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The courts are balking, Macron is correcting, the vote on Ukraine was shameful, and appointing a podcaster to be #2 at the FBI is dumb. It's 35 days in; maybe the president needs to start focusing on doing things well? Give a listen.
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Over the past year, right-wing parties across the West have been sweeping elections. Donald Trump in the United States, Argentina’s Javier Milei, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and now Germany.
On Sunday, 83 percent of Germans went to the polls—the highest turnout since the Cold War.
The Christian Democrats, the country’s center-right party led by Friedrich Merz, won. But that’s not the big story. The big story is that the right-wing populist party, the AfD, came in second place with nearly 21 percent, the strongest showing since WWII.
There is a single reason why. It’s not the economy. It’s not the war with Russia. It’s not climate change. It’s immigration. And I’m not talking about jobs or wage deflation. I’m talking about the fact that over the past decade, Germany has seen a net migration of 5 million people, with more than 1 million of the new arrivals coming from Syria and Afghanistan.
And the rifts have been palpable. And here, I’m choosing two examples from just last week: An Afghan migrant suspect rammed a car through a crowd of people. Thirty-nine people, including several children, were injured. Just the day before the election, a Syrian migrant became the lead suspect for a stabbing outside of the Holocaust memorial. This all fundamentally tests the limits of assimilation and multiculturalism.
The dynamic here is the same that has characterized many Western nations. The center-left and the left have ignored the problem. And the right has named it—and filled the vacuum. As Michael Sandel has put it: “Fundamentalists rush in where liberals fear to tread.” If there’s a line that captures the politics of our era, it is that.
Last week, the very question of whether migrants can adopt pluralism and Western ideals was also put to Australians, after two Sydney nurses went viral when caught on camera saying that they would kill Israeli patients that came into their hospital. One nurse was an Afghan refugee.
Here to unpack it all is Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon, Democratic fundraising powerhouse Brianna Wu, and the founder of Quillette, Claire Lehmann.
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Trump's FBI Director Kash Patel picks a Deputy Director even less qualified than he is: MAGA podcaster Dan Bongino. Trump and Pete Hegseth purge the Pentagon's leadership and lawyers. Elon Musk replies all to the federal government asking what staff have accomplished lately. And, on the three-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Trump declines to call Vladimir Putin a dictator. Jon, Jon, and Tommy discuss the potential for full-blown autocracy at home, Ukraine's predicament, and the latest swing of Musk's bureaucratic chainsaw. Then, Jon talks with NOTUS congressional reporter Daniella Diaz about Trump's legislative agenda, squirmy Republicans, and mounting public anger at Trump's budget cuts.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.
Psychology professor Kurt Gray, author of Outraged: Why We Fight About Morality and Politics and How to Find Common Ground, joins to discuss how our deep-rooted sense of victimhood is shaped by our evolutionary past as prey—and how that influences modern political and moral conflicts. Plus, Mike recounts his experience at the Principles First Summit, where discussions of civic virtue were overshadowed by bomb threats and the unexpected presence of the Proud Boys.
Produced by Corey Wara
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MintPress News reporter Alan MacLeod returns to Bad Faith to tell the story of how Elon Musk was mentored by his CIA handler to become the ultimate insider: a defense contractor for the US government who is now involved in a project to double the number of nuclear bombs in existence, and build an "iron dome" for America which would end the era of "mutually assured destruction" and nuclear peace. How did Mike Griffin, the COO of In-Q-Tel, a private enterprise funded by the CIA, come to have such a close relationship with Musk that Musk named his favorite child Griffin? What is the end goal of Musk's involvement in the defense sector? And how are conservatives like Musk and Tulsi Gabbard negotiating the "America First" anti-interventionism of the base now that they've gone full insider?
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Produced by Armand Aviram.
Theme by Nick Thorburn (@nickfromislands).
Today's podcast asks: Are Trump officials finding it necessary to echo the boss's "Ukraine started the war" in the same way Trump officials in the first month of the first administration were forced to say his inaugural crowd size was the biggest in history? And is Elon Musk off the chain? Give a listen.
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The story of Liverpool’s once thriving port is one of spectacular rise, and spectacular fall. In Liverpool and the Unmaking of Britain, the historian Sam Wetherell looks at the city post-WWII, as the decline in the port led to the poverty and neglect of its population, the deportation of Chinese sailors, and the discrimination against the city’s Black population. It’s a history as prophecy for what the future might hold for the communities caught in the same trap of obsolescence.
As manufacturing has declined in the UK it has grown exponentially in China, which is now known as ‘the world’s factory’. Dr Yu Jie is a senior research fellow at Chatham House and an expert in China’s economic diplomacy. She considers what the mega-cities that have emerged out of China’s rise, and the communities living in them, can learn from the history of Liverpool.
Corby in the Midlands was once at the heart of British steelmaking, with one of the largest operations in Western Europe. But once the plant was closed in the 1980s, the ‘clean-up’ became known as one of the worst environmental scandals, causing serious birth defects in the town. The four-part series, Toxic Town, written by Jack Thorne (on Netflix from 27th February) tells the story of the families as they fight for justice.
Producer: Katy Hickman