Centered From Reality

In this episode, Alex focuses on how Trump’s trade war could help China course correct after its COVID-19 failures and internally focus on decoupling from the West. He also talks about how Trump is already botching his tariff message because he can’t commit to durable investment in US firms since he is focusing on short term negotiations with some of the trading partners. For the tariffs to “work” Trump must commit to a durable strategy and not just threaten countries to renegotiate while tanking the US economy. 

In this episode, Alex talks about the stock market taking a dive over Trump’s tariffs (the worst since March 2020) as anxiety deepens and China retaliates. He also talks about why the radical conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer is returning to the Oval Office to convince Trump to fire National Security Council officials that she has deemed “disloyal.” Finally, France is set to have a democratic dilemma as Marine Le Pen, the far-right politician and front-runner for the 2027 election, has been barred from running for five years over fraud and misusing EU funds. Alex ponders if it is healthy for the courts to bar someone from running for office in a democratic system. 

In this episode, Alex has a little hope as Susan Crawford beat Brad Schimel in the Wisconsin judiciary race. He thinks this was a referendum on Elon Musk, but he isn’t sure if this is a sign that Republicans will face a tough battle in the midterms. Alex also talks about the “administrative error” that led to the Trump Administration deporting a man under protected status in the United States. For the rest of the episode, Alex talks about how Liberation Day has finally arrived and Trump has help up his promise to do universal tariffs for most countries and higher tariffs for certain offenders. Alex wonders if Trump’s economic stupidities could help mobilize voters against him, he asks the simple question — could an economic disaster actually save our republic? 

In this episode, Alex, a Packers fan and avid Cheesehead, is mad that Elon Musk is highly involved in the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election between a Trump-endorsed candidate, and an Obama-endorsed candidate. This will be the most expensive state judge race of all time. Alex talks about how it seems apparent that you can go to jail for giving someone water in a voting line in Georgia, but Musk can do a $1 million sweepstakes to get people to vote in Wisconisn. 

In this episode, Alex is suffering from the Sunday Scaries so he decides to a service for his listeners and make that issue worse. He talks about Trump saying he is serious about running for a third term (though the logistics are complex and nearly impossible), he also talks about how Liberation Day (the day Trump has promised to fully enact all of the tariffs) is coming on April 2nd, and why the situation in Myanmar is worsening. As Myanmar’s authoritarian, military junta has called for aid after the earthquake, it has already started bombing areas that were heavily hit. Alex talks about how Myanmar now faces an earthquake on top of a violent civil war. 

After mainly going after unsympathetic characters in Turkey, President Erdoğan has crossed the rubicon and jailed his main political opponent ahead of the 2028 presidential election. Alex talks about why this is troubling, why Turkish Democracy is crumbing, and how MAGA is using this same playbook.

In this episode, Alex rants about a myriad of topics related to the economy, Klarna teaming up with Door Dash to finance food delivery, JD visiting Greenland, why the process is the threat, and why Kristi Noem sucks. 

In this episode, Alex talks about why he is starting to take Trump’s rhetoric involving Greenland more seriously. As JD and Usha Vance are set to visit Greenland, Alex worries that Greenland is Trump’s Crimea. He worries that Trump will use international security, minority opinion, and strategic necessity as pretexts to try and take the Danish territory. 

In this episode, Alex worries about the concept of a dual state in an ossified or illiberal democratic system that is trying to still sell the guise of normalcy. Then he talks about the Signal group chat scandal that has unfolded over the last 24 hours. It seems likely that top cabinet officials in the Trump Administration accidentally added a journalist to their group chat. This wasn’t any group chat, they talked about classified information and leaked military operational information to someone that was not permitted to see it. 

In this episode, Alex starts by mentioning that at the time of the recording, Trump had a (not-so-perfect) phone call with Putin. Putin rejected the ceasefire but said he was willing to put a hold on the destruction of Ukrainian infrastructure. There are a lot of caveats to this and Alex does not think it sounds like Putin wants peace. For the rest of the episode, Alex talks about why the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has ended, why it was destined to fail, and what is next for this region as civilians have started to die again. Alex also talks about the US escalating attacks on the Houthi Rebels in Yemen.