Flux Podcasts (Formerly Theory of Change)

Episode Summary President Joe Biden and Donald Trump are facing off for the second time this year, but a number of polls have shown a surprisingly close race, despite the fact that Trump has been convicted of 34 felonies and he stands as the only president in American history to have sent an armed mob to block the certification of his electoral defeat. How is this scenario possible? There are a lo...

Episode Summary Podcasts are an increasingly important part of many Americans news and entertainment options. There are thousands of them and many of them feature guests like this one, but some of them don’t. The political dynamic of podcast guests is interesting also because it appears that people who hail from the center-left side of the aisle are less likely to be prolific podcast guests than t...

Episode Summary Far-right extremism is on the rise in the United States and in many other different countries and for the most part, the individuals leading these movements are Christofascist. That is, they are Christians who have a fascistic and authoritarian viewpoint. But there is another subset. And while they are not as popular or well-known, they have lots and lots of money. Another interest...

Episode Summary Like many businesses right now, America’s news media industry is in a crisis. But what’s particularly dangerous about this crisis is that it’s one that most people don’t really know about it. A huge part of the reason why is that many journalists themselves, who are used to explaining how other parts of the world work, don’t seem to understand their own industry. There’s a lot that...

Episode Summary Protestant televangelists have been infamous for decades for their lavish lifestyles and nefarious scandals. They’ve also been extremely successful at promoting far-right political viewpoints to people who just want to watch some devotional preaching. The radicalization of American evangelicalism is finally beginning to attract the journalistic and scholarly attention it deserves,...

The past two episodes of Theory of Change have focused on dating and sex, and I wanted to end the miniseries with a conversation that brings in the topic of media as well. Not just because the next episode arc we'll be doing is about the state of journalism, but also because media have played an important role in how people meet and form connections. It seems forever ago now in 2024, but for many...

Donald Trump has been very public about remaking the Republican party in his political image by boosting people who flatter and praise him the hardest in primary elections. But his longstanding role as leader of the Republican party isn’t just having an effect on the politicians, it is also remaking America’s right-wing subculture in his personal image as well. Besides being thoroughly corrupt and...

Introduction For a variety of reasons, increasing numbers of Americans are turning away from marriage and dating. In a 2022 study , less than a majority of adults surveyed were married, while 37 percent were not in any form of relationship. As the percentage of single people has increased, it seems also that social media is filling up with awful dating advice as well. Self-styled dating and relati...

Summary The news is terrible. Americans are extremely divided along political and religious lines, and far-right radicals have completely taken over one of the country’s major political parties. It’s a lot to handle. And yet, as bad as things are, it’s important to realize that they are improving. Although it may be hard to perceive right now, beginning with Generation X, every single generation o...

Whatever you may happen to think about Joe Biden or Donald Trump, the presidency is not a one-person job. Overwhelmingly, the work inside any White House is done by the advisors. They form policies, promote them to the public, and then make the federal government carry them out. Ultimately, part of determining who you you want to be president should be examining who is giving them advice. In Joe B...

Jewish fascism. It's a term that seems cruelly oxymoronic, a mockery of the memories of millions of people who were slaughtered by Adolf Hitler. And yet, Jewish fascism is real thing, an incredibly strange and hateful movement that's growing in both Israel and the United States. But what does Jewish fascism look like, and why is it a thing? In this episode, I’m joined by Ben Lorber , a senior rese...

It’s all but official that the 2024 presidential election is going to be Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. And so because of that, we’re going to move to more of a general election focus on Theory of Change. At this point in many of the surveys, Joe Biden is trailing Donald Trump. There are a number of reasons for this, one of them being that the Democratic party is operating under a politics of yest...

President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union speech on Thursday, but most of the focus since then has been on Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, who delivered the Republican response . And with good reason. Her Handmaid’s Tale setting and melodramatic delivery were so disturbing that even party apparatchiks couldn’t contain their disgust.  “It’s one of our biggest disasters ever,” one Republican st...

This episode is a very special one because I'm excited to announce that here at Flux, we are adding another podcast to our network, The Electorette , hosted by Jennifer Taylor-Skinner . To introduce Jennifer to the Flux audience, I wanted to bring her on Theory of Change to talk about her program, and to discuss a big news event, the retirement announcement from Sen. Mitch McConnell, who will be r...

Introduction The automotive industry is in a state of turmoil right now, as a number of manufacturers, particularly Ford, have scaled back the production of both vehicles and battery technology. But nonetheless, all of the companies have said that they will be continuing to move toward an all electric strategy, which makes sense. But the last part of that response is something you certainly don't...

Introduction The 2024 presidential general election is looming large now that Donald Trump has all but vanquished the remaining putative opposition that he faced from people like Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis. But at this point, many Black Americans are still not very satisfied with President Joe Biden and many Democrats as well, even if they may not like Trump. So here at Theory of Change, we’re d...

Now that the pretense of a Republican presidential primary is nearly at an end, the second general election matchup between Joe Biden and Donald Trump is beginning to take shape. And while the race features the same candidates as in 2020, the political dynamics are different in several important ways, most prominently that we are no longer in a global pandemic. One other difference this time aroun...

The term disinformation is most commonly associated with the internet and social media posters spreading conspiracy theories, but when you really think about it, disinformation is actually just lying at an industrial scale. While various authoritarian governments have used lying and propaganda forever, the history is crystal-clear: In the United States, the modern-day tactics of lying to the masse...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit plus.flux.community Introduction Donald Trump’s rise to power within the Republican party set off an explosion of reactionary extremism within the right-wing ecosystem, but it’s important to realize that Trump did not create the present-day authoritarianism that dominates Republican politics, he only encouraged it and empowered it. As p...

Introduction As the American right has become dangerously radicalized, there is a small number of people who insist that Democrats are the real extremists. These arguments are absurd on their face given that disgraced ex-president Donald Trump openly talks about “suspending the Constitution” and becoming a dictator three years after an armed mob of his supporters tried for the first time in Americ...

Introduction The 2024 presidential election continues to be perilously close between Donald Trump, the fascist ex-president who's been found guilty of numerous crimes and is indicted for many other ones, and Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential incumbent. But the close race that is happening right now is actually a function of a much larger problem that has existed for many years in which neithe...

Summary Moms for Liberty, the dishonestly named far-right Christian group, is in the news after Bridget Ziegler, one of the group's co-founders, has been reported to have been in a relationship with another woman and her husband,. Christian Ziegler, her husband, has been accused of raping the woman in Sarasota, Florida. As shocking as that allegation is, it's important to note that Christian Ziegl...

Almost three years have passed since a violent mob stormed the U.S. Capitol with the intent of overthrowing the 2020 election so that then-president Donald Trump could illegally remain in office against the wishes of the American people. During the intervening time, while hundreds of people have been indicted and convicted for their role in the events, almost nothing has emerged from the law enfor...

Summary It’s only a matter of weeks until the presidential election year of 2024 begins, and many Democrats across the country are starting to panic as more than a few public opinion surveys have shown that President Joe Biden trails the criminal ex-president Donald Trump. Even more concerningly, there have been polls showing that even though Trump sent armed militia members to invade the Capitol...

Introduction Next month, things finally start getting serious in the political realm as many states begin holding their presidential primaries. But at this point, things are not looking so good for Joe Biden in comparison to Donald Trump. Less than a year removed from the election of 2024, Biden trails Trump in a number of public opinion surveys that have been released by reputable organizations....