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Our episode begins with White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller’s Christian nationalist eulogy for Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk on September 21, 2025, at State Farm Stadium in Glendale Arizona. Our title is taken from Buffalo Springfield’s iconic 1967 song about political conflict, “For What It’s Worth.”
LAPD officers reloading tear gas launchers during a demonstration in downtown Los Angeles against expanded ICE operations on June 8, 2025.
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In the news:
* On Tuesday, Pam Bondi testified for almost five hours before the Senate Judiciary Committee. But instead of answering questions, she met every inquiry from Democrats with a petulant attack, refusal or conspiracy theory. With a few exceptions, Republicans acted like everything was normal. Here is the full hearing.
* In a break with her party, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R, GA-14) is demanding an extension of Obamacare subsidies—even as she insists that she dislikes the program. Why? Insurance premiums will double for her kids and constituents. Although MTG voted to cut the subsidies, unlike other Republicans, she is now telling the truth about what a disaster the cuts will be for all Americans. Is Trump may be listening to her?
* Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard a case challenging Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy. The plaintiff is a Christian therapist who argues that her free speech is impinged on by not being able to help young people change their sexual or gender orientation. A summary of the research on conversion therapy by Cornell University’s Public Policy Portal found that out of 47 studies, 1 showed positive results—and those were examples of faith healing. The Trevor Project characterizes CT is “dangerous and discredited,” and that damage to clients costs the U.S. economy $9.3 billion a year in related medical bills. UCLA’s Williams Institute estimates that LGBQ people (trans people were not part of the study) who have undergone CT are twice as likely to try to end their lives as people who have not.
* Rutgers history professor Mark Bray and his family were boarding when airline officials stopped them at the gate, saying their ticket had been canceled. Bray, an expert on antifascist movements, has been targeted by Turning Point USA as a violent extremist, defamation amplified by influencers like Jack Posobiec, Andy Ngo, and Milo Yiannopoulos. As a result, Bray has faced a barrage of death threats. Bray was also targeted at Dartmouth in 2017 when he spoke out against the Unite The Right rally in Charlottesville; as of last night, has successfully departed for Spain.
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Your hosts:
Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.
Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
Our focus: Donald Trump’s war on American cities.
* Here’s a timeline of the troops deployments that began in June with Washington D.C.
* The United States has a bad history of deploying the National Guard against peaceful protesters. On May 4, 1970, four White students were killed during an anti-war protest at Ohio’s Kent State University. Less than two weeks later, two students were killed and eight wounded when White police officers fired into a crowd of students at Mississippi’s historically Black Jackson State University.
* Trump is claiming his authority for these deployments under the 1807 Insurrection Act, modified in 1861 and 1871 to allow a President to deploy state troops against the will of the governors who command them.
* But there are obvious Constitutional restraints on the President too. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress broad powers over the military and militias. Another is the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act: Neil and Claire explain why that is a significant landmark.
* In the District of Columbia, Mayor Muriel Bowser—whose city is legally governed by Congress—has tried to work with Trump, even as citizen protesters monitored, and in some cases resisted, troops whose arrests are 40% immigration related. Meanwhile, many of the 2300 troops put on the streets found themselves doing landscaping tasks, while homeless people rousted by soldiers are mostly living hours outside the city, still in tents.
* In early June, 2,000 National Guard were federalized and sent to Los Angeles.
* The Trump administration has not yet deployed National Guard in Memphis, but has deputized over 200 local officers there.
* The reason to militarize cities seems to go beyond immigration. In a recent harangue of top military officers, Trump referred to American cities as a “training ground” for troops; in fact, the military is prohibited from enforcing local laws, and is not trained in policing or immigration enforcement.
* California Governor Gavin Newsome filed suit, and just this week received a temporary restraining order, upheld by the appeals court It will also apply to Oregon, where Trump is trying to deploy troops to Portland, scene of some of the most spectacular Black Lives Matter protests. The author of the original ruling is Judge Karen Immergut, who was appointed to the District of Oregon by Trump in 2019.
* On September 8, ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz in Chicago, a targeted surge of agents to a city that is about 30% Latino; of those residents, about 74% are of Mexican heritage, or 1 in 5 residents of Chicagoland. President Trump has called for Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to be jailed for opposing his deployment of troops to Chicago. Pritzker to Trump? “Come and get me.” Pritzker has also twice said that the President is in the grip of dementia.
* Two pastors peacefully protesting outside a Chicago ICE facility have filed a First Amendment case against the Trump administration: one, Presbyterian minister David Black was shot in the head with a pepper ball while praying.
What we want to go viral:
* Neil is excited about Rebekah Peeples, Unchanged Trebles: What Boy Choirs Teach Us About Motherhood and Masculinity (Rutgers University Press, 2025), about the community culture of boys’ choirs, and what one mom learned about her son’s transition to manhood.
* Claire wants you to think about Sam Terblanche, a Columbia University student who twice sought treatment in an Upper West Side Mt. Sinai Hospital ER, was sent home, and then died in his dorm room. Lisa Miller’s deeply reported story, “Just a Virus, the ER Told Him. Days Later, He Was Dead,” is a story about a fraying urban medical system, and the use of emergency rooms for routine care.
Short takes:
* In a blast from the past, the authors of the Declaration of Independence ended their list of grievances by charging the King of England with inciting Native American violence against them. “In this so-called Age of Reason, Native Americans were charged with having none at all,” historian Ned Blackhawk writes in The Atlantic. “They were not only lawless but also irrational, incapable of self-governance, and lacking moral capacity.” The so-called Founders knew differently, but it was a legalistic move to establish “unchallenged dominion” over North America. “To achieve this, they needed to erase the legitimacy of Native governance and justify violent dispossession. It was precisely because Native societies mirrored some of the colonists’ own ideals (autonomy, law, liberty) that they had to be cast as savages.”(October 9, 2025)
* Surprise! A class action lawsuit contends that Amazon Prime Day is fraudulent. Judd Legum at Popular Information contends the “deals” are fake. “For example, on July 8, the Ninja Air Fryer Pro XL was on sale for $119.99, which Amazon said is a 33% discount off the list price of $179.99,” Legum writes. “But the online tool Camel Camel Camel revealed that the air fryer had never been listed at $179.99 until just before Prime Day, and had been available for $119.99 or less every month since last November. The air fryer was available for $119.99 at Macy’s, Best Buy, Kohl’s, and Wayfair.” Oops. “Although the actual savings to consumers may be minimal, Prime Days have proven extremely successful in generating billions of additional sales for Amazon. This creates pressure on Amazon’s labor force, which already works at a breakneck pace, to push even faster.” (October 9, 2025)
* The Bulwark’s Will Owen asks: Why does Megyn Kelly seem afraid of Candace Owen, who has been pushing antisemitic conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s assassination? “Many Kirk friends and confidants have pushed back hard on Owens, calling much of what she’s saying batshit crazy,” Sommer writes. His answer? “Kelly, a right-wing media survivor of the first order, recognizes that all the energy these days is flowing toward younger, more antisemitic and conspiratorial influencers—people like Owens, Nick Fuentes, and Ian Carroll. And while she might not join them, she is at least not going to allow herself to be run over by them.” (October 9, 2025)
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