Conspirituality

Jeffery Tucker is the founder of the MAGA thinktank Brownstone Institute. In 2020, Brownstone published The Great Barrington Declaration, with lead author Jay Bhattacharya—now the nominee for head of the NIH. 

Jeffrey’s daughter, Julia, joins Matthew to discuss her dad’s rise through the punditocracy, through decades of fringe libertarian publishing, working for Ron Paul, boosting anarcho-capitalism and crypto, writing for the Epoch Times, and asking such daring questions as: “What’s so wrong about child labour?”

Show Notes

Patreon: Post-Catholic Music (w/Julia Tucker)

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The murder of United HealthCare CEO Brian Thompson has set off shockwaves across America. This week we look at the story’s online impact, people mythologizing the alleged killer, its intersection with conspirituality, and the healthcare system in America writ large.

Show Notes

Jen Gunter on insurance denial for her premature babies' oxygen needs 

Exclusive: Luigi's Manifesto - Ken Klippenstein 

Savings: Quarter of Americans Have Few, One in 10 Have None | Statista 

The Burden of Medical Debt in the United States

View of U.S. Healthcare Quality Declines to 24-Year Low

MDVIP/Ipsos poll shows Americans are struggling with the healthcare system

UnitedHealthcare CEO gunned down in Manhattan sold company stocks just before DOJ probe made public | The Independent 

Conservatives Face Backlash From Followers Over UnitedHealthcare Murder - Newsweek 

Before fatal subway chokehold, Jordan Neely was on NYC’s list of homeless individuals with dire needs | CNN 

Kaiser Study on Health Insurance Satisfaction

NIH Debunks Myth that 60% of Bankruptcies are Medical in Nature

Luigi Mangione’s Anger Wasn’t Neatly Ideological 

Gallup Poll on Health Care Satisfaction

Ipsos Poll on Health Care Satisfaction

Mental Illness is 13.5 times More Likely In Lone Wolf Shooters 

Narcissism, Fame Seeking and Mass Shootings

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The fifth installment of Matthew's Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person. 

Dr. Annie Kelly joined us in Episode 61 to lay out her research on the manosphere-to-conspirituality pipeline. Today she joins me to discuss the trouble and joy of balancing extremism research with stories of hope and solidarity.

Show Notes

Annie Kelly  

Vaccine: The Human Story - YouTube

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Extremely online, bearded, Millennial pastors in tailored suits want to repeal women’s suffrage, criminalize gays, and Make America Christian Again. These “TheoBros” even have a guy on the inside: JD Vance. Trump’s Dept of Defense nominee, Pete Hegseth, attends an affiliated church. 

Julian tracks their genealogy and ugly ideas, as well as their parallel reactionary theocratic visions wreaking havoc elsewhere in the world today. Stay tuned for conversational reflections and wholesome holiday wishes at the end!

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Journalist Talia Lavin joins Derek to discuss her recent book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. 

Show Notes

Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America

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As we ride out the aftershocks of the election and prepare for Trump 2.0, it’s as if nothing is bolted down. Trump’s cabinet appointments signal a disregard for competence or temperament as he seems to prioritize fervent deep state conspiracism and anti-woke aggression in his choices. The chattering classes (both legacy and new media) are on the front lines of having to adapt in real time. 

What to do? Double down on anti-fascist resistance, turn the disinformation detection devices up to 11, chart a course for sanguine neutrality, normalize the chaos as the world burns, or maybe give this rag-tag group of billionaire outsiders a chance to move fast and break things—in the hope that some of it was not working anyway? 

We look at three different modes of damage control currently ripping through American discourse.

