Indomitable | The online home of Chauncey DeVega

Mind Control and Cult Expert Steven Hassan Warns That Donald Trump's Movement is a Dangerous Cult -- And Even If Trump is Removed From Office His Followers Will Remain a Threat to American Society

2019-10-22T14:35:00.002-05:00

A new Gallup poll finds that at least 50 percent of the American people want Donald Trump to be impeached and removed from office. That's three times higher than the percentage of Americans who supported impeaching Richard Nixon during the early stages of the impeachment process. Trump could become the first American president to run for re-election after being impeached in the House of Representatives.

On the surface, at least, it would seem that Donald Trump’s continual torrent of lawbreaking, his disrespect for the Constitution and democracy, his corruption, racism, nativism, misogyny and overall debasement of human morality and human decency have finally reached a point where he will be held accountable by the Democrats in Congress and then at the polls in 2020.

But what of the 39 percent (or so) of Americans who continue to support Donald Trump? His popularity among Republican voters continues to be remarkably high and stable (87 percent per Gallup’s most recent poll) given his many failures of policy, including policy decisions that directly hurt his most enthusiastic “white working class” supporters. Indeed, Trump’s base of stable support remains the highest among American presidents in the history of modern polling.

Despite — or because of — Trump’s apparent criminal behavior and obvious inclinations toward fascism he has a cement-like hold on his supporters. Trumpism can be understood as right-wing political extremism transformed into a cult. This is not just a metaphor. Trump’s lies, his assault on reality, his threats of violence, his cruelty, his demand of absolute loyalty, his manipulation of willing subjects who choose to escape empirical reality, and his shared state of collective narcissism with his followers all fit the definition of a cult. From that realization follows another: Trump’s removal from the White House, by electoral defeat or any other means, remains unlikely — unless his opponents can fully mobilize to overwhelm and defeat Trump’s zealots.

Is it possible to deprogram Trump’s political cult members and return them to normal society? Should good Americans isolate Trump supporters and refuse to interact with them? In what ways does Trump fit the profile of a cult leader? How is his apparent and lengthy history of sexually predatory behavior typical of a cult leader? If Trump is removed from office, will his supporters respond with violence?

In an effort to answer these questions, I recently spoke with Steven Hassan, one of the world's foremost experts on mind control and cults. Hassan is the author of several bestselling books, including "Combating Cult Mind Control" and "Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs." His new book is “The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control.”

Steven Hassan is the guest on this week's episode of my podcast The Truth Report.

The Chauncey DeVega Show: A Conversation with Dr. Justin Frank About How Donald Trump's Mental Pathologies are Encouraging A Plague of Right-wing Violence and Hatred Across America

2019-08-11T15:00:00.000-05:00

Dr. Justin Frank is a former clinical professor of psychiatry at the George Washington University Medical Center and a physician with more than 40 years of experience in psychoanalysis. He is the author of the bestselling books Bush on the Couch and Obama on the Couch. His newest book is Trump on the Couch. Dr. Frank's work has appeared in Time magazine and the Daily Beast and he has appeared as an expert commentator and guest on MSNBC, CNN, PBS and other outlets.

Dr. Frank explains how Donald Trump's many mental pathologies give permission for the violence, hatred and terrorism of his supporters and why the massacres in El Paso and Dayton -- and his reactions to them -- reveal Trump's lack of empathy for other human beings and how the president is likely a sociopath. Dr. Frank also warns that Donald Trump hates to see happy families and this is why he does not care about seeing nonwhite children and their families suffering in his concentration camps. Dr. Frank also sounds the alarm about how the right-wing terrorism and other political violence that Trump has encouraged and commanded through stochastic terrorism and scripted violence will spread across the country like an epidemic.

Chauncey DeVega is angry that after only three years of so-called "resistance" that too many people have already surrendered to Donald Trump, the Republican Party and their fascist regime. Why? Because they are "tired" and "frustrated". This is because of a lack of historical perspective and understanding about what true struggle looks like in America and around the world. Chauncey also shares several news stories and commentaries about Donald Trump's post El Paso and Dayton "victory" tour of human depravity including a raid by ICE brownshirts which stole hundreds of Latino and Hispanic parents away from their crying children on the first day of school.

At the end of this week's podcast Chauncey reads a wonderful animal friends story about an honored elder who adopted an amazing senior cat.

SELECTED LINKS OF INTEREST FOR THIS EPISODE OF THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW

The Truth Report: My Conversation with Tim Wise About White Rage and Donald Trump's "Race War" in America

2019-08-03T22:30:00.000-05:00

Tim Wise is one of America's and the world's leading experts on white privilege and racism. He is the author of numerous books including his most recent Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America.

Tim Wise explains why three years into Trump's presidency there are still so many journalists, reporters and other political observers who are "shocked" and "surprised" by his blatant racism and authoritarian behavior. Is Republican strategist Rick Wilson correct in his assessment that Donald Trump wants a "race war" in America? And in what ways isthe recent mass shooting in California by an apparent Nazi -- as well as a very large increase in right-wing political violence more generally in America -- the expected outcome of Donald Trump's presidency?

A Conversation with MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid About How Donald Trump Represents Everything Wrong With America

2019-07-23T02:16:00.000-05:00

Joy-Ann Reid is the host of AM Joy on MSNBC. She is the author of several books including Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons and the Racial Divide as well as We Are the Change We Seek: The Speeches of Barack Obama. Her new book is The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story.

Reid explains how Donald Trump has betrayed American democracy, why his violence, racism and other vile behavior is appealing to his supporters, and how he is the human embodiment of America's cultural and social ills.

Joy-Ann Reid also reflects on how best to make sense of this confusing and disorienting moment in American history and a Republican Party and Donald Trump which are committed to restoring American Apartheid and total white rule over an increasingly diverse country.

On this week's show Chauncey DeVega ponders why so many journalists, reporters, and the American people as a whole, are still surprised by Donald Trump's racism and his newest exercise in presidential white supremacy -- the slurring of four nonwhite Democratic congresswomen (most notably Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) as somehow being inherently "un-American" and who should be kicked out of the United States if they do not bow in fealty to Trump's racial authoritarian regime.

Chauncey also shares several news items which highlight Trump's war on America's multiracial democracy and his campaign of cruelty against nonwhites and then asks you, the listeners, to connect the dots.

"Two years ago I compared Trump to Hitler. People didn't believe me": Dr. John Gartner Explains How Donald Trump's Poor Mental Health is Grounds for Impeachment

2019-07-20T10:00:00.000-05:00

Dr. John Gartner is a former professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University Medical School. Gartner is also the founder of the Duty to Warn PAC, an organization working to raise awareness about the danger to the United States and the world posed by Donald Trump.

He was a contributor to the 2017 bestselling book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Gartner along with two other expert mental health professionals, is the author of the recent and widely-read USA Today op-ed "President Donald Trump's poor mental health is grounds for impeachment".

