, but he changed the trajectory of history. Charlie died at 31 years old, but because he had surrendered, he also now has changed the trajectory of history.

[Andrea Pitzer]

Think of how many people are out there watching Twitch streamers play a game they themselves could be playing. Instead, think of the podcasters who pretend to hear a popular song for the first time and act out their reactions to it like some kind of kabuki theater. It's a nostalgia loop in which they're pantomiming your experience of when you first heard something you came to love. It's a small dopamine hit, as if you're sharing a connection to that person or reliving your life through them. But really, it's a closed loop and a third rate recreation of your original experience.

[Guest Commentator]

The global village is a world in which you don't necessarily have harm. You have extreme concern with everybody else's business and much involvement in everybody else's life.

[Andrea Pitzer]

I'm not anti relaxation or trying to torpedo your fun. If you just enjoy seeing someone play a video game, or checking out the 11th installment in a series, or watching the simulacrum of hearing a song for the first time, there's not much harm in it. Not everything has to be useful in life, but if you're experiencing your political reality that way, with no sense of your being a player or able to actually change anything on a large scale of millions, it's a disaster for the country and for the world. The secondhand experience of politics protects you from reality and is a bid to lodge you in that cocoon of passive observer where nothing is risked. But political change entails at least small risks. Any real life entails some risk. Democratic congressional candidate Kat Abu Ghazale was thrown to the ground by ICE agents. People rallied outside the facility to protest the Trump administration's Operation Midway blitz, which has led to the arrest of nearly 550 people in a sweeping crackdown on immigrants in the city. The risk is that those who are able to might step outside an online community that you argue or agree with and try something in the real world. Most Americans will not have to be a pastor getting pepper sprayed by law enforcement. They can instead move the needle in small but critical ways. And just as if you've only ever watched Twitch streamers play a game or critique protest tactics from the sidelines, your critical faculties are going to be much, much more developed than your ability to do the thing you've been critiquing. They're two different skills, all of which to say is it's fine to just go and try simple things. The cost of food is already through the roof due to government terrorizing agricultural migrants in the US and our current tariff policies. Food prices are going to get much, much higher in the next six months. See what kind of help your local food bank needs. Volunteer. If you're more of an organizing personality, figure out is your community effectively identifying the families that don't have enough food? Talk to local politicians. Talk to businesses and nonprofits. See what's missing and whether there's some hole to fill through a fundraising campaign, through outreach, or negotiating a cut rate, lease or even donated space. There's a thing in fascism called the cult of action, in which having an effect in the world is seen as more important than than it being well planned or smart or effective.

[Guest Commentator]

Project 2025 it's a Conservative roadmap for a Republican presidency to reshape the entire federal government.

[Andrea Pitzer]

It might be easy to dismiss the Trump threat as only this President Trump.

[Guest Commentator]

Repeatedly distanced himself from this on the campaign trail last year, despite many of its contributors working on his election team.

[Andrea Pitzer]

As all action and no thought. But the truth is that most of what has been done so far had a trial run or was discussed during the first Trump administration.

[Guest Commentator]

He's since appointed some of its authors to lead some of the same federal departments and agencies that they devoted long chapters to for the Project 2025 agenda.

[Andrea Pitzer]

There's thought behind what they're doing, even if there's not much thinking being done by the president.

[Guest Commentator]

By the way, we're not done. Next month, Heritage is releasing a judicial counter project to Project 2025. It's called the the Heritage Guide to the Constitution, which intends to reshape policies and priorities inside the judicial branch as much as it's already done within the executive branch.

[Andrea Pitzer]

And where we stand today, whole groups on the left are in more danger of the reverse of being all thought with no action. As journalist James Ball noted, the Democratic Party seems to have adopted items from the manual that the OSS put together, the forerunner of the CIA, about how to derail political meetings, talk as frequently as possible and at great length, bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible, haggle over precise wordings, refer back to matters decided upon to reopen the question, and be worried about the propriety of any decision. You can't live in that space. The danger for the left now is to get caught up in critiques of those who are actually doing things in which the people doing the critiquing will mistake their contribution for something useful.

[Guest Commentator]

They're laying out a new blue book, a new playbook for the courts, and it's not just a set of, you know, independent experts, Justice Alito wrote the preface, 36 judges wrote our contributors to that book, they're gonna do it all over again.

[Andrea Pitzer]

At this stage, with a closing window for action without significant increase in state violence, putting your weight into the societal shift we need is far more valuable. Much of that will take the form of small actions in your community, and that shift might be easier than you think. I saw this week that Professor Femi Taewo of Georgetown University mentioned a paper published in January in the journal Democratization. In that paper, Marina Nord led a group of authors at Sweden's University of Gothenburg and University of Liverpool in the UK and they looked at political U turns times that governments had rapidly switched direction between 1900 and 2023. They divided instances of sudden shifts into three categories authoritarian manipulation, democratic reaction, and international intervention. They found that these shifts were linked in ways that political scientists hadn't fully clocked before. They wrote that more than half of all authoritarian shifts, autocratic episodes, turned into democratization shifts, and that in the last 30 years that number was nearly 3 4. What's more, some 90% of U turns ended in greater democratization. In the end, the authors wrote that a democratic breakdown does not necessarily prevent a return to democracy, especially if autocratization is halted and reversed relatively quickly. No one study represents all of reality, but this study is a helpful way to get a snapshot from a greater distance of where we are now. We are on a steep descent, but we can still take action to save democracy. And the odds are with us. And that's it. Thanks for listening to Next Comes what? Please share this with anyone who's looking for ways to help each other survive this mess. To support this podcast, Please [e-mail] and consider giving Next Comes what? A five star review where you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening and thank you for watching. If you do have the means, I encourage you to become a paid subscriber and you can do [e-mail] just go to the newsletter link, which is in the first paragraph of the homepage, and you can sign up from there.