Donald Trump's 2024 win surprised many pundits, but not Benjamin Studebaker, who had assumed the worldwide incumbency crisis in 2024 would ultimately come for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

His newest book, "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies", builds on his previous work on the chronic crisis of liberal democracy. In ArtiFact 64, Benjamin Studebaker and author/filmmaker Alex Sheremet discuss their reasons for expecting a Trump victory, the question of political polarization, and where liberal democracy goes from here.

Read Alex Sheremet's essay on why Donald Trump was poised to win: https://www.automachination.com/joy-kamala-harris-lose-2024/

Buy Benjamin Studebaker's "Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies": https://www.amazon.com/Legitimacy-Liberal-Democracies-Benjamin-Studebaker/dp/1399534688/

Get the B Side to this conversation: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side Topics: Why Allan Lichtman's "Keys to the White House" failed; pollsters had no courage; modeling presidential elections on fundamentals; the psychology of modeling; how blame is shifted on to the electorate; assessing a very mixed economy; did white collar workers punish Kamala Harris for 2023-24 layoffs; the housing market as independent of inflation metrics; why voters assess incumbents on a purely relative basis; politics of memory; inflation-adjusted median family income has not returned to Trump-era benchmarks; are liberals dropping out of politics after Trump's win; why MSNBC and other outlets are losing subscribers; why the fear narratives failed; the story of 2024 is a racial shift towards the GOP; Benjamin Studebaker on what sort of disagreement nation-states tolerate; the nature of political polarization; how political leadership has ceased to lead; folk legitimation vs. official legitimation; expanding notions of inequality

Learn about and contribute to our film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3wLpqEV

Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/2SVJIxB

Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps

0:00 - Alex Sheremet's new film is out; introducing Benjamin Studebaker and his new book; why we expected Donald Trump to win

4:39 - Benjamin Studebaker on Democrats' headwinds; COVID & inflation; Democrats destroyed their chances years ago

8:13 - Alex: Democrats who sound/act like Kamala Harris NEVER get elected; there are no Liz Cheney/Alberto Gonzalez voters; polling was stable and consistent in favor of Trump

15:52 - sexism & the Kamala Harris campaign; many voters saw Kamala Harris as a weak woman, whereas few voters would dare think of Hillary Clinton as weak; why Kamala Harris was seen as a "DEI candidate"

20:45 - the global anti-incumbent bias in 2024; Mexico's AMLO and Claudia Steinbaum as exceptions to this backlash

25:20 - Trump's racism surrounding Haitian migrants vs. Kamala's racism in using, then ignoring migrants; Kamala's identitarian failures; Democrats are behaving like mob bosses, and voters don't want it

34:22 - Democrats assume voters accept their racial narratives about the GOP; why Democrats dehumanize non-party voters; previewing Allan Lichtman's Keys to the White House

36:36 - Benjamin Studebaker's thesis on the legitimation strategies of liberal democracies; the nature of escalating disagreements in embedded democracies; Trump and Obama as the aesthetic trappings of change; Studebaker's conception of a legitimation hydra in deep pluralism

48:25 - Kamala Harris taps the legitimation hydra with her contradictory promises; Trump has power as a non-incumbent, but loses as an incumbent; incumbency is increasingly a disadvantage for politicians

53:37 - defining deep pluralism; does it necessarily lead to polarization; deep pluralism creates issues for state capacities; embedded democracies imply no living memory of previous systems; the limits of an electorate's imagination

01:03:05 - legitimation in illiberal, authoritarian states

01:08:30 - amoral political theories leading to emergent morality; John J. Mearsheimer and state survival; survival is yet another key human value; how Israel partisans can come to exactly opposite conclusions with identical values; although everyone is watching Iran, Egypt and Jordan can just as easily collapse

01:18:20 - the role of art in politics, politics in art; art and infantilization; corporatist art; genuine art vs. fandom; fandom in politics; art as needling the status quo; Alex: art is a NECESSARY retreat; how great art is a service; Bruce Ario as a service-oriented artist

Tags: #election2024 #politics #trump

As soon as Joe Biden dropped out, Kamala Harris cinched the Democratic Party nomination. We assess Kamala Harris's uphill battle, and the extent to which Joe Biden condemned her to it. For example, why did Democrats hide Joe Biden's condition, even from themselves? What role will Biden's support for Israel's war crimes in Gaza play in 2024? We also assess Donald Trump's unique disadvantages, such as his horrible pick of the doughy and goofy JD Vance as Vice President.

Get the B Side to this conversation: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: the role of Polymarket & other prediction websites; Kamala Harris's VP picks; why Josh Shapiro is a bad choice; the role of the Trump assassination attempt; Trumpian 'genius' does not generalize in any way; erosion of democracy; Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables"; Russia vs. China in racial stereotyping; the oddly dispassionate reporting on China; ethnic cleansing in Gaza; don't assume Donald Trump's psychology is your psychology; how quietness and false peace breed violence; the Lancet editorial on Gaza deaths; 'genocide' as a political football; is there a Democrat you would currently vote for; energy prices and climate change; assessing the Kamala Harris poll numbers; why Joe Biden's polling numbers never improved; Kamala Harris's silence on Joe Biden's senility; the Mercer cash injection in 2016 was just as important as the Comey letter; politics are so silly; Trump's strange popularity on Tik Tok; Alex talks about wrapping up his upcoming film

Learn about and contribute to our film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

0:00 - the "Joe Biden Dementia" conspiracies turned out to be correct; how Democrats lied to themselves and others over Joe Biden's electoral risks; Joe Biden's slow and sudden decline; Joe Biden and Israel's genocide in Gaza

6:20 - the "secret competence" of Joe Biden vs. entrenched trajectories; why the 2020 debate was even more depressing; how Ezra Klein & Pod Save America created this whole mess; the prospects of a 2nd Trump presidency; Donald Trump's "dark vision" of America vs. Joe Biden's "no vision" for America; Project 2025

16:45 - lobbyists & the Judicial Branch are in control of America; the trajectory of privatization; Kamala Harris's extremely high staff turnover; Kamala Harris as "goofy girl-boss"; Donald Trump now sounds like a LOSER; is Kamala Harris sufficiently self-confident; 

24:35 - Donald Trump's hubris forced him to select JD Vance; Elon Musk backs out of his $50 million a month promise to Trump; how public cryptocurrency bribes reveal the true role of money in politics; there is no "crypto vote"

30:10 - the tech class is the new freak class; Curtis Yarvin / Mencius Moldbug is an idiot & poor writer; Silicon Valley, Elon Musk, & pro-natalism; why Trump was booed at the Libertarian convention; why IQ does not transfer into actual competence & ability; JD Vance can't even win the Rust Belt; the tension between short & long-term thinking destroyed Roe v. Wade

42:00 - everything is getting much more competitive; Vice President picks used to matter a lot less; why are elections getting crazier & crazier; social media makes background "noise" much more meaningful; America's transition from hegemon to regional power; healthcare costs under Joe Biden & the erosion of Medicaid

53:33 - dissecting assumptions behind "Kamala Harris, DEI candidate"; political correctness on the Right, political correctness on the Left; "DEI thinking" is inherent to ALL political thinking; steelmanning DEI as an insult; why Joe Biden treated Kamala Harris as a token; did Joe Biden try to sabotage Kamala Harris; the leaks from Harris over the last few years are revealing

Tags: #politics #kamalaharris #2024elections

Thaao Penghlis is a legendary actor who appeared on "Days Of Our Lives", "General Hospital", "Mission Impossible", and more. Yet he is also an intellectually curious person, and put together a mini-series on the archaeology of Homer's Greece.

Listen to Thaao Penghlis's "Lost Treasures" on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thaao-penghliss-the-lost-treasures/id1705933001

If you found this video useful, support us on Patreon and get patron-only content: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Learn about and contribute to our first film, "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

1:24 – introducing Thaao Penghlis’s “Lost Treasures” podcast; Thaao’s boyish desire to be an archaeologist; cultures which “don’t steal”; the spoken word & pre-literate cultures; human memory & the Trojan War; Heinrich Schliemann

8:28 – how time levels what is least important; the longevity of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey; why Thaao Penghlis was drawn to Homer & Homeric archaeology; Thaao: a country without a culture dies; when Thaao found ancient treasure in a tomb; Homer as the beating heart of Greek culture; the Greek respect for what’s ancient

15:48 – Alex: Homer was probably a writer, not illiterate; Thaao: Homer delivered a point of view; the nature of theater & theatrics; Ithaca as metaphor; the relevance of Homer’s blindness; Thaao’s on Barack Obama’s oratory; superficial distractions; why Thaao Penghlis stopped doing Days of Our Lives