Dr. Gartner explains why there is no mass resistance to Donald Trump's movement and his assault on American democracy and freedom. He also answers the following questions.

Why have so many Americans chosen to surrender? How can psychology help to explain Donald Trump and his movement's assault on reality and why so many Americans have been seduced by this malignant reality? How has the Mueller Report empowered Donald Trump and fueled his apparent public mental illness and other dangerous behavior? What must be done to force Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party to impeach Donald Trump? Will there be violence from Trump's supporters if he is forced to leave office?

Political Scientist Ashley Jardina Explains How "White Identity Politics" Are a Dire Threat to American Democracy

2019-07-19T10:00:00.000-05:00

Today's Republican Party is the largest, most powerful and most dangerous white racist organization in the United States -- if not the world. Donald Trump, the president of the United States, is its leader. These are plain if not understated facts. No embellishment is needed. The examples are many. Over the last few days Donald Trump has repeatedly dug into his bucket of racist political scatology, saying on Twitter and elsewhere that four nonwhite members of Congress ("Progressive' Democrat Congresswomen," as he mockingly put it) should leave America and go back to their own "crime infested" and "totally broken" countries.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib were all born in the United States. Rep. Ilhan Omar is a naturalized citizen who was born in Somalia. This is not the first time that Donald Trump has said such vile things, which are almost word-for-word white supremacist or white nationalist talking points about how being a "real American" means one must first and foremost be "white" — and that nonwhites should be removed from the United States if they do not submit to white rule and authority.

Trump's racism is part of a much larger pattern of white supremacist behavior by his administration: Interning nonwhite migrants and immigrants in concentration camps, seeking to ban Muslims from entering the United States, suggesting that black athletes who oppose police brutality are traitors, changing the country's immigration laws with the aim of maintaining a white majority, and disenfranchising nonwhite people through gerrymandering, voter suppression, voter intimidation and other tactics, legal and otherwise.

Republican elected officials almost unanimously support Trump's racist agenda. To wit: only four Republicans voted "yes" in support of Tuesday's House resolution condemning Donald Trump's gross and obvious racism.

Senior Republican leaders such as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, and Sen. Mitt Romney have either stated support for Trump's racist comments or avoided answering questions about them.

Trump's White House spokespeople and the right-wing media have of course enthusiastically supported Donald Trump's most recent example of public white supremacy. Public opinion polls show that support for Donald Trump has grown among Republican voters because of his racist attacks.

Donald Trump and the Republican Party's racist agenda is in service to white identity politics and a foundational assumption that white people should always and forever be the most privileged and dominant group in the United States. But what are the specific contours of white identity politics, and why has it been so politically effective and personally seductive for Trump, the Republican Party and their voters? Is white identity politics an existential threat to America's multiracial democracy? What does it mean to be "white" in post-civil rights America? Are white men and white women invested in white identity in the same way?

In an effort to answer these questions I recently spoke with Ashley Jardina, a professor of political science at Duke University and author of the new book "White Identity Politics."

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

How did America arrive at a moment where it would elect a person like Donald Trump as president? Was this disaster caused by an inevitable white backlash against Barack Obama?

I would not say that Donald Trump's presidency was inevitable. But I do think there is a confluence of events which took place. For the entire history of the United States, white people have had the majority of social, economic and political power. There have been different periods of time in which that power has seemed less secure or it's been chipped away at. This is especially true at present and over the last decade. This has been partly caused by immigration.

Of course there is the symbolic power which came from the election of the nation's first African-American president Barack Obama. As a result of these factors, many whites in the United States are starting to feel like their place at the top of the pyramid is no longer guaranteed and that the United States no longer looks like a "white nation" which is dominated by white Anglo-Saxon Protestant culture. This arrangement looks like it may be in jeopardy to many white people. Donald Trump is very much a response to the feelings of threat and insecurity that many whites in the United States are experiencing.

These narratives about the "browning of America" are very problematic. Historically in America, groups formerly viewed as "nonwhite" are eventually included in the category of who is "white" so that white people as a group can remain numerically superior over blacks and other people of color. Why wouldn't "white" Hispanics — such as some Cubans, for example — simply not be grandfathered into whiteness?

Latinos have not been subsumed by whiteness yet. There is an argument that eventually, just as took place with the Irish and Italians in the late 19th and mid-20th century, where those groups transitioned into whiteness, that this will happen with Latinos too. But such a crossing over into whiteness has not happened yet for them. There are pressures against that happening quickly. For example, there is a big push to get Latinos in the United States to develop a pan-ethnic Latino identity because it's politically strategic, particularly for Democrats.

There are these common criticisms that "identity politics" is bad. What is so problematic with such a complaint is that "identity politics" for people of color and for underrepresented groups like women is often the consequence of shared experiences of oppression and subordination. "Identity politics" is a way for marginalized groups to achieve political power and political representation of their interests.

In many ways this is a story of perception versus reality. It's certainly true that whites still have the majority of power and resources in America. There is not a great deal of evidence to suggest that has been dramatically chipped away at. After the 2010 census there were all these grand predictions being made about America's changing racial demographics. There were all these articles appearing about how whites as a group were going to lose their numerical majority.

Then you've got the major symbolism of Barack Obama and the fact that Barack Obama won his second term — but not with the white vote. Obama had the lowest share of white voters of any successful presidential candidate. Obama won because of a coalition of people of color. Taken in total, all of these dynamics lead to a misperception that the power and privilege of whites in America is somehow being threatened.

This obsession by the mainstream corporate media with chronicling the "Lost Americans" in TrumpLandia — meaning "white working class" red-state denizens — is a tedious new subgenre of writing. One of the themes has been white Trump voters saying that “Well, the blacks had Obama now we've got a white man to do something for white people.” Such claims are detached from any sense of reality, yet the sentiment resonates across White America.

There is a sense of white group identity and racial animus prefaced on a belief, however incorrect, that Barack Obama was going to do things just for black people and other nonwhites. Of course we know that was not true. Nonetheless, Donald Trump is very much seen as the response to Barack Obama. Trump is the person who is going to come in and help white people.

In my new book "White Identity Politics," I examine public opinion data and other research which demonstrates that there really is this feeling among a certain subset of white people who believe the government is not doing things for them. These white people want benefits for their group. This helps to explain why Donald Trump was a successful candidate, even though he is an unconventional Republican.

Trump went against the traditional Republican platform by promising to expand government, to protect Social Security, to protect Medicare and basically to provide government benefits that white people wanted. It's not just about "small government" or taking power away from people of color. Trump's appeal is about whites wanting to feel like they're getting some share of government benefits and support. This is of course wrong: White Americans receive a disproportionate share of resources whether that's from the government or just the overall economic, social and political resources in the United States.

How do these working-class Trump voters reconcile the fact that he and the Republican party are actually enacting policies which make their lives materially worse? Is this just the old story of the "wages of whiteness," where Trump's racism gives his white voters a sense of power over and against nonwhites, even if they are being hurt economically?

