Unf*cking The Republic

There’s a hidden market that might crash the economy in 2025. Tariff chaos. Leverage in the Repo Market. A burgeoning liquidity crisis. There’s an iceberg, dead ahead, only we can’t see below the surface to know how big it is. In this episode Max takes a big swing at the existential crisis brewing in the financial markets. Trump’s tariffs, declining economic data and slumpi...

This is how we win. This is the closing argument of the project to build the foundation of the people’s platform and take over the Democratic Party: The 5 Non-Negotiables of the Left. Three to earn the trust of the American people to win back the country, and two to salvage our democracy and our planet. The Trump administration is the culmination of a 70 year neoliberal plan to divide the po...

We have a special edition of Show Notes today! In a rare occurrence, Max, Manny and 99 were all in the same place and they took to the mics to mark the occasion. Enjoy! -- If you like #UNFTR, please leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify: unftr.com/rate and follow us on Facebook , Bluesky , TikTok  and Instagram at @UNFTRpod. Visit us online at unftr.com . Join our Discord...

Are there hidden market patterns that signal massive economic change? A weak dollar and rising yield on the ten year treasuries sent Wall Street into panic mode over fears that Trump was torching the global economy with his tariff wars. Since 1945 the U.S. dollar has been the bedrock of the global economy. Trump’s reckless behavior has allies and enemies alike wondering if this is the end of...

We have a cool one for you today, a conversation with New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. Currently, Mamdani is a member of the New York State Assembly. He’s a Democratic Socialist running in the Democratic primary against a pretty busy slate of contenders, and he’s polling second to former Governor Andrew Cuomo, who only recently entered the race. Now Mamdani was the first...

Probably the scariest, most dreaded term in economics is stagflation. Those who lived through the crisis in the 1970s can attest to this. In short, stagflation is defined as a period of low-to-no economic growth combined with high unemployment and high inflation. It’s a deadly recipe that took extraordinary measures to break the last time we experienced this phenomenon, and the method used b...

Fresh off the heels of our fifth and final Non-Negotiables of the Left series, 99 and I spent some time in the studio reviewing feedback from the UNFTR audience. While I stomped my feet like a toddler, 99 was able to finally get me under control and a productive conversation ensued.  The upshot is that the feedback was fairly muted, with most of you signaling that the Climate Trust is out of...

This is the final installment of our 5 Non-Negotiables of the Left series where we detail three short-term goals to take back the country and two long-term fights that must be waged for the sake of our democracy and the planet. This fifth entry speaks to the now back-burnered but ever-present threat to life on this planet: Climate change. This is the most difficult case we’ll make to you. We...

This week is an attempt to organize disparate content pieces from the past few weeks. Thoughts on third parties, Trump’s address to the joint session of Congress (which we mistakenly referred to as the State of the Union, oops!), notes on the final non-negotiables and random thoughts Max is working through. We’ve got a mashup of sorts on our hands so prepare for a bit of rambling. Reso...

The movement to get money out of politics will take a very long time. I know people don’t want to hear that. My guess is, in the best case scenario, we’re looking at 20 years. Best case. If it makes you feel any better, the movement to get money into politics took 181 years so by that measure, two decades to unravel what took 181 to build isn’t all that bad. Either we’re co...

Max and 99 are back for Show Notes! They catch up with some movie talk and dive deep into the Non-Negotiables and hives. Enjoy! Chapters Intro: 00:00:20 Housekeeping: 00:19:47 Emails: 00:32:20 Memberships: 01:23:32 Outro: 01:24:59 Resources Join us on Bluesky and Discord Ken Lefkowitz:  Medicare For All: An Economic Rationale Abdul El-Sayed and Micah Johnson:  Medicare For All: A Citizen...

Regardless of what happens next in the United States, the American experiment ends with Donald Trump. But Trump is a Trojan Horse. The real dismantling of our systems and norms is embodied by the man he ceded power to, the wealthiest person in the world. Elon Musk is the living avatar of the new corporate colonial era and there’s no going back to the way it was. This administration serves as...

America’s healthcare system isn’t broken—it’s working exactly as designed. The problem is that it was designed to generate profits, not health outcomes. We spend roughly 20% of our GDP on healthcare, about double what other developed nations spend per capita, yet we have shorter life expectancy, higher infant mortality rates, and leave tens of millions uninsured or underins...

Given the turmoil and disgust surrounding Trump’s shock and awe deportation campaign, we thought it a good time to dig back into the immigration issue and update some of our findings from prior episodes. There’s no question Trump’s ICE is more brutal and seemingly indiscriminate, so we tried to put these efforts in context with prior administrations. Then we zoom out to look at r...

We’re through the first two “non-negotiables” of the Left ( Housing First  and a  Civilian Labor Corps ) and I’m taking my sweet ass time with the third: Medicare for All. In the meantime, this week’s pod is a compilation of thoughts and writing I’ve done since the inauguration; officially another Max Unfiltered entry into our canon. Chapters Intro: 00...

Today we’re tackling our second non-negotiable pillar of establishing a Civilian Labor Corps, and the timing couldn’t be more critical. You may have picked up on chatter in the wind about the impending job apocalypse at the hands of artificial intelligence (AI). I’m here to tell you that this is real. It is coming faster and more furiously than you realize, and we are wholly unpr...

As is customary, HUD released its annual report on homelessness at the end of 2024. It revealed a startling year-over-year increase in homelessness among individuals and families in the United States. Among the devastating data, there were bright spots such as a decrease in homeless veterans. But the reporting and punditry surrounding the report was less than stellar, and the news was buried in a...

Max goes back to finish the hat at the close of another year. 2025 has the potential to be one of the most disruptive in living memory. The rapid rollout of Project 2025 initiatives, fireworks spewing from the Trump distraction machine, the brewing onslaught of job losses due to AI and the continuing surge of far-right governments across the globe are significant weather events that could turn to...

This week is another extended Show Notes with Max and 99 who plow through listener feedback and talk extensively about repairing the left in the United States and what UNFTR’s role should be going forward. Next week we’ll release our final episode of the year that digs deeper into the fractured alliances on the online left and what it means for the future of the progressive movement. B...

Are we heading into a recession? Did we ever really come out of the last one? Do market fundamentals matter anymore? How did Democrats miss so badly on the economy, leading to the re-election of Donald Trump? Is capitalism collapsing? It’s difficult to get a proper read of the U.S. economy. It’s a giant, complex juggernaut that both relies on global markets and holds them all together....

In this week’s episode we identify the most dangerous man in America that no one is talking about, the tool he is going to use to dismantle government agencies, and what we can learn from three young Republicans who helped the GOP rise from the ashes of the Obama years. Get to know Russell “Russputin” Vought and how he believes he can override Nixon-era legislation to consolidate budget and spendi...

Max and 99 have tons of Unf*cker feedback on the direction of the show and how to move forward as progressives. So much feedback that they had to split Show Notes into two parts! Stay tuned for next week's episode. Resources UNFTR on Bluesky Boney M.: Rasputin Reuters: Pro-Palestinian protesters arrested at New York Thanksgiving parade American Prestige Unf*cker Recommendations Philip Mirowski: Mo...

This week we go all the way back to the beginning to ruminate about what motivated us to start the podcast in the dark days of the pandemic. We open with a passage from Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains that struck a chord with Max. In it MacLean talks about the early days of the nihilistic libertarian society built by Charles Koch who was himself building upon the work of his father in the John...

Today we offer a grim and final eulogy to the Democratic Party and the 2024 election. The results were foretold by countless DNC missteps and missed opportunities that the Party remains reluctant to admit to. The next stage in the American experiment is going to be dire and regressive, leaving progressives with two options to move forward: Succumb to the forces of authoritarian rule guided by the...

Max and 99 have a Manny-less conversation (Manny on assignment, don’t worry) about the election. It’s a sobering discussion about what’s at stake; they talk Democratic missteps along the way and ask whose idea it was to let Steve Bannon out of prison before the election.  Resources Join the livestream on Wednesday, 11/6/24 at 8:00 PM EST. New York Times: Election 2024 Polls: Harris vs. Trump Middl...