Trump Corruption Overdrive — Who Pays? And How to Fight Back.
Trump isn't just pushing corruption to get a cut of the action--he wants to run the whole game. Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/corruption-overload  Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Today's episode of Next Comes What looks at the 31 flavors of Trump's corruption and ways to block him. Andrea Pitzer shares her experiences observing corruption in Russia and explains how the Trump administration seems to be trying to catch up. She looks at the relationship between racism and corruption, then outlines the perils of our polluted information sphere (and how it got that way). She explores the corruption of the Supreme Court, of Republican legislators, and the office of the presidency itself, as well as laying out the straight-up grift that undergirds nearly everything Trump does. Summarizing a Carnegie Endowment report on how people around the world have fought corruption in recent decades, she notes the difficulty of ridding a country of it once tipping points have been reached. Andrea then points to effective means of keeping corruption at bay or rolling it back on a local level, many of them available to you in your community.
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42:34
Freezing Trump Out -- Lessons for a Grim Time
A cold day in hell on the streets of DC as the city shows us how to handle Trump.  Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/a-cold-day-in-hell  Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe  Today's episode of Next Comes What is a report from the nearly empty streets of DC, a tale of two cities, one of which snubbed DonaldTrump. Andrea Pitzer goes to Capitol Hill and Capital One Arena, talking to those visiting town for the inauguration. She finds pattern in the rhetoric served up to her by supporters of Trump and discovers the cold heart of his support. Andrea attends a Martin Luther King Jr. memorial at Metropolitan AME church, and hears Al Sharpton spin a very different story about America. She compares the two visions of the future on offer then runs into a tiny four-person protest of students who have come to the city with handmade cardboard signs. Looking at the executive orders announced later the same day, she points to a path forward in the grim era that has now begun. Â
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36:11
A Better Way to Take On Trump 2.0 — Inauguration Episode
What to expect when you're expecting an authoritarian. Our inauguration episode. Read the post that inspired this episode. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What This episode of Next Comes What is about how to manage the next four years, starting from Day One. Andrea Pitzer discusses the amazing ways that countries around the globe in danger of losing democracy are trying to save themselves right now, the new dangers that the twenty-first century presents to those facing authoritarianism, and some of the most effective ways to confront the threat barreling down on us. She looks at heroic examples in Poland, Myanmar, Brazil, and South Korea, as well as times when everyday Americans have helped change the U.S. into the country they wanted it to become. And she outlines the very real risk, if we're not careful, of people on the left falling into an existence just as removed from reality as the one adopted by MAGA on the right. And she explains how to stay engaged during the crisis now confronting us.
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43:20
How Authoritarians Abuse and Use the Homeless
Homelessness has long been used to criminalize suffering and expand detention. Read the post that inspired this episode. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What. Today's episode of Next Comes What is about the relationship between homelessness and concentration camps around the globe, as well as a close look at those living without a home in America today. Andrea Pitzer explains how homelessness has historically been used as a political weapon to expand detention for other groups of civilians. She recounts how Mussolini, Hitler, and even Herbert Hoover went to war against the homeless between World War I and World War II, and narrates the terrible worldwide legacy of their actions. In the second half of the episode, she interviews Brian Goldstone, the author of the forthcoming book There Is No Place for Us, which tells the story of five families who are all part of Atlanta's Black working homeless population. Goldstone lays out the violence that consigns people to homelessness, and discusses with Andrea the concrete ways listeners can take action to secure housing for everyone currently without it — and keep those of us who are lucky enough to have it from losing it.
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32:15
Why Determination Beats Inspiration
Not everything will go wrong. Some thoughts for the New Year. Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/everything-won-t-go-wrong Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe Today's episode of Next Comes What is about finding holiday joy even in bleak times. In preparation for the New Year and a new administration coming in, Andrea Pitzer recounts how people in extreme conditions in the past held religious services, celebrated feasts, and even set up circus performances.  She considers stories of Arctic explorers celebrating Twelfth Night or turning their clothes inside out to bring good luck in the New Year, with little possibility that they would survive the winter. Even presidents who tried to do the right things historically have often failed in their efforts. Andrea looks at actions by Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman that were undone by their political foes.  And yet—just as in the camps and in the High Arctic—not everything that could have gone wrong did. She makes a plea for determination over inspiration and hopes that everyone might choose to embrace their agency in 2025.
USA