Thom Hartmann is the nation's #1 progressive talk radio host and a New York Times bestselling author. His new book is The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink.

Hartmann reflects on the first year of Trump 2.0 and the destruction and chaos it has unleashed on American democracy, society, and the world. Yet he insists that despair and surrender are not options as we enter 2026. Drawing on history and the cycles of great social change, Hartmann points to signs of a growing people's movement pushing back against Trumpism, as more Americans wake up to the damage inflicted by the oligarchs, gangster capitalism, and other anti-democratic forces. Ultimately, he believes the American people will prevail and push toward a real social democracy modeled on President Franklin Roosevelt's FAIR Deal.

On this special New Year's episode, Chauncey DeVega reflects on how we must keep riding the wave out of the great troubles of 2025 — balancing pessimism and optimism, fear and hope. He urges us not to pretend everything is fine or suppress anger and grief, but to acknowledge those feelings and ask the essential question: "Okay — now what are you going to do?" in 2026. And for those fortunate enough to have had a good year amid so much collective pain, Chauncey emphasizes the obligation to share that energy and to uplift others.

By learning from the long Black Freedom Struggle and other pro-democracy movements, the American people can better navigate what promises to be a perilous year ahead.

In that spirit, Chauncey shares an essay on the tradition of Watch Night, when enslaved and free African Americans — often in secret and at great risk — gathered on New Year's Eve to count down the minutes until the Emancipation Proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863.

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On this special Christmas holiday episode of the podcast, Chauncey DeVega reflects on this very surreal and challenging year and tries to find some mirth, merriment, positive energy and joy to refill his (and our) hope tanks.

Chauncey taps into the joy of childhood nostalgia and a longing for a simpler time as he looks through store catalogues from the 1980s in search of his favorite Transformers and G.I. Joe toys, and then calculates how much they would cost in today's dollars. Chauncey soon realizes he likely would have been the parent telling the kids, "Hell no!"

Disney, the WWE, and other entertainment companies have announced that they will be using AI programs to "assist" in their creative process. In the spirit of embracing the future, Chauncey DeVega asks an AI to write a Christmas-themed crossover mega-event movie featuring Star Wars, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, James Gunn's version of Superman, Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, and Krampus. The results are "troubling" for what they suggest about the present and future of mass media in the 21st century and beyond.

This year's Christmas and holiday season are a painful reminder that the collapse of American democracy in the Age of Trump is also an extreme moral crisis, touching almost every aspect of American society and life. To that point, Chauncey shares a recent news story about how ICE has enlisted "Santa Claus" — equipped with a red bulletproof vest and handcuffs — to assist in its mass deportation campaign.

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Rodney Barnes is an American screenwriter, producer, and author. He has written and produced such TV shows as The Boondocks, Everybody Hates Chris, Marvel's Runaways, American Gods, Wu-Tang: An American Saga, and HBO's Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty. His graphic novels and comic books include Killadelphia, Blacula, Monarch, Marvel's Falcon, and the adaptation of the first season of Star Wars: The Mandalorian.

Rodney Barnes' newest comic book series, the horror-noir Crownsville, explores Maryland's Jim Crow–era "Hospital for the Negro Insane." He has received awards and honors from the Peabody Awards, American Film Institute, Writers Guild of America, BET Comedy Awards, and NAACP Image Awards, and the Eisner for creative achievement in American comic books.

Barnes shares hard-earned advice from his long career about the importance of discipline, humility, building a moral center, and surviving an industry and world that can overwhelm and corrupt. He also reflects on how a life-and-death health emergency reshaped his views on art, work, relationships, and gratitude.

Rodney and Chauncey discuss their mutual love of professional wrestling, Star Wars, and comic books and what shows like Sanford and Son and the other TBS classics of the 1980s taught them as men of a certain vintage.

For this Thanksgiving weekend episode, Chauncey DeVega reflects on gratitude in difficult times and reads a story about how Black Civil War soldiers celebrated the holiday.

Chauncey is reminded that nobody hates like family as he watches a late-night pre-Thanksgiving verbal brawl and donnybrook between a father and a son at a local business, and issues his annual public service announcement warning about the dangers of physical intimacy and other forms of romance after eating too much food on this (or any other) holiday.

And Chauncey DeVega goes to the local cineplex and reviews three new films: Rebuilding, Rental Family, and Eternity.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com:

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

This is a special joint episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report.

Mechele Dickerson is the Arthur L. Moller Chair in Bankruptcy Law and Practice at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and author of Homeownership and America's Financial Underclass.

