Weird, Wicked, and Wild

Part 2 of 2: Daddy left unfinished business in the Middle East, so Bush 43 comes to the White House in 2001 with a mission, and whether he accomplished it or not really isn't up for debate -- he didn't. That didn't stop him though, and the damage he did in the White House made his successor's election seem like salvation may have arrived. Spoiler alert: it didn't. The White House is where altruism goes to die. And the first Black president in American history revealed something ugly in this country, paving the way for horrors to come. Part 2 of the Accelerants -- George "Dubya" Bush and Barack Obama.

Part 1 of 2: Riding his predecessor's coattails into an office that had already gone off the rails, George H.W. Bush didn’t bother asking where the brakes were. He put the pedal to the metal. He and his successors put power on a fast and dangerous track with emergency authorizations, executive orders, surveillance dragnets, corporate and banking bailouts, and forever wars, all designed to look strong on TV and in social media feeds. They used every crisis as an excuse for a procedural shortcut, and then turned every shortcut into precedent. The Oval Office became a reflex factory: act fast and first, don't apologize, and deal with governing when the cameras are gone. Hesitation is failure, restraint is bad business. In this first part of a two-part episode, we'll cover Bush 41 and Bill "Slick Willy" Clinton.

Inheriting a world reshaped by total war, nuclear brinkmanship, and nonstop mobilization demanded more than managerial skill. As the U.S. slid into the Cold War, presidents acted less like careful stewards of process and more like final judges of what counted as necessary, legitimate, and urgent. They waged wars without declarations, kept secrets without oversight, and shaped markets, morals, and memory by sheer force of office (and occasional charisma). The imperial presidency fused commander-in-chief, moral advocate, and national sovereign into a single role, pulling power ever closer to the Oval Office even as the bureaucracy beneath it swelled. Authority flowed downward, justified by crisis, sustained by fear, and made routine through repetition. Harry Truman through Ronald Reagan: these are the Authorities.

Presiding over a growing territorial and overseas empire takes a lot of power vested in the one-man office of the American presidency. The expansive scope of the President's authority had grown well beyond what a single man could control by the end of the 19th century; in the 20th century, presidents relied more and more on the growing power of the entirety of the executive branch. Administrations became exactly that -- sprawling networks of professionals and politicians that all reported to the top. Bureaucracy was the new order of the day, and it came often at the expense of domestic tranquility and international harmony. Theodore Roosevelt to Franklin D. Roosevelt, on the Administrators.

If a president of the United States won't stand up and declare unwavering support for equality, then who will? Isn't that what this country was founded on? That's what Abraham Lincoln thought, but when he was murdered in 1865, what he thought no longer seemed to matter. His next nine successors continually dropped the ball when it came to protecting Black civil rights, and their collective support for corrupt big business interests just leaves a bad taste, in our opinion. Andrew Johnson through William McKinley, the Abdicators.

The next eight presidents, from Martin Van Buren (#8) to James Buchanan (#15) all served only one term as president, and they spent their terms more or less trying to appease the various national factions that threatened to pull the country apart. This was, unfortunately, especially true when it came to appeasing the slave powers of the South, entrenching and intensifying the national debate over slavery and its expansion for decades. It would take a different kind of appeasing on the part of Abraham Lincoln (#16) to save the United States, but even he doesn't get out of this unscathed. We're calling them all out.

There are a lot of lists that rank the presidents from best to worst (or vice versa). Scholarly lists have some consensus, usually. Popular opinion lists vary wildly. We're not going to try to rank them, but we're going to look at the damage done to American society by each of the forty-five men we've elected to lead us, and we'll see how they all stack up to the current guy. In this episode, we're looking at George Washington (#1) through Andrew Jackson (#7). These guys were the architects of the U.S. presidency, for many reasons. They established and broke with precedents, they fostered traditions, and they built the executive office from its inception. And I think we'll find that the pedestals we've raised under some of them ought to be a little bit shorter.

Our final episode of the season tries to rescue language from the ravages of fascist Newspeak. While not invented by or used solely by fascists, Newspeak -- a term coined by George Orwell in his seminal novel, 1984 -- impoverishes vocabulary in order to limit complex and critical thought and reasoning. Newspeak may appear as historically insidious buzzwords and phrases, like “Living Space” and “Final Solution.” Newspeak may also appear harmless, such as in “Enhanced Interrogation,” or even good, like “Make America Great Again.” Pro-tip: when folks stop speaking in full sentences, watch out.

We'll also sunset Season 1 and give you a heads up on our plans for Season 2.

In our penultimate episode of the season, we will try to make a distinction between populism—anti-establishmentarian political representation of the interests and voices of ordinary people—and the selective populism employed by fascist would-be autocrats. They claim to represent the will of the “true people” while identifying, excluding, and demonizing those that do not fit into their definition of the “true people.” Populism has its own drawbacks, but on the surface, it’s not an immediate threat. Selective, fascist populism, on the other hand, could make an outsider out of any of us.

If the patriarchy promises men power, why do so many of them still feel powerless? Episode thirteen pulls apart the myths of masculinity -- all the scripts that tell men how to stand, speak, fight, and everything else. From dueling pistols to MAGA hats, the performance has always required props, applause, and fear of failure. We trace how fascists and authoritarians have turned sex and gender into battlefields, equating sexual purity and weaponized virility with national strength. But beneath the uniforms and slogans lies insecurity, not strength. This episode asks who writes the rules of manhood, and whether anyone should.