"American Extremists Aiding Radicals Across Border," trumpeted the Detroit Free Press in 1919. "707 Illegal Aliens Arrested in Checkpoint Crackdown," reported the Los Angeles Times in 1987. "87 Bronx gang members responsible for nine years of murders and drug-dealing charged in largest takedown in NYC history," announced the New York Daily News in 2016. "'Top secret' Hamas documents show that terrorists intentionally targeted elementary schools and a youth center," claimed NBC News in 2023. 

Each of these headlines includes a label for a certain type of Bad Guy. Whether it’s the "Extremist," the "Illegal Alien," the "Gang Member," or the "Terrorist," these terms—and their cousins—seek to exceptionalize the alleged transgressions of their targets, separate them from both the law and history and dehumanize them, all while priming media audiences for crueler laws, harsher policing, longer incarceration and sometimes even extrajudicial punishment. The terms, of course, don’t have clear, universally accepted definitions—nor are they supposed to—their use is often heavily racialized and, by their very nature, subject to the whims and ideologies of the Security State and the media doing its bidding. 

What effects, then, do these Bad Guy Labels have on public perceptions? How do they serve to foreclose critical thinking about who is deemed inside the bounds of due process and humanization and who is categorically an other in urgent need of disappearing and punishment?

On this episode, we examine four thought-terminating Bad Guy labels, analyze their origins, why they rose to prominence and explain how they are selectively evoked in order to turn off people’s brains and open up space for quick and cruel state violence.

Our guest is attorney and author Alec Karakatsanis.



Episode 220: The Power of Thought-Terminating Bad Guy Labels

“Jaw Clench Study Takes Tax Dollars,” United Press International cautioned in 1975. “‘Shrimp On A Treadmill’: Rand Paul Mocks National Science Foundation Studies,” Forbes reported in 2021. “Gov't waste report finds $400K spent to give lonely rats cocaine: 'Absurd',” Fox News told viewers in 2024. 

According to these headlines, a wasteful, woke liberal government has been squandering taxpayer money on something wholly undeserving: frivolous scientific studