Podcast
Omnishambles
Hosted by Virginia Heffernan and Cy Canterel · EN
What Rough Beast, hosted by Virginia Heffernan (Wired, Trumpcast) and Cy Canterel (Abstract Machines) is a podcast where we bear witness to America’s demise, and ask what might be built from the rubble. The sludge. The sparkly phosphorescent faerie dust of recombinant DNA.
It is a spiritual successor to Trumpcast, but with a radical reimagining. Instead of focusing on opposing Trump or trusting institutions, this podcast explores imaginative, unexpected responses to our current political moment. The show takes inspiration from the '68ers' motto "all power to the imagination" and seeks unconventional solutions beyond traditional political frameworks.
virginiaheffernan.substack.com
virginiaheffernan.substack.com
21episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Alex Karp and the Masturbating Girl: Audio
Dec 1100:09:26Tap to summarizeAlex Karp and the Masturbating Girl. Is squirming in your seat erotic, pathological, subversive, insane? Alex Karp and Palantir believe it's genius. https://virginiaheffernan.substack.com/p/alex-karp-and-the-masturbating-girl This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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The Edgelord Apocalypse
Oct 200:57:48Tap to summarizeThis week we talk to Cy Canterel, a scholar of media theory and systems theory in New Orleans and author of the Substack “Abstract Machines.” We discuss:* The chilling subcultures breeding the next wave of violence. Why 4chan, Discord, and “black pill” nihilism are more dangerous than traditional political extremism.* The Kirk assassination wasn’t about ideology. It was about spectacle. Tyler Robinson may have chosen Kirk not for his politics, but because killing him would be the ultimate “high score” in a gamified reality where violence is derealised.* The invisible powder keg: armed, queer, and furious. Are there thousands of young white men crushed between MAGA’s rigid masculinity and the left’s indifference, ready to explode?* Incels, Groypers, and the fascist femboy pipeline. How Greco-Roman fantasies and gender fluidity coexist with white supremacy in ways that confound traditional political analysis.* Why this looks more like Columbine than JFK. Forget political assassination frameworks. This is about desensitization, isolation, and young men who’ve lost touch with themselves.This episode is free to all listeners, but please consider becoming a paid Magic + Loss subscriber. Every dollar goes to the continued fight against fascism!Magic + Loss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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The Mitochondria Conspiracy
Sep 2001:08:04Tap to summarizeThis week on “What Rough Beast,” we talk to Molly McKew, information warfare expert and author of the Great Power newsletter, about Russia's influence operations and the war in Ukraine. We discuss:* How Russia has been systematically manipulating American politics since the 1980s through oligarchs, soft power investments, and psychological operations* Why Trump's decades-long fascination with Russia makes him vulnerable to manipulation by Putin's regime* The disturbing speed with which Americans can be radicalized online—from wellness enthusiasts to conspiracy theorists in months* How Russian disinformation exploits America's lack of firm national identity, making us uniquely susceptible to foreign influence campaigns* The reality on the ground in Ukraine under Trump's envoys, and why treating the war like a "real estate deal" fundamentally misunderstands what's at stake* Why Americans across the political spectrum are unprepared for the collapse of institutional protections and the shift toward authoritarianismThis episode is free to all listeners, but please consider becoming a paid Magic + Loss subscriber. Every dollar goes to the continued fight against fascism.Magic + Loss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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The Deportation Machine
Aug 2700:45:53Tap to summarizeThis week, we talk to the great Sarah Stillman, Pulitzer Prize-winning staff writer at The New Yorker and MacArthur Fellow who teaches investigative reporting at Yale. Her work focuses on profiteering in the criminal justice system—from debtors' prisons and civil asset forfeiture to for-profit prison communications and companies exploiting disaster-recovery workers during climate crises. She previously ran Columbia's Global Migration Project, investigating immigration detention and asylum-seekers' rights. In this episode, we discuss:* That the numbers are staggering—180,000 people deported so far this term, with $170 billion set aside for enforcement* How family separations aren't just cruel policy—they're a deliberate tool that strips people of their humanity by cutting them off from anyone who sees them as infinitely valuable* The weird and disturbing practice of sending deportees to random countries they've never been to (like Mexican nationals being held in South Sudan)* Why enforcement is hitting people who used to be left alone—students, green card holders, even kids who are U.S. citizens* How private detention has created a system that's actually bigger than our entire federal prison system* What happens when climate change forces mass migration, and whether our current asylum laws account for it* The workers rebuilding after climate disasters—many of them climate refugees themselves—who face deportation while fixing the homes of people who vote for anti-immigration policies* Why Sarah thinks actual reporting on human stories matters way more than all the political punditry filling up our feeds* The right to hug your parent when they're in jail (yes, that's a real legal fight happening right now)This episode is free to all listeners, but please consider becoming a paid Magic + Loss subscriber. Every dollar goes to the continued fight against fascism.Magic + Loss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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The Dictator Expert Who's Not Worried
Aug 2000:50:04Tap to summarizeThis week we sit down with Alastair Smith, author of The Dictator's Handbook, who thinks we might all need to take a deep breath about American democracy. We discuss:* How it's actually better to lose in a real democracy than win under a wannabe dictator (and the math that proves it)* Why keeping 22 million voters happy is fundamentally different from bribing 100 cronies, and what that means for whether you get roads or just graft* How Trump might be accidentally sabotaging himself with tariffs and Fed-bashing (markets hate uncertainty, who knew?)* The bizarre difference between old-school Pravda propaganda and our current hellscape of lizard-people theories and testicle tanning* Real-time institutional resistance: from the FBI actually protecting threatened journalists to Jerome Powell's magnificent "I'm not stepping down" moment* Why this political scientist—who studies how dictatorships actually work—still thinks our messy, frustrating democracy has more fight left than we realizeFair warning: this conversation might leave you feeling weirdly hopeful about America. We know, we're surprised too.This episode is free to all listeners, but please consider becoming a paid Magic + Loss subscriber. Every dollar goes to the continued fight against fascism.Magic + Loss is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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Epstein and the Swanky Leftist Compromise
