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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 06/12/26:

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Once upon a time Northeast liberals just didn’t know why people liked NASCAR or the WWE. Now they’ve moved all the way from, “I don’t know it and I don’t get it, but whatever,” to “That shit I’ve never watched and don’t understand must be somewhere between porn and lynching!” Here’s Substack’s own Cox Richardson comparing the UFC bash to “the impulse that really pushed lynching in the late 19th century”:

You have to be mad as a March hare to equate the UFC with lynching, but that’s where we are, I guess.

New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, whom I once debated in Toronto when she was teamed up with Malcolm Gladwell, has a new piece up about the UFC bash Donald Trump just threw on the White House lawn. Amid an obligatory Idiocracy reference and true observations about the ignominious end (we hope) to Trump’s Iran misadventure, Michelle dropped this whopper of a passage in a piece titled, “A Garish Spectacle of American Decline”:

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Those who strive to create a great empire can can choose one of two paths, according to Niccolo Machiavelli. “This may be done in two ways; either through love or through force.”

We’re getting into a better groove now on “Get Lit,” the show in which Brad Pearce and I talk about great and sometimes-forgotten books. Today at 4:30 ET we’ll be talking about Book II of Machivelli’s “Discourses on Livy,” which is written in smooth prose and addresses issues still relevant to current politicians. There’s a lesson or two in here that captures what Machiavelli or the Romans would have thought about war with Iran, for instance, or our general policy of “Democracy Promotion.” Lots to get to, and we hope you’ll join us. Tune in at 4:30 pm ET below:

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 06/09/26:

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From the New York Times:

After all, Americans like to think of ourselves as a country that believes deeply and universally in equality for all. We tend to say, yes, the ideal that “all men are created equal” was radical when it was first set out in the Declaration of Independence, but that over time it has steadily become a given…

But throughout our history there have been voices that have contended that despite the abiding tension between political democracy and the forces of capitalism, we should learn to view inequality as something that is natural and even good.

I knew from the first sentence about “figures in and around Silicon Valley” that “‘All Men Are Created Equal’? Not Everyone Agrees” would be a jeremiad against conservative billionaires who think it’s okay to be billionaires. Then I realized Columbia University professor Dr. Kim Phillips-Fein was trying something more ambitious, railing against the observation that LeBron James was born with a better shot at the NBA than the rest of us. Her first idea is to make verbalizing this obvious truth villainous, citing as a guilty party John Adams, who said that “to teach that all men are born with equal powers and faculties” is a “fraud.”

The second idea in the Phillips-Fein column is even funnier. She lays out the basics of the American social contract, namely that we agree to tolerate inequality of outcomes provided we have equal opportunity, then not only denounces that too as villainous, but acts like she’s the first person to put it into words.

I burst out laughing at this passage:

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 06/07/26:

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On California election night last week, Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman gave a rambling address C-SPAN still has listed as a “concession speech.” The first half explained the long odds faced by Raman:

They came at us with everything that they had. The corporate landlords, the city hall insiders, the corporations who have spent years making sure city hall worked for them and not for the people. These powerful interests spent millions of dollars against this little campaign… Then came the MAGA machine. They saw an opportunity in Los Angeles to buy a foothold in our beautiful city to advance a dark agenda. They poured money and from all over the country.

After explaining all the reasons she might not have delivered for “our gay and trans siblings,” Raman collapsed in tears. “I hope you know,” she said, hand over heart, “that everything, every person in this room is fighting for in this campaign has been about building a city that’s worthy of you!”

Raman was a distant third-place finisher that night. A week later she’s ahead of Republican Spencer Pratt, and may be the favorite to beat incumbent Karen Bass (whom she ass-whipped, numerically, in the “post-election” period) and give the Democratic Socialist Party strongholds in America’s two biggest cities. This has prompted accusations of corruption that are at besat unproven, which is why papers like The New York Times are leading coverage with headlines about Donald Trump’s “baseless accusations of fraud.” Meanwhile, outlets like Variety explain delays with drive-by sentences like “The state takes longer to ensure accuracy,” adding that mail-in voting “is extremely popular in the Golden State.”

The United States now has, bar none, the world’s dumbest election system. The rest of the world must look on in awe as it wonders how it is that the world’s richest and most heavily-armed country can’t count. Even if no one is cheating, it looks horrible. If America were a face, it’d sprout a golf-ball sized herpes sore every Election Day. This has been our reality since Covid and contrary to popular belief, it’s not strictly a blue-red issue, since some of our worst elections have been Democratic primaries. Every idiotic new feature is on display in California:

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First of all, this is not a new podcast, lol. I’ve just been remiss in paying attention to a very interesting story, and friend and former colleague Matt Bivens — I should say Dr. Bivens, since Matt mostly quit journalism to be an ER doc some time ago — has a new story up about it on Substack. The title of his piece is “Zelensky & Putin Both Mention How a U.S.-Backed Drone Swarm Targeted Putin’s Home and Family,” and I’ll let him explain this evening why it’s more than a little unusual that a seemingly critical piece of national security news has been skipped over in the mainstream press. You can find us here at 5:00 PM Eastern tonight:

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Or on X @mtaibbi, as always. See you in a bit.

If you’re like me, you learned about Niccolo Machiavelli in high school and read The Prince, a short, spicy book that advises influential men how to “seize absolute authority.” For this reason the term “Machiavellian” has become synonymous with a type of cynical villainy in the modern West.