23:38 – Alex: Greek mythology has been simplified for a pop audience; why Aphrodite is not the goddess of love; the Iliad does not give one much backstory; Helen was stolen by Paris as well as by her former husband, Menelaus; the amorality of ancient Greece; Hector’s wife, Andromache, describes ancient ethics; the child-like depiction of Achilles; the startling lack of heroes & heroics in Homer’s Iliad

32:27 – Homer’s indirect storytelling; Thaao: the Greeks did not go to war over a woman, but the development of steel; America’s War in Iraq vs. the Trojan War; intellect in Odysseus; why women as property might still explain war in an anarchic system

38:27 – Achilles and the death of his male lover, Patroclus; Athens vs. Mycenaean Greece; Heinrich Schliemann & the Mycenaean tombs

42:30 – Thaao Penghlis: when I touched Schliemann’s documents and palace, it finally felt real; Homer’s Greece and the Italian Renaissance

47:55 – was Heinrich Schliemann merely an impressive conman; Schliemann’s romantic entanglements; Schliemann as Pygmalion; Thaao: every rich businessperson (and politician) deals with fraud; Schliemann’s Orientalism in neglecting Turkish history in favor of “Greek” relics; Germans stole Greek relics, then Russians stole them back

56:00 – how Russia and Iran take war booty; why transitioning away from Putin won’t help Russia; Alex’s thoughts on Thaao’s podcast; taking the difficult path in the arts and art education; Hollywood’s bastardization of Greek mythos; Thaao on superficiality in the showbiz world; “Lawrence of Arabia” is “too slow” for the young; how Woody Allen taught Alex about avoiding relationship mistakes

Tags: #tv #literature #greece #poetry #ancient #epic

Author and filmmaker Alex Sheremet sits down with Erik Hill of Erik Hill Reviews  @erikhillreviews  to discuss all things art: the relationship between filmmaking and poetry, how the Harlem Renaissance and rap music changed Alex's life, the perils of Steven Pinker, and fresh insights into Alex Sheremet's and Joel Parrish's new film, "From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet".

This discussion can also be watched on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1QPNsQlZRk

This interview first appeared on Erik Hill's channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBE0DeormUQ

Donate to "From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

1:35 -- Alex Sheremet's background; from the USSR to Brooklyn, NY; Eldridge Cleaver's Soul on Ice; the Harlem Renaissance & artistic hierarchies; how Alex's book of film criticism, "Woody Allen: Reel to Real", helped shape his own filmmaking

5:53 -- what makes a poem great; Countee Cullen's "Heritage"; Alex's atheism doesn't interfere with appreciating theological poetry; art should omit ideology in questions of craft; the artist's manipulation tactics

10:46 -- art's trajectory over time; one needs to do sufficient reading to recognize quality or flaws; why Alex abandoned Vladimir Nabokov

14:45 -- the role of politics in Alex Sheremet's artistic life; how rap music shaped Alex's artistic views; hip-hop & the stakes of masculinity; the destruction of attention span; being a 20th century man in the 21st century; many elements of human culture can disappear, but books totally shape human civilization

21:45 -- discussing Steven Pinker's "Better Angels of our Nature" & "Enlightenment Now"; human violence over time; bad neighborhoods vs. hunter-gatherer societies; those who believe in progress are incentivized to ignore stagnation

26:30 -- our film on Bruce Ario; Erik Hill reviews the film's first 8 minutes; Erik's experience with classical music set against visuals; how Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish use visuals to "explain" Bruce Ario's poetry; why most poetry documentaries fail; using footage in arresting ways; choosing a film title

35:05 -- Bruce Ario's novel, "Cityboy"; Alex: it is a great, short novel but a difficult read; why Bruce Ario allowed his book to get destroyed; "Cityboy" captures mental illness very well; an example of great, unconventional writing in "Cityboy"

40:45 -- defining Bruce Ario's disabilities and mental ills; memoir vs. veiled autobiography vs. a "mere" novel; the "morality" of Bruce Ario's novel; art requires order, discipline, and consistency from the artist; Bruce Ario's interactions with homeless people; Robert Grudin: Time and the Art of Living 

47:56 -- Bruce Ario's "innocence"; all cityboys must learn that all cities are the same

51:00 -- poetry recommendations for beginners; poetry is like learning a new language; how Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky changed Alex's life; Alex learned to read books by summarizing every paragraph on index cards

Tags: #filmmaking #politics #books #poetry #cinema

Filmmaking can be highly technical, or not. As first-time director Alex Sheremet argues, finding the right topic and having an artistic blueprint in mind are far more important to master, as no amount of technical training will overcome bad ideas and artistic choices.

