Krystal Kyle & Friends

Taylor Lorenz, a leading journalist tackling contemporary issues in internet culture, rejoins us to go off on current trends pushing young men to embrace conservative expectations of their physiques. Clavicular is a streamer who’s used his platform to advance aesthetic standards for men based on reactionary, profoundly superficial and often dangerous ideals of masculinity. Many such cases. Clavicular is getting a lot of notice lately because of some comments he’s made about supporting Gavin Newsom over JD Vance, applying those standards in ways that capitalize on ideas of physical dominance and superiority. Clavicular’s own dad was a bodybuilder, and that’s shaped his foregrounding of “looksmaxxing,” encouraging young men to pick up on toxic ideas that define worth through conforming to unhealthy physical criteria. This is the realm of the groypers, and from what Taylor’s seeing through her work on the subject, it’s a terrifyingly dominant ideology spreading online and affecting young men.

This also provides us with an opportunity to think critically about the faults of JD Vance and Gavin Newsom. We don’t have time to get into everything that’s wrong with JD Vance as a political figure. But here’s what we picked out for our discussion: He’s an incredible hypocrite who has sold old anti-Trump political commitments down the river. Vance has proven himself willing to say and do anything, putting down his own family members, to grab at power and latch on to what the MAGA base wants to see from him if they’re willing to vote him into higher office. (Yikes!)

It’s a jam-packed episode, one that takes on contemporary political and cultural trends we’re going to have to contend with seriously to make sure that younger generations of voters are not radicalized to profoundly conservative and inhumane ideas about what masculinity means and who should run our country. Even if it’s not the most lighthearted conversation, we think there’s a lot to learn here, and we hope you enjoy! This episode’s available to everyone via major streaming platforms.

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

Lefty commentator Keith Edwards joins the show this week for a discussion on the reign of terror and violence Trump has brought to America in under a year of his second term. As a prominent independent news host, Keith is also a great source of insight into the challenges presented to lefty independent media during the Trump years, and we get him to talk through all of it with us.

Is it time for accelerationism? We talk about how everything just seems to be getting worse, and how Trump is hitting the gas on destroying American life. There’s always the belief that, as we put it, voters have to “touch the hot stove” and see how bad things can get (and they’re getting pretty bad!) before they fully reject and denounce Trumpism. After all, most anti-Trump politicians are famously bad at offering alternatives that appeal to working-class voters. At the same time, it might be the case that the possibility of coalition between liberals and leftists seems closer than ever. The Republican coalition is undergoing an absolute meltdown, with fragmentation over everything from Trump’s handling of the Epstein files to antisemitism and Islamophobia in the party. We’re looking at a political landscape that could blow up at any moment. Keith takes us through the moment we’re living in and where the conventional arrangement of American politics is headed.

Thanks for joining us! You can listen to this episode now on major streaming platforms, as well as here on Substack.

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

It’s relatively normal these days to see candidates expect to ride into office based on buzzy, attention-grabbing social media campaigns, but as we saw with Zohran, that’s only a small piece of the bigger puzzle New Yorkers are thinking about when they cast their vote. Name recognition can play a big role, too. But Cameron Kasky, Parkland survivor and anti gun violence organizer, has what members of political dynasties and incumbent leaders don’t have: a new vision that responds to the kinds of changes — universal healthcare, social housing, and gun violence prevention — that everyday people are thinking about on a day-to-day basis.

We also talk honestly about the struggles his campaign will face. It basically goes without saying that other candidates have money — dirty money, family money — on their side. Grassroots funding and support will make a big difference in this race. It’s also difficult to be the only candidate brave enough to raise political consciousness about what truly isn’t working for his potential constituents: pointing out what needs to change is already tough, and getting people on board with a vision to change it is even harder. Cameron has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, meaning he’s also going to have to battle Zionist opposition, and as you may remember from Zohran’s campaign, that opposition is willing to go extremely low. But Cameron’s big sell is that your paycheck shouldn’t be eaten up entirely by rent and healthcare, and it also shouldn’t fund human rights abuses abroad. We think it’s a compelling vision that could form part of a progressive tide sweeping American politics.

Thanks for tuning in. You can listen to this episode 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

Aftyn Behn joins KK&F to discuss her juggernaut campaign to unseat Republican Van Epps as a progressive in Tennessee. Aftyn thinks of herself as a unifier, closing the gap between Democrat and Republican voter turnout and building a broad coalition that brought in former Trump supporters and rallied them behind a program supporting affordability of housing and healthcare.

She was also able to highlight everything that the Republican Party has failed to do in Tennessee, despite how powerful Trump’s rhetoric has been there — people are clearly beginning to reject that rhetoric as hypocritical and harmful to their communities. Aftyn and her coalition aren’t going to let Republicans privatize the Tennessee Valley Authority. And they’re not going to let people like Van Epps coast into office on anti-worker platforms.

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 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

Gianmarco shares some of the major influences that have shaped his approach to comedy, with many immediately recognizable names: Maria Bamford, Jeff Asmus, Chris Fleming, John Mulaney. He’s taken cues from the greats in modern stand-up comedy and has become, in his own right, an extremely successful comedian beloved for his unique style. So it’s a treat to get to talk to him about the state of American political comedy during a moment in our country’s history that feels like it couldn’t get any worse — and yet, every day, somehow does.

What does it mean to turn to political satire when the state of our nation feels beyond parody, and what kind of revelatory and radical potential does comedy really have? Now seems like the time to find out. How do we keep clowning on Trump as successfully as possible, and how does comedy fit into the landscape of political action against this evil, oafish, endlessly mockable man? We offer some answers in Episode 254, and we hope you’ll find them both insightful and, of course, funny! You can listen to this episode when it’s released tomorrow on major streaming platforms like Spotify, Substack, 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

Welcome to Episode 253 of KK&F, where we’re talking with Usamah Andradi and Geoff Simpson of Justice Democrats about how to remake the Democratic Party to serve the interests of the American people! Justice Democrats have provided essential support to grassroots progressives as they run up against the status quo in national and local elections. Andradi and Simpson help us think about how Democrats can answer a moment of profound weakness in the Democratic Party, as Trump totally fumbles his support among the MAGA base but Democrats fail to act as an opposition party. With the kind of failure of leadership that people like Schumer showed by capitulating during the shutdown, it’s only natural that American voters are looking for something else.

We talk to Andradi and Simpson about how Trump’s failures in office call for Democratic leadership, why the old guard isn’t meeting the moment, and what we can do about it. You can listen to this conversation as a podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other streaming platforms.

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

In Episode 252 of KK&F, we talk about the insane bombshell of the released Epstein files, and Trump’s increasingly desperate attempts to direct attention away from them. Plus, we talk to New York Governor-hopeful Antonio Delgado about his campaign.

Kathy Hochul has long been a fixture of New York politics. As Governor of New York, she’s a major player in the Democratic establishment. But Democratic leadership in the state of New York are now looking to Zohran Mamdani as part of a democratic socialist vanguard looking to transform City Hall into an institution that works for the working class. Zohran’s election was particularly telling. People like Hochul either refrained from supporting Mamdani or waited until the last minute to do so. They see his mayoralty as a sign of even more widespread rejection of the status quo among New York voters.

Antonio’s campaign for Governor of New York is another force in this sweeping movement toward left populist governance. We talk to him about what a Delgado-led New York would look like. You can listen to this episode on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and other major streaming platforms!

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

Our faves (just kidding), like Ben Shapiro, have been engaging in some truly historic fearmongering about the election of someone who wants to make housing affordable and buses free. God forbid! They’re calling Zohran a far-left extremist, a totalitarian who will attack basic American freedoms. Like the voters of New York, clearly, we reject these ideas as rooted in hatred for working people, Islamophobia, and a refusal to recognize the outcome of a fair election. Clearly, in the eyes of the right, destroying democracy is okay, but these major conservative voices draw the line at recognizing a popular mandate among New Yorkers for improving the material conditions of the working class. This conversation lets us consider how these prominent commentators use their power and platforms to actually undermine the very principles and political programs that they profess, hypocritically, to support.

Again, we’re so grateful to the insightful Ryan Grim for joining us again on KK&F — one of our favorite friends of the show! Remember, you can listen to the audio of this episode when it’s released tomorrow night on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and other major streaming platforms.

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

Max Flugrath of Fair Fight is on the show this week (for our 250th episode!) to talk all things Trump election rigging. Fair Fight is based in Georgia, so Max has seen some of the worst of Trump’s attacks on democracy. It’s a microcosm of Trump’s bigger project of maintaining power without popular consent. There, hundreds of thousands of people have been purged from voter rolls through racial profiling. Trump’s fight to overturn the Georgia election results in 2020 — which took several days to come out — garnered massive media attention and is one of the bedrocks on which the case for his criminal behavior has been built. All of this is to say that upholding democracy in the age of Trump can literally be an issue of life or death, both immediately for those fighting for it and in the longer term as Trump’s fascist government uses election rigging to terrorize the public with ICE, police forces, and other wings of a repressive government.

Max points to the difference in scale, speed, and coordination as Trump ramps up the voter suppression tactics that have just become politics as usual in American “democracy.” He takes us through the new restrictions, district formations, and policies that will deny Americans — again, overwhelmingly, people of color and people from low-income areas — the right to decide the country’s leadership. As he puts it, it’s a “five-alarm fire for American democracy.” Who among our elected leadership will step up and put up a fight?

We hope that our conversation in Episode 250 of KK&F will provide answers! You can listen to this episode on major streaming platforms.

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