April 21, 2021
Sarah is sick so we’re using this week for spring cleaning and self-care. There will be a bonus episode for Patreon supporters at the Truth-teller level and higher later this week so look out for that! Since there’s no public episode, we urge you to watch “Putin’s Palace”, the documentary by the team of Alexey Navalny, the Russian opposition leader Putin is slowly murdering before the world.
GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR
Autocracy
GasLit Nation: Joe Manchin Gaslights America
April 14, 2021
This week we take on the new mascot of obstructionism and excuse for legislative inaction — Joe Manchin! This human barrier to democracy has not received the level of investigation he deserves, so we dove in. We discuss his recommendation that everyone be nice to the seditious Capitol attackers and not upset them with something scary like voting rights, his seemingly self-destructive opposition to the filibuster, and his bizarre voting history and policy proposals, particularly regarding the Middle East.
GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR
GasLit Nation: Sleeper Cells
March 31, 2021
We describe the uneasy interim period of the early Biden era and what’s to come when the covid crisis ends – and predict that it’s going to look a lot like what happened after the end of the 1918 Spanish Flu: white mob violence, anti-immigrant movements, economic turmoil, rising fascism, and the consolidation of dictator personality cults. Day to day life is slowly improving under the Biden administration, but the US remains as vulnerable to autocracy as before – unless certain policy decisions are made.
GASLIT NATION WITH ANDREA CHALUPA AND SARAH KENDZIOR
Autocracy: Rules for Survival
In the face of the impulse to normalize, it is essential to maintain one’s capacity for shock. This will lead people to call you unreasonable and hysterical, and to accuse you of overreacting. It is no fun to be the only hysterical person in the room. Prepare yourself.
By: Masha Gessen | NOVEMBER 2016
“Thank you, my friends. Thank you. Thank you. We have lost. We have lost, and this is the last day of my political career, so I will say what must be said. We are standing at the edge of the abyss. Our political system, our society, our country itself are in greater danger than at any time in the last century and a half. The president-elect has made his intentions clear, and it would be immoral to pretend otherwise. We must band together right now to defend the laws, the institutions, and the ideals on which our country is based.”
That, or something like that, is what Hillary Clinton should have said on Wednesday. Instead, she said, resignedly,