Unf*cking The Republic

This week’s On The Record covers headlines from Hegseth’s impeachment and the end of the Cybertruck to Boebert’s loss and Jensen Huang’s affair. In Max Notes, Max addresses the so-called “Jewish question” in modern context and demonstrates how conservative organizations like AIPAC and the ADL made a huge mistake aligning with MAGA and the alt-right. Now that Tru...

Nick Hanauer of Civic Ventures and the Pitchfork Economics Podcast sits down with Max for a lengthy discussion on economic systems. For the past few years, Nick has worked closely with economists from around the world to develop a new framework called Market Humanism to fundamentally shift the current post-neoliberal paradigm toward something more beneficial for the masses and away from the one pe...

After the initial post-election market gains, the stock market came crashing back down to earth with losses heavily concentrated in the tech center. The AI trade is coming under intense scrutiny and pressure with several states voting for moratoriums against new data center construction. Other factors like hyperscaler debt and cash flow issues, nebulous financing agreements, and slowing revenue gr...

Join Max and 99 for a special midterm recap edition of Omnibus! Chapters Intro: 00:00:31 Midterms Recap: 00:01:35 Headlines: 01:11:12 Emails: 01:11:43 FFFHR: 01:18:08 Memberships: 01:31:02 Outro: 01:31:44 Resources Mother Jones: Voters Rejected the Political System the Supreme Court Created Mother Jones: The GOP’s Mid-Decade Gerrymandering Strategy Was an Epic Fail Common Dreams: After Blue...

Action packed On The Record with midterm predictions and a look at the chaos unfolding all across Europe. Features include Haley Stephens revealing her true allegiance, Scott Bessent hiding from a legitimate question, the UK government encouraging citizens to stockpile for emergencies, and Christine Lagarde throwing in the towel. Killer Left Take of the Week goes to Adam McKay’s studio for i...

Anand Giridharadas joins the show to discuss the fatal subway encounter involving Jordan Neely and what it says about America. We examine the death of Jordan Neely through the lens of Anand Giridharadas’ new book, Man in the Mirror . The conversation moves beyond the immediate headlines to explore how this tragedy functions as a national Rorschach test, forcing us to confront the divide betw...

Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus and kicking off the Fall Fund, Friend, and Hell Raiser. They cover some midterm predictions, and hit headlines on market humanism and how neoliberalism engineered oligarchy inside the shell of democracy, plus RFK Jr. unilaterally greenlighting unapproved peptide injections over FDA scientists’ objections. Then they tackle listener emails on wh...

The AI bubble is showing signs of a rapid collapse that investors are ignoring. We break down why the market is primed for a crash. Three major developments are signaling that the current AI craze is reaching a breaking point much faster than Wall Street anticipates. From structural risks in China to the accumulation of off-balance-sheet obligations, these warnings are being drowned out by the noi...

This week we celebrated 99 years of stubborn optimism with Max’s father-in-law, and took seriously his assessment that it’s 1932, with all the chaos and heartache that implies before something better emerges on the other side. Then we dug into the Anthropic prospectus, which confirms what we’ve been saying: it’s not the railroad or the internet, it’s an accelerant to...

Jared Yates Sexton joins Max to analyze the current state of progressive activism and how to effectively challenge the status quo. After years of audience requests, this conversation brings together two critical voices to discuss the mechanics of movement building. We examine how shaping political narratives remains the most vital tool for the Left, particularly when navigating the complexities of...

Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the French banlieues erupting and what the protests reveal about the global assault on social spending, and Elon Musk promising every American kid a SpaceX share while barely denting his holdings. Then they tackle listener emails on how lifelong Democratic voters find their footing in a movement that’s outpaced the party...

Reuters “leaked” information from the forthcoming Anthropic prospectus and the numbers were pretty brutal. But that isn’t stopping all of Wall Street from lining up to invest in yet another AI company (SpaceX) with no discernible path to profitability. In this episode, Max digs through what we learned from the Reuters release and pairs it with other publicly available information...

This week we went deep on the structural argument that should underpin everything else—disaster privilege, capitalism as the constant, and why the real battle isn’t between the two parties but between the status quo and something that hasn’t been named loudly enough yet. DSA isn’t the radical fringe; it’s the only thing moving the conversation in the right direction,...

Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They cover headlines on the SSI asset trap keeping 7.5 million Americans in poverty and the 2028 Democratic slate. Then they tackle listener emails on what AI utopia actually looks like for the rest of us, using credit rating agencies to stop data center buildouts, and Russ Vought’s post-midterm constitutional endgame. Enjoy! Chapters Intro:...

More than 20 years after his death, we’re still living in the neoliberal world Milton Friedman made. The arc of neoliberalism begins in 1947, gathers steam in the 1970s, and reaches its zenith in the 1990s before breaking into a million pieces and forever out of the control of its progenitors. The story of Milton Friedman rises and falls along with it, and it’s a complicated one of ego...

The Bitchuation Room’s Francesca Fiorentini returns to UNFTR’s Phone A Friend to break down the midterms, what Democrats need to be focusing on next and how the current leadership isn’t up to the challenges ahead. Progressive politics often finds itself at a crossroads during election cycles. In this conversation, we look at how the establishment handles internal pressure and why...

This week we connected some dots that should scare everyone—Russell Vought’s think tank’s 7 step playbook for refusing to seat elected members of Congress, a raid on Ilhan Omar’s home, and Trump name-dropping Vought as someone about to make history. Then we looked at France, where the eurozone’s version of our debt problem is playing out without the escape hatch of a...

Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on what comes after hyperpolitics and whether the DSA becomes a career vehicle or a disciplining force, and the botched Tennessee execution. Then they tackle listener emails on the historical case that federal spending was never tied to tax revenue, what you’d call a hybrid of social democracy and democratic socialism, and...

This week we diagnosed the economy as a giant zit—good numbers on the surface, all of it concentrated in AI investment and stock market gains for the top 10%, while wages fall below inflation, consumer confidence hits a 12-year low, and the 10-year Treasury just blew past its 2007 peak. Then we looked at what the pop actually looks like: a private credit unwind that drags the banks with it,...

Private credit headlines have calmed down in recent months. It could be because these debt markets are doing just fine...or it could be because we’re too distracted by wars, exploding bond yields, and gas prices. But just because there haven’t been high-profile bankruptcies like last year’s First Brands or Tricolor doesn’t mean there isn’t trouble brewing in the opaqu...

Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the Paramount-Warner merger as a preview of what oligarchs do when anyone tries to govern them, plastic fusing with coral reefs in a new phenomenon researchers are calling “plasticoral,” and rapid third-country deportations getting the Supreme Court’s temporary blessing. Then they tackle listener emails on wh...

Despite only having between 95,000 and 120,000 members nationwide, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has a hot political hand. To most Americans the DSA remains a mystery, but its impact is being felt in elections throughout the country. Conservatives are keeping one eye open but are largely dismissive. Establishment liberals are furious with the group. This episode puts the DSA in histor...

An original episode on how Trump will ultimately represent the final chapter of the American experiment. Empires don’t collapse. They crumble. But they’re reduced to a handful of chapters in history texts that depict them in stages with defined beginnings and ends. Donald Trump has already managed to set the stage for World War Three though it looks far different than prior great wars....

Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on Carney’s airport privatization sellout and the Ebola outbreak in the DRC that’s on pace to be the worst the world has ever seen. Then they tackle listener emails on AI recursive self-improvement hype and the TESCREAL cult behind it, Greenland’s surrender of sovereignty to Trump, and why “regulation&rdqu...

The CLARITY Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act) failed to pass cloture and won’t be taken up on the Senate floor. This is very, very good news. Despite attempts until the last minute by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand—a Democrat who is closely associated with the crypto lobby—not a single one of her colleagues came over to her side. So even she voted “no” to ad...