Krystal Kyle & Friends

In this week’s conversation with Sam Butler about how Elon Musk amassed the wealth and influence to make a play for political power, Sam gives us necessary context about why this plan seems feasible. In places like Texas, where Elon has moved both his personal residence and the headquarters of some of the companies he owns, corporations have far more political sway, far fewer financial constraints. This analysis reveals Elon’s strategic thinking as he moves his operations from the blue state of California to conservative Texas, enabling the companies he controls to exert more power on the lives of both workers and local communities.

It’s more than a little scary to think about where Elon’s power play is headed, and what degree of influence over society will be enough. Sam does a great job of taking us through how the political conditions Trump created have been favorable for Musk’s business ambitions and how their unholy alliance holds benefits for each. Now, as the election approaches (less than two weeks away!), our conversation turns toward the role Musk has played in the 2024 presidential race and, depending on the result, what his political involvement will look like going forward.

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As the election looms, we’re debating a pair of fellow YouTubers, Hutch and Pondering Politics, on what the Harris-Walz campaign has shaped up to be. We’ve got an exciting debate for you on whether Kamala’s decision to pander to Republican voters instead of making meaningful concessions to the left is a necessary, sound piece of political strategy or a total miss.

We’re nothing if not fair, of course, so our discussion delves into what has worked about the campaign — and what stands out is the excitement we felt as progressives about the decision to make Walz the VP nominee. At the same time, we remain strongly opposed to the campaign’s sustained refusal to condemn and pledge an end to the Israelis’ genocide in Gaza that the Biden admin keeps funding. There’s also the campaign’s unabashed pride in the endorsement it received from Dick Cheney and the relative weakness of its policy platform. Why are we watching the Democratic Party make itself even more palatable to Republicans when many Republicans themselves acknowledge Trump as a threat — and when Democrats could simply choose a message of economic support to entice disaffected voters inclined toward Trump but disgusted by his racist vitriol?

You can listen to this episode as a podcast now on major streaming platforms.

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Welcome back to Krystal Kyle & Friends! This week’s conversation is on the escalating conflict in Lebanon and the ties we and our guest, Omar Baddar, see between this crisis and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Omar provides insights into the “opportunities” for military escalation and struggle for dominance over Hezbollah that Israel sees in its current campaign in Lebanon. Because the U.S. plays such a major role greenlighting and funding Israel’s military activity, and because Biden refuses to set a true “red line” or rock the boat before the upcoming election, what we see now is Israel’s attempt to escalate as much as possible given a window of opportunity for unchecked violence.

Some have compared the violence in Lebanon to the genocide taking place in Palestine. Omar points out the massive similarities — decimating infrastructure, targeting medics, killing civilians — while also indicating the potential of the strikes in Lebanon to expand into an even bigger regional conflict. Netanyahu’s recent remarks addressing Lebanese civilians, a pretty clear threat to reject Hezbollah or suffer the same violence as Gaza, opens up the possibility of sectarian civil war, just as it suggests that Netanyahu is totally ready and willing to repeat the genocide in Gaza that is still ongoing.

Thanks for tuning in. You can listen to this episode as a podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and other streaming platforms.

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Welcome to Episode 194 of KK&F, where we’re sitting down with the Vanguard to discuss whether the Harris campaign is poised to win it all — or whether they’re wasting this crucial moment. We talk about Democrats snubbing their base by leaning right on immigration, Republicans leaning left on abortion, and why the name of the game right now is trying to expand the party coalitions, courting independents, and getting those extra votes however it’s possible. But will it be enough for Kamala Harris, especially as some polls seem to suggest a gender gap in willingness to support her even among young people? Zac in particular is optimistic, and even though Trump was able to briefly revitalize the lackluster Republican party, his star seems to have set.

There’s even more to hear in this week’s episode, like our conversation about the evolving situation with Israeli attacks on Iran, and Jack’s most recent filing in the Trump election interference case. We hope you enjoy it. Thanks for tuning in — this conversation will be available as a podcast via Pandora, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and more starting tomorrow night.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

This week on KK&F, we’re talking to conservative journalist Sohrab Ahmari in order to figure out what’s missing from the Trump campaign’s political calculations for 2024. To cut to the quick of what made Trump 2016 so compelling for millions of Americans it seems necessary to assess Trump’s relationship with the media — which isn’t as antagonistic as Trump has successfully made it out to be. While mainstream liberal outlets of course downplayed Trump’s prospects and disregarded him as a serious candidate for a long time, it’s also true that those same outlets, as a result of their very outrage at Trump’s approach to the presidential race, gave him lots of free coverage, boosting his platform in ways that (for example) progressive candidates to the left of the Democrats never really benefited from.

If you look at Trump’s most recent debate performance (and we’ve discussed it at length in recent weeks), you’ll see baseless claims that appeal to emotion and paranoia, without any grounding in basic fact or reality. That’s always been a hallmark of Trump’s rhetorical style, but as the far right has only gone farther in the last few years, and new figures like RFK Jr. have risen to amplify Trump’s fearmongering claims or to add new ones to the litany, could it be that Trump is actually getting out of touch? What else is contributing to what feels like a less potent campaign and a less effective message to America’s disaffected political outsiders?

