Preview: Dr. Craig is Fun at Parties

Dave Troy Sounds Off

S-Tier Autocracy Knower Dave Troy sits in for Craig this week while Dr. Craig is on assignment (Turkish Hair Restoration Surgery). Troy is a technology entrepreneur, investigative journalist, and the proprietor of America 2.0 and the Wide Angle column at the Washington Spectator. By Nick's reckoning, he belongs in the top tier of Autocracy Knowers alongside Sarah Kendzior, Timothy Snyder, Jared Yates Sexton, Jeff Sharlet, and our own Dr. Craig Johnson — the small cohort who named what was happening early, kept being right, and have spent the years since doing the unglamorous work of explaining it to anyone willing to listen. Troy comes in at a four or five on the Autocratic Despair scale — not because things are fine, but because, in his read, the MAGA coalition is fracturing, Putin's war in Ukraine is going badly, and the moment we're living through is a global networked phenomenon, not a straightforward strongman play. From there the conversation goes wide. Troy defines what he means by a network and why he calls himself a "network empiricist" — caring less about what political figures say on any given day than about how they cluster, who they amplify, and where their long-term affiliations actually lie. He traces the multigenerational gold-bug network running from the pre-Civil War era through the 1933 business plot, the John Birch Society, the Council for National Policy, and January 6th, and explains why Robert Mercer's intellectual lineage runs straight back to a notorious mid-century racist named Revilo Oliver. Michael Flynn enters as a bridge figure — Russian-adjacent, plugged into the Council for National Policy world, and the man who took over the old anti-communist nonprofit America's Future from Jack Singlaub, installing his own family as the board over what may have been Singlaub's late-life objections. Troy also pulls in the Iran-Contra network — Maxwell, Epstein, John Tower, Bill Barr, Adnan Khashoggi — as one of the recurring node clusters that "just constantly turns up" in his research. Nick gets Troy to talk about how he's used NotebookLM to translate dense source material (including Russian-language Project Russia texts pulled from a Ukrainian cult raid) into accessible podcast form — an information-design move Nick credits Troy with pioneering. There's a frank exchange about Luigi Mangione, who was a friend of Troy's son's at Gilman School in Baltimore; Troy is unsentimental about the lionizing, clear that Mangione belongs in prison, and worried about what the trial will do to American culture if the administration mishandles it. The conversation gets harder from there. Nick brings up the Prairie Land eight — the activists in Texas recently convicted of providing material support to terrorism for a protest outside an ICE detention facility — and the broader pattern of "Antifa as a terrorist group" framing that Troy reads as "really evil and bad," a deliberate semantics game to demonize all opposition. Troy mentions his own situation: legal and physical threats serious enough that he's been spending time in Europe, the same as Antifa author Mark Bray, whose flight to Spain was canceled at the last minute. On protest itself, Troy argues that the current movement has gotten "a little bit lazy in terms of relying on the iconic imagery of protest rather than the underlying machinery of building protest and social change," and that the carefully-planned organizational scaffolding behind events like the Montgomery bus boycott has been flattened into soundbite history. On Graham Platner — "the human embodiment of the phrase 'I suppose,'" per Nick — Troy is blunt: a risky choice, strange affiliations, the kind of nominee the Democratic Party shouldn't be greenlighting if it has its act together. Nick recruits Troy into Talarico Talk and the official Autocratic Despair policy of delusional belief in a James Talarico presidency. Troy is hopeful but disciplined — he warns the campaign against confusing social-media energy for actual turnout, and points to Hungary's recent rejection of Orbán as a possible bellwether: "Two times kind of makes a trend. Three times makes it a really observable trend." When Nick asks about the time horizon for American authoritarianism, Troy gives the line that's likely to define the episode: as long as people would rather go to Costco than go to a civil war, things stay relatively stable. The fault line he's watching runs through the MAGA coalition itself — pure-play libertarianism (Massie) versus maximally-interventionist Trumpism — and the long Moscow fever dream of fusing the anti-war left with the anti-war right, which Troy doesn't think will actually fly with the American public, but expects to be attempted anyway. The episode closes on Camus. Troy is looking forward to the possibility that people figure this out, and offers a piece of guidance that sounds simple until you sit with it: stop waiting for grand coordinated gestures, and start being decent to each other on a day-to-day basis. "Why don't you just try not sucking and try to ease people's pain and to be an asset to your community... if you do that, and everybody tries to do that at scale, I feel like things might work out." Find Dave Troy at America 2.0 (america2.news), in his Wide Angle column at the Washington Spectator, and on his podcast Dave Troy Presents. Connect with us today! 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The Rizz Minister Has Been Getting it On!