Jul 31, 202501:06:31Tap to summarizeThis week on What Rough Beast, Stephen and Virginia go deep on the Epstein conspiracy. Here's what we covered:* How Epstein represented a new class of ultra-wealthy who exempt themselves from democratic norms and why this scandal has traction when Trump seemed "Teflon"* Virginia's first-hand experience with John Brockman's Epstein-funded EDGE organization and the "intellectual dark web"* The physics envy pipeline from quantum mechanics to finance via IQ fetishism* How neo-Darwinism provided intellectual cover for predatory behavior* Why Trump supporters care more about "cover-ups" than actual crimes and whether cognitive fatigue could provide an off-ramp from Trump loyaltyThis episode is free to all listeners, but please consider becoming a paid Magic + Loss subscriber. Every dollar goes to the continued fight against fascism.What Rough Beast is a reader- and listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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How America's Freaks Switched Sides
Jul 13, 202500:43:06Tap to summarizeIn this episode of What Rough Beast, we talk to David Rees, host of Election Profit Makers and creator of the legendary post-9/11 comic strip "Get Your War On," which skewered the Bush administration's War on Terror through the voices of office workers having profane conversations about cluster bombs and nation-building. We discuss:* Iraq vs. Iran rhetoric: How the arguments for bombing Iran compare to the "extremely stupid" discourse that justified the 2003 Iraq invasion, and why Trump's impulsive approach differs from Bush's ideological war machine* The evolution of American freakiness: How the cultural currency of being anti-establishment has flipped from the counterculture left to Trump's depraved right, making figures like Stephen Miller the new Rumsfeld* Clip art as social commentary: Why Rees chose anonymous office workers to represent Americans during the War on Terror* Protesting in the Trump era: Why young people aren't motivated by "orange man bad" protests but are energized by direct action against ICE, and what this means for anti-establishment politics* The Zohran Mamdani moment: How NYC's presumptive next mayor represents a new generation of unapologetically progressive politicians who terrify billionaires—and why that's exactly the pointThis episode is free to all listeners, but please consider becoming a paid Magic + Loss subscriber. Every dollar goes to the continued fight against fascism.What Rough Beast is a reader- and listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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Jon Ronson Says Culture Wars Are Over
Jul 3, 202500:32:55Tap to summarizeToday on What Rough Beast, we talk to Jon Ronson, the masterful narrative storyteller behind the podcast "Things Fell Apart" and author of numerous acclaimed books. Jon has spent decades chronicling how America came unraveled, with particular expertise in tracking the origins of conspiracy theories and culture wars.In this episode, we discuss:* The extraordinary coincidence of timing: How virtually every major culture war that has engulfed America since 2020 erupted within just 20 days of each other in late May/early June 2020, right after George Floyd's murder* The deadly origins of "excited delirium": Jon traces how a bogus medical diagnosis created in 1980s Miami to cover up the murders of 32 Black sex workers became the justification police officers used while standing over George Floyd's body* Why pandemics make people go insane: Drawing on historical accounts from ancient Rome to medieval plagues, we explore why viral outbreaks reliably trigger mass delusions and conspiracy thinking* The future of American conflict: As culture wars potentially wind down, Jon predicts the next battleground will be "the war on institutions" - and discusses why Luigi Mangione might signal a shift from cultural to class warfareThis episode is free to all listeners, but please consider becoming a paid Magic + Loss subscriber. Every dollar goes to the continued fight against fascism.What Rough Beast is a reader- and listener-supported publication. To receive new posts and support this work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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Fear and Spectacle at ICE
Jun 19, 202500:48:05Tap to summarizeThis is What Rough Beast! We’re talking with Ben Wizner, the director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, which works to protect and expand the First Amendment freedoms of expression, association, and inquiry, and ensure that civil liberties are enhanced rather than compromised by new advances in science and technology. In this episode, we discuss:* The strategic theater behind ICE arrests - How dramatic detentions of elected officials like NYC mayoral candidate Brad Lander are designed as performances for an audience of one: Donald Trump* Why litigation is winning but can't solve Trumpism - Wizner explains how civil rights lawyers have filed 53 lawsuits in 100 days, winning many, but why legal victories alone won't address the deeper political crisis* The cases of detained activists - Updates on Rumeysa Ozturk (released from detention) and Mahmoud Khalil (still detained in Louisiana), and what their cases reveal about the administration's tactics* Terror tactics vs. autocratic control - Why the current approach resembles a protection racket more than systematic authoritarianism, using fear and spectacle rather than total surveillance* The limits and power of resistance - How 5 million people in the streets for the "No Kings" protest shows Americans aren't too afraid to mobilize, and why our response determines what kind of crisis we're actually in* The multipolar world after Trump - How three consecutive elections featuring Trump have permanently changed America's global standing, regardless of future election outcomesUnlock more content and support the project of What Rough Beast by becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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How to resist the regime
Jun 12, 202500:39:10Tap to summarizeLast week, I spoke with human rights researcher and advocate Yaqiu Wang, whose recent NYT piece draws on the lessons of her childhood in authoritarian China. We talked about her detention in China when she was a student posting on an anonymous Twitter account, the capitulation of the elites, and how to resist obeying the regime. Watch our convo here, and or listen on Substack and anywhere you get your podcasts.Unlock more content and support the project of What Rough Beast by becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit virginiaheffernan.substack.com/subscribe
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