Will your vote count in 2026? It may be the most important question we can ask right now. There's no one better to ask than Ari Berman. He's the author of MINORITY RULE and GIVE US THE BALLOT. He is also the National Voting Rights Correspondent for Mother Jones, and he has been covering the "GOP War on Voting" for over a decade.

Read more:

Trump Keeps Demanding that You Stop Talking about His Jeffrey Epstein Problem https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/26/trump-keeps-demanding-that-you-stop-talking-about-his-jeffrey-epstein-problem/

If Dems Successfully Message on News Outlets Lefty Pundits No Longer Read, Did It Ever Happen? https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/27/if-a-dems-successfully-message-on-news-outlets-lefty-pundits-no-longer-read-did-it-ever-happen/

Donald Trump was desperately trying to regain his superpower, attempting to grab attention and refocus it. He ended up on an Obama conspiracy theory that's already been re-litigated five times.

Read more at emptywheel: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/18/tulsi-gabbard-accuses-kash-patel-of-covering-up-for-the-obama-deep-state/

emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler explains that the bubbling Jeffrey Epstein scandal is about two things: the underlying scandal and any ties Trump has to it, and the way it has disrupted Trump's normal super power ability to command and direct attention.

Read more: Jeffrey Epstein Is about Trump's Failing Ability to Command Attention https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/13/jeffrey-epstein-is-about-command-of-attention/

Find out more: https://www.emptywheel.net/2025/07/07/pam-bondi-admits-she-must-fire-kash-patel-and-dan-bongino/

Marcy Wheeler digs deeper into the Catturd Deficit that allows white supremacists to use Xitter to rig the news. Then she looks at how Trump's illegal war on Iran has created unprecedented fractures in his base, from Russian useful idiots like Marjorie Taylor Greene to anti-Semitic voices like Candace Owens, and even convicted January 6th participants like Joe Biggs.

She explores how to exploit these cracks using the same tactics that got Trump elected, turning his own troll army's playbook against them.

X in 2025 is a machine of fascism, an undeniable Nazi bar filled with people who don't know the rule about what to do when a Nazi comes into a bar.

Yet its influence has never been greater.

It's Elon Musk's megaphone and MAGA's primary digital outreach vector, especially when it comes to spinning lies in real time, such as they are trying to do in attempting to brand the Donald Trump-loving murderer in Minnesota as a Marxist.

emptywheel's Marcy Wheeler explains how the site became the machine for fascism, why she still uses it, and some promising angles of attack.

Follow Marcy

emptywheel https://www.emptywheel.net/about/support/ X https://x.com/emptywheel/ Bluesky https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social Read the original Machine for Fascism post: https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/11/01/elon-musks-machine-for-fascism-a-one-stop-shop-for-disinformation-and-violence/

This podcast has ended for now. But the work continues

Next Comes What uses history to tell us about what comes next. And what to do about it.

It's hosted by Andrea Pitzer and produced by me.

If you want to know how we got into this mess, check out Ball of Thread with Marcy Wheeler.

Thanks for listening.