Alex Sheremet and Joel Parrish sit down with Destin Davis of the Benton Courier to discuss their upcoming film, “From There to There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet”.

You can also watch this conversation on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/o-eerpxlDlw

Watch the film’s first 8 minutes on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Donate to "From There To There: Bruce Ario, the Minneapolis Poet": https://www.gofundme.com/f/new-film-the-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario

Destin Davis’s article: “Upcoming documentary chronicles the life and legacy of Minneapolis poet Bruce Ario” – https://www.bentoncourier.com/news/upcoming-documentary-chronicles-the-life-and-legacy-of-minneapolis-poet-bruce-ario/article_d4da549e-fe6e-11ee-8200-37b686dd31bf.html

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex Sheremet’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

1:18 – Joel Parrish discusses his art; transitioning into film work

3:01 – why Alex Sheremet wants to get back to writing; creating a film vs. executing on the page; writing must always stand on its own

4:32 – Destin Davis on newspaper writing; for film, the editing experience is quite different from shooting

5:50 – Alex on their DaVinci Resolve workflow; splitting up tasks; color grading vs. audio; Destin: the only way to shoot a film is to go out and do it; Joel: how photography is different from videography; Alex caught the photography bug

9:58 – Destin reviews the film’s first 8 minutes; Joel’s and Alex’s film equipment; Alex: you can make a great film under $10,000; pick a film-friend and split shooting duties

16:15 – how to take advantage of cheap equipment; technical deficiencies should be turned into strengths; the importance of having an overarching artistic blueprint; how the opening credits were designed; using composite and biographical material

19:05 – how Alex & Joel knew Bruce Ario; Bruce’s art and person; why we decided to do a film on Bruce Ario; even a non-reader of poetry can quickly ‘get’ Bruce’s poems

25:35 – how Alex used Bruce Ario’s poetry as the film’s framing device

28:00 – Minneapolis as the film’s center; Alex on how his book, “Woody Allen: Reel to Real”, prepared him to make a movie; Alex and Joel’s cinematic influences; Terrence Malick’s cinematography

35:20 –Terrence Malick’s “Badlands”; lo-fi aesthetics in film; preparing for a 30 minute rough cut; Destin Davis on the sameness of film festivals; people don’t talk about or read poetry anymore; poetry has the phantom of “uselessness”; Alex on an audience’s artistic discrimination; Joel: there is no Bruce Ario juvenilia, only the fully formed adult Bruce; how the brevity of Bruce’s poems helps the film

44:30 – understanding film vs. prose, poetry vs. prosaic scene-making; how to keep a film from being too prosaic

51:00 – timelines & practical considerations; film festivals; how filmmaking changes one’s film viewing habits; the faux documentaries of Werner Herzog; the lo-fi qualities of “Harlan County, USA”; influences from “Mr. Untouchable” and “Finding Vivian Maier”; Joel on “Searching for Sugarman”; the difficulty of reviewing John Cassavetes’s “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie”; Ingmar Bergman’s “Scenes from a Marriage”; how Woody Allen’s films changed Alex’s life; distinguishing a character’s likability vs. goodness; drawing the wrong lessons from the right film

Tags: #filmmaking #cinematography #artist

Thomas Sowell has a reputation for unorthodox positions and intellectual chops, but does he deserve it? His comments on slavery, equality, freedom, and philosophical concepts are rather thin, while his claims about the public commons are hypocritical. In this video, authors and cultural critics Alex Sheremet and Dan Schneider go through some of Thomas Sowell's core beliefs, breaking down his logical fallacies, double standards, inconsistencies, and more.

