Weird, Wicked, and Wild

Pilgrims and Puritans have an interesting reputation in American history. Popular culture has long flattened the truth about them to the point that they often come off as cartoon bad guys. The real story is that they...

Sometimes it's important to hear about the history before the history. That's what this episode is about -- we'll discuss the condensed history of Christianity from the time of Jesus' crucifixion until it arrives in...

Don't miss this preview of the rollercoaster season we have coming your way. We are swinging for the fences, and we'll probably gain a few enemies along the way. That's how we know we're doing our jobs right!

Forty-three men between 1789 and 2017 demonstrated the awesome and growing power of the American presidency. Sometimes they were blunt, other times much more deliberate. But in 2017, something shifted, and since then...

Part 2 of 2: Daddy left unfinished business in the Middle East, so Bush 43 comes to the White House in 2001 with a mission, and whether he accomplished it or not really isn't up for debate -- he didn't. That didn't stop...

Part 1 of 2: Riding his predecessor's coattails into an office that had already gone off the rails, George H.W. Bush didn’t bother asking where the brakes were. He put the pedal to the metal. He and his successors put...

Inheriting a world reshaped by total war, nuclear brinkmanship, and nonstop mobilization demanded more than managerial skill. As the U.S. slid into the Cold War, presidents acted less like careful stewards of process...

Presiding over a growing territorial and overseas empire takes a lot of power vested in the one-man office of the American presidency. The expansive scope of the President's authority had grown well beyond what a single...

If a president of the United States won't stand up and declare unwavering support for equality, then who will? Isn't that what this country was founded on? That's what Abraham Lincoln thought, but when he was murdered...

The next eight presidents, from Martin Van Buren (#8) to James Buchanan (#15) all served only one term as president, and they spent their terms more or less trying to appease the various national factions that...

There are a lot of lists that rank the presidents from best to worst (or vice versa). Scholarly lists have some consensus, usually. Popular opinion lists vary wildly. We're not going to try to rank them, but we're going...

Our final episode of the season tries to rescue language from the ravages of fascist Newspeak. While not invented by or used solely by fascists, Newspeak -- a term coined by George Orwell in his seminal novel, 1984...

In our penultimate episode of the season, we will try to make a distinction between populism—anti-establishmentarian political representation of the interests and voices of ordinary people—and the selective populism...

If the patriarchy promises men power, why do so many of them still feel powerless? Episode thirteen pulls apart the myths of masculinity -- all the scripts that tell men how to stand, speak, fight, and everything else...

If weakness is to be despised, dying as a hero is a great way to ensure you’re never seen as weak. Episode twelve laments the victims of such a mindset. The powerful—fascist and otherwise—have forever sent idealistic...