We close out this year from hell with a grounded kind of hope, not wishful thinking. Ushering us into a better new year is a montage of organizers, journalists, and activists reminding us that history isn't finished, and that power has always been built from the ground up.

We end with a simple reminder: convert hope into power through solidarity, defiance, and showing up, again and again. Be relentless, like water eroding rock. That is how we win.

As we face the year ahead together, what's giving you hope right now?

Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Show Notes:

• • Erica Smiley — "Building Real Democracy Starts on the Shop Floor" (8/26/2025)

  • Katherine Stewart — "Money, Lies and God" (3/5/2025)

  • Gil Duran — "Nerd Reich" (3/11/2025)

  • Carter Sherman — "Brett Kavanaugh is Ruining People's Sex Lives" (7/1/2025)

  • Sandi Bachom — "Nazi Hunting" (3/25/2025)

  • Mona Eltahawy — "Smash the Patriarchy with Rage and Risk" (8/12/2025)

  • Irin Carmon — "Unbearable: The War on Women" (10/28/2025)

  • Kate Manne — "Naming the Rot: Kate Man Exposes the Lies Holding up the Patriarchy" (8/5/2025)

  • Leah Litman — "Lawless" (5/20/2025)

  • Shawn Werner (Sister District) — "The Midterms Start Now: Virginia is a Belweather" (9/23/2025)

  • Ahmed Gatnash — "Power, Profits and Protest: Trump, Russia and the Middle East" (9/16/2025)

  • Andrea Chalupa — "Nature Always Wins" (5/6/2025)

In this quick update, Andrea shares a dream she had about Ukrainian dissident poet Vasyl Stus, killed in a Russian labor camp in the 1980s, and whose poetry and human rights campaigns helped lay the groundwork for a free Ukraine. In a time of rampant gaslighting, it's never been more important to believe our eyes and ears, and honor our intuition. Pay attention to your dreams; it will help you endure and overcome.

If you're finding moments to rest and binge this holiday season, here are two documentary recommendations: First, Amy Berg's It's Never Over, Jeff Buckley, a haunting intimate tribute to the late musician whose voice and powerful songwriting are otherworldly. For something totally different, check out Murder in Monaco, a chilling true-crime documentary about the murder of mega-banker Edmund Safra. It exposes the Russian-mafia viper den of Monaco.

See you at today's Gaslit Nation Salon at 4pm ET. Look for the Zoom link on Patreon.com/Gaslit.

This holiday season, we wish you peace, joy, and a new Supreme Court. In Part 1 of our discussion, we pulled the mask off originalism and called it what it is: the Southern Strategy of our courts, a legal laundering scheme for white terrorism. In Part 2, we discuss how to take our courts back from GOP extremism to protect our Constitution–before it rips apart our country. To hear this week's full bonus show, subscribe at Patreon.com/Gaslit and support our independent journalism.

According to legal scholar Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back, the answer is finally taking the Constitution at its word. The Constitution was built on principles from Enlightenment ideas that fueled the American Revolution: human equality, self-government, and the radical notion that legitimacy flows from the people, not from tradition or bloodlines. We fought a Civil War to finally live up to those ideals. In the Reconstruction era, through the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments , the Constitution was fundamentally transformed into a document meant to support a multiracial democracy, one that promised equal protection, due process, and citizenship not tied to race.

Taking back the Supreme Court means delegitimizing originalism and replacing it with a constitutional vision aligned with democracy itself. A Constitution that works for everyone. A Court that understands its job is not to drag us backward, but to help the country finally live up to its founding promises.

Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

All we want for Christmas is a new Supreme Court. Here to tell us how we get there is legal scholar Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap: How Extremists Stole the Constitution and How We the People Can Take It Back.

What's "originalism"? It's white supremacy's answer to the Civil Rights Movement, every bit as sneaky and immoral as Republican operative Lee Atwater's "Southern Strategy," which mobilized racist voters through racist dog whistles instead of open slurs. Originalism sounds fancy by design, but it's pure fascist gaslighting, now wielded by the trash MAGA majority on the Supreme Court.