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: Quora as a hotbed for bigotry; Quora sciolism; who were the original inhabitants of Palestine; international vs. American coverage of Israel; the disappearance of Palestinian women; bad reporting on Hamas rape allegations; if an Alabama town was cordoned off like Gaza, there would be rebellion; distinguishing Jews, Israelis, and the government of Israel; anti-Semitism is the wrong term; the IDF has likely abused more Jewish women than Hamas; the Ottoman Empire had no right to sell Palestinian land; World War 3 vs. a regional conflagration; after Ukraine + Gaza, will China invade Taiwan; Alex is getting nervous about North Korea; John Fetterman wraps himself in an Israeli flag, members of Congress wear IDF uniforms on the floor; China, Vietnam, Ukraine; Dan: China has much smarter leaders than Russia & the USSR; China & the microchip wars; why America wants civil wars; why Heartland Theory seems to have won out; Zbigniew Brezinski’s conundrum; the Monroe Doctrine should be dissolved; Russia as the sick man of Europe; political legitimacy in America & abroad; the US needs drastic change; global warming proves democracy cannot respond to crisis; an even worse pandemic is coming; JN.1 variant & long COVID; the travails of blue collar labor; Alex: all pain can be solved with (unknown) physical movements; age & memory

Dan Schneider’s YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@cosmoetica

Dan Schneider’s Cosmoetica: http://cosmoetica.com/

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Background photo by Andrea Piacquadio via Pexels.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Thomas Sowell in the grand scheme of things

1:46 – Thomas Sowell talks freedom, egalitarianism; notions of equality; growing up in poverty; the word “processes” as a scare-tactic; re-defining freedom; the “states’ rights” argument around the Civil War; does Thomas Sowell have any original ideas?

7:35 – “people have an ascribed status”; Thomas Sowell on affirmative action; Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, WEB Du Bois were all socialists; crafting polling questions; equality of outcome vs. equality of opportunity; special privileges granted by government; slavery in a zero-sum game; how the rich exploit the public commons; Bill Gates depended on government services; welfare hypocrisy; libertarian arguments exempt themselves from pre-existing privileges

18:48 – a cartoon of Thomas Sowell saying cartoonish things; Thomas Sowell mislabels “cosmic justice”; Thomas Sowell’s Freudian slip; Thomas Sowell makes the worst possible boxing analogy

31:55 – Thomas Sowell vs. John Rawls; Thomas Sowell describes his great public school education; did a white teacher save Thomas Sowell’s life; Thomas Sowell’s hypocrisy; the role of teachers vs. other public servants; Thomas Sowell is not meeting his purported intellectual standards; Thomas Sowell likely benefited from de facto Affirmative Action

46:50 – is Thomas Sowell now “the mascot”?; why white people LOVE Thomas Sowell; do men lie for their ideals; Thomas Sowell’s mistakes on Vladimir Lenin; why does Thomas Sowell think he himself is not an “idealist”?

Tags: #politics #blackhistorymonth #sowell

Jared Taylor was born in Japan, traveled the world and became fluent in several languages, yet has wasted his life on white separatism. In this way, he extracted all the benefits of diversity—personal, professional, developmental—then decided to shut the door behind him. A longtime white supremacist, Jared Taylor nonetheless looks down on the vast majority of whites, telling Phil Donahue that he wants to be at “white cocktail parties” in “wealthy neighborhoods” full of “good-looking people”. After Donald Trump emerged, Jared Taylor was forced to reinvent himself as a Trump-style populist interested in the plight of the white working class.

In this video, Dan Schneider and Alex Sheremet dissect Jared Taylor’s appearance on Phil Donahue, his lies and omissions on immigration law, his ignorance of history and the plight of former Soviet nations, his new, politically-correct brand of white supremacism, Jared Taylor’s Freudian slip-ups, and much more.

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

Dan Schneider’s YT channel: https://www.youtube.com/@cosmoetica

Dan Schneider’s Cosmoetica: http://cosmoetica.com/

Jared Taylor on Danielle Romero’s on NYTN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QWz5uwyFQc

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

0:00 – Jared Taylor as a politically correct white male; the NYTN (New York to Nashville) channel; Danielle Romero & ethnic ambiguity; how YouTube censors racial language

5:46 – Jared Taylor on Phil Donahue; Jared Taylor puts a slick corporate face on his personal biases; Jared Taylor’s racial Catholicism; why Jared Taylor is not an anti-Semite

11:05 – are immigrants taking over America; is Texas a Spanish state; the Mexico-Texas conundrum; the US creates refugees; Jared Taylor doesn’t know what he doesn’t know; Jared Taylor sneaks his way around 9/11 & questions of terrorism

19:24 – immigration & GDP; Jared Taylor lies about the 1965 Immigration Act; prior immigration systematically excluded ‘undesirable’ Europeans such as Russians; Jared Taylor calls Arabs “shifty eyed”; Jared Taylor flip-flops on overpopulation; “if diversity was so great, the Indians should be happy”

33:24 – Jared Taylors fails to say WHY “New York looks like Afghanistan”; Robert Moses demolished black neighborhoods; Alex goes OFF on “white comradery”, “white consciousness”, & “white culture”; Alex: only other Russians have put me in dangerous situations; Jared Taylor has little curiosity about the world

43:30 – Jared Taylor has WASTED his life & squandered every opportunity; Jared Taylor reveals his condescension & hatred of white people; Russians, Uzbeks, and Koreans vs. ethnicity; Native American solidarity

01:09:26 – Jared Taylor & anti-Semitism; shtetls, ghettos, & European identity; South Africans & Zimbabwe whites as “persecuted minorities”; Jared Taylor is inconsistent on the role of homosexuals in his white ethnostate

01:23:49 – Jared Taylor’s appearance on Danielle Romero’s “New York to Nashville” show; Jared Taylor’s modern strategies for a new racial world; critiquing “it’s OK to be white”; Dan Schneider’s experience being pulled into a KKK rally; Taylor is reserved with a younger woman he wants to “educate”; many Soviets would consider Koreans “white”; if we assume Jared Taylor is a straight white male, should we expect him to find black women attractive; race & sexual attraction; Italian ambiguities

01:35:25 – there are no white lobby groups because whites are the lobby; Italian ambiguities; race & the Mediterranean; shifty-eyed Jared?;  black culture is hegemonic; Jared Taylor is a Freudian basket case; Jared Taylor’s Golden Age thinking; people naturally wish to intermix; South Asians & Indians in Texas

01:52:00 – the China comparison; Jared Taylor is already a minority; Jared Taylor says black Americans have not assimilated; James Baldwin vs. Jared Taylor; Irish slurs; proto-Arabs precede Jews in the Levant

02:05:11 – the KKK; race & unions; Jared Taylor’s Rachel Dolezal rubric for “whiteness”; race & the bog mummies; Jared Taylor’s political correctness

02:21:20 – Jared Taylor takes credit for Shakespeare’s plays & Mozart’s symphonies; Jared Taylor doesn’t understand art; are Russians adopting European culture

02:31:15 – race & sexuality; biology & the science of beauty; Dorothy Dandridge; Diahann Carroll; Dona Drake; Bernadette Stanis; Halle Barry; Ida Ljungquvist; Nicole Meyer; Kylie Johnson; Dan opines on the Sports Illustrated Lovely Lady of the Day; Dan on how men think

Tags: #politics #roast #debate

Myths of Rome and the Orient, as well as questions of race and sexuality all play major roles in William Shakespeare’s underrated play, Antony and Cleopatra. It follows the final years of Roman triumvir Mark Antony and Egypt’s queen Cleopatra VII, as they engage in affairs, neglect their imperial duties, and wage war against Octavius Caesar (Augustus). In ArtiFact 57, authors Laura Woods, Alex Sheremet, and Keith Jackewicz discuss Antony & Cleopatra through the lens of Roman history, key aspects of Shakespeare’s writing, and ways of assessing the play as modern readers.

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: Cleopatra’s ambivalence over love; Cleopatra through time; sex, politics, psychology; Keith: love and power’s maintenance can be similar; power as mutual agreement on common myths; Enobarbus is underrated; Antony & Cleopatra as Shakespeare’s most cynical play; Roman propaganda during the time of civil war; the facile comparisons between America and Rome; comparing American and Israeli politics; how liberal/conservative politics get coded, weaponized; Laura: social media has Americanized political discourse in Ireland; Apple vs. Android vs. Microsoft products; Alex: the best, most stable phone I’ve ever owned was an off-brand Chinese product; America, Russia, China; assessing Chinese cultural exports; the lack of penetration of “closed” cultures; why there has been no English-language documentary on Vladimir Vysotsky; Laura on the Irish language, Alex on the Latin Vulgate Bible; Laura on nursing politics in Ireland; Keith: I have little respect for psychiatry as a discipline; mental health is too de-contextualized from everyday reality; the South African genocide against in the ICJ; Ireland’s Palestinian experience, Palestine’s Irish experience; Iran’s Bobby Sands virtue-signal; Michael Hoffman is useless for Palestinian activism; anti-Talmud theories are similar to Islamophobia; Israel & genetic ancestry

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Cleopatra thumbnail photo by Siednji Leon on Unsplash.

Timestamps:

1:00 – introducing Antony & Cleopatra; Irish poet Laura Woods on Antony and Cleopatra in the Shakespeare pantheon; how Shakespeare manages length; sexual innuendo in Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra; Keith Jackewicz: Antony and Cleopatra has no obvious villain; do readers have empathy with a “soft” & emotional Antony; Cleopatra, race/ethnicity, and Orientalism

15:48 – how 17th century conceptions of race crystallize in Shakespeare; there are no great (extended) soliloquies in Antony & Cleopatra; tensions between prosaic and poetic elements in Shakespeare; austere Rome vs. Egyptian fantasy; moments of humor; why elites ignored the Eastern Roman Empire

25:30 – Alex on the ancient tension between Roman citizens & Greek migrants; Homeric vs. Hellenistic Greece; Roman history never seems to hit a true Golden Age; Roman propaganda as “public morality”; offstage action; greatness of Antony, Octavius, and others is based on mass perception

34:55 – Shakespeare’s decision to bring the action offstage; the male craving to study ancient Rome; Cleopatra’s death as a grand affair with posthumous needs

41:53 – Antony’s dead wife, Fulvia; Fulvia vs. Cleopatra in the historical record; why does Antony want Fulvia dead; feminist, post-colonial, etc. readings tend to be anachronistic; Fulvia as paragon; feminine manipulation vs. making excuses for one’s poor choices; the psychopaths writing young adult literature

1:01:08 – Fulvia’s death as a bargaining chip; Antony & Cleopatra as narcissists; Jordan B. Peterson is a fraud for never discussing the play’s “feminine chaos”; viewer reactions to Robert Altman’s MASH in the 1970s vs. today

1:11:55 – Cleopatra uses sex for political survival; male arguments about “feminine wiles” are very effeminate; Alex relates the story of his own conniving Cleopatra; ambiguity of love within the play; unconscious behavior; how Shakespeare leverages unclear action; how Cleopatra wrestles control of the narrative; the snake’s symbolism

1:30:45 – Alex: it was refreshing to watch leaders worrying about future perceptions; past glory; how Antony & Cleopatra plays with chance/destiny; does political power at the highest levels entail determinism; Augustus Caesar as Shakespeare’s agent of fortune; the role of ego; 1 of Cleopatra’s greatest & most modern lines; why Act 3 ends perfectly

1:40:35 – Patron show preview

Tags: #cleopatra #ancienthistory #books #shakespeare #booktube

Bitcoin and cryptocurrency are a hotbed for right-wing ideologues, but Joshua Davila argues this technology is not going away and ought to be used for left-wing activism. Bitcoin, for example, is not inherently capitalistic, while projects on Ethereum and other protocols have been more exploratory and experimental. In ArtiFact 56, Alex and Josh discuss the concept of blockchain, why it’s valuable, on-chain models for political organization, NFTs as supportive of, and destructive to, genuine art, and expose crypto-idiots and other unsavory personalities.

Buy Joshua Davila’s “Blockchain Radicals: How Capitalism Ruined Crypto and How to Fix It” – https://www.amazon.com/Blockchain-Radicals-Building-Beyond-Capitalism/dp/1914420853

Joshua’s Twitter page: https://twitter.com/TBSocialist

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: left vs. right-wing conceptions of personal responsibility; every crypto Twitter ad is a scam; account abstraction for added security; froth vs. fundamental value; how crypto adds a premium; investment vs. utility; Alex: most of my crypto acquaintances are sociopaths; why Alex hesitates to release his art as NFTs; bitcoin ordinals encourage spam art; the art world has been scamming for centuries; NFTs place anti-art expectations upon artists; Solana’s Degen Poet is like a 10 year old; art as money laundering; hypocrisy in the art world; Josh: most art does not have value; why Alex is annoyed by DCInvestor.eth; how NFTs work and why they will NOT go away; NFTs add inalienable rights on top of authentication; why Josh rejects digital scarcity; crypto idiots: Balaji Srinivasan makes a $1 million bitcoin bet; debunking the Network State; Roger Ver gets imprisoned over pipe bombs; bitcoin and energy consumption; crypto “walking” apps and greenwashing; Bill Ackman won’t be getting laid for months

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

0:42 – introducing Josh Davila’s "Blockchain Radicals"; understanding crypto, blockchain, and bitcoin is critical for left-wingers; the bitcoin ETF; cryptocurrency at an inflection point; right-wing vs. left-wing conceptions of monetary debasement

