Episode 233 - MAGA Blues

Jen and Noam discuss elections. US elections, Israeli elections, how somehow the US elections are Israel's fault.  But really, we spend most of the time talking about the midterms and how the GOP got absolutely taken behind the woodshed by voters. Even Texas is blue now. Will Republicans learn from this and change their ways? Probably not, but we do hope that maybe sanity will return. We also hope that Democrats don't take this win as a mandate to do all of the crazy things as well. We do discuss the one that the Democrats will do, hopefully in a not crazy fashion - start impeachment investigations. They certainly have a lot of items on the list to choose from. Hopefully they go with something substantial and not litigating Libs of TikTok. For our WAWC, Noam recommends the puzzle game Order of the Sinking Star. He can't tell you how long the game is since it just keeps going, but he's having fun nonetheless.

Noam and Jen gear up for the midterms by talking about what an absolute disaster the GOP has become. Specifically, that bonkers ad that Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign ran platforming Amy Acton's mom. Why did nobody point out what a horrible idea that was? Because everyone in the GOP is now stuck in an echo chamber and they don't understand how this looks to normal people. Stop me if you've heard this one before.  Since Noam is weirdly into certain kinds of internet drama, we spend some time talking about the downfall of Ethan Klein, now that his wife has publicly exposed him for cheating. Klein is having a struggle session with himself, which includes firing himself and divesting from the company he and his wife created. Maybe he will sanction himself as well.  The Starlink / Starshield situation over who gave the order to turn it off in Ukraine keeps getting more jumbled and confusing. Now Elon says it was him, but that it was Starlink, which Ukraine denies. Maybe if we're all good boys and girls after the midterms we can get a congressional investigation into this whole thing. It would be good to know who controls Starshield, exactly.  For our WAWC, Noam is starting Neal Stephenson's Bomb Light series, the second book in which came out recently. Jen saw Wicker and can assure you it's not all basket porn and in fact would make a good date night movie.   

Jen and Noam take some time to talk about important issues like the here one day gone the next WH press secretary Katie Zacharia, the mystery of who gave the order to turn off Starshield right before Russia launched a drone attack against Ukraine, Trump busying himself with minutiae leading up to the midterms, and generally what the hell is going on. And then we get to the thing we really want to talk about - You Can See Everything. It's both easy and hard to talk about this movie because…we can't really decide what kind of movie it is even. It's very good though, and like all of Fielder's work it makes you question what is real and what isn't. There are some spoilers at the end of the episode so if you haven't seen the movie don't listen to that part yet!   

Noam and Jen would have liked to spend the whole episode talking about dogs, specifically Yoko. Alas, the new cycles will not allow us that luxury. So we discuss being nice to Claude, being superintelligence to dogs, the Matter Complier, the ugliness of livestreaming an execution by firing squad, and whatever that is going on with MAGA in Texas.  For our WAWC, Noam recommends the game Well Dweller, a fun Metroidvania game that doesn't make you want to throw your controller. Jen recommends the book Bad Blood by John Carreyrou, since we are apparently rehabbing Elizabeth Holmes and we don't stand for that on this podcast. 

Jen and Noam have a nice long chat about the FlyDubai airplane hijacking, Jacob Geller's weird Title IX admission, the whole mess at Cornell, and Eric Schmitt's publicity stunt gone awry.   For our WAWC, Noam talks about Lanterns again now that the season is over, specifically about how the internet is wrong about the show (but what's new). Jen is happy that The Apothecary Diaries is back (so is Noam), and we both explain that the show isn't just for the ladies but is in fact a pretty hefty drama.   

Noam and Jen get to have the conversation about the upcoming AI apocalypse that they were going to have last week until Nikole Hannah-Jones ruined everything. We discuss AI doomerism, AI CEOs warning of impending doom yet doing nothing to stop it, how AI isn't a sentient being, and how we're not all going to die from AI. For our WAWC, Jen doesn't have anything because we're in the dead time between anime seasons, but Noam has two fun puzzle games for you - Dimhaven and Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit. We also have a little discussion about if it's finally time to upgrade to the Switch 2, now that there are games coming out for it that we want to play.   

Jen and Noam are finally back! Just in time to discuss Nikole Hannah-Jones' big piece on how she was an inattentive parent who left her kid in a bad school because reasons. OK, that's our interpretation of what happened, not hers, not that she seems to have learned anything from the experience either. Nevertheless, she is persisting, along with some of her supporters.  Since it has been so long since we recorded we have a bit of a grab bag of WAWC - Noam is still watching Lanterns and ignoring the online discourse, and Jen went and saw Akira in IMAX when it was showing. Jen sidetracked the conversation by asking Noam about Sidney Sweeney's big naked sports betting ad, which accidentally led to another discussion of Euphoria. We do learn that Noam knows about Gaylor Swift though, of all things.  

Noam and Jen are back to discuss navigating DC during Freedom 250 events, Trump's continuing ballroom saga, if we will see a constitutional amendment in our lifetimes, the very weird case of Natalie Harp and her obsession with being close to Trump, Jen's big theory as to who leaked all these stories, and the never-ending Arday apologia.  For our WAWC, Noam assures us that the new HBO Plus series Lanterns is actually good, and Jen pitches you on going through the trouble of seeing The Odyssey in IMAX. Programming note - we will be taking a few weeks off, since Noam has moving chores and then it's Labor Day and then after all that is done we'll be back.   

Jen and Noam discuss a little Francesca Hong and the general woes of the DSA crowd before getting into the end of the Jason Arday saga. On that topic there is a lot to unpack; where Cambridge went wrong, the responsibility Arday holds for his own actions, blaming "online mobs" for repeating factual information, and the consequences Arday was not going to face for his many egregious lies. In all of that we also discuss Luigi Mangione's guilty plea and the case of Lindsay Clancy.  For our WAWC, Noam is re-reading the novel Neuromancer in anticipation of the upcoming Apple TV adaptation. Jen is watching the Netflix anime Chainsmoker Cat, which she freely admits is only going to be appealing to a certain age cohort but if you're versed in 90s alt animation you'll get it.   

Noam and Jen know that 2026 is hard and scary and that everyone wants to return to 2020. But alas, we do have to discuss the things happening in 2026, like El-Sayed's very slim win in the Michigan Democrat primary for Senate. As per usual the polling was wrong. The problem is, the polling was very, very wrong and people are starting to ask questions about if that happens for less than honest purposes.  Speaking of manipulation, Twitter announced that they will be rolling out a new content creator payment system that seems designed to demonetize those who aren't providing anything of use to the platform. The requirements for both content type and metrics will be much higher than they are currently, and it sounds like the platform will be keeping a tight lid on who will qualify for payouts. Will we finally see the end of engagement slop? Will influencers who no longer meet monetization criteria stop posting? We'll find out next month! For our WAWC, we discuss season three of House of the Dragon, which aired it's season finale this past Sunday. Overall the season is a mixed bag, but we do love that Aegon is now comic relief. And that Aemond's fiancee may turn him into a toad if he tried to take Aemond from her.