The Gist – "Fact-Checking the Maduro Raid—and the Art of Fucking Around"

Host: Mike Pesca (Peach Fish Productions)
Guest: Ben Ansell, Professor of Comparative Democratic Institutions, University of Oxford
Date: January 10, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode of The Gist grapples with the U.S. raid on Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela and interrogates how public narratives, fact-checking, and slogans shape our understanding of consequential political events. Host Mike Pesca invites Oxford political scientist Ben Ansell to dissect the rise and limits of the meme "FAFO"—"fuck around and find out"—contrasting it with what Ansell dubs "FADFO": "fuck around and don’t find out." They explore how, in both American and British contexts, reckless political maneuvers sometimes bring immediate consequences, and sometimes—frustratingly for critics—they don’t. The episode also features Pesca's signature "spiel" analyzing the pitfalls of evaluating policy based solely on politicians' rhetoric, especially in the wake of Trump’s military operations.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Venezuela Raid: Fact-Checking and the Perils of Political Narration

• Pesca sets the stage with ongoing skepticism about Trump’s plan after the U.S. raid to detain Maduro.
• He questions if gaining tactical wins—such as more oil—align with American democratic commitments or merely reinforce autocratic exchanges (00:39–04:00).
• Pesca highlights how pundits often conflate Trump’s constant lying with strategic failures, warning, “Just because Donald Trump’s a liar doesn’t mean he’s wrong. But...I don’t see how this plan really goes well.” (03:14)
• The “spiel” later in the episode (40:26–54:51) argues that while Trump’s rhetoric is often unreliable, actual outcomes of policies or military operations may diverge significantly from his words—a nuance often lost in immediate media analysis.

2. The Rise and Evolution of FAFO

• Introduction of Ben Ansell and his viral Substack post on FADFO (“fuck around and don’t find out”).

• Ansell traces FAFO’s meme status to a viral economics professor’s diagram and its British roots, comparing it to phrases like “chat shit, get banged” (10:19–11:15).

  “I think this kind of motif is quite popular in British English...shows the world is getting a little less forgiving and there’s a joy in people getting their deserved comeuppance.” – Ben Ansell (11:16)

• In both countries, FAFO resonates because people enjoy witnessing others suffer the direct consequences of reckless actions, especially when amplified on social media (12:13).

3. “Fuck Around and Don’t Find Out” – When Consequences Don’t Materialize

• Ansell argues FADFO is, paradoxically, more prevalent: radical policies often don’t yield the disastrous outcomes foreseen by critics (17:36).

• Example: After Trump’s election in 2016 and Brexit, “the worst didn’t happen” despite panicked predictions.

  “Most of the time people make decisions that seem pretty radical and then nothing really happens...that’s what happened in 2016 when America voted for Donald Trump.” – Ben Ansell (17:36)

• Pesca notes similar dynamics with tariffs: expectations of disaster rarely align with actual impacts, and sometimes markets or institutions blunt or delay those impacts (19:06–22:09).

• The UK’s “lettuce” meme after Liz Truss’s economic plan exemplifies rapid find-out (market backlash), whereas protracted changes (e.g., Brexit’s slow-growth drag) illustrate delayed or diffused consequences.

4. The Role of Institutions and Public Perception

• Ansell credits robust institutions for buffering against worst-case scenarios, using the 2000 Y2K “millennium bug” as an example—enormous work prevented crisis, creating the illusion it was never a threat (24:31).

  “Lots of institutions we have have this fatal flaw...they prevent bad things from happening and barely anybody knows.” – Ben Ansell (24:31)

• Politicians exploit this resilience, confident any “find out” will be absorbed or deflected by adjustments, and media’s “catastrophizing” doesn’t always match reality (22:45).

5. How the Public (Sometimes) Finds Out

• Most people notice policy failures only if they see direct personal impacts—worsening jobs, rising prices, social disorder (29:33).

• The effectiveness of “finding out” depends on how visible and acute consequences are versus their ability to be spun or downplayed.

• Pesca and Ansell observe that both left and right can fall prey to FADFO thinking—left with “defund the police,” right with tariff policy, and technocrats with trade optimism.

  “All of us are probably guilty...if the consequences aren’t measured or acute, publics are slow to catch on, and political actors rarely admit they ‘found out.’” (32:44–35:45)

• Slogans—“defund the police,” “MMT”—don’t necessarily lead to corresponding political admissions of failure even after negative outcomes.

6. The Value and Risk of Experimentation

• Pesca raises the perils of never “fucking around,” arguing that sometimes social change requires bold action; not all disruption is bad.

  “My fucking around could be your hope and change...” – Mike Pesca (36:48)

• Ansell acknowledges the necessity of some disruption (Reagan/Volcker/Thatcher as past examples); the challenge is calibrating risk versus needed reform.

7. Predicting the Next FADFO Event

• Ansell looks to the UK’s Reform Party and similar populist movements elsewhere—success in electoral politics may force such actors to deliver real-world services, priming them for “find out” moments (38:13).
• Running government proves much harder than ideology, as populists encounter bureaucratic and practical constraints—the “Taliban managing water filtration” analogy (39:01).

8. The Spiel – Evaluating Policy Beyond Rhetoric

• Pesca delivers a pointed monologue (40:26–54:51) on the Trump administration’s approach to Venezuela and prior military actions.

• He cautions against using a politician’s lies as a proxy for policy success or failure, noting:

  “His rhetoric is so unreliable. But rhetoric is not the mechanism through which military campaigns...are executed. These unfold through institutions...more proficient than Trump.” – Mike Pesca (42:52)

• Case study: The bombing of Iran’s Fordow facility. Trump falsely claimed the sites were “obliterated.” Immediate fact-checks found that untrue. But in the long run, the operation succeeded at its core military objective, a nuance lost in the moment’s “gotcha” coverage (45:40–48:00).

• Analyses should better separate fact-checking political speech from empirical assessment of outcomes—especially in foreign policy and military operations.

Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• "Just because Donald Trump’s a liar doesn't mean he's wrong. But...I don’t see how this plan really goes well." – Mike Pesca (03:14)
• "It’s a more violent or biblical version of ‘what did you expect?’ And also the person saying it is taking some pleasure in it.” – Mike Pesca (12:13)
• "Most of the time people make decisions that seem pretty radical and then nothing really happens." – Ben Ansell (17:36)
• "The only political actor in the entire world that has consistently batted at 1.0...is the U.S. bond market." – Ben Ansell (21:08)
• "They prevent bad things from happening and barely anybody knows." – Ben Ansell (24:31)
• “My fucking around could be your hope and change or your radical solutions that are brought up by terrible situations.” – Mike Pesca (36:48)
• "His rhetoric is so unreliable. But rhetoric is not the mechanism through which military campaigns...are executed." – Mike Pesca (42:52)

Segment Timestamps

• Venezuela/Trump strategy intro: 00:39–04:00
• Introducing Ben Ansell & FAFO: 09:09–13:33
• Fuck Around and Don’t Find Out (FADFO): 17:36–24:31
• Role of institutions/Y2K analogy: 24:31–26:28
• How (and if) the public finds out: 29:33–35:45
• Risk vs. reward of “fucking around”: 36:48–37:58
• Next big FADFOs/populist politics: 38:13–39:56
• Spiel: Fact-checking vs. outcomes: 40:26–54:51

Memorable Moments

• Ben Ansell’s British translation of FAFO as “chat shit, get banged” (11:15)
• Discussion of the “lettuce” meme after UK’s Liz Truss’s failed policies drove home the speed of market consequences (21:08)
• Pesca’s sharp critique of media’s tendency to equate Trump’s verbal lies with failed policy or actions (whole spiel section)
• Ansell’s Y2K story of his father in a bank on millennium night to illustrate the invisibility of catastrophe averted (24:59)
• Analogy: Populist parties winning power and having to manage “bus services and parks”—connecting abstract ideology with real-world drudgery (38:59–39:11)

Takeaways for Listeners

• The language of “fuck around and find out” reflects both a desire for poetic justice and the limitations of narratives that assume consequences are swift, visible, and inevitable.
• Institutions and markets can shield societies from the most reckless political gambles, though they are not infallible—and when they work, their success is often invisible.
• Media and the public should distinguish between the veracity of political rhetoric and actual policy outcomes, especially during crises or military actions.
• Both “finding out” and “not finding out” are part of the democratic cycle, and sometimes only time (or direct personal experience) will reveal which occurred.

Summary by AI Podcast Summarizer for those who want the full logic without the ads or fluff. For more, visit mikepesca.substack.com.