Welcome to a new Flux podcast called “So This Just Happened,” a show about culture and politics, with a particular emphasis on gender, race, sex, and religion. We’ll be covering the news, but also what it means to us as individuals in weekly conversations that seek to explore and promote intersectional understanding.

Each episode is part of a larger conversation, so you’ll notice that there will never be a formal introduction.

Co-host Matthew Sheffield is a writer, podcaster, web developer, and television producer whose writings and broadcasts about public opinion, right-wing extremism, misinformation, and technology trends have been quoted and cited by numerous media outlets including the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, NBC, CNN, and PC Magazine.

Co-host Kali Holloway is a writer for The Nation and The Daily Beast. She’s also a singer and musician who’s featured in “The End of Our Deceit,” which is our podcast’s theme song.

Timecodes

00:00— MAGA rapper Forgiato Blow and his Satan-themed rhymes and their larger context

07:07 — Why right-wing cultural products are usually very terrible

09:07 — That time a Moms for Liberty co-founder challenged Matt to a debate and then chickened out

13:14 — Many people on the center-left are getting tired of useless debates, but this is exactly what the far right wants

18:44 — How Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used real history about racist medical practices to lie about vaccines to Black people

25:20 — How and why reactionary activists use “divide and conquer” to demoralize and divide the center-left and the progressive left

28:40 — A new app promises users it can help them shop their political values. Is that taking politics too seriously?

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