Ep 232: US Meddling, the Limits of 'Agency' Discourse and How Media Chooses Which 'Voices' To Center

Please join us Wednesday Oct 21 for our Beg-A-Thon live show, "Ben Shapiro, Sex-Pest Actor Comebacks, and the New Elevated Right-Wing Cinema," @ 8:00ET/7:00CT! We will be joined by writer Josh Olson to discuss the rise of the Ben Shapiro's extremely racist astroturf film empire and how rightwing cinema has evolved in recent years into something more mainstream, more ironic and more designed to directly engage the so-called "culture wars."

In part 3 of our three-part series on the uses and misuses of "authenticity" in political media, we examine the popular media trope that progressive politics are exogenous to core Democratic constituencies who, we are told, are axiomatically conservative, pro-Israel and anti-welfare state.

In Part 2 of our 3-part series on the uses and misuses of "authenticity," we examine the media obsession with "political mavericks" who "buck party orthodoxy"—almost aways with either trivial interventions or, as is most often the case, throwing vulnerable populations and causes under the bus. With guest Jack Mirkinson, senior editor at The Nation magazine.

In part 1 of our 3-part series on the uses and misuses of "authenticity," we examine the Real America "listening tour," its propaganda utility, and how it uses the superficial aesthetics of rural simplicity to sell class-flattening, power-serving narratives. With writer and teacher John Patrick Leary.