Show Notes

There’s a conspiracy theory that the CIA invented the term ‘conspiracy theory’ – here’s why

87: The Aubrey Marcus Spectacle

107: An Open Letter to Aubrey Marcus

214: Aubrey Marcus is Totally Not a Cult Leader

Winning the Fight for Reproductive Rights in Mexico - Open Society Foundations  

Madres de Plaza de Mayo | Learning for Justice 

Adweek article on Rogan and MeidasTouch

Kash Patel QAnon Appearances

Kash Patel Seal Team 6 Endangerment

So Marianne Williamson Really is the Peace Candidate—Patreon 

“You Feel Like You Are Subhuman”: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza | Amnesty International USA 

NLG and Other Legal Groups Send Letter to ICC Urging an Investigation into Potential War Crimes Committed by Israel and US in Gaza under “Operation Protective Edge”

Russell Tribunal on Palestine, 2014  

Friday 17 November: Twenty thousand Palestinians believed to be killed in Israel’s genocide of Gaza 

Campus Protests Led to More Than 3,100 Arrests, but Many Charges Have Been Dropped 

Harris campaign rejects claim vice president thinks there is a genocide in Gaza 

A Study Reveals CNN and MSNBC’s Glaring Gaza Double Standard | The Nation 

Morning Joe: Dems’ Favorite Show, Blatant Pro-Israel Propaganda 

The Intercept: Israel-Palestine Coverage 

US MSM downplays Amnesty report 

TIME on Iranian Foreign Influence Methods

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Researchers in California recently warned that just one mutation in H5N1, the bird flu virus, could make the disease transmissible between humans. While the virus was first identified in 1959 (and became globally significant in 1996), they’re also concerned that increasingly damaging effects of climate change could make us more susceptible to such viruses. The same week, California-based raw milk manufacturer, Raw Farm, was forced to recall its products due to third-party testers discovering it contained H5N1.

Derek looks at these converging trends—the wellness-driven fervor over the safety and health benefits of raw milk and the chances of another pandemic—with an investigation into why this matters from a public health perspective. Along the way, he’ll define the three often-confused forms of health in public discourse—individual, population, and public health—and why influencers often confuse them.

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Exvangelical author Tia Levings joins Matthew to discuss her harrowing memoir of indoctrination, abuse, recovery, and advocacy, The Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. It’s a wild GenX journey that tells us a lot about the logic of evangelical support for Trumpism, and how those caught within it can see their way clear the gender terror, rape culture, and fantasies of retribution. 

Show Notes

Tia Levings 

This season, Patreon is checking some big things off your wish list

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If you’ve spent one minute on social media in the last few months, you’ve probably heard that seed oils are extremely toxic, food dyes are the reason for rising obesity rates—oh wait, that’s glyphosate—and vaccines are still causing autism. Nevermind the fact that the supposedly criminal preservative, thimerosal, was removed from almost all vaccinations in 2001. Clinical research is irrelevant in MAHA, RFK Jr’s Make America Healthy Again MAGA ripoff.

Wellness acolytes have found a champion in Kennedy, who’s going to immediately end chronic diseases and reduce obesity rates by…checks notes…making sure every American has a gym membership. We’ve covered Bobby a lot on this podcast, so today our fearless correspondent, Mallory DeMille, returns to investigate one very vocal and very relieved cohort, the MAHA Mamas. They just know Kennedy is going to truly save the children, science be damned.

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An essay from Matthew on how MAGA religiosity obscures the religious nature of liberalism, and how both obscure the underlying religion of capitalism. 

Inspired by Walter Benjamin, who in 1921 wrote:

One can behold in capitalism a religion, that is to say, capitalism essentially serves to satisfy the same worries, anguish, and disquiet formerly answered by so-called religion. Capitalism is a pure religious cult, perhaps the most extreme there ever was. Within it everything only has meaning in direct relation to the cult: it knows no special dogma, no theology.

Show Notes

Mutual Aid Hub 

Martin Luther King Jr: Dialectics, Materialism, and the Black Radical Critique of Racial Capitalism with Andrew J. Douglas and Jared A. Loggins 

230: How Did We Get Here?

Walter Benjamin, "Capitalism as Religion [Fragment 74]," 

Max Weber and Walter Benjamin

Without Dream or Mercy 

Has Capitalism Become Our Religion?

On the Concept of History - Walter Benjamin 

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