American voters are not that sophisticated. These white voters see Trump as the candidate that's for the white person. They might not actually be getting the resources that they want, but they're not really thinking about it in a narrow, material way. What these white people are thinking is, "Hey, Trump is there for my group. He's going to help white people. He's the president for white people."

Motivated reasoning is very important here too. This is the psychological process through which people are going to believe things that are consistent with their prior beliefs, and they're going to reject information that's inconsistent with them. Trump might not be doing a good job helping this particular subset of voters. He might not be delivering on his promises. But his supporters are going to want to believe that he is. Trump's voters and other supporters are going to be highly resistant to being disappointed.

How do you define the oft-used and often vague phrase and concept "white identity politics"?
The idea behind "white identity politics" is that there is a subset of white voters and/or white Americans in general who feel a sense of attachment to their group. They feel a sense of solidarity. They think that their race and their racial identity is important to who they are. Their "white identity" influences how they see and view the political world. Tied up in that sense of identity is a belief that whites are losing out in the United States, their status and power is somehow under threat. Subsequently those white people who manifest white identity politics are responding to that perception in a political way by supporting policies and candidates who they view as protecting their racial group and preserving its status.

Donald Trump is a candidate who campaigned on limiting nonwhite immigration, building a wall and doing things that were going to preserve America's literal "whiteness." Trump also promised to provide and support policies such as Social Security and Medicare. These programs disproportionately benefit white people. Donald Trump is an isolationist. "America First" and "Make America Great Again" are also isolationist slogans. Donald Trump is very much the candidate of white identity — but white identity mattered before Trump came on the scene.

Empirical data shows that whites who felt a sense of solidarity with their racial group were far less likely to vote for Barack Obama in 2012. This did not just suddenly appear in 2016. There has been evidence of this type of racially motivated voting and other political behavior for some time.

America was founded as a racialized democracy. Denying nonwhites their human and civil rights was not generally viewed by white elites and the white mass public as being incompatible with "freedom" and "democracy." How do we reconcile your research on white identity politics with America's history and present as a racialized democracy?

What we are seeing at present is the maintenance of a system of white supremacy. I want to be clear when I use the term "white supremacy." People tend to recoil from that term because they think of white supremacy as the Ku Klux Klan. I'm not talking about those people exclusively. They are a very small subset of white people who show overt, explicit racial prejudice.

There is a much larger percentage of whites in United States who are not particularly high on racial prejudice. I would not call them bigots, but they still want to preserve and protect the privileges of their group. In doing so they are ultimately preserving a system and system of racial hierarchy in which white people are at the top.

For a long time whiteness was associated with mainstream America. Whites had the privilege of not having to think about their race. Nonwhites have their life outcomes overdetermined by their race. Race impacts how nonwhites navigate the world and think about political and the social reality. It is not until whites start to feel some threat or anxiety that white identity politics is activated. Whiteness is very salient in the Age of Trump.

But of course we can go back in time and consider other moments when white identity mattered more, such as the civil rights movement, and debates in the early part of the 20th century about immigration and preserving the "Nordic stock" and "Anglo-Saxon heritage" of the nation.

These moments were very explicit about the idea that America was a white country and "we" had to protect this particular flavor or idea of whiteness and a "White America." But in between these periods of time, whites have had the luxury of not having to think about their race because they got to define what it means to be an "American" and what constitutes "mainstream America."

How do experts who study and write about race and racial inequality understand and use terms such as "racism" and "whiteness" in a way that the general public does not?

First of all, "white identity" is not the same thing as overt racism or overt prejudice. Now, they're certainly related in important ways. We often think about racism in two ways. One is learned dislike or antipathy for an out-group. For whites we often talk about whites just disliking people of color generally. And often, when we discuss racism we consider how whites dislike blacks in particular which manifests through a particular set of negative stereotypes that they associate with black people and blackness.

Another way of thinking about racism is a denial of structural inequality — and this can be ignorance or willful — and how nonwhites experience discrimination in the United States. This racist logic proceeds from an assumption that everyone has a type of equal opportunity and to the extent to which there is racial inequality, it is caused by people of color not working hard enough or not abiding by particular cherished "American values" such as "hard work" and "patriotism." This is symbolic racism. The difference with white identity is that it is an in-group attitude; it is about wanting to protect and preserve white identity.

Yes, white identity is still part of the system of racism because it's about wanting to maintain their power at the top. By implication, this means that people of color necessarily cannot be equal with white people. This type of white identity is about maintaining a system of inequality. But from a psychological perspective, this is not the same thing as just disliking or having negative attitudes towards a racial out-group.

What do we know about the road from the Tea Party to Donald Trump's Republican Party and the racialization of white group identity?

Over the period of time in which the Tea Party got its momentum, there was a very clear shift in support towards white people who measure very high on indicators of symbolic racism and racial resentment.

Looking at the data from 2012 to the present I do not see a strong relationship between white identity and Tea Party support. instead I see a really strong relationship between racial resentment and Tea Party support, which should not be surprising.

The Tea Party was very much latching on to an idea that "big government" was just giving "handouts" to people and that we needed to reduce the size of government. Such an argument is closely tied to symbolic racism and the idea that "undeserving" groups in the United States are "taking advantage" of government and that whites are paying too much into the system and not getting enough back. In total, the Tea Party and racial prejudice are tightly linked together.

How does gender interact with white identity?

There are gender differences with respects to levels of white identity. I often find that a slightly higher percentage of white women identify as being white as compared relative to white men. In some ways this runs counter to a narrative that I have never found very compelling. There is this argument that the most disgruntled and aggrieved person in the United States is the working-class white man. From that premise one would expect such a person to measure high on indicators of white identity. In fact it is white women who identify as being white, more so than do white men.

One potential hypothesis is that people tend to want to identify with higher status groups. If you're a white woman and you have a choice between identifying with your gender or your race you are likely going to pick your race because it is the higher status identity.

Historically and through to the present, white women have been deeply involved with supporting, enforcing and benefiting from white supremacy. How does this complicate alliances across the color line between women?

There are several things going on here. Many people think that white women are really aligned with the Democratic Party. They are not. Most white women in the United States have voted for Republican candidates. There have only been two elections since the 1950s in which the majority of white women have not voted for Republican presidential candidates.

Why is this? Married white women tend to adopt the partisanship of their husbands. White women are moved to vote for Republicans in part because of the influence of their husbands. I can imagine a response where someone says, "That's so disappointing." Most people do not realize that white women in the United States are not very progressive when it comes to their views about gender roles. We have the sense that women are vastly more supportive of egalitarian gender roles in the United States, and that's not actually true. In fact, women in general, and white women in particular, are pretty supportive of more traditional gender roles.

