Impolitic

After a year-plus of radio silence (ha!), Paul and Sean return for one last, typically-verbose hurrah. In their swan song episode, the Impolitic boys talk about the prospects for both libertarianism and socialism in 2017 versus today; they discuss whether they’re still optimistic about the 2020s; and they talk about what they’ve learned from the … Continue reading The End … For Now

Do you like cars? Do you not like cars? If so, then you'll love this episode of Impolitic in which car-and-racing-lover Sean schools car-and-racing-apathetic Paul on the joys of motorsport. This tour down Gasoline Alley was prompted by our recent review of 2019's Ford v. Ferrari, the greatest dad movie ever made and the latest … Continue reading Live from the 24 Hours of Le Mans!

Sean asks whether the true epochal dividing line has nothing to do with politics but the end of high and mass culture in the 00s. (They sound just as cheugy as you’d expect of two geriatric millennials talking about the past.) Paul chips in with a little complaining about the CDC’s magic eightball approach to … Continue reading Geriatric Millennials and the “Good Ole” Days

Sean and Paul talk about the current and historic sex trafficking moral panics, whether or not Foucault is overrated or underrated, and why the conviction of Derek Chauvin falls short of the kind of systemic change needed in American policing.

As you can imagine, Paul and Sean have rather different responses to the outcome of the labor unionization vote in Bessemer, Alabama, though maybe not quite as different in the end as one might think… Also, is everyone a libertarian in a pandemic?

Paul and Sean locate the Atlanta murders in the United States’ century-plus history of imperialist violence in Asia. Paul introduces the world’s most powerful college administrator: Bob Jones University’s ‘Dean of Men.’ Sean asks for a reality check regarding some legal labor arcana. And they round out the show with a few thoughts on Netflix’s … Continue reading Empire Comes Home

Better late than never, but Sean and Paul discuss the $1.9 trillion dollar stimulus package and why, despite its size, it’s the product of thinking too small.

Look, when a member of Congress gets paranoid about Jewish-controlled, forest fire-starting space lasers, the Impolitic crew is going to talk about it. Sean and Paul situate Marjorie Taylor Green’s lunacy in a long history of American conspiracy theories, discuss the odds of QAnon dissipating, and what role social media played in its rise.

Greetings from a new epoch! In this, Impolitic’s first dispatch from the Joseph R. Biden’s Age of Malarkey, Paul and Sean do a deep read of Trump’s farewell address. They lament the tedium of liberal cultural hegemony, courtesy of America United, the star-studded inauguration night spectacular. And they think about the pros and cons of … Continue reading Enter the Age of Malarkey

Trumpists stormed the US capitol this week in the worst national insurrection since 1877. That’s it. That’s the episode.

This week, Paul and Sean discuss why they are optimistic about the 2020s given innovations in mRNA vaccines and battery technology. They also tease a special Patreon episode about the classic Christmas (?) movie "It's a Wonderful Life."

What’s your favorite Christmas movie? Die Hard? NO! Die Hard is over; done; played-out! The definitive 80s-action-cum-Christmas-movie is now and will forever be Lethal Weapon (1987). Join Paul and Sean on a holly, jolly tour through the be-mulleted, cocaine-fueled, wet, glistening 1980s, with Danny Glover and pre-cancellation Mel Gibson as your guides. Come for the … Continue reading Lethal Christmas

It’s Thanksgiving time, so of course that means Paul and Sean will rant about their dislike for the Netflix show, The Crown, while simultaneously and unintentionally proving that a show about miserable people being terrible to each other is the perfect show for our time.

It’s the election recap episode, with Paul and Sean’s thoughts on which White House flunky will stick by Trump the longest, Donald’s next career move, and the election’s biggest surprises. They also discuss whether having Trump on a ballot is electoral NOS for the GOP or a dead weight holding b and close with some … Continue reading Live from Four Seasons Total Landscaping

This week, Paul and Sean accidentally stumble into a long-planned discussion of institutional and electoral reforms that might reinject life into the shambling body of US politics, from ranked-choice voting and packing the House to reapportioning Senate seats by population and instituting term limits for SCOTUS.  

Look, it’s not really that hard to figure out what this episode is about from the title, but listen in and you’ll also find out the secret for why Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion can’t win the Great British Baking Show and suss out the difference between Prodigal Son George W. Bush and Fail … Continue reading Our Super Spreader President

Paul and Sean grapple with the historical memory(hole) of 9/11; Sean asks what the Whig Party’s demise in the 1850s says about the future of the Dems and GOP; and Paul warns about a California pastor whose anti-mask campaign may tip the 2020 election.

Paul and Sean check in on school reopenings and Jerry Falwell Jr. Both are faring poorly. They then cast their eyes upon the bleak landscapes of the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, consider the mounting carnage of both police and paramilitary violence, and close by reflecting on the ideology of theme parks – a topic … Continue reading (Re)Action(ary) Park

Sean and Paul discuss a little pandemic reading, including Elena Ferrante’s novels about post-WW2 Italy and the work of the recently deceased historian of American Revolution, Bernard Bailyn. That leads into a discussion of whether Bailyn’s liberal legacy will endure new/old challenges from the New York Times’s 1619 Project and other more radical histories. Oh, … Continue reading Long Live Elena Ferrante, RIP Bernard Bailyn

After a several-week hiatus, Paul and Sean recap the events of the July, from school re-openings and COVID spikes throughout the Sunbelt to the appearance of secret police in American cities and liberals’ symbolic sops to BLM. Paul also discusses life as a newly-minted Mainer and Sean celebrates the return of (a cynically woke) Formula … Continue reading An Uneventful July!

Paul and Sean reflect on their respective brushes with Z-list celebrity: Paul as a result of The Radio Right’s forthcoming publication; and Sean as a consequence of his internationally-viral Twitter thread. Next, they consider the relative merits of reforming, defunding, and abolishing the police, with side reflections on fascism, military dictatorship, and public sector unionism. … Continue reading Reform, Defund, or Abolish the Police? All of the Above!

Paul and Sean discuss the protests and urban rebellions sweeping the US after George Floyd’s murder by police, with detours on 60s radicalism and reaction, social movement theory, and (inexplicably) the rise of the Soviet bureaucracy.

Paul and Sean discuss Bryan Caplan's controversial take on college education as being primarily a form of social signaling, then Paul introduces Sean to the wonders of the Painter of Light himself, Thomas Kinkade, and what he symbolizes about the past, present, and future of evangelicalism.

After a brief farewell to Bernard Sanders, Paul and Sean discuss how the economy, labor, tech, and daily life have been transformed by the COVID-19 pandemic and which of those changes will persist even after the pandemic is over.

Paul is hopping mad as he and Sean discuss the many failures of the Food and Drug Administration in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The US could have followed the example of South Korea, but instead of encouraging private companies to rapidly develop multiple tests for the virus as they did in Korea, … Continue reading The FDA and CDC Failed Us

This week, Sean admits to Paul that his Super Tuesday predictions were less than super. They then discuss the COVID-19 pandemic, HBO’s Chernobyl, and what HBO’s Chernobyl can tell us about the COVID-19 pandemic (spoiler: it’s not a flattering comparison!).

After a little coronavirus chat and a discussion of Paul’s Mini-Beef with Max Boot™, Sean and Paul square off on the electability question as it pertains to one Bernard Sanders.

Paul’s audio is bad. Sean is sick. And the episode is a week late. But our analysis of the Democratic primary still holds water. And Sean’s glimpse into the soul of the liberal establishment (i.e. a public interest communications conference called ‘Frank’) remains, regrettably, current.

At the request of one of our Patreon donors, Sean and Paul debate the need for intellectual property, coming to an agreement that, at a minimum, reform to copyright length is desperately needed. They also discuss Sean's mixed feelings about the new movie, 1917, and the sorry state of the Democratic primaries.

Paul and Sean compare notes on their winter holidays before getting down to business: discussing the blood-soaked history of American meddling in Iran, the immoral foolishness of a potential war with Iran, and what we can do to stop it. Stick around until the end for their reflections on what a successful anti-war movement will … Continue reading No War With Iran!

No, seriously, Sean and Paul spend the better part of half an hour waxing lyrical about the technical marvels and liberatory potential of frozen, TV dinners. But first they discuss the recent brouhaha over the World Socialist Web Site's interviews with prominent early American and Civil War historians about the New York Times's 1619 project. Sean also brings an update from a recent labor conference, "Bargaining for the Common Good," surprising Paul with yet another area of political overlap. 

If you’ve ever wondered why people in the 1800s thought TB patients were so damn hot, this episode is for you! Check out Paul and Sean’s discussion of Victorian America’s Cult of the Consumptive, then stay tuned as they bid adieu to Beto “The Cursing Candidate” O’Rourke and catch up on the 2020 Democratic presidential … Continue reading Consumption Hour Radio Extravaganza!