Gaslit Nation's holiday gift to our listeners this year is to remind you of an inconvenient fact the media ignores: Donald Trump came to power in 2016 with the Kremlin's very illegal help, as documented in both the Mueller Report and the bipartisan U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Russian Active Measures Campaigns and Interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. That makes him an illegitimate president, which means his extreme Supreme Court picks should be impeached. More on that in part two of our discussion, coming Thursday.

Thank you to everyone who joined our holiday party on Monday. As requested, the link to the Outreach Committee for listeners interested in discussing ways to reach current or former MAGA cult members and help guide them back toward the light is available in the show notes on Patreon.

Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

We're seeing the same far-right media consolidation in America as during Putin's rise to power. Bari Weiss is the new Roger Ailes, hired to destroy CBS News. The far-right Ellisons are aggressively going after Warner Bros. to build a media monopoly to dumb down more Americans so that we're easier to control.

That's why Andrea spoke at Courier News' Courage & Cowardice event in Washington, DC on December 11. Courier, the team that built the searchable Epstein files database released by Congress, brought together independent journalists and creators who still believe journalism is a public good. The main focus of the conversation, which you can listen to here on Gaslit Nation, was how to build and sustain independent media. Andrea was joined by progressive YouTuber Jack Cocchiarella, Brian Beutler, formerly of Crooked Media and The New Republic who now runs Off Message; TikTok comedian Meredith Lynch; and in a discussion moderated by veteran editor Mark Jacob, formerly of the Chicago Tribune, to talk about media capitulation and how to fight back. Here's some info on the event.

Luckily, the Media and Democracy Project (MAD) exists and provided us with the following actions you can take:

1. Make videos highlighting moments of real accountability like celebrating the ABC reporter Mary Bruce who pressed MBS and Trump with tough, substantive questions.

2. Credit your sources clearly and encourage your audience to click through and read the original reporting.

3. Introduce your audience to journalism and media-education initiatives such as States Newsroom, the News Literacy Project, and Rebuild Local News.

4. Synthesize and share this essential explainer from Democracy Forward on the link between local news and democracy: https://democracyfund.org/idea/new-research-explores-connection-between-democracy-and-local-news/

5. If you're a journalist, whether independent or in a newsroom, regularly lift up the work of your colleagues.

Everyone should keep the conversation of journalism being the bedrock of a democracy front and center. Use your time online wisely: repost, share stories, and boost public-interest journalism whenever you can.

Most importantly, stay connected with MAD.

Gaslit Nation reads through the ego and lies of Enabler-in-Chief Susie Wiles' interview with Vanity Fair, where she pulls the Nuremberg defense: I was just following orders! As Trump's primetime rant to the American people reminds us, Wiles is wrong: Trump plans to stay in power.

In this week's bonus show–available in full for our Patreon subscribers at the Truth-teller ($5/month) tier and higher, Gaslit Nation cuts through the nonsense to expose Wiles and the rest of Trump's creepy cabinet defending her. They're thick as thieves, sticking together to brace for congressional investigations should Democrats return to power. Wiles and Trump's other enablers, riding his corrupt coattails into power, see the blue waves coming for Republicans in special elections across the country, including in historically red districts. Her interview also reveals some intriguing insights into the MAGA succession battle–and why we should keep our eye on a possible Ivanka/Jared comeback post-midterms.

To our Patreon community that keeps Gaslit Nation going: see you at Monday's salon at 4pm ET for our holiday party. Get ready for fun surprises as we celebrate and bring in the new year with hope and defiance. To join the fun, grab your membership at Patreon.com/Gaslit–discounts are available, and you can give the gift of membership this holiday season. Thank you to everyone who supports the show–we could not make Gaslit Nation without you.

In this high-stakes episode, Andrea is joined by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Oleksandra Matviichuk as Putin openly claims alignment with the U.S., and Europe is being forced to, whether it likes it or not, hold the line.

Matviichuk, leader of the human rights organization Center for Civil Liberties, which was awarded the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, lays out why the war in Ukraine is not a regional dispute or a diplomatic inconvenience, but a direct clash between civilization vs. a fascist crime spree, one that will determine the future balance of power for Europe and the world. She dismantles the dangerous fiction that Ukraine is a charity case or a drain on European stability. As she makes clear: "Ukraine is not a beneficiary of European security. Ukraine is a provider of European security."

Our conversation exposes Russia's war crime playbook, including the mass kidnapping and forced assimilation of Ukrainian children, brainwashing them into soldiers for Putin's meatgrinder. As Matviichuk puts it: "Every person who wants to shake Putin's hand must acknowledge that they are shaking hands with the biggest child kidnapper in the world."

This episode is a five-alarm fire. Europe has the money, the industry, the frozen Russian assets, and the historical memory to stop another Iron Curtain, but only if it abandons wishful thinking and acts. Occupation is not peace, and delay is not diplomacy. Pretending like this will somehow blow over is how democracies fail.

Next week legal scholar Madiba Dennie, author of The Originalism Trap, joins Gaslit Nation to break down how the MAGA Supreme Court emerged from a fringe movement of Lee Atwater's Southern Strategy, and how we can have an all new Supreme Court, with the help of the power of impeachment.

Mark your calendar! The Gaslit Nation Holiday Party, complete with hope and holiday sweaters, will be this Monday December 22nd at 4pm ET with fun surprises for our community of listeners. To join the joy, sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit – discounted annual memberships are available, and you can give the gift of membership. Thank you to everyone who supports the show – we could not make Gaslit Nation without you!

Donald Trump's kleptocracy didn't happen overnight–it was part of the Kremlin's long game. With reports of Russia trying to explode planes headed to the US, we're running out of time to wake up before it's too late.

In this week's bonus show for Gaslit Nation's Patreon supporters, who keep our independent journalism going in these dark times of institutional rot, media capitulation, and complacency, Andrea warns that we're nearing the point of no return. Putin can now say the U.S. and Russia are aligned, because they are. Trump's regime is declaring a return to the Monroe Doctrine, claiming the Western Hemisphere belongs to the U.S. That's exactly what Putin does in Eastern Europe.

The Pentagon is handing Trump's gestapo-like immigration agenda $2 billion on top of $75 billion for ICE in Trump's Big Ugly Bill. Like Putin, Trump is building a gulag and gearing up for conflict with our neighbors, including Mexico, Venezuela, and whoever else he wants to casually kill. As we've long warned, Trump wants to become the Putin of North America, because that's his plan for staying in power indefinitely: enrich his family, build a dynastic oligarchy, and protect it with sadistic security services.

To help us fight back and stay grounded in the gaslighting, this special bonus show includes a discussion of Gaslit Nation's Book Club: Total Resistance by Hans von Dach–a civilian guerrilla resistance guide produced by a Swiss military theorist in preparation for Soviet occupation during the Cold War–and Deaf Republic, a play-like book of poems by Ukrainian-born poet Ilya Kaminsky.

"At the trial of God, we will ask: why did you allow all this?," Kaminsky writes, "And the answer will be an echo: why did you allow all this?"

We have to stop the worst from happening and wake people up before it's too late. For ways to fight back, check out, and share, the Gaslit Nation Action Guide on GaslitNationPod.com.

The full discussion of this month's book club will be published on Patreon Monday morning, along with the Zoom link for the Gaslit Nation Salon at 4pm ET later that day. To get access to that, join our community on Patreon at Patreon.com/Gaslit and get invites to exclusive events, bonus shows, all episodes ad free, and more. Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit – discounted annual memberships are available and you can give the gift of member. Thank you to everyone who supports the show – we could not make Gaslit Nation without you.