Her new book is The Middle-Class New Deal: Restoring Upward Mobility and the American Dream.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Mechele explains how the historic federal shutdown and other economic and political policies have pushed the American middle class to the brink, especially Black and brown Americans who already face significant wealth and income gaps.

She explores what it has historically meant to be middle class in America, how that definition has shifted over time, and how the wealthy legally protect and expand their economic privileges and advantage, passing critical financial knowledge down to their children.

Mechele also offers guidance and encouragement for federal employees and others who have lost jobs due to the shutdown and government cuts, facing the stark realities of reduced income and potential downward mobility. Her message is clear: you are good people who did almost everything right, but circumstances beyond your control have put you in a difficult position. Recovery won't be easy, but it is possible.

Donations and other support for The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report are always appreciated. But this week, listeners are encouraged, if able, to donate to food banks, nonprofits, and other organizations helping Americans under economic pressure.

Our animal friends are also at risk in this time of calamity as too many people are having to make very tough choices. Please share your donations and other resources with the organizations that are helping our animal friends. In solidarity.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com:

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

John J. Lennon is a prison journalist who is currently serving a 25-year sentence in Sing Sing prison in New York. His work has been featured by such leading publications as New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and New York magazine. John's new book is The Tragedy of True Crime.

John shares his surreal experience of being on a book tour while inside prison and reflects on his own personal experiences with the "true crime" genre. He also warns about the seductive nature -- and problematic relationship these shows have with reality -- of The First 48, Law and Order, Cops, and others in the reality TV show - crime entertainment genre.

John explains how his new book goes beyond the sensationalistic headlines and explores the human side and complexity of four men who have been convicted of murder.

• Robert Chambers, the so-called "Preppy Killer" of 1980s tabloid fame
• Milton E. Jones, drawn from petty crime into tragedy as a teenager
• Michael Shane Hale, a gay man facing the death penalty after a crime of passion
• Lennon himself, who discovered his voice as a writer while serving time for murder

Chauncey DeVega shares what it is like in Chicago as Trump's DHS/ICE immigration dragnet "Operation Midway Blitz" and threats of a National Guard "invasion" have created a climate that feels ripped from a bad dystopian movie. To better understand who would want to take a job working for DHS/ICE as one of its enforcers, Chauncey shares a very important news story from the Intercept where they interview people at a job fair for that government agency.

And Chauncey DeVega goes to the local cineplex and reviews three new films: Tron: Ares, The Smashing Machine starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Paul Thomas Anderson's essential document and cultural artifact of this era One Battle After Another.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com:

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Dr. Carol Anderson is the Robert W. Woodruff Professor of African American Studies at Emory University. She is the author of several books including the New York Times bestseller White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, and One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy. Her most recent book is The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America.

Dr. Anderson has appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show, PBS NewsHour, ​The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and Democracy Now!.

She has also been featured in the Huffington Post, The Guardian, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Dr. Anderson explains how white rage, the color line, gun culture, and gun violence are knotted together in American history and life. She details how the Black Freedom Struggle -- and Black Americans' claims on their fundamental Constitutional rights, civil rights, and human freedom, including the inherent right of self-defense -- are often viewed as an existential threat by White America. This is especially true in the Age of Trump.

Dr. Anderson also warns that America will never be able to end its epidemic of gun violence and mass shootings as long as gun ownership remains intimately connected to whiteness, white masculinity, and a fear of Black people and other non-whites as seen with "stand your ground laws" and other forms of State violence.

Chauncey DeVega shares an update about his absence and how he has been experiencing his own version of the iconic hammer fight from Park Chan-wook's film Old Boy. In that context, Chauncey reflects on how America's collapse into mass disinhibition and authoritarianism has greatly accelerated because of last week's horrific events in Utah.

And Chauncey goes for a walk around his neighborhood and shares some of the amazing, wondrous, and disturbing things he encountered. This includes offering pastoral care to an honored elder who hit a woman with his truck, and learning some life wisdom from a man who is dying from prostate cancer. This street prophet -- who had a plastic catheter that was visible outside of his pants -- was warning all the young men outside the local drug store to get their annual physicals or they could end up dying a painful death like him.

This week's conversation with Carol Anderson is from the archives of The Chauncey DeVega Show and was recorded in July of 2021. I was saving it for an extreme crisis moment such as the one we "the Americans" are experiencing right now. This conversation is eerily and frighteningly prescient and timely.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

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https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

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Patreon:

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https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Yaroslav Trofimov is Chief Foreign-Affairs Correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of several books including Our Enemies Will Vanish: The Russian Invasion and Ukraine's War of Independence.