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

Adam Johnson of Citations Needed and Column blog is here for Episode 192, where we’re discussing his great new piece on Republican media strategy in the face of this latest Republican slander campaign. It gives us valuable insight into what Vance adds to the far-right playbook. As he points out, Trump doubles down when he’s called out for crazy stories like this! However, “slick former Yale law student and liberal media darling” Vance has a different strategy: appealing to standpoint theory, which Adam explains in the piece. His “smol beans” rural-Ohio whisperer schtick, dressed up in the Yale law degree, has always been a real and dangerous weapon the Trump campaign now gets to wield. After getting his flowers for seeming to expose a world that, yes, is wrongly reviled by liberal elites, Vance is just running with the strategy he’s developed, now using that authority to speak for an entire part of the nation he claims liberals just don’t understand. Will it be enough to win Trump and Vance an election? What long-term damage will it do to actually marginalized people in this country?

It’s a serious topic, and we’re glad to have the singularly insightful Adam Johnson on to talk about it. You can listen to this episode as a podcast on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Podcasts, and more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

This week’s episode features our analysis of the debate and our conversation with David about his exciting new podcast, “The Master Plan,” detailing how big money launched a successful coup to steal our democracy. Social media (especially X; we shudder to think about what’s making the rounds on Facebook) has been blowing up, since Tuesday’s debate, with both memes and rightful outrage about former president Donald Trump’s extremely racist fearmongering about immigrants in his back-and-forth with Kamala Harris. Commenting on unsubstantiated neo-nazi lies that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, OH are eating residents’ cats (???), Trump has since made this graphic, racist image a rallying cry, evoking it multiple times on Tuesday night to the visible disgust and derision of the Democratic nominee. This comment points to the dangerous cruelty, prejudice, and xenophobic rhetoric fueling Trump’s campaign: Tuesday’s debate performance offered zero substance, seeking instead to resonate with the least humane and most hateful impulses of the public. For him to succeed, again, in this way would be unthinkable.

This week, we had David Sirota back on the show to talk about his new pod Master Plan — give it a listen! He’s been working on it for years at The Lever, and currently available episodes cover decades of top-secret government corruption, giving Sirota the chance to flex his formidable investigative-reporting skills. Here’s an opportunity to learn more about the profit motives guiding our government to sell out public interest, overturn our most cherished rights, and entrench its own corrupt power — David and his team has made it possible in this wonderful new podcast, which we discuss in our exclusive interview with him! You can listen to this episode as a podcast when it’s released tomorrow on Apple Podcasts, Pandora, Spotify, and more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome back to another week of KK&F! This week’s guest, Jordan Chariton, is an independent reporter known for his coverage of left movements and protests like those at Standing Rock, the grassroots organizing around the Sanders campaign, and much more. Over repeated trips to Flint, Jordan has been on the ground, understanding how local government actively covered up its failure to protect the public, poisoning the Flint community as a result of its active negligence. Now, we’re having him on the show to talk about his new book on the corruption he exposed.

We hope you’ll enjoy this urgent and serious conversation revealing the true story of what happened in Flint, Michigan before and after the government announced the water crisis, how the local community continues to be affected by the tragedy, and who’s still paying attention to the suffering of working-class people when national public interest has long since turned away. We’re so grateful to Jordan for sharing his necessary reporting and insight with us. This episode will be available as a podcast tomorrow on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and more.

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What is classical liberalism? We get into the weeds with Joshua Reed Eakle of Project Liberal. Hearing “Project Liberal,” you might anticipate something cooked up by the American Democratic Party. But this is different: Joshua is making the case for a political and economic system governed by principles of free trade and competition. As per his own admission, it’s not a system premised on equality. It’s an assumption of the classical liberal worldview that under conditions of economic competition, not everyone will prosper. Rather, those whose skills the market favors will thrive, and those who can’t compete will live in relative want. When Joshua talks about classical liberalism embracing change, he’s pointing to its dynamic responsiveness to the development of technology, wants of the consumer, skills of the workforce, and more. That’s a responsiveness, though, ungoverned by human needs (as opposed to the wants of those with money to spend).

Is there a better way? We make the case for social democracy in our debate with our guest, and we think you’ll be interested. You can listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and more.

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Our guest this week, Jesse Ventura, former star wrestler, Governor of Minnesota, and Green Party presidential candidate, talks about the collusion between Dems and Republicans, his electoral history, the corruption of money in politics, and the shortcomings of third-party runs in the current presidential election cycle. He’s been on the show before to discuss these issues, and we’re excited to have him back years on to discuss how the rigamarole of American party politics has evolved (or devolved) since then.

We’ve also heard an increasing number of attacks on Tim Walz from the far right, which takes issue with his history securing free meals for schoolchildren, supporting gay students at the high school where he was a teacher, and more. From one former Governor of Minnesota to the current one, Jesse fires back at the right in Walz’s defense and shows how “weird” his conservative detractors really are.

Thanks for tuning in! You can listen to this podcast tomorrow on Spotify, Pandora, Apple Podcasts, and more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit krystalkyleandfriends.substack.com/subscribe