11:25 – is bitcoin dead for left-wing projects; how WikiLeaks and SciHub leveraged bitcoin against financial sanctions; the inflation hedge argument; why bitcoin is not “money”

21:24 – beyond financialization in blockchain; markets vs. commoditization; human nature and incentive structures; the value proposition of blockchain; the implications of crypto-mediated ownership; why the Tezos hicetnunc NFT marketplace imploded; how crypto adoption is a regressive tax; Stalin and cryptocurrency; open source crypto projects; how NFTS are misunderstood

38:42 – how crypto cultivates certain audiences; post-capitalist blockchains; the Uniswap airdrop vs. government stimulus; private, public power; why Joshua used the DAI stablecoin over USDC for Breadchain

46:30 – privacy and digital identities in crypto; why Joshua took time to dox himself; how anonymity can build trust; cryptocurrency businesses invade privacy even more than generic corporations; crypto dystopias; the tendency towards centralization; how the creator of ProtonMail made Alex change his mind on Monero & other private cryptocurrencies

58:57 – crypto as a double-edged sword; there is no “obvious” answer on anti-state privacy; how states leverage financial sanctions; code is law vs. social consensus; the 2016 Ethereum DAO hack and Ethereum classic; if bitcoin were banned, bitcoin would be legitimated; bitcoin ordinals vs. bitcoin maximalists

01:07:09 – Ethereum philosophy = Ethereum innovation; users of Ethereum Classic get the Darwin Award; is Vitalik Buterin a socialist; Heavy Bags: why right-wing goldbugs hate bitcoin; patron show preview

Tags: #bitcoin #crypto #politics

Norman Maclean's "A River Runs Through It" is a great American novel, which is particularly shocking since it was Maclean’s first book and written in his 70s. In essence a memoir, “A River Runs Through It” follows the relationship between two brothers in 1930s Montana. Alex Sheremet and Keith Jackewicz dissect the book’s strengths, its powerful imagery and controlling metaphor(s), and unique structural decisions.

To get the B Side to this conversation, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/automachination

B Side topics: videos depicting A River Runs Through It encourage trite imagery; spinning cliched images into something fresh; Norman Maclean uses the cosmic scale; Biblical imagery in Herman Melville; the use of elision; escalations in the Gaza conflict; a conclusion without conclusions; martyrdom in Scottish-American culture; God and country, or Country and God in nationalist-religious movements; art and ego; motivated reasoning; literary neglect; Alex’s New Year Resolutions; can Alex limit himself to reading the news once a week; academia’s abuse of “liminal spaces”; steady multinational escalations in the Gaza genocide; is Israel trying to pull America into a wider war; Joe Biden’s 2024 trap; is China / Taiwan a Boomer fixation; the smearing of John Mearsheimer, Ivan Katchanovski; a strange economy; Harvard & the disciplining of Claudine Gay; the golden mean in the 1990s

Subscribe to the ArtiFact podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3xw2M4D

Read more from the automachination universe: https://automachination.com

Read Alex’s (archived) essays: https://alexsheremet.com

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/automachination

Timestamps:

0:36 – introducing Norman Maclean’s “A River Runs Through It”; why Keith is skeptical of Robert Redford’s film; memoir vs. The Great American Novel; Norman Maclean leaves out his narrator’s name; it’s important that Maclean wrote his first great novel in his 70s; how Maclean’s character/experiences shaped this book; lack of experience in today’s writers

13:01 – Norman Maclean’s individualistic lines; assessing the opening paragraph; how the novella uses text for physical distance; the lack of melodrama in A River Runs Through It; Neal’s function as character; bait-fishing vs. fly-fishing; Neal pretends he has sunburn, then actually gets sunburned; Keith’s “hell itch” and Alex’s sunburn in Puerto Rico

27:34 – the use of foreshadowing; Paul gets into a fight & jailed; themes of Scottish emotional repression; seeking, rejecting, offering help; Paul as artist and storyteller; some beautiful lines

41:41 – understanding the police sergeant/jail scene; how Maclean mirrors dream states; 1930s Montana; Alex and Keith stumped by Prohibition; love of language vs. MFA repetitiousness; Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom” sucks; Norman Maclean as academic; A River Runs Through It is respectful of your time

58:04 – what might a modern iteration of this novel look like; A River Runs Through It vs. Moby-Dick; the bias for length vs. depth and substance; Keith: Moby Dick’s whaling scenes are hilarious

Tags: #booktube #books #review