Machiavelli however wrote another book, one not quite so short and easily categorized, called Discourses on Livy. If history chose to remember this book instead of The Prince, we’d all have a very different view of the man, as it shows how deeply he was interested not only in the concept of virtue but in the problem of preserving freedom and liberty and slowing corruption.

It’s a difficult book, but rewarding and very original, especially to a modern American’s ears. Brad and I will start slowly today, but trust us — it’s interesting.

Tune in at 4:30 pm ET below:

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Matt, you say we are becoming more like the UK due to a lack of ethnocentrism, or at least an effort to eliminate it, while promoting it everywhere else. Is your implication here that the U.S. should be more ethnocentric or that Americans should also oppose the ethnocentrism of others in order to avoid becoming like the inbred UK?

Or more simply, do you think that America should be more ethnocentric in that it should be a white nation? A Christian nation? What exact ethnicity are you referring to?

Andrew, what an impressively nasty question you’ve asked. Congratulations!

Henry Nowak bled to death and was ignored by police specifically instructed not to attempt to be “colour blind” in their work. When I say I think this is crazy, just as I thought it was crazy to try to racialize distribution of Covid vaccines or to fire educators who wouldn’t teach “toxic whiteness,” your question (after some throat-clearing) is, “Do you think that America should be… a white nation?”

Very obviously, I don’t think this. I’d have to renounce not-exactly-white relatives (not-exactly-white kids, even) to have that opinion. More to the point, if I say I believe the law should be color blind, how is your next question, “So are you a racist?” This however has become a go-to rhetorical move, another example being the episode where the cast of The View denounced Coleman Hughes as a “pawn” and a “charlatan” for winning studio applause with the line, “We should try our very best to treat people without regard for race both in our personal lives and our public policy.”

I don’t think of America as a “white” country. To me the best part of our system is that anyone can be an American overnight, provided he or she accepts a few minor guidelines, like agreeing to tolerate other religions and embrace free speech. As for the early academic weasel word “ethnocentrism,” it’s so close in meaning to “chauvinism” that it probably never needed to exist, but in the name of making work for Yale social scientists, we apparently must live with it. How chauvinistic should Americans be? I don’t know. Just enough? As much as any other citizen of any other place? We wouldn’t expect an Egyptian or a Pole to fall prostrate apologizing for their countries, and especially not an Egyptian or Polish cop. Why do we need this from Americans or the English? It’s all an absurd academic fad, and when I roll my eyes at it, that’s not pining for white supremacy, but having a sense of humor. God, I can’t wait for this era to end!

From the BBC, in a story about the murder of college student Henry Nowak by 22-year-old Sikh Vickrum Digwa:

Under UK law, it is illegal to carry most knives in public… But the law does provide exemptions for religious reasons as potential lawful defenses… The CPS said Digwa chose to carry two ceremonial knives and that the judge’s finding of fact made clear he agreed with its assessment that the weapon used was a kirpan.

The crazy Nowak story is a reverse-George Floyd moment for the U.K., but coverage here, when there’s been any, has been a dull “Republicans pounce” caricature. A Sunday BBC headline centered on Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy criticizing J.D. Vance for blaming the murder on the “politics of self-hatred,” which is exactly what it was. The bodycam footage alone came off as tasteless sketch comedy, with British cops genuflecting before a murderer whose brother told them had been “racially abused by some white person,” while handcuffing and ignoring Nowak, the person actually bleeding to death. When Nowak gasped, “I can’t breathe, call an ambulance,” and said he’d been stabbed, an officer said, “I don’t think you have, mate.”

Making things worse were two bizarre distortions. British citizens are generally barred from carrying knives, but Sikhs can carry ceremonial blades for religious reasons. Digwa was carrying two sheathed blades, one being the murder weapon. Second, British police under an insane “Anti-Racism Commitment” guidance are not only directed to be “sorry for the damage racism has caused and continues to cause” and to pledge that “it is not enough for us to not be racist,” but told their “commitment to racial equity” does “not mean treating everyone ‘the same’ or being ‘colour blind’ (racial equality).” In England, justice is no longer allowed to be blind!

This dictum to do policing as historical apology had to be a factor in Nowak’s death, as police appeared more concerned with combating theoretical racism than real murder. This is the great Illiberal Bait-and-Switch in action, with “equity” fully, lethally substituted for “equality.” The British went so far in the direction of redefining fairness that they not only achieved unfairness, they’re still defending the suicidal policy, calling any criticism of it “right-wing” and “ethnonationalist.”

Western countries have been building to this moment for a long time. A decisive turn came with the 2015 terrorist attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, when erstwhile defenders of natural rights suddenly announced Je ne suis pas Charlie, saying Western ideas about civil society shouldn’t trump Islamic religious beliefs. When I wrote something mild in objection in Rolling Stone, a distressingly high number of colleagues told me in private it was “too much” to expect Muslims to keep their guns stowed in the face of a provocation like a cartoon of the Prophet, and that Hebdo and its staff weren’t the right “hill to die on.”

I remember the shock I felt at this. Either I had a lot of racist friends who believed Muslims mentally incapable of comprehending the basics of French citizenship, or those same friends were joined in a suicide pact, having decided Western civilization is so fundamentally corrupt, it wasn’t worth defending even against mass murder. I’m now convinced they believed both things in earnest, and had for a while. Even I was taught the setup forty years ago, via a cartography lesson:

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Narrated by Jared Moore

Art by Daniel Medina

Text published 06/03/26:

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