Why are we so bad at criticizing or satirizing the wealthy? Is it because we think if we're nice to them we think they'll be less likely to kill us? From Succession discourse to bloodthirsty Taylor Swift fans to Jeffrey Epstein defenders, sycophants and fanboys protect, distract, and play down the egregious acts of the rich. Jessa and Nico discuss how the media protects rather than interrogates the ultra-wealthy and why the self-made man myth needs to die.

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A new book about Tucker Carlson's life tracks how the conservative movement has cracked up over the past several decades, while also showing how one man was able to navigate (and monetize) the changes. But does Jason Zengerle's Hated By All the Right People understand where we are today? Jessa and Nico discuss how conservative media -- from print to cable television to Reddit -- has been evolved from respectable intelligentsia to Holocaust jokes, and whether Jessa can fix Tucker.

Shownotes and references:

http://theculturewedeserve.substack.com

Our major arts institutions are broke. The Met Opera has been reduced to begging for money from the Saudis, and meanwhile they can't sell out their theater even for premieres. Colleges are dipping into endowments, theater companies are shutting down, and the MFA Boston is laying people off. The cosmopolitan globalized art model is falling apart, and (now that Epstein is dead) no one has any new ideas except to head out to the petrostates hat in hand. Jessa and Nico look into the state of affairs, and wonder why we're here in the 21st century using 20th century ideas about what art is for and how to fund it.

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The American century is over, or so say the speakers at Davos. The United States has had hegemonic control over the rest of the world, its markets, its sovereignty, its culture. But now that might be coming to an end. Jessa and Nico discuss what that means for international culture industries, which have also been playing by America's rules for decades.

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It's France in the mid-19th century, and here we have a group of young men who can't decide how to get along. They waste time and money, they go to nightclubs and restaurants, they have affairs and declare themselves and each other artistic geniuses. Meanwhile, the political situation is crumbling and people are putting up barricades in the street. It's time for Flaubert's Sentimental Education, which examines the listlessness and indecisiveness of a generation coming of age in turmoil. Jessa and Joseph discuss how this in no way resembles the contemporary impulse to podcast through a breakdown.

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Rightwing men have been accusing liberal women of having "suicidal empathy" for the immigrants they claim are trying to murder them. But the only people who truly seem to have suicidal empathy are those who identify and sympathize with the ICE agents and the politicians who are likely to turn on them next. Jessa and Nico discuss the popularity of this idea for figures like Elon Musk.

Also, over at the Nation, Anna Krauthamer attempted to reconcile her belief in prison abolition with a horrendous experience of sexual violence, and the whole thing became an illustration of the failures of the sloganeering political left to generate ideas on better ways to do things. Maybe it wasn't a great idea to try to solve complicated social issues with personal essays.

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Much like the girlboss, no matter how many times the culture tries to eulogize DEI we find it once again, walking around, making a nuisance of itself. Recent pieces in the NYTimes, Wired, and Compact try to reckon with the legacy of DEI, and then there is of course the walking mascot of DEI culture, Bari Weiss, making a mess of CBS News.

Jessa and Nico talk about the enormous lengths all these people will go to avoid talking about class, why identity politics was a good idea (for a while), and why the most obvious DEI hires were Ross Douthat and Bari Weiss.

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Nico was in Colombia when the United States abducted Venezuelan president Maduro, and he has some thoughts on what people in the United States commonly get wrong about South American politics. But also: predictions for 2026: the USA will do some feminist regime change in Iran, just like in Afghanistan! Serbia will be liberated from the heavy yoke of Trump Family influence! Mr. Beast will be charged with crimes against humanity! And more in politics, culture, and art.

Let us know your own predictions and see shownotes here:

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2025 may be over, but its cultural production lives on in our hearts. Nico and Jessa debate the best and worst movies, TV shows, books, and museum exhibits of the year, talk shit about your faves, and hope for better art in the future.

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A very special Christmas treat for our listeners. Joseph and Jessa discuss George Eliot's Felix Holt: The Radical, which asks the very important question: is the socialist's primary task to yell at people and tell them they are wrong about everything? Set in the 1830s after political reform has granted voting rights to new -- but still very limited -- populations, a small English market town deals with the tumult that follows. A powerfully rich heir returns to stand for public office as "a radical," a young man decides to devote himself to the bettering of the working classes by telling them they are all ignorant drunks, and a young woman must decide which one of these weirdos to marry.

But there is also a strange paternity case and a power struggle over an estate, a satirical storyline about the foolishness of patriarchal lineage, and a few good jokes about atheists.

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