Nostalgia Trap

Anti-immigration politics are winning the moment, the market for testosterone replacement therapy is booming, child labor is on the horizon, and United Health EATS PEOPLE.

And so ends this week's FRE…

A stunning new piece in The Atlantic offers details on the fall of America as seen from Phoenix, Arizona. Folks, 2024 is gonna be a hell of year.

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Today we take a detailed look at this incredible Wall Street Journal piece featuring text messages from Yahya Sinwar, Hamas leader and architect of 10/7. What's Sinwar's strategy? And how does it fi…

Nobody likes new cars, everyone loves old cars, Americans are on a spending spree while complaining about the economy, the anti-AI rebellion is growing.

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This week Justin and I talk about the 2008 Coen brothers film Burn After Reading, another “acid take” on American politics and culture with uncanny implications for our 2024 carnival timeline.  

Chec…

David Rensin is the author of more than a dozen books, five of them New York Times bestsellers. I was lucky enough to meet David through the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and he joins me here fo…

"Everyday carry" and "prepper" culture, unsold Teslas piling up at dealerships, AI as the future of global capitalism, AI does not in fact work, Biden is not properly buying our votes.

Follow all our…

We've been posting daily news wrap-ups/freakouts every morning over at the Nostalgia Trap Patreon page for our subscribers. I'm posting today's episode on the main feed, hoping you'll subscribe.

My …

Trump can't control himself in court, food prices are gonna decide the election, Tik Tok is gearing up for a Supreme Court battle, the U.S. can't make enough weapons for both Israel AND Ukraine, and …

As campus protests against Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza continue, Justin and I pick up on our discussion from last week about the wider historical issues at play. This week we talk more about a…

On today's News Trap I share some snippets about Chinese state capitalism, RFK's hilariously shitty presidential campaign, Elon Musk pulling the plug on everyone's dumb car chargers, the normalizatio…

This week Justin and I attempt to put the latest round of campus protests into historical context, both in the wider view (19th century abolitionism, Vietnam, South Africa) and in our specific moment…

It’s been a minute since Justin and I have shared our takes on “the news,” so this week we have a typically dark, unhinged conversation about what’s coming for us in 2024, with an American population…

Conspiracy theories are a hell of a drug. Justin and I know this from experience, so watching the new Netflix documentary American Conspiracy: The Octopus Murders brought up some deeply identifiable …

This is the first half of this week's episode, go to our Patreon page to listen to the whole thing!

https://www.patreon.com/posts/episode-386-of-98833719

It’s Part Four of our six-part adventure thro…

In Part Three of our journey through the history of American car culture, we explore how the massive cultural and political shifts of the 1960s made an impact on American automaking. From the Chevrol…

As we continue our story of America’s love affair with the automobile, it’s time to look at the tailfin behemoths of the 1950s, the cars that look like “guns you can fuck.” With the automakers morphi…

This week we watch Fast Five (2011), the fifth installment in the Fast and Furious franchise, and contemplate how these movies embed radical ideas about criminality, subversion, insurgency, and famil…

The supreme object of the 20th century, the automobile’s development as both transportation technology and cultural totem is literally the story of American capitalism. In the first episode of a six-…

Our friend Andrew Schustek is back with an all-new Housing Trap conversation all about the unfolding crisis of housing in 21st century New York City and beyond. This time he talks with returning gues…