Show Notes:

Today in Washington, DC! Celebrate voices of resistance with COURIER. Reflect on 2025's lessons and explore how courage drives the fights ahead. Andrea will be speaking tonight, joined by other independent journalists and activists. More info here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/courage-cowardice-tickets-1968694585501?aff=promotoolkit

Total Resistance by H Von Dach https://bookshop.org/p/books/total-resistance-h-von-dach/df1aa810a26bacea?ean=9781607963042&next=t

Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky https://bookshop.org/p/books/deaf-republic-poems-ilya-kaminsky/33e16033f9269bdf?ean=9781555978310&next=t

Read and Resist: The Gaslit Nation Book Club https://www.patreon.com/posts/read-and-resist-132804210?utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link&utm_id=4d59916b-2d54-46a3-b9e7-76fa99f42f1e&utm_medium=email

Trump strategy document revives Monroe Doctrine, slams Europe https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/trump-strategy-document-revives-monroe-doctrine-slams-europe-2025-12-05/

$2 Billion in Pentagon Funds Said to Go to Anti-Immigrant Operations: Democratic lawmakers said in a report that shifting Defense Department funding to support the Trump administration's immigration agenda has hurt military readiness. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/us/politics/defense-department-funds-immigration.html?smid=url-share

Russia Suspected of Plotting to Send Incendiary Devices on U.S.-Bound Planes: Two devices that ignited in Europe, officials say, were part of a covert operation to put them on cargo or passenger aircraft https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/10/us/politics/defense-department-funds-immigration.html?smid=url-share

Kremlin hails Trump's national security strategy as aligned with Russia's vision: Moscow welcomes White House document critical of the EU as talks to end the Ukraine war enter a key phase https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/dec/07/kremlin-hails-trump-national-security-strategy-as-aligned-with-russia-vision

On this extremely cursed episode of Gaslit Nation, we take a break from gas station dictatorships to talk about their emo tech cousin: crypto, the shadow banking system for oligarchs, autocrats, and the Trump family, with Andy Greenberg of Wired, author of Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency.

Greenberg walks us through how Bitcoin was sold as untraceable "freedom money"–digital cash for the revolution!–and instead became a giant glowing crime map. Dark-web drug empires, massive child sex abuse rings, ransomware gangs, investment scam sweatshops, North Korean weapons programs, autocratic terrorists like Russia and China. Turns out their transnational crypto crime sprees left a trace. Greenberg profiles investigators who followed the blockchain to catch some of the world's worst monsters and advises how to "follow the money" in the digital age. We also discuss Trump's crypto war on the U.S. dollar and how he and his family enrich themselves with the help of crypto criminals.

This week's bonus show, for our Patreon supporters at the Truth-teller ($5/month) level and higher, features Gaslit Nation's book club discussion of Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky and Total Resistance by H Von Dach–and an urgent wake-up call to see the Kremlin's long-game in exporting oligarch-fascism, before it's too late. Just today, it was reported that Russia tried to plant bombs on U.S.-bound flights, following similar reports of planned attacks across Europe.

Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, Q&A sessions, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Show Notes:

Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency by Andy Greenberg https://bookshop.org/p/books/tracers-in-the-dark-the-global-hunt-for-the-crime-lords-of-cryptocurrency-andy-greenberg/b449e45a97a6794b?ean=9780593315613&next=t

Trump pardon of billionaire sparks concerns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwcHn1GSZwo

Aaron Rupar: "Wow -- Russia reportedly plotted last year to plant bombs on US-bound flights (gift link)" https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3m7lbz4g7nc2v

Looking for a festive holiday gathering that plants seeds of hope to rebuild our democracy? Andrea was invited to the Courage>Cowardice event hosted by Courier News, the folks who built the searchable database of the Epstein files released by Congress. She'll be joined by other independent journalists and creators at Eaton in the heart of Washington, DC from 6pm to 9pm this Thursday December 11.

Andrea will be speaking on a panel about media capitulation and how to fight back with Meredith Lynch, Cohost of The Moment Live; Jack Cocchiarella, Gen Z Political Commentator & YouTuber; Brian Beutler, Journalist, Off Message; in a discussion moderated by veteran journalist Mark Jacob, the former Metro Editor at the Chicago Tribune and Sunday Editor at the Chicago Sun-Times.

For more info, check out the event link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/courage-cowardice-tickets-1968694585501?aff=promotoolkit

Want to hear Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, exclusive Q&A sessions, our group chats, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!