The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal
The Professional Left Podcast features award-winning bloggers Driftglass and Blue Gal delivering fiercely progressive, unapologetically NSFW political commentary. They skewer right-wing absurdities and dismantle mainstream media narratives with razor-sharp wit and zero filter. The show mercilessly mocks partisan hacks while elevating stories the media ignores, offering profane and unflinching analysis.
Episodes
Ep 1004: The MAGA Merry-Go-Round
It goes in circles but never gets anywhereIt’s all horses’ assesAnd there is no brass ring.Driftglass on the Bob Cesca Show : https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-7-1-26/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springf
Ep 1003: Science Fiction University - Trust
Science Fiction University returns at long last, with an extended deep dive into one of the oldest and most unsettling questions in the genre — who can you trust when the threat is wearing a human face? The episode traces the theme of trust through three very different versions of the same story: John W. Campbell's 1938 novella "Who Goes There?", Howard Hawks' 1951 Cold War-era
Ep 1002: It’s Still the Republican Party
No rebranding! They cashed all those checks with the Tea Party. Episode 1002 of The Professional Left opens with a pop quiz, and the reveal says everything you need to know about how this particular cycle always ends. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the long, depressing, and darkly funny history of Republicans who were "done with Trump" until they weren't — Beck, Cruz, Graham, Vance
Ep 1001: 119 Billion Kilometers and Counting
Episode 1001 of The Professional Left kicks off the post-1000 era with a reading from Octavia Butler — written in 1993, about a fictional America that looks uncomfortably like the one outside your window right now — and uses it as the jumping-off point for a clear-eyed reckoning with why the country got here and who is responsible. The opening of the Obama Presidential Center was a wonderful occas
Ep 1000: For Your Consideration...
Episode 1000 of The Professional Left opens with the countdown finally hitting zero — and instead of a victory lap, Driftglass and Blue Gal do exactly what they've been doing for 999 episodes: explain the thing hiding in plain sight that everyone else is too polite, too complicit, or too invested in the status quo to say out loud. The Trailer Trash Woodstock that took over the White House law
Ep 999 The Patron Saint of Corruption
Episode 999 of The Professional Left takes a detour through the smoke-filled back rooms of mid-century Chicago machine politics to explain something essential about the moment we're living in right now — because it turns out that Mike Royko had the whole Trump era figured out decades before Trump came along, he just called it by a different name. Driftglass and Blue Gal walk through how patro
Ep 998: Who's This Jagoff?
Episode 998 of The Professional Left opens with a game of "Who's This Jagoff?" — a quiz that turns out to be a master class in how the Both Sides Do It lie gets laundered through the media, repeated without evidence, and rewarded with radio shows and television bookings no matter how many times it's been proven false. Driftglass and Blue Gal dig into the deep roots of that lie,
Ep 997: What Do Democrats Want?
Episode 997 of The Professional Left uses the sudden, very public firing of Scott Pelley from 60 Minutes as a jumping-off point to ask a much bigger question — why do the people with the biggest megaphones still have absolutely no idea what Democrats actually want, or who they actually are? Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the long, embarrassing history of elite pundits who spent decades inventing a
Ep 996: The Maine Event
Episode 996 of The Professional Left takes a hard look at the media circus surrounding the Maine Democratic Senate primary, asking who is actually stirring the pot, why they're stirring it, and who benefits when a private matter between a married couple drowns out every important conversation about the Republican incumbent's actual record. Driftglass and Blue Gal walk through a long and
Ep 995: The Politics of Pronouns
Episode 995 of The Professional Left takes a deep dive into one of the most revealing tricks in modern political history — the quiet, deliberate shift from "we" to "they" that happens every time a prominent Republican needs to pretend they had nothing to do with the monster they spent decades building. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace this sleight of hand from the early days of Tr
Ep 994: An Epidemic of Recycled Lies
Episode 994 of The Professional Left takes a hard look at the war on memory — the long, grinding campaign to erase what actually happened to this country and replace it with a comfortable myth that lets the people who caused the damage off the hook. A fascinating breakfast conversation between a writer and ten of his late father's Trump-voting friends provides the jumping-off point, raising a
Ep 993: Fools In a Burning House
Episode 993 of The Professional Left finally arrives at the pivotal year of 2008 — the moment the Republican party began eating itself alive — and traces exactly how a party that had just driven the country into a ditch decided that the best response was to sabotage the guy trying to pull it out. Driftglass and Blue Gal walk through the deliberate, coordinated Republican strategy to destroy Barack
Ep 992: Both Sides Don't Have A Budget Surplus
In this episode of The Professional Left, Driftglass and Blue Gal trace how the Clinton-era budget surplus was dismantled piece by piece during the Bush years, setting the stage for the catastrophic financial collapse of 2008. While millions of Americans lost their jobs and homes, the mainstream media — led by Both Sides propagandists like David Brooks and the newly hired Bill Kristol — refused to
Ep 991: Underbabied?