Yaroslav shares what he experienced on the ground in Ukraine and the moral clarity of the war as compared to the wars and conflicts in the Middle East and other parts of the world.

He also warns about the dystopic realities of modern warfare, and highlights how the experiences of the Ukrainian people in this war are a reminder of how life for all us can change very quickly and in the most horrible ways.

And of course, Yaroslav explains how everyday people in Ukraine are fighting back against the Russian invaders -- and helping to save our animal friends who have no real say or choice in the evils of men.

I spoke with Yaroslav some months ago. I was saving our conversation for a low moment such as this when Trump met with Putin to "negotiate" peace and the future of Ukraine – and the President of the United States chose to further align the country in the orbit of autocrats instead of as the leader of the free world. Never forget the people of Ukraine and how they are a beacon for all free people around the world.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

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My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

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Patreon:

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https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Professional wrestling legend Hulk Hogan (real name: Terry Bollea) passed away on Thursday, July 24 in Clearwater, Florida. He was 71 years old. Hulk Hogan was and remains one of the most important figures in American and global popular culture. Hulk Hogan/Terry Bollea also leaves behind a very complicated legacy.

Brian R. Solomon is a leading professional wrestling journalist, historian, and author. He is the host of the popular Shut up and Wrestle podcast. His new book is Irresistible Force: The Life and Times of Gorilla Monsoon.

Solomon reflects on why the death of Hulk Hogan has caused so much emotional pain and tumult for those of us who came of age in the 1980s and directly experienced the rise of the global cultural phenomenon that was the World Wrestling Federation (now WWE) and Hulkamania. Solomon details why Hulk Hogan and the WWF's meteoric rise, his decades-long career (including reinventing himself as the leader of the New World Order faction in World Championship Wrestling), and marriage of personality and cultural moment will never be repeated again in professional wrestling, and likely sports more broadly.

Solomon and Chauncey discuss their love of professional wrestling and why Hulk Hogan was so central to it – and also try to process how Terry Bollea's foul behavior and values such as his racism, hostility to labor unions, and public alliance with Donald Trump and the MAGA movement complicates that relationship and nostalgia.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com:

Patreon:

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https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Brittany Friedman is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Southern California. She is also a 2023-2024 American Association of University Women faculty postdoctoral fellow and an Affiliated Scholar of the American Bar Foundation, whose writing and other work have been featured by The Washington Post, C-SPAN, NPR, The Associated Press, and Vox. Her new book is Carceral Apartheid: How Lies and White Supremacists Run Our Prisons.

Dr. Friedman explains how America is a type of "carceral society" where the logic and organizing principles of prison and racialized power dominate the culture.

Dr. Friedman shares the lessons she learned from the intimate conversations she had with elders who had been incarcerated (in some of the country's most infamous and dangerous prisons in California) during the Civil Rights Movement and long Black Freedom Struggle and that helped to organize prisoners' rights organizations.

These are essential lessons that pro-democracy Americans will need for navigating life in a time of rising autocracy and authoritarianism.

Chauncey DeVega shares a tale about his recent travels during a particularly hollow July 4th holiday, gains some life wisdom, and continues pondering what it means to be the working-class child of an aging parent. Chauncey also reflects on questions of moral culpability and how so many of us are already "Good Americans" who have been deeply and perhaps forever stained by their tacit and active complicity with evil.

And Chauncey DeVega goes to the movies and shares his review of James Gunn's (not so super) new Superman movie.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com:

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Sabrina Haake is a federal trial attorney with twenty years of experience specializing in First and 14th Amendment defense. Her essays have been featured in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader, and Raw Story. Her Substack newsletter is The Haake Take.

Sabrina Haake reflects on how the Age of Trump and his return to power have negatively impacted the interpersonal relationships and mental and emotional health of the American people -- and how they need to hold on to hope and a belief in human decency when it is so easy to so succumb to cynicism and despair in these dark times.

She also ponders how and why so many "good" "everyday" Germans were able to sustain living in a state of denial about how their society was succumbing to evil in human history during the 1930s and beyond.

And Sabrina Haake shares her personal life journey of overcoming poverty and abuse and how that has impacted her moral framework, public voice, and commitment to democracy and a more humane society.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

[email protected]

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com:

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast