Nihilism is a philosophy that looks to reject aspects of human existence such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. In this episode, Alex argues that nihilism is a major factor that is driving extreme and divisive politics in the United States and around the world. He gives a case for why nihilism (or apathy) towards democracy and our institutions has led to angry populism and violent rhetoric. 

In this discussion, he feels that nihilism has become a preexisting condition as to why many Americans believe democracy is no longer working. He uses a range of examples as to why society has become so nihilistic, these include 

• An Atlantic article from 2016 that reads “there is no meaning (in politics) other than political theater behind it. The consequences of this political nihilism will be catastrophic and will reverberate down through the decades of the 21st century. If you doubt this, think of climate change and the global economy…” 

• Leaks like the Pandora papers, which “reveal hidden wealth, tax avoidance and, in some cases, money laundering by some of the world's rich and powerful.” The papers also show that South Dakota is a new tax haven where “hundreds of billions of dollars sequestered in South Dakota trusts generate no taxes and are effectively off-limits to anybody who might have a legitimate claim on them.” 

• The Commissioner of the IRS wants banks to report annual cash flows for ordinary account holders who have over $600 dollars in their accounts. The justification is to find people that are dodging taxes, but some skeptics think taxing everyone a small amount could bring in more revenue than expending resources and time to get the wealthy to pay more in taxes. 

• The “race to the bottom” in welfare program quality between states in the US. Because different states have different welfare programs with different costs and different levels of quality, other states don’t want to be over-generous if other states are stingy, so they all are just stingy. This leads to a lowering of welfare coverage for those that may need it the most.

• Nihilism has culminated in the rise of political grifters who don’t care about ethics or the truth. Trump may be the ultimate grifter who has come out of American distrust in the system. The problem with what Trump did was that he mixed his own nihilism about democracy at a time when the American people’s nihilism towards the system was growing as well. This was a perfect cocktail of systematic disdain that lead to Trump’s unique form of populism. 

In this episode, Alex sits down with Cole Costello to discuss socialism, the future of capitalism, and what people get wrong about Karl Marx. Cole is a friend and currently in the graduate program for history at Cal State Los Angeles, focusing on early twentieth-century American urban/race/labor history. Cole falls somewhere on the left, with some Marxist tendencies and a sense of loss and confusion in modern politics. In this episode, some topics they discuss/debate are - 

• Does the US system still work? 

• What Marxism actually means and would it work in a country like the US? 

• Is the US heading towards a Civil War or conflict? 

• What does history tell us about socialism? And why did the Soviet Union fail? 

• Is Capitalism the best system? 

• Should there be billionaires? 

In this second episode of the podcast, Alex covers a plethora of issues. He discusses - 

• In the eleventh hour, the government finally did their job and passed a plan to keep the government funded until December. Unfortunately, Congress still has work to do. Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, has said that the US will reach its debt ceiling by October. Can congress agree on something to work? Also, Biden’s $3.5 trillion spending bill is not only being held up by Republicans, but also my moderates like Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. How did Sinema, a rockstar of the left, become a bulwark against passing legislation? 

• Germany held their federal elections, with the highest position possible being the German Chancellor. This was a role that Angela Merkel held since 2005. She announced earlier this year that she wouldn’t seek another term. Instead what happened was the centre-left Social Democrats narrowly took first place in Germany’s federal election. The SDP only narrowly won with %25.7 of the vote, with the CDU only a percentage point behind. How will the SDP form a coalition that barely represented a majority of the electorate? 

• “Why Are People Nostalgic for Early-Pandemic Life?” By Morgan Ome and Christian Paz is a fascinating article from The Atlantic. It goes over a growing trend amongst young Americans who feel nostalgia for the early days of the pandemic. Alex shares his own “pandemic nostalgia” and tries to understand why this could be happening. Did COVID pull off the veil of ignorance and now people are seeing unwanted realities of the world? Maybe even nostalgia is a coping mechanism.