Episode 991 of The Professional Left starts with a question that sounds absurd on its face — are Americans "underbabied"? — and then spends an hour making the case that the people asking that question are the same ones who have spent decades doing everything in their power to make starting a family feel financially impossible. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the long arc from the post-war
Ep 990: Straining Gnats, Swallowing Camels
Episode 990 of The Professional Left takes a step back from the daily chaos to talk about something the mainstream media almost never bothers with — scale — and why understanding it is the difference between seeing propaganda clearly and getting played by it every single time. Driftglass and Blue Gal run the actual numbers on one of the most successful political smear campaigns of the last decade,
Ep 989: 'Velveeta'
Episode 989 of The Professional Left takes on one of the most overused words in modern politics — "authenticity" — and asks whether anyone in American political media is actually serving the real thing, or just a smooth, processed, cheese-like substitute that melts consistently and tastes like what people want to hear. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the long, strange history of politician
Ep 988: Schrödinger's Alliances
Episode 988 of The Professional Left is a drama in three acts, each one taking a hard look at a political strategy that keeps failing — and the people who keep insisting it will work next time. Driftglass and Blue Gal dig into the endless, maddening cycle of reaching out to voters who have made it abundantly clear they don't want to be reached, and why the media keeps writing the same breathl
Ep 987: The Vice of the People
Episode 987 of The Professional Left takes a deep look at the concept of authority — where it comes from, who really has it, and what happens when the people in charge decide the rules no longer apply to them. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace a clear line from the lawless Bush years straight through to today, making the case that what looks new and shocking is really just the same old playbook with t
Ep 986: 'AmeriKKKan Gothic'
Episode 986 of The Professional Left traces how one simple political rule — Ronald Reagan's "Eleventh Commandment" never to speak ill of a fellow Republican — quietly mutated over decades into something far more dangerous. Driftglass and Blue Gal dig into how that rule created a closed loop where loyalty to the team mattered more than the truth, and how the endless flood of dark mon
Ep 985: 'The Cheaper The Crook...'
"The cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter." -- The Maltese Falcon Episode 985 of The Professional Left takes a deep dive into the word "normalizing" — a term that gets thrown around constantly in political coverage, but rarely gets a clear definition. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace how a stubborn 30% of Americans have believed one wild conspiracy theory after another for de
Ep 984: War On Hiatus Due To Bad Ratings
In this episode of The Professional Left, Driftglass and Blue Gal take a hard look at how America ended up in yet another Middle East war — and why the whole thing feels like a rerun that somehow got worse the second time around. Drawing a sharp line from the lies that launched the Iraq War to the chaos of today, they walk through the playbook Republicans use every time reality refuses to cooperat
Ep 983 "How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb"
In this episode of The Professional Left, Driftglass and Blue Gal dig into the decades-long project that brought American politics to its current breaking point — and what it really means that we've arrived here. A viral social media feud involving a Twitch streamer leads to a sharp look at who gets handed a megaphone in today's political landscape, and why the wrong people keep holding
Ep 982: Failure to Launch
Episode 982 asks: Did Trump magically bamboozle 70 million voters overnight, or did the GOP spend 40 years deliberately breeding an army of angry, paranoid, racist chumps? How is it that we are living in "Dune III" right now, when the movie doesn't come out until later this year? And why is the MAGA universe suddenly eating itself—MTG attacking Fox News, Rogan ditching "dorks a
Ep 981: Build Back Better
Episode 981 traces the Republican descent from the 1990 New York Times editorial warning about Gingrich's "slash and burn" politics through Limbaugh, Fox News, and Trump—a 36-year disaster that Liberal bloggers warned about while being dismissed as cranks. Driftglass and Blue Gal use a science-fiction classic AND a rebuilding story from the not-too-distant past to argue that democra
Ep 980: Zombie Apocalypse
Episode 980 uses The Walking Dead's central question—"The world we knew is gone, but keeping our humanity? That's a choice"—to examine whether we accept that the political and cultural America we once knew is finished. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the Republican zombie apocalypse from its inciting incident (Bush's 2004 reelection) through Obama's failed experiment in
Ep 979: Legacy
Episode 979 begins with Project Hail Mary and science fiction nerds auditing movies on street corners, then pivots to Ozymandias and what lasts versus what crumbles to dust. Driftglass and Blue Gal ask why there are hundreds of documentaries about the Roman Empire but not one major film tracing the Republican party's descent into fascism—and answer that question by naming who it would implica
Ep 978: WMD
Driftglass and Blue Gal compare Bush's Iraq debacle with Trump's Iran war—the lying, the cover-ups, the profiteering, the attacks on critics—revealing Trump isn't a break from the Republican past but a continuation of it, just bigger, dumber, and louder. The episode also discusses how the New York (effin') Times deliberately cleans up Trump's incoherent rambling while addi
Ep 977: An Apple Made of Razors
(And we talk about the Illinois Democratic Primaries! They were counting votes as we recorded.) Episode 977 examines the 2026 Illinois Democratic primary while dissecting David Axelrod's fantasy that Democrats should rerun the Obama 2008 campaign in 2028, as if the berserk Republican backlash to Obama never happened. Driftglass and Blue Gal discuss how legacy media pundits use lazy abstracti
Ep 976: Signs and Portents
Episode 976 examines the signs and portents showing Trump's base starting to fracture as broken promises about Epstein files and "no foreign wars" collide with reality. Driftglass and Blue Gal track special election upsets across the country, from New Hampshire to Georgia's R+19 district where even Trump's handpicked candidate couldn't avoid a runoff after 22% of MAGA
Ep 975: The 'C' Word
Episode 975 takes a trip back to Chicago to explore how big cities weather economic shocks that would destroy smaller towns—a lesson that matters as Trump's oil crisis, job losses, and ACA cuts hit rural Trump voters hardest. Driftglass and Blue Gal examine the fragile interconnectedness of small-town economies and why cascade failures are coming to red America, where MAGA voters are about to
Ep 974: 'But He Promised!'
Episode 974 examines why Trump's illegal war with Iran is splintering the MAGA base and fueling Democratic victories in special elections across the country. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace how Trump won in 2016 by offering Republican voters absolution for the Iraq War disaster—then broke his sacred "No Foreign Wars" promise just like he's covering up the Epstein files. The episo
Ep 973: Miracles?
Episode 973 explores biblical healing miracles to reveal what they teach about choice, cruelty, and the difference between victims who deserve compassion and abusers who don't. Driftglass and Blue Gal revisit the story of the Gerasene man possessed by "Legion" to examine the long-term trauma inflicted when military forces terrorize civilian populations—then and now. The episode lays
Ep 972: 'Little Note Nor Long Remember'
Trump's State of the Union was a two-hour Willie Horton ad designed to keep his shrinking base loyal through blood-soaked imagery borrowed from imperial Rome. Proleftpod traces how Michele Bachmann's 2011 Tea Party response prefigured today's MAGA lies by pretending the Great Recession never happened, just as Trump pretends away ICE murders, the Epstein files, and economic chaos. It
Ep 971: The Resistance Comes To Suburbia
Episode 971 examines why fact-checkers keep losing to Republican lies in America's ongoing culture war, and why better stories—not more facts—are the only way to win. Driftglass and Blue Gal break down Will McGrath's powerful essay "In the Resistance, We Drive Minivans" to show how real stories about real people cut through propaganda in ways statistics never can. The episode a
Ep 970: Lifeboats And How To Burn Them
Episode 970 asks why Democrats are always expected to play by rules that Republicans openly mock and destroy, and whether apologies from Trump voters mean anything without actual accountability. Drawing on one writer's (Jamil Smith) refusal to accept an apology from a Trump voter, the show tackles the question of what comes after "I'm sorry" in American politics.Stay in Touch!
Ep 969: Whatever Happened To 'The American People'?
Episode 969 explores how politicians and media use vague phrases like "the American people," "the voters," and "the public" without anyone agreeing on what these terms actually mean. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace these polyfunctional words through American history, from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Nixon's "silent majority" and today's
Ep 968: Their Loyalty Test Never Ends
Probably no need to play catch-up on this, except for future reference when we hit episode 2000 and are trying to convince the Neo-Republi-tarian Constitutional Independents who will come to dominate the media in 2045 after the Great Forgetting of 2032, that all of this actually happened...More at proleftpod.com. Link for this episode: Chelsey Gods with that song about Kristi Noem. Stay in Touch!
Ep 967: The Death of Nixon('s Maxim)
Average voters stay permanently undecided because they get their information from toxic media sources that have been poisoning them against Democrats for decades, making "running to the center" mathematically impossible and politically useless.Links for this episode: Volts ϟ 1.30.2026 – Michael Hobbes (All About "Reactionary Centrism") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5cFRQtPbc
Ep 966: The Persistence of Memory
The legacy media's "Both Sides Do It" conventional wisdom is a rotting corpse they've been sleeping with for decades while pretending they couldn't see Trump's fascism coming. David Brooks gets rewarded with cushy jobs at The Atlantic and Yale after being spectacularly wrong for 22 years, while PBS replaces him with a right-wing nobody who praises Trump as "the v
Ep 965: The Amnesia Machine Warms Up
The amnesia machine is already warming up as Republicans rehearse their "I was never really MAGA" speeches while Trump falsely claims Ilhan Omar staged her own chemical attack by a convicted felon Trump supporter. The episode tears apart the advice that Democrats should run against their own party to win over "average voters" who get their information from toxic sources that ha
Ep 964: A Man Was Lynched
The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are called what they really are—lynchings carried out by Trump's armed thugs who were then protected from investigation and sent back out on the streets. A direct line connects decades of right-wing hate radio promising to eliminate liberals to today's fascist violence, explaining why there will be no magical "national awakening" to sa
Ep 963: It's The End of the World [Order] As We Know It
Welcome to 'The end of the world [order] as we know it' in which we defend anti-ICE protesters who disrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, after discovering the pastor moonlights as an ICE official, calling out the shocking hypocrisy of a supposed man of God working for Trump's deportation machine.Contrast this peaceful protest with ICE's actual fascist behavior—arme
Ep 962 This Time It's Different
The greatest political mirage in modern American history returns as Trump's second term reveals that while the ingredients stay the same, something fundamental has shifted. Driftglass and Blue Gal dissect how corporate media like Newsweek hides its appeasement under the banner of "Courageous Centrism" while Republicans once again flee the scene of their crimes by rebranding as indep
Ep 961: Transitions For Us; Bad News For State and Local GOP's
We start with some personal news: Blue Gal's father passed away on January 9.In other news, she's leaving Crooks and Liars after 18 years for a day job with health insurance—thanks to Republican healthcare f*ckery. The podcast continues twice weekly, just dropping later in the day with Driftglass handling all the prep work.Then we dive into why Trump's regime is doubling down on vio
Ep 960: No Fair Remembering Stuff (Feat. John Amato of Crooks and Liars)
John Amato of Crooks and Liars discusses his journey from music to political blogging, including his early experiences with video content creation and sharing during the 2000s. Our convo covers the evolution of digital media in politics, with particular focus on the early days of blogging and the collaborative spirit among left-leaning bloggers who shared content through blog roundups. We conclude
Ep 959: The 16th Anniversary Show
We start with the ICE murder of Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis and the Trump administration's obvious lies about what happened, despite clear video evidence. Then we cover the shocking news that nine House Republicans actually broke ranks to force a vote on extending healthcare subsidies that keep insurance affordable for 22 million Americans—will the Senate kill it anyway? Plus our news ro
Ep 958: MAGA Flip Flops On 'Forever Wars For Oil'
We open on the fifth anniversary of January 6th by examining MAGA's stunning overnight flip-flop on war and foreign intervention. How did "America First" isolationists like Matt Walsh, Laura Loomer, and Cat Turd suddenly become cheerleaders for regime change in Venezuela? Why are pundits so confused by this reversal when we've seen it all before?Using clips from The Lion in Win
Ep 957: Happy New Year
In their final episode of 2025, Driftglass and Blue Gal try to sum up the entire awful year in just a few key words or phrases. As they close out nearly 16 years of podcasting together, the hosts reflect on the core lies drilled into Americans' heads so long that people automatically reach for them whenever the truth becomes too uncomfortable to face.Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail
Ep 956: 2025 In Review, Part 3 (of 3)
Driftglass and Blue Gal bring their epic year-in-review series to a close, covering September through December and finally boxing up 2025 to send it to hell. The hosts examine the final months of a year that saw legacy media trapped in their own 'Both Sides Do It' prison, DOGE's promises evaporate into nothing, and the Epstein files get a (incompetent, but still) cover up. But ther
Ep 955: 2025 In Review, Part 2
Driftglass and Blue Gal continue their review of 2025, covering May through August in this second part of their series. The hosts show how the Republican Party's corruption and chaos isn't something new or unexpected—it's exactly what the party has been building toward for decades through right-wing talk radio and Fox News. They walk through major events from those months, including
Ep 954: 2025 In Review, Part 1
Driftglass and Blue Gal reflect on what they call an "annus horribilis"—a genuinely awful year that fundamentally changed America as Trump's second term brought unprecedented corruption, chaos, and the erosion of democratic institutions. From Qatar's $400 million Boeing 747 bribe to Trump's crypto schemes and the $300 million White House ballroom boondoggle, they catalog t
Ep 953: When The Music Stops
Trump's "affordability" tour crashes into reality, with the president telling struggling Americans to buy fewer pencils and dolls while his own supporters admit they can't afford groceries. David Brooks' embarrassing 2009 love letter to John Thune as the GOP's wholesome future collides with Thune today holding the biggest bag of political excrement in modern history a
Ep 952: 'A Golden Age"?
We examine the difference between political "weather" and "climate" this week, starting with Trump once again bribing farmers with $11 billion after his own tariffs destroyed their markets. We play audio demonstrating Trump's cognitive decline and discuss his increasingly unhinged Truth Social posts, including a bizarre rant about Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Republican Par
Ep 951: The 'Sacred' And The Profane
The dangerous convergence of Trumpian immunity and media complicity creates for Trump an imaginary “kingdom” once reserved for anointed kings. Our Constitutional form of “government of the people” has been corrupted by both MAGA's belief that Trump operates with divine authority above the law and a mainstream media that protects its own incompetent insiders at all costs. As a side quest, wh
A Note From The Professional Left Podcast
No show today; we've had quite a weekend. We'll be back to our regularly scheduled podcasting on Thursday. See you then! Support the show
Ep 950: Welcome To The Sh*t Show
In this week's episode, we experience the whipsaw—that aggressive, back-and-forth sawing motion that's now a perfect metaphor for what Republicans are doing to millions of American families over the Affordable Care Act.We watch in real time as Trump's promised two-year ACA subsidy extension is announced, then delayed, then killed by Mike Johnson—all within 48 hours. Why did Republic
Ep 949: Some Assembly Required
In this week's episode, we dive deep into the infrastructure project nobody wants to talk about: the construction of political lifeboats.What are we witnessing as Trump's administration unfolds? We're seeing the familiar pattern of those who enabled catastrophe beginning to build their escape routes—just as they did after the Bush administration collapsed, when the "Fake Tea Pa
Ep 948: Here Come The Lifeboats!
GOP rats are slowly but surely abandoning the sinking Trump ship, and we have to ask:Will "Republican Lifeboats" once again successfully allow the MAGA/Tea Party faithful to escape accountability?We analyze Marjorie Taylor Greene's masterful deployment of the "Magic Words" to blame "both sides of the aisle," framing her slow-motion exit from the Trump pandemonium
Ep 947 All The Pieces Matter
This week, we're talking about the Epstein Files, the shutdown that wasn't really about the shutdown, and why six words might just end a presidency.Meanwhile, some privileged podcasters are dismissing angry "online" Democrats as if losing our healthcare is just a theoretical concern. Plus: The increasingly evident mental decline of a president: Trump goes from "inventing
Ep 946: So Much For The 'Tolerant Right'
This week, we're celebrating our first post-Blue Tsunami show! Democrats won across the board on Tuesday, and we're sleeping a little better. To quote Churchill: "This is not the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."Happy 21st blogiversary to the amazing Fran Blue Gal!Zohran Mamdani won NYC mayor with over 50% of the vote. And yet the Wall Street Journal immediate
Ep 945: Dr. Evil Dies and The Democratic Rules for Winning
This week, we're recording on election day while awaiting results to find out which version of "Democrats are doing it wrong!" the pundits will run with tomorrow.We open with words of wisdom from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker to the American Federation of Teachers. Then we come to bury Dick Cheney, not to praise him.We'll explore our "12 Rules for Staying Fing Sane,"
Ep 944: What Democrats Should REALLY Do, and Happy Birthday Driftglass…
This week, we're recording on Driftglass's birthday while he's still battling a cold and sounding disturbingly like RFK Jr. meets Broderick Crawford—so we're keeping it simple and direct.Why should Democrats stop accommodating Republican sociopaths who inflict pain on their own base as leverage? And what happens when Democrats finally say "let them burn" instead of ru
Professional Left Podcast Is Taking A Sick Day
Does Driftglass with laryngitis sound like Brenda Vaccaro? The podcasters disagree, YOU be the judge! (See you on Thursday, which is also Driftglass's 65th birthday! Woot!) Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodDonate via PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/proleftpodcastor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail
Ep 943: But Democrats Must Move To The Center!
This week, we're examining the legacy media's desperate attempt to plug a 20-foot hole in their Both Sides narrative—and why their favorite solution won't work.The New York Times Editorial Board insists that "moving to the center is the way to win," but the data show that this strategy is already exhausted. Talking of compromise with an enemy who wants no reconciliation is
Ep 942: What Is Effective Protest (No Kings Edition)
Find your No Kings Protest March/Rally at https://www.nokings.org/ This week, we're asking the only question that matters: Will what we do actually help?What does it mean to be "effective" in the fight to save democracy? Did throwing pies at Bill Kristol, Rupert Murdoch, or Newt Gingrich ever change anything? And why should we always ask ourselves the Bridge of Spies question: "
Episode 941: Uh Oh, The Media's Building Lifeboats (Again)!
This week, we're watching the media scramble for survival as tectonic forces fracture the landscape—and the billionaires are building lifeboats while Mount Vesuvius smokes overhead.Why is The Bulwark declaring itself "the future" while The Washington Post and CBS News die? And what does it mean that CBS just hired Bari Weiss to, let's face it, manage the death of broadcast TV n
940: We Are All Antifa's Girlfriend
In this week's episode, we tackle the concept of "ethos"—what people actually stand for versus what they claim to believe. Drawing parallels from the Cornerstone Speech of 1861 to George Wallace's segregationist campaign, we explore how America's ugliest movements had clear, comprehensible (if abhorrent) belief systems. But what about today's MAGA movement? Beyond rag
Ep 939: Huckleberry Finn And The Sins Of MAGA
Welcome to Book Club Day at the Professional Left, where we're spoiling a 141-year-old novel that remains the undisputed champ of American literature—and revealing why it's more relevant than ever.What does Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn teach us about the struggle for America's soul in the age of Trump? Huck faces an agonizing choice: turn in his friend Jim and save his soul, o
Ep 938: Republicans in Disarray
This week, we're unpacking a tale of two shutdowns—and spoiler alert: they're both Trump's.First, the government shutdown: Why are Republicans celebrating a government shutdown while simultaneously blaming Democrats for it? How can they claim it's the "Schumer Shutdown" when they control all three branches of government? And why can't they keep their messaging s
Ep 937 That's Why They Call It Money
This week, we're delving deep into a question that's been making the rounds on those very large political never-Trump websites: Why don't Democrats have their own Charlie Kirk network?What's the real secret behind the conservative propaganda machine's success? Spoiler alert: it's not "moxie," fearlessness, or bootstraps. Surprise! It's billions in olig
Ep 936 | Tell, Don't Show
What does it mean when the government exists primarily to entertain the MAGA base rather than serve the people? We examine how Conservative media have adopted a "Tell, Don't Show" approach to cover Trump's increasingly erratic performances, particularly his rambling United Nations speech that foreign diplomats called "stark, raving mad." Everything is a show in Trum
Ep 935: The Wheels On The Cross Go Round And Round
We missed the rapture! This week we're diving deep into the political machine playbook - because understanding the past is the only way to make sense of the insanity we're witnessing today.Why are Republicans frantically trying to turn a dead podcaster into the next Confederate monument? And what does it mean when your political strategy depends on keeping your base at a "full boil&
Ep 934: A Convo With Charlie Pierce
A wide-ranging conversation with the incomparable Charlie Pierce of Esquire Magazine. What should the Democratic base be doing now? What should Democrats in Congress be doing now? And what for which NFL team should Blue Gal and her daughter go all in? (Driftglass has an opinion, and it starts with Da and ends with Bears.) More at proleftpod.com. Charlie Pierce image is a screenshot from, YES,
Ep 933: Meanwhile, In Local Fascism...
We look at how the crazy stuff happening in national politics is playing out right here in our hometown of Springfield, Illinois, by checking out what local radio, TV, and newspapers are saying about recent events. Why do big-name media people like Chuck Todd come to small-town radio shows to push their "both sides are equally bad" message, and how does this lazy reporting help cover up
Ep 932 The Evil That Men Do
How did the late Charlie Kirk build his multi-million dollar empire, and what role did billionaire oligarchs play in funding his operation? And why was it so worth it to them to dump millions on this right-wing demagogue? What critical facts does Ezra Klein conveniently leave out when praising Kirk's "moxie and fearlessness"? There's a huge difference between democratic discou
Ep 931 Democrats Must Listen To...Patrick Swayze?
Alt Title: What 'Road House' Can Teach DemocratsWhat is the hidden wisdom in Patrick Swayze's movie Road House (MST3K IYKYK) that Democrats desperately need to understand? Answers to this and more, in this week's episode! Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Spr
Ep 930: His Master's Voice
Why do we keep lurching violently between Democrats and fascists if every election is supposedly a "change election"? What happens when the media's obsession with "disruption" as a political cure-all actually gets what it wished for?We examine the fundamental split in American politics: Do we want change that means progress toward a better tomorrow, or change that means a
Ep 929 Republicans Can't Get No Satisfaction
Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, Tulsi Gabbard, and Jeanine Pirro are in positions of power to finally bring justice to history's greatest villains? So why are there still no indictments of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton? We know why! We trace the straight line from Bush's load-bearing lies about Iraq and Katrina to Trump's promises of revenge against Democrats, and examine what happen
Ep 928 GOP Polls Hit 'The Sarah Palin Floor'
Trump's approval ratings have crashed to 37% - that magical Sarah Palin floor where only the most delusional true believers remain loyal. What do chemical bonds and political loyalties have in common, and why are some Trump voters starting to break away while his hardcore base would happily be entombed with him in the afterlife? Looking back 20 years to Bush's catastrophic second term, w
Ep 927: Pritzker's Honor
What happens when Democratic governors fight like they mean it? We dive into J.B. Pritzker's masterclass in political combat. He talks like a #%&$&! FDR Democrat! And here's the crucial question nobody wants to ask: if the majority of Americans already support what would be considered a progressive agenda, why do Democrats keep getting lectured to move right? Why do the punches o
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