This week on the Autocratic Despair podcast — a comedy about fascism, autocracy, and trying to have fun while the country falls apart — Nick opens at a seven on the despair scale after walking through the tailgate scene at Lambeau Field during two sold-out Luke Combs concerts. 80,000 people across two nights at his hometown stadium, and Nick didn't go — not because of the music, but because of what a massive country music crowd in the Midwest represents in 2026. He assumed Combs was a MAGA enthusiast. Turns out he was wrong: Combs describes himself as "heavily moderate," skipped Trump's 2020 Fourth of July concert, apologized for appearing with a Confederate flag, and performed with Tracy Chapman at the Grammys. His own right-wing fans tried to cancel him for saying he's not a racist. Nick sits with the uncomfortable realization that he's now giving a man credit for simply not being a fascist, and that this is where the bar is. He calls it "Schrödinger's fascist" — an artist who stays ambiguous enough that both sides can project whatever they want onto him. The ratchet effect: when declining to endorse authoritarianism qualifies as courage, the autocrats have already won something important. Craig opens at a five — his highest ever — because the President of the United States just created a $1.776 billion taxpayer-funded "Anti-Weaponization Fund" by suing the IRS for $10 billion, then withdrawing the suit before the judge could throw it out, and settling with his own Justice Department. The money will compensate allies who claim they were wrongly targeted under the Biden administration — including potentially the 1,600 January 6 defendants Trump already pardoned. Craig points out that this directly violates the 14th Amendment, which prohibits the United States from spending money on anyone who has committed treason against it. The amendment was written for the Confederacy. It applies now. Nick predicts that the slush fund will result in a wave of Cybertruck purchases, fentanyl overdoses, and Ski-Doos — because nothing is funnier or more tragic than when absolute fuck-ups get an extra $30,000 in their bank accounts. It's the commedia of autocracy: the regime rewards its foot soldiers and the foot soldiers immediately blow the money on stupid shit. A Prairieland update: the nine defendants convicted of federal terrorism charges for attending a noise protest outside an ICE detention center called Prairieland in Alvarado, Texas on July 4th, 2025 remain in custody. They brought fireworks because it was the Fourth of July. They wanted the people locked inside a concentration camp to know they hadn't been forgotten. The government charged them with conspiracy to use explosives and material support for terrorism. Judge Pittman denied all post-trial motions. The Johnson County DA's office has 20 terabytes of state-level discovery evidence and has turned over none of it as the one-year anniversary of the arrests approaches. Sentencing is scheduled for June 18. Nick reads the names. We read them because someone should. In Talarico Talk, the Tallywhacker went on a podcast and revealed he has a girlfriend and has had one for four years. She was his Chief of Staff. She left the office before they got together. Nick has concerns about the timeline and the lack of a ring. "You cannot be shoplifting the pooty, James." The conversation widens into an honest assessment of the 2028 Democratic landscape, including Craig's dream ticket of Ocasio-Cortez and Talarico, Nick's blunt counter that America hates women too much to elect AOC, Craig's prediction that the first female president will be a Republican, and Nick's observation that Wisconsin's governor's race — where progressive candidate Francesca Hong's supporters may stay home rather than vote for a moderate if she loses the primary — is a preview of what will happen nationally if AOC runs. It's not fun to acknowledge, but this show has never been about telling you what's fun to hear. It's about telling you what's true. Also this week: the debut of "Dr. Craig Is Fun at Parties," a new segment in which Nick gives Craig an innocuous term and Craig connects it to fascism in under two moves. This week's term: circus peanuts. Craig gets there via "Entrance of the Gladiators" — a fascist march before it was a clown song — and via bread and circuses, the Roman authoritarian crowd-control technique now manifested as $1.776 billion for fascist thugs and MMA fights in the Rose Garden. Nick thought circus peanuts would stump him. Nick was wrong. The autocrat always finds a way into the circus. Craig also provides a primer on Christian nationalism in response to the Rededicate 250 event on the National Mall, where the Speaker of the House led a nine-hour government-sponsored prayer service to "rededicate America to God" — the same weekend the administration created a $1.776 billion loyalty fund named after the founding year. Christianity, patriotism, and the flag: all acquired by the same holding company, all stamped with the same logo, all emptied of their original product. The fascism is in the branding now. Names said on this episode: Autumn Hill, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Megan Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, Benjamin Song, James Talarico, Luke Combs, Tracy Chapman, Bruce Springsteen, Mike Johnson, Pete Hegseth, Francesca Hong, Tom Tiffany, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Autocratic Despair is a weekly comedy podcast about surviving American authoritarianism. New episodes drop every week. Connect with us today! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2607290/fan_mail/new]

A Whole Potato or a "Hole in a Potato"?

In which the boys debut a new shorthand for the show's central feeling: the moment you realize there are now so many golden statues of Donald Trump scattered across his Florida golf courses that when someone mentions one, you have to ask which one. Nick and Dr. Craig open by sorting through the Don Colossus — a 22-foot gilded statue of Trump in the "fight, fight, fight" assassination-survival pose, dedicated this week by his personal pastor at Trump National Doral while crypto bros funded the whole thing as a promo for their memecoin. The pastor, Mark Burns, swears it's not a golden calf. The Bible has a chapter about exactly this. Then to Prairieland, where Judge Pittman has now officially denied the post-verdict motions for acquittal and new trial. The Brady violation argument about the officer drawing his weapon first — denied. The juror coercion motion with a named witness to the "loud and sustained disturbance" in the jury room — denied. Sixteen people are headed to sentencing June 18, eleven days before America's 250th birthday. Two of them, Autumn Hill and Meagan Morris, are trans women about to be sentenced to federal prison under the current administration's Bureau of Prisons policy. The show acknowledges previously deadnaming them and corrects the record going forward. Talarico Talk goes full fanboy. The Tallywhacker just got Skibidi-blessed by the GOAT himself — Barack Obama dropped into Austin this week for a taco run that Obama famously doesn't make for Texas Democrats. The boys break down the May 26 Cornyn vs. Paxton runoff and make the counterintuitive case that Paxton is the opponent we want — because if Talarico can survive a six-month gauntlet from the most shameless attorney general in Texas history, including the AI-generated attacks Paxton has already used on his own primary opponents, he's minted. Plus a discourse on Presbyterian minister celibacy that involves a potato. The big segment is the Red-Brown Alliance. Nick brings Craig something that's been bothering him for weeks: Democratic congressman Ro Khanna publicly thanking Marjorie Taylor Greene, getting praised by Steve Bannon on Gavin Newsom's podcast, and calling for a populist coalition that includes Tucker Carlson. Craig walks through what populism actually is, why it's a container rather than an ideology, and the historical record on red-brown alliances — every single one of which has ended with the brown shirts purging the reds. Ro Khanna is walking the American left into a bear trap that Steve Bannon set on purpose. We aren't trying to defeat this. We're trying to help you survive it. Connect with us today! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2607290/fan_mail/new]

Is That How You Get Your Jollies?

Episode 1 of Autocratic Despair opens with co-hosts Nick and Dr. Craig Johnson defining the show's central concept through two visceral scenarios: the reluctance to celebrate the Fourth of July without seeming to endorse the regime, and the panic of watching your own party embrace a candidate with a Nazi tattoo. From there, Nick is at a 6 on the despair scale, driven by an unsettling encounter with America 250 merchandise at his local big box store. He explains what the Semiquincentennial actually is and how Trump's colonization of the celebration has made even patriotic engagement feel like collaboration. This leads into a centerpiece comedic monologue on flag-mogging: Nick's practice of politely informing self-described patriots that they're violating the U.S. Flag Code. He walks listeners through the actual rules — no flag clothing, no flag advertising, no marks on the flag, no upside-down displays except in dire distress — and makes the case that America 250 merchandise is itself, in its own way, a flag code violation. Craig pushes back gently with a Bay Area perspective on flags, contrasts the U.S. flag's design unfavorably with the Japanese flag, and shares a story about his middle school band playing the national anthem at a VA flag-burning ceremony. The episode then pivots to the Prairieland Detention Center case — a story Nick announces as the show's most-downloaded episode and one he intends to keep beating the drum on. He walks through the July 4, 2025 noise demonstration outside the Alvarado, Texas ICE facility, the nineteen arrests that followed, the September 2025 executive order designating Antifa as a domestic terror group, and the March 2026 federal convictions of all nine defendants who went to trial. He covers the new motion filed by Maricela Rueda's lawyers requesting a judgment of acquittal or new trial — including alleged juror misconduct (two jurors crying after a closed-door argument before the verdict) and Judge Mark Pittman's pattern of consistent pro-prosecution rulings, his Federalist Society ties, and his fining of defense attorneys for so-called frivolous motions. Craig closes the segment with the show's clearest political thesis yet: by criminalizing anti-fascism, the U.S. government has effectively made fascism protected speech. The Prairieland sentencing falls eleven days before America's 250th birthday. The Prairieland thread leads naturally into Graham Plattner, the presumptive Democratic Senate nominee in Maine, whose Totenkopf SS tattoo, suspect cover-up story, and full menu of evasions on the matter form what Nick calls the perfect populist line of bullshit attached to an unforgivable history. Craig provides the historical weight on what the Totenkopf actually represents and lays out why "formers" — people who genuinely leave neo-Nazi movements — don't ask to be made senators. The hosts trace the operative pipeline connecting Plattner to John Fetterman through shared campaign staffer Joe Calvello, and Nick floats a theory that egalitarian-leaning voters identified by Cambridge Analytica-style psychographic sorting may now be getting their own tailored psyop in the form of populist candidates with disqualifying baggage. Craig concludes by upgrading his despair score from 3.5 to 4.5. The episode closes with Talarico Talk, where Nick reports on James Talarico's commencement speech at Paul Quinn College — the oldest HBCU in Texas — in which the Texas state rep told Gen Z that their disillusionment is their superpower and dropped references to Howard Thurman, bell hooks, and Langston Hughes. Nick frames this as the Tallywhacker bibliography-maxing, the Rizz Minister entering his manifesting stage, and positions Talarico as the Mario to Plattner's Wario, with Craig nominating Florida's James Fishback as the Waluigi. Connect with us today! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2607290/fan_mail/new]

Preview: Dr. Craig is Fun at Parties

This week on the Autocratic Despair podcast, Nick and Dr. Craig take an unusually nuanced look at Cole Allen — the 31-year-old Caltech-educated tutor from Torrance, California who charged a security checkpoint at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 25 armed with a shotgun, a handgun, and several knives in an attempt to assassinate President Trump and senior administration officials. Allen sent his family a manifesto minutes before the attack. His brother called police. Nobody died. The manifesto is not what you'd expect. It's organized, self-aware, and structured around a series of anticipated objections with numbered rebuttals — including a theological argument that turning the other cheek applies only when you yourself are oppressed, not when others are being harmed in your name. Allen chose buckshot over slugs to minimize collateral casualties. He spared Kash Patel by name. He apologized to his parents for lying about having a job interview. He described himself as a "Friendly Federal Assassin." Nick and Craig sit with the discomfort of a manifesto that reads less like the ravings of a madman and more like the term paper of a person who reasoned his way, step by careful step, into something monstrous. Craig provides historical context on who actually commits acts of political violence — and it turns out the profile is not the unhinged loner of popular imagination. The show then draws a Venn diagram that nobody in American media wants to draw: the overlap between the people who voted for Donald Trump and the people who have read The Turner Diaries, the 1978 white supremacist novel by neo-Nazi William Pierce that served as the blueprint for the Oklahoma City bombing and whose "Day of the Rope" — a fictionalized mass lynching of journalists, politicians, and so-called race traitors — was explicitly invoked by rioters who built a gallows outside the U.S. Capitol on January 6. Nick and Craig ask what it means when the same book inspires both the people in power and the people trying to kill the people in power. An update on the Prairieland case: nine Americans — Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, and Benjamin Song — were convicted in March of federal terrorism charges after a July 4, 2025 protest outside an ICE detention center in Alvarado, Texas. Seven were acquitted of attempted murder but convicted of providing material support for terrorism based on the prosecution's theory that wearing black clothing constituted support. It was the first federal material support conviction against alleged antifa members in American history. This week: Judge Pittman still has not ruled on the defense motion for a new trial based on allegations of jury coercion. A second motion alleges a Brady violation — that the prosecution failed to disclose the wounded officer drew his weapon before anyone fired. Sentencing is scheduled for June 18. CONTENT WARNING: This episode also contains an extended segment in which Nick lets Dr. Craig cook on a subject near and dear to his academic heart — citation formatting. If you have strong feelings about APA versus MLA style, this segment may cause elevated heart rate, involuntary fist-clenching, or the sudden urge to email your college professors. Nick understands approximately 40% of what Craig is talking about and is visibly trying to keep up. Listener discretion is advised. Names said on this episode: Cole Allen, Cameron Arnold, Zachary Evetts, Savanna Batten, Bradford Morris, Maricela Rueda, Elizabeth Soto, Ines Soto, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, Benjamin Song, James Talarico, Kash Patel, Mark Pittman Connect with us today! [https://www.buzzsprout.com/2607290/fan_mail/new]