This is not very surprising. Women have traditionally been more excluded from the political world. As such, it is less likely that they are going to develop their own separate sorts of political interests or political views from their husbands. That is just the reality of gender dynamics in the United States. There have also been some interesting patterns when we look at the 2016 presidential election. There was a really big educational divide that has not been observed in previous elections. If you look back to 2012 and compare white women with a college degree and those without a college degree, the two groups did not vote that differently.

By comparison, in 2016 white women with a college degree who were not happy about Trump were much more likely to vote for Clinton.

What of the obvious and overt white supremacy increasingly advocated for by Republicans such as Steve King and, of course, Donald Trump? How does that fit into your findings about white identity politics?

I've asked people on surveys the extent to which they think that whites have made greater contributions to human civilization than people of color. A huge percentage of white Americans agree that whites have made greater contributions.

One of the dangers of white identity politics is that white people as a group definitely do not want to associate themselves with the Ku Klux Klan. They do not want to be seen as white supremacists. Nevertheless many white Americans do hold such attitudes. And these attitudes do start to look a lot like those which are espoused by bonafide members of white supremacist hate organizations.

This is where we really need to start worrying as a country: These arguments by white extremist groups are starting to sound pretty persuasive to a sizable group of white people. If these dangerous messages are being delivered by politicians who are not wearing white Klan robes, but instead who seem like they have some degree of decorum, then that racism seems reasonable. I believe that many white people are willing to openly adopt the views of white hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan and others.

What does whiteness and white identity mean for white voters in Trump's America, versus white people who supported Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton?

Many of the white voters who supported Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton do not really think about their racial identity or feel a strong attachment to it. And there is a subset of these white voters for Obama and Clinton who do possess a more progressive type of white identity where they recognize the privileges or advantages that they have as a result of being white in this country and would prefer a more racially egalitarian society.

What are you most worried about regarding America's future? Does anything give you hope?

I’m worried about going backwards and away from the racial progress we have made as a society here in the United States. I'm also worried about the increasing legitimacy of racialized language and racism.

If we look at public opinion data, Donald Trump is not doing well. There is some hope: A sizable percentage of both white Americans and Americans of color are angry about our current political moment with Donald Trump and all that he has done to the country.

Human Rights Attorney Hope Frye Explains the Evils She Witnessed Inside of Trump's Concentration Camps

2019-07-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

Hope Frye is a human rights attorney who has been defending the human dignity and civil rights of migrants, refugees and other groups of vulnerable people for 40 years. Hope became involved when she chaired the Board of Center for Human Rights & Constitutional Law and now leads teams of lawyers and doctors into ORR, ICE and CBP detention facilities to monitor compliance with the landmark 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement governing the treatment of unaccompanied migrant and refugee children.

The Flores decision has governed the care of these children until Trump's vile regime circumvented that agreement.

Most recently she has lead teams to McAllen, Texas, Homestead, Florida, and several facilities in the Rio Grande Valley. She is the attorney who discovered the premature newborn and recovering young mother at an overcrowded processing facility in McAllen, Texas last month.

Hope Frye explains how Donald Trump's regime is violating American and international law in its treatment of migrants and refugees and why the culture of the Border Patrol and ICE encourages cruelty towards non-white immigrants, refugees, and migrants. Frye also shares her experiences documenting the horrible conditions inside of Trump's concentration camps and what it was like to discover a young mother and her premature baby who were suffering at the hands of Trump's Border Patrol enforcers.

During this week's podcast Chauncey explains why Donald Trump's authoritarian right-wing July 4th "celebration" was a carnival of white supremacy where Trump's MAGAite faithful eagerly waited for his special love juice and other sacred fluids. Chauncey also "connects the dots" between Trump's vile July 4th event and how the Republican Party is a dangerous revanchist destructive organization on a global scale.

And at the end of this week's show Chauncey reflects on America's moral reckoning and the poem "The Hound of Heaven" by Francis Thompson.

Eve Ensler on Righteous Anger, Forgiveness and Her New Book "The Apology"

2019-07-18T01:21:00.000-05:00

Eve Ensler is an author, Tony Award-winner, playwright and activist. Her award-winning play The Vagina Monologues ran for more than 10 years and has been performed in more than 140 countries. Ensler's new book The Apology is a meditation on the decades of sexual abuse and other violence she endured from her father and on how she finally purged his power over her life through creative confrontation and forgiveness.

Ensler reflects on the rise of Donald Trump and America's moral crisis, privilege and responsibility, healthy masculinity, why only certain groups in America are forced to forgive the transgressions against them, and how women who dare to publicly speak out against rapists and abusers are often made to suffer more trauma.

Ensler also explains the power of righteous anger, her own choice to forgive her abusive father, and what she gained and sacrificed through the process of writing The Apology.

During this week's podcast Chauncey explains how the culture of violence among Trump's Border Patrol and ICE enforcers is much greater and bigger than a few "bad apples" and the ways that Michael Pence's "inspection tour" of his boss's concentration camps is an example of human evil across history.

Chauncey also cautions people that the act of brave resistance by a freedom fighter in Tacoma, Washington who engaged in direct action against one of the Trump's regime's concentration camps on Saturday will be used to make the regime's Border Patrol and other foot soldier hooligans into "the real victims".

And on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show our intrepid host shares some movie reviews and also a wonderful animal friend story.

A Global Emergency: Psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee Explains How the Mueller Report Shows that Donald Trump is Mentally Unfit to be President of the United States

2019-06-16T14:21:00.000-05:00

Dr. Lee is a forensic psychiatrist and a leading expert on violence at the Yale School of Medicine. She is also the editor of the New York Times bestseller, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.

In response to the Mueller report Dr. Lee convened a panel consisting of some of the country's and world's leading mental health experts. Acting in the interest of public health and safety their goal was to determine Donald Trump's mental fitness based on the information contained in the near-exhaustive and comprehensive Mueller report.

Their conclusion: Trump is mentally unfit, a threat to the United States and the world, and as such should have his powers severely restricted.

And it is fundraising month to support The Chauncey DeVega Show and now The Truth Report. I do not advertise on The Chauncey DeVega Show. Both of these podcasts take a great amount of time to produce each week. If you would like to help The Chauncey DeVega Show stay afloat and grow please show some love via Paypal which can be found over on the right sidebar.

Many people listen to my podcast each week because of the amazing guests I have been lucky to speak with there in our shared effort to help the American people and the world understand and survive Trump's malignant reality.

Your kindness and generosity sustains The Chauncey DeVega Show and allows it to continue and to grow.

A Conversation with Author Ben Fountain About How American Democracy is Broken and Donald Trump and His Supporters are Burning It All Down

2019-06-01T17:44:00.002-05:00

Ben Fountain is the author of the novel Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, winner of the National Book Critics' Circle Award and a finalist for the National Book Award. Fountain traveled across the country during Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign in an effort to document that political and social disaster as it took place in real time. The result is his most recent book Beautiful Country Burn Again.

