The Left Unsaid

This week, the McElwee family returns to the belly of the beast - domestic politics - to rip apart Trump’s $4.5 trillion “budget” bill, aka oligarchic looting plan. We break down what’s in the bill, how it’s quietly murdering people with paperwork and poverty, and a truly massive expansion of fascist border law enforcement.

Meanwhile, the genocide rages on in Gaza, two Israeli consulate employees are shot in DC, and the ADL blames it on our favorite Twitch streamer.

Also in this episode: Ms. Rachel inspired Meg to speak out more loudly for Palestine, and should inspire you too! Columbia’s president gets drowned out during her commencement address. (Free Mahmoud!) And the U.S. empire continues to kneecap its own soft power by going after Harvard’s international students.

This one’s packed. Listen in, leave us a comment, call your senator (you can do it after 5pm, introverts), and if you’re able, support us at TheLeftUnsaid.net. No paywalls, no ads, just one semi-functional family trying to tell the truth.

Links:

1. See Ms. Rachel with Rahaf, a young girl who had both her legs amputated after Israel bombed her.
2. Here is Meg's reel for our actual day job, Sew Liberated, inspired to go harder for solidarity with Gaza.
3. You can read Corey Robin, one of Patrick's favorite academics, on Facebook of all places.

This week, we start with the deranged plot twist of the Duck Dynasty guy teaming up with Homeland Security to turn immigration into reality TV. For these people, The Hunger Games was a how-to manual.

From there, we drag our mics out of the simulacra and into the real: the criminalization of journalism, the surveillance of dissent, and borders as literal and ideological weapons.

We discuss famous left-wing streamer Hasan Piker’s interrogation at the airport, Jeremy Scahill’s consistent moral and journalistic brilliance, and Mr. Rogers's humanist commitments.

Plus: Keir Starmer cosplays as Trump, beloved online educator Ms. Rachel get burned for supporting children's right to live, and Trump’s alternative Oligarchy Tour through the Middle East provides both opportunities and traps for global justice.

Also: weird French philosopher Jean Baudrillard,, climate apartheid, trad wives, and the AI-generated Trump Gaza real estate ad.

Links:

Help us keep the simulacra glitching:

• Use the yellow mic button at TheLeftUnsaid.net to drop us a question or righteous rant

Meg returns for a Mother’s Day episode that is warm, weird, and wildly enraging.

We start with a ceasefire (India and Pakistan) and end with state violence (ICE kidnapping a mom in Massachusetts). In between, we explore the imperial roots of the India-Pakistan conflict over Kashmir, why caste and colonialism still matter, and how U.S. immigration law is a eugenics project in bureaucratic drag.

Other things we cover:

• What a teenage Indian pacifist on live TV can teach all of us
• How Stephen Miller’s immigration plans recycle 1920s-style race science
• Why MAGA fascism isn’t new, just newly branded
• The emerging tradition of regular people blocking ICE with their bodies
• Whether Trump actually wants a Nobel Peace Prize (spoiler: yes)
• And what it's like to be the sullied gene pool (looking at you, Finn)

Don’t just listen. Organize, radicalize, and leave us a 5-star review that would make Karl Rove proud (but maybe don’t use his name this time).

Links:

1. Amazingly wise pacifist Indian teen. This is how you handle reporters.
2. Must-watch documentary, The Settlers, from Louis Theroux. (If you can't watch the BBC, try a Google search or search on X. You might find a friendly pirate.)
3. Meg's current book, Bad Law by Elie Mystal
4. And, if you want to check out that scene of Cantinflas on the border.

This week, it’s just Patrick and Finn—no Meg, but plenty of rage, history, and dark humor.

Starting with the unspeakable horrors coming out of Gaza, they explore not only the U.S.’s financial and political complicity but also why this particular atrocity demands our attention. It’s not “just another war.” It’s a stress test for precious, hard-won moral frameworks: international law, human rights, even the idea of civilization itself.

We follow the bloody trail from the Spanish conquest to Israel’s assault on Gaza, with stops in Nicaragua, Ireland, apartheid South Africa, and the U.S. Senate. Along the way, we talk about what it means to be “special carriers” of anti-colonial memory, how ideological tools constrain power, and how we can build that toolbox, even if we have thus far failed to stop the genocide.

Links

• Get ⁠America, América⁠, an amazing new history of the New World from Yale historian Greg Grandin.
• Finn and Patrick's single video episode of Playfully Serious on the history of Israel and Palestine, from December 2023

In this episode of The Left Unsaid, Pat, Meg, and Finn take a wild, unbalanced joyride through the myths we’re taught in school — from the sacred veneration of the Founding Fathers to the soothing bedtime stories spun by Ken Burns documentaries.

We dig into:

• How the Trump administration is pushing "patriotic education" (read: mandatory nationalistic myth-making).

• How liberal takes on history (hello again, Ken Burns) sometimes aren’t that far off from the conservative ones — just with better music.

• What the 1619 Project gets wrong.

• Why critical thinking about history matters more than ever, as authoritarianism erupts into the classroom.

• And why the Constitution isn't the sacred text you were told it was in 8th grade civics class.

If you're tired of fairy tales disguised as history, grab your headphones. Let's complicate the past together — and maybe complicate the future too.

Links:

Trump administration on education: 

1. Executive Order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling”

2. 2021 President’s 1776 Commission Final Report

The 2nd Place Winner in the Senior Individual Documentary category of the National History Day competition in 2024, which we noted tied decolonization in Africa to the unfolding of the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

Historian Tad Stoermer’s takedown of Ken Burns on the American Revolution.

The Dig episode on the Constitution and how Americans have viewed/worshipped it over time, with Aziz Rana.

James Oakes, respected historian of slavery and abolitionism in US history, critiquing the 1619 Project and pointing out that history textbooks were actually pretty good, at least in the 80s and 90s.

Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States.

Incredible new history: America, América, by Greg Grandin.

In this episode of The Left Unsaid, your favorite intergenerational think tank—Pat, Meg, and Finn—dive headfirst into the authoritarian fever dream that is U.S. higher education under pressure from the Trump administration. From threats to Harvard’s funding to the criminalization of pro-Palestinian student speech, we trace how empire comes home to roost.

Also:

• Finn contemplates his college prospects as a politically aware white guy.

• the rise and fall of soft power, and how U.S. “aid” is often economic sabotage in a humanitarian costume.

• Plus, a brief return of the Dutch East India Company, because imperialism loves a reboot.

And yes, because it's 2025, we fulfill our legal obligation to talk about artificial intelligence. Imagine the State Department run by ChatGPT, where generative coups require no redactions and zero moral reflection. The Trump administration has a plan.

In this debut episode, Patrick, Meg and Finn sway to the vibes of our current political moment: killer robot dogs dressed as cartoons, Mahmoud Khalil and predictive political repression, why "not obeying in advance" might be our most important survival skill.

And of course, because it's now legally required of all podcasters, we talk about Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Join our attempt to briefly escape the inanity of it all through cozy, family conversation.

Free Palestine.