Fountain explains the deep and burning rage in America from a lack of hope and limited dreams which in turn helped to spawn Trumpism, why Trump's deplorables love him so, and how America's democracy went so wrong. Fountain also highlights how the Democratic Party shares no small amount of responsibility for Trump's reactionary movement because they succumbed to neoliberalism and abandoned American workers to the gangster capitalists.

On this week's show Chauncey DeVega says what must be said about (now private citizen) Robert Mueller: he is a coward and not a hero. Chauncey also warns the public that Trump and his personal bodyguard and human shield William Barr are and will be collecting receipts against their enemies such as journalists and reporters who dare to tell the truth about this regime.

On this week's show Chauncey DeVega says what must be said about (now private citizen) Robert Mueller: he is a coward and not a hero. Chauncey also warns the public that Trump and his personal bodyguard and human shield William Barr are and will be collecting receipts against their enemies such as journalists and reporters who dare to tell the truth about this regime.

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A Conversation with Ira Steven Behr About the Legacy, Meaning and Politics of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the New Documentary What We Left Behind

2019-05-13T02:20:00.000-05:00

There are two guests on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Ira Steven Behr was the showrunner and executive producer of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He is also the co-director and executive producer of the new documentary What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

Behr has also been a writer and executive producer on the HBO series Outlander.

He reflects on the origins of Deep Space Nine, what he learned from the new documentary What We Left Behind, the challenges and triumphs of creating what would be such a highly influential non-episodic TV series, escaping the shadow of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the choices that were made regarding Avery Brooks' character Captain Benjamin Sisko (the first black starring character in Star Trek history), how the show dealt with topical issues such as religion, ethnic conflict, poverty, sexism, as well as gay and lesbian relationships.

Behr also shares the storyline of what a hypothetical eighth season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine would have looked like.

Hugo-award nominated podcaster and writer Alasdair Stuart is the second guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

He shares his thoughts on the new movie Avengers: Endgame and its problematic treatment of female characters such as Nebula and Black Widow, how the film is a well-deserved love letter to Robert Downey Jr.'s depiction of Iron Man, and where the Marvel Cinematic Universe goes with and after the new Spiderman movie.

Chauncey and Alasdair also share some hopes and worries about J.J. Abrams and his new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and ponder why this generation of fans seem so invested in how much money a movie makes as some type of (sad and pathetic) validation of their own self-esteem and identity.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega laughs at those members of the so-called "Resistance" who think that this newest "revelation" about Donald Trump losing a billion dollars and likely committing tax fraud will actually hurt his popularity among the Trump CHUD cultists and Republicans as a whole. Why won't this newest "scandal" matter? This is all explained by the sunk cost fallacy and the classic social psychology research study When Prophecy Fails.

Chauncey also reflects on Gene Roddenberry's hopeful vision of the future as seen in Star Trek and how far America and humankind have to go to achieve such a goal.

Jonathan Metzl on Being Targeted by Nazis Because of His Book "Dying of Whiteness" and Tim Wise Reflects on What It Means to be Jewish in the Age of Trump

2019-05-06T11:13:00.000-05:00

There are two guests on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Jonathan Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry, and the director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

He is the author of several books, including Prozac on the Couch and The Protest Psychosis. His new book is Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America's Heartland.

Dr. Metzl shares what it was like when Nazis descended upon his talk about Dying of Whiteness last Saturday at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington D.C.. Dr. Metzl locates this latest example of Trump-inspired right-wing hooligan behavior within a broader context of anti-Semitism and racism in America.

Metzl also reflects on the moral crisis inflicting Republicans and other conservatives who continue to support Donald Trump and his regime.

Tim Wise is the author of numerous books including his most recent Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America.

Wise connects the harassment of Dr. Metzl to a series of events last week which saw a lethal Nazi attack on a Jewish synagogue in California as well as Donald Trump continuing to lie about and literally whitewash his comments about the Nazi and other white supremacist lethal mob action in Charlottesville in 2017.

Wise explains how whiteness, privilege and Jewish identity are connected to one another in a complicated and complex way--this is especially true in a moment of resurgent hatred against Jewish folks. Wise also highlights why white right-wing Christian terrorists are not considered a real threat by Trump's regime and many other (white) Americans.

Tim Wise makes it clear: this is a moment of existential crisis in America and there is no room for sitting on the sidelines and not fighting back against right-wing thugs who want to overturn America's multiracial democracy.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega calls out, again, why William Barr and the Trump regime must be stopped as together they are working to destroy the rule of law and to make Trump into a king or emperor for life. Chauncey also honors Riley Howell, the UNC Charlotte college student who gave his life in the heroic defense of others.

A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Metzl About How Donald Trump's Supporters are Dying of Whiteness

2019-04-22T11:57:00.001-05:00

Jonathan Metzl is the Frederick B. Rentschler II Professor of Sociology and Psychiatry, and the director of the Center for Medicine, Health, and Society, at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

Metzl is the author of several books, including Prozac on the Couch and The Protest Psychosis. His new book is Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America's Heartland.

Metzl explains how Trump's voters in Red State America are literally dying of whiteness and their devotion to the Republican Party and its harmful policies, why guns and god are such an important part of personal identity and meaning for white "working class" Trump voters, and how racism and a need to punish nonwhites and other "outsiders" motivates "working class" white conservatives in their political decision-making.

Dr. Metzl also shares stories about white Trump voters who are on their death beds but are proud that they never took "Obamacare" because they wanted to make sure that "welfare queens" and "Mexicans" did not have access to "their" health care. Dr. Metzl also recounts tragic stories about white Trump and Republican "ammosexuals" who love their guns more than their children, relatives, and friends.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega offers some extended thoughts about the Mueller Russia report and how, even in its redacted form, the 450 page document paints a damning portrait of a traitorous president and his cabal who colluded with Russia to seal an election and then obstructed justice to cover it up. Chauncey also shares an important concept which explains how Trump, Barr and their right-wing media were able to control the public discourse surrounding the Mueller report by introducing the concept of "criminal conspiracy" being the same thing as "collusion".

And Chauncey warns, again, that Donald Trump's fascist regime is out of control, the rule of law is imperiled and now there are de facto right-wing militias and death squads in waiting on patrol along the U.S.-Mexico border.

My Conversation With Robert B. Reich on How Donald Trump is a Gangster Capitalist Tyrant, the Wisdom of Bernie Sanders, and Why Young People Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Will Save America

2019-04-15T13:36:00.000-05:00

Robert B. Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He served as Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration and was also an economic adviser to Barack Obama. Dr. Reich has written fifteen books, including the best sellers Aftershock, The Work of Nations, and Beyond Outrage, and, his most recent, The Common Good. He is also the co-creator of the award-winning documentary, Inequality For All as well as the Netflix original documentary Saving Capitalism.

Dr. Reich explains how extreme social inequality helped to create Donald Trump's presidency and if those fundamental problems are not addressed then Trump is but the first of many American gangster capitalist tyrants. Reich also reflects on the America that could have been if President Roosevelt's Economic Bill of Rights had been implemented, why the right-wing hates Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and how America's young people are going to save the country from the evils of the new Gilded Age.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega shares his thoughts on the new Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer, the very problematic politics of the new hit movie Best of Enemies, and why Kofi Kingston and Wrestlemania 35 made him happy. Chauncey also puts a human face on America's neoliberal Donald Trumpian gangster capitalist Social Darwinism nightmare by sharing a story about how poor rural white folks go off into the mountains to scavenge for roots when their disability checks run out each month.

And Chauncey warns, again, that Donald Trump's fascist regime is out of control and the assault on the rule of law is reaching what appears to be a never-ending crescendo.

Is Jordan Peele's New Film "Us" a Triumph? Or is it a Missed Opportunity and a Failure?

2019-04-06T03:00:00.002-05:00

This week's very special episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show explores the politics and meaning of Jordan Peele's new film "Us".

Kendall Phillips is a professor at Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. He is the author of Projected Fears: Horror Films and American Culture as well as Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter, and the Modern Horror Film.

Kendall explains how "Us" is part of a new golden age of American horror movies, the ways that horror movies reflect the social anxieties and fears of a given moment in time, the sophistication of Jordan Peele's understanding of the horror genre and its narrative conventions and aesthetic, and how "Us" is a deep critique of class, racial, and other types of privilege.

Dr. Adilifu Nama is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is the author of several books including Race on the QT: Blackness and the Films of Quentin Tarantino as well as Super Black: American Pop Culture and Black Superheroes.

Adilifu is much more critical of Jordan Peele's "Us". To that end, he suggests that "Us" fails to live up to Peele's previous film "Get Out" and does not tell the truth about race and class in America.

Adilifu is also concerned about how "Us" is, in his opinion, narratively incoherent.

Chauncey and Adilifu also try to make sense of the racial semiotics of "Us" and what Peele suggests about "grotesque blackness", violence and race--but ultimately fails to fully develop in the film.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega ponders the following question: what is the role of horror movies in a horrible and cruel world where Trump and his evil regime are abusing the vulnerable by doing such things as putting non-white immigrants and refugees in concentration camps, allowing children like Jakelin Caal Maquin to die because of a lack of proper medical care, and the Supreme Court approves inmates being executed by especially cruel and unusual means.

A Conversation with Tim Wise About White Privilege, Corrupt White Elites and the "Varsity Blues" College Admissions Scandal

2019-03-22T11:44:00.000-05:00

Tim Wise is the author of numerous books including his most recent Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America.

Time Wise explains how the "Varsity Blues" college and university admissions cheating and bribery scandal reflects a pathological culture among America's white elites, the many ways that unearned white advantages and white privilege along lines of race and class operate across all levels of America's educational system, and how "affirmative action" for white folks--especially the rich and upper classes--is the norm in American society.

Tim Wise also explains why the beneficiaries of the "Varsity Blues" criminal conspiracy should be expelled from their colleges and universities.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega ponders more examples of this broken malignant reality that is TrumpWorld. First, Donald Trump insults the deceased Senator John McCain and demands that the corpse-ghost thank him for providing a proper funeral. Second, Trump embraces and endorses the vile hateful violent views of his fellow authoritarian, President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, during their recent meeting at the White House.

And there is a fun "Easter egg" for ghetto nerd boys and girls on this week's podcast if they listen through to the very end of the show.

A Conversation with Historian Louis Hyman About How Black Americans Used the Sears Catalog to Fight Back Against Jim and Jane Crow Racism

2019-02-16T13:14:00.002-06:00

Professor Louis Hyman is a historian of work and business at the ILR School of Cornell University, where he also directs the Institute for Workplace Studies in New York City. He has published two books on the history of personal debt (Debtor Nation and Borrow) and a history of how American work became so insecure (Temp).

Several months ago Louis wrote a series of Twitter posts which were read by millions of people about the "hidden history" of how African-Americans used the Sears catalog as a way of fighting back against Jim and Jane Crow white racism and white supremacy.

Professor Hyman explains how the consumer's republic was and remains a key battleground for civil rights and the color line, the many ways that black Americans used the Sears catalog as a way of participating in day-to-day resistance against segregation and other types of discrimination across the United States, and how Sears and America's suburban mall culture were sites where whiteness was both reproduced and defended. Louis also debunks the very popular (and empowering) myth that Sears was co-founded by a black man.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega reflects on Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man" and a recent experience with everyday racism. And in keeping with the theme of this week's show Chauncey also shares a wonderful story about the nationwide network of Sears retirees who gather on a regular basis to socialize, reconnect, and who are keeping the wonderful legacy of that American cultural and retail institution alive.

This week's podcast with Louis Hyman can be listened to or downloaded here.

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A Conversation with Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. on the Color Line, Survival, the Black Freedom Struggle and the Age of Trump

2019-02-08T12:35:00.000-06:00

Eddie Glaude Jr. is the William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University. His publications include Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul and In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America. In 2006, he worked with Cornel West to develop a public online course called the “Covenant Curriculum: A Study of Black Democratic Action.”

Professor Glaude has also written for The New York Times, The Huffington Post, and Time, and he has appeared on the Tavis Smiley Show, Hannity & Colmes, MSNBC, CNN, and C-SPAN.

Professor Glaude explains the lessons of the Black Freedom Struggle for surviving in a time of disaster that is Donald Trump's presidency, how not to surrender to despair in this moment, developing a more sophisticated way to discuss race and social inequality, and how Black Pragmatism and black folks' "Blues Sensibility" are tools for living and maintaining our moral virtue.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega explains why Donald Trump's State of the Union address was (another) vile, violent, and dangerous threat to democracy and the American people.

Chauncey is also disgusted by how the American people continue to aid and abet Donald Trump and the Republican Party's evil treatment of brown and black children from Latin and South America who have been "disappeared" into concentration camps.

At the end of this week's show Chauncey shares a story about a Black History Month Pioneer who invented the video game cartridge.

This week's podcast with Eddie Glaude Jr. can be listened to or downloaded here.

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A Conversation with David Leonard about the Super Bowl, Colin Kaepernick, and the Politics of the Black Athlete

2019-02-03T13:39:00.001-06:00

David Leonard is Professor in the Department of Critical Culture, Gender and Race Studies at Washington State University, Pullman.

He is the author of numerous books and articles on race, politics, popular culture and sports including After Artest: The NBA and the Assault on Blackness.

David explains how sports are inherently political, why Colin Kaepernick is viewed as such a threat by the NFL and White America, Black Lives Matter and resistance by "taking a knee" at sporting events, the black athlete as a social and political figure, the insincere and problematic neoliberal politics of Nike's 30th anniversary "courage" ad campaign, as well as Tim Tebow, white privilege and hypocrisy.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega challenges the myth of billionaires and capitalism as uplifting the world's poor and being saviors for humanity and shares how Donald Trump is now the White House sex tour guide who lies (even always, again and often) about Barack Obama.

At the end of this week's show, Chauncey shares two happy stories. The first is about a working class man who just won Powerball. The second is a wonderful story about a 3-year-old boy who was lost in the woods and saved by a friendly bear.

This week's podcast with David Leonard can be listened to or downloaded here.

A Conversation with Tim Wise about White Privilege and the Trump Teen MAGA Mob from Covington High School

2019-01-24T16:04:00.001-06:00

Tim Wise is one of the United States' leading anti-racism activists, authors, and scholars. He is the author of numerous books including his most recent Under the Affluence: Shaming the Poor, Praising the Rich and Sacrificing the Future of America.

Wise explains how the Covington High School Trump mob's racist mocking and harassment of Native American elder Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C. is an example of white privilege in action, how white racial innocence is presumed to always be operative in America, the ways that white folks--especially white conservatives--are rarely held responsible for their racist behavior, and the many ways that teachers and parents and other adults have failed to properly educate the white Trump teen MAGA mob.

Tim Wise also shares what he would tell the Covington High School teenage Trumpsters if he was invited to give a talk or training at their school.

On this week's show, Chauncey DeVega shares some recent examples of horrible and abominable behavior including Donald Trump and Mike Pence trying to claim Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy as their own, how the Trump regime wants to kill the "useless eaters" by cutting food stamps--again, and how 26 billionaires have more money than 3.8 billion people on the whole planet.

And at the end of this week's show Chauncey DeVega shares a story about the intelligence of our animal friends the crows and geese.

This week's podcast with Tim Wise can be listened to or downloaded here.

My Conversation with Peter Bebergal About How Ghost Hunters, Psychics, and Mediums Use Technology to "Hack" the Paranormal and Supernatural

2018-12-31T16:19:00.000-06:00

Peter Bebergal writes widely on the speculative and slightly fringe. His essays and reviews have appeared in NewYorker.com, The Times Literary Supplement, Boing Boing, The Believer, and The Quietus. He is the author of Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll. His new book is Strange Frequencies: The Extraordinary Story of the Technological Quest for the Supernatural.

****To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.****

During this Art Bell Coast to Coast AM inspired New Year's Eve special episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show, Peter explains how mystics, psychics, and other practitioners of the occult and magic used the early versions of the internet as a space to practice their dark arts, how the national trauma of the American Civil War fueled the practice known as "spirit photography", and how séances were a space for female empowerment through the "spiritual fluid" known as "ectoplasm". Peter also researches if yes, you can actually hear the voices of the dead speaking through radio waves and other manifestations of "electronic voice phenomena".

On this week's New Year's Eve special episode Chauncey honors Alan Naiman, a hero who worked as a humble (and very frugal) social worker, and who at the time of his passing away gave 11 million dollars to charities which help babies and children.

Chauncey also reflects on our shared trials and struggles in the Age of Trump during these last few weeks of 2018. And as we wind down 2018 and transition to 2019, Chauncey offers some critical appraisals about the progress of the podcast, his own personal successes and failures during 2018, and (hopefully) shares some wisdom about goal setting and personal progress in the new year.

This week's podcast with Peter Bebergal can be listened to or downloaded here.

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My Conversation with Paul Breines About Being a Freedom Rider and What It Was Like to Risk His Life Fighting Against Jim Crow Terrorism

2018-12-24T02:56:00.000-06:00

Paul Breines was a student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Wisconsin and a member of the Student Council on Civil Rights when he was arrested for his participation in the Freedom Rides during the summer of 1961. As part of the Freedom Ride Breines, along with three other students, traveled from Nashville, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi via a Greyhound bus where all four participants were arrested in the Greyhound terminal in Jackson, Mississippi on 21 July 1961. Paul Breines is also Associate Professor Emeritus of History at Boston College.

****To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.****

Professor Breines shares what it was like to challenge Jim Crow terrorism--with his life--as a Freedom Rider during the Civil Rights Movement, how he as a white person made the decision while in college to confront white supremacy, and the rules of living a principled life that he learned from his mother.

Professor Breines also reflects on one of the most important questions of the modern age: What type of White Person do I want to be? And by implication, what type of Human Being should we all want to be?

This conversation is from one of the very first episodes of The Chauncey Devega Show and has been reedited and remastered as a holiday gift and way of saying "thank you" to all of the good and kind friends, listeners, fans and other supporters of the podcast.

On this week's Christmas holiday-themed podcast Chauncey warns the public about how Frosty the Snowman is really an evil undead wizard. Chauncey also hopes that Krampus--the goat man supernatural being who punishes naughty people during the December holiday season--will take Donald Trump and his wicked voters and other supporters to the underworld as punishment for their sins.

And Chauncey also reminds the friends, supporters, and other listeners of The Chauncey DeVega Show that racism and white supremacy are often absurd but that this makes such ideologies no less dangerous. A Christmas holiday example: in the Netherlands neo-Nazis and other right-wing fiends are physically attacking people who want "Zwarte Piet" aka "Black Peter", the racist blackface minstrel assistant to "Sinterklaas" aka Saint Nicholas, removed from that country's and region's holiday celebrations.

This week's podcast with Paul Breines can be listened to or downloaded here.

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A Conversation with David Blight About Frederick Douglass "The Prophet of Freedom" and How His Wisdom Can Help America Survive Donald Trump

2018-12-19T17:04:00.001-06:00

David Blight is the Class of 1954 Professor of American History at Yale University. He is also the Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition. Professor Blight is the author of many books including his newest Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

Professor Blight is also a contributing writer for such publications as The New York Times, Washington Post Book World, the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe.

****To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.****

Professor Blight explains how the wisdom and example of Frederick Douglass's life can help save American democracy in the Age of Trump, separating the myth and legend of Frederick Douglass from the real man, and how studying the Black Freedom Struggle and the color line can help us to better understand how the United States of today came to be.

On this week's podcast Chauncey reflects on the many interesting happenings in one recent day and what they tell us about our shared humanity and the horrible death--and the Trump regime's mocking and evil response to it--of a seven-year-old child from Guatemala who recently was stolen away from her family and this world while in the custody of the United States Border Patrol.

This week's podcast with David Blight can be listened to or downloaded here.

A Conversation with Seth Abramson About How Donald Trump May Be the Greatest Traitor in American History

2018-12-12T02:18:00.001-06:00

Seth Abramson is the author of the New York Times bestselling book Proof of Collusion: How Trump Betrayed America.

Abramson's work and commentary has also been featured by The Washington Post, The New York Times, New York Magazine, Newsweek, Vanity Fair, The Boston Globe, Politico, The Wall Street Journal, Roll Call, USA Today, NPR, Politico, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Chicago Tribune, The New Yorker, Newsweek and many other news outlets.

To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.

Abramson explains how special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting one of the most sophisticated and thorough investigations in American history into Trump's collusion with Russia and the ways that Donald Trump and his cabal have repeatedly shown that they are guilty.

Abramson also provides an insider's perspective on what it must be like to be Donald Trump's attorney as well as how Robert Mueller's team is responding to the mountains of evidence--and foolish, obvious, apparently criminal behavior--that is the Trump-Russia scandal.

Abramson makes a prediction: Robert Mueller's investigation will be successful and Donald Trump's only salvation will come from staying in the White House as long as possible to avoid being put in prison.

On this week's podcast Chauncey explains why the Trump-Russia scandal is about more than "just" collusion and treason but a fight for the soul of the country and any effort to defend the social safety net and those of us who are not members of the 1 percent from the global plutocrats and their culture of cruelty. To that end, Chauncey shares a story about the heroic women who stood up to Donald Trump by telling The New York Times about what it is like to be undocumented workers at his New Jersey golf club and where they also take care of his home there.

And of course, Chauncey shares a wonderful story about a great and brave doggie friend who guarded their human being's home and waited for them to return after the recent California inferno.

This week's podcast with Seth Abramson can be listened to or downloaded here.

How Season Three of the Hit Podcast "Serial" Explores Race, Inequality, Class and White Privilege in America's Criminal Justice System

2018-12-05T19:00:00.000-06:00

There are three guests on this week's special December fundraising month episode of the podcast.

Julie Snyder is the co-creator and producer of the hit podcast series Serial. Emmanuel Dzotsi is the co-host and reporter for Serial's most recent season which focused on crime and punishment in America as revealed through what happens at the Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas in Cleveland.

To support The Chauncey DeVega Show during this fundraising month you can make a donation via Paypal at chaunceydevega.com or at Patreon.

Julie and Emmanuel reflect on what they learned about justice and inequality in season 3 of Serial, the challenges of balancing truth-telling and narrative, and how race and class--especially white privilege--complicates the ways that different audiences respond to the "shocking" unfairness that Serial "exposed" about the country's criminal justice system.

Criminal justice reporter George Joseph is the third guest on this week's show.

George's work has appeared at The Appeal, ProPublica, The Guardian, Foreign Policy, and The Verge. His most recent story IBM Used NYPD Surveillance Footage To Develop Technology That Lets Police Search by Skin Color warns the public about how major cities such as New York are deploying facial recognition and other "artificial intelligence" programs which "learn" about the "races" of different groups in order to "teach" cameras and other surveillance technology to search and follow their human targets on command. This is Orwellian-level racial profiling enabled by "big data" and algorithms.

George also shares his reporting on police brutality and how plain clothes and other undercover cops are running amok in America and what this reveals about a larger police culture of racism and discrimination and violence.

On this week's podcast Chauncey explains how Michael Flynn's deal with Special Counsel Mueller is just one more sign that the Trump mafia crime family is encircled. The question now becomes how will Trump and his cabal lash out against the rule of law to stay in power by expanding their authoritarian regime.

And Chauncey reviews the story about how a black private school-academy in Louisiana was able to use black pathology porn and other stereotypes to hustle Ivy League and other almost all-white elite colleges and universities.

Of course, Chauncey "connects the dots" by calling out how the real issue is the ways that elite universities function as gatekeepers of privilege and social capital which will do anything to punish those individuals who dare to expose the real con job that is elite higher education and a corrupt ruling class in America.

This week's podcast with Julie Snyder, Emmanuel Dzotsi, and George Joseph can be listened to or downloaded here.

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Mind Control and Cult Expert Steven Hassan Warns That Donald Trump's Movement is a Dangerous Cult -- And Even If Trump is Removed From Office His Followers Will Remain a Threat to American Society

The Chauncey DeVega Show: A Conversation with Dr. Justin Frank About How Donald Trump's Mental Pathologies are Encouraging A Plague of Right-wing Violence and Hatred Across America

The Truth Report: My Conversation with Tim Wise About White Rage and Donald Trump's "Race War" in America

A Conversation with MSNBC's Joy-Ann Reid About How Donald Trump Represents Everything Wrong With America

"Two years ago I compared Trump to Hitler. People didn't believe me": Dr. John Gartner Explains How Donald Trump's Poor Mental Health is Grounds for Impeachment

Political Scientist Ashley Jardina Explains How "White Identity Politics" Are a Dire Threat to American Democracy

Human Rights Attorney Hope Frye Explains the Evils She Witnessed Inside of Trump's Concentration Camps

Eve Ensler on Righteous Anger, Forgiveness and Her New Book "The Apology"

A Global Emergency: Psychiatrist Dr. Bandy Lee Explains How the Mueller Report Shows that Donald Trump is Mentally Unfit to be President of the United States

A Conversation with Author Ben Fountain About How American Democracy is Broken and Donald Trump and His Supporters are Burning It All Down

A Conversation with Ira Steven Behr About the Legacy, Meaning and Politics of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and the New Documentary What We Left Behind

Jonathan Metzl on Being Targeted by Nazis Because of His Book "Dying of Whiteness" and Tim Wise Reflects on What It Means to be Jewish in the Age of Trump

A Conversation with Dr. Jonathan Metzl About How Donald Trump's Supporters are Dying of Whiteness

My Conversation With Robert B. Reich on How Donald Trump is a Gangster Capitalist Tyrant, the Wisdom of Bernie Sanders, and Why Young People Like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Will Save America

Is Jordan Peele's New Film "Us" a Triumph? Or is it a Missed Opportunity and a Failure?

A Conversation with Tim Wise About White Privilege, Corrupt White Elites and the "Varsity Blues" College Admissions Scandal

A Conversation with Historian Louis Hyman About How Black Americans Used the Sears Catalog to Fight Back Against Jim and Jane Crow Racism

A Conversation with Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. on the Color Line, Survival, the Black Freedom Struggle and the Age of Trump

A Conversation with David Leonard about the Super Bowl, Colin Kaepernick, and the Politics of the Black Athlete

A Conversation with Tim Wise about White Privilege and the Trump Teen MAGA Mob from Covington High School

My Conversation with Peter Bebergal About How Ghost Hunters, Psychics, and Mediums Use Technology to "Hack" the Paranormal and Supernatural

THE EXTRAORDINARY STORY OF THE TECHNOLOGICAL QUEST FOR THE SUPERNATURAL

My Conversation with Paul Breines About Being a Freedom Rider and What It Was Like to Risk His Life Fighting Against Jim Crow Terrorism

A Conversation with David Blight About Frederick Douglass "The Prophet of Freedom" and How His Wisdom Can Help America Survive Donald Trump

A Conversation with Seth Abramson About How Donald Trump May Be the Greatest Traitor in American History

How Season Three of the Hit Podcast "Serial" Explores Race, Inequality, Class and White Privilege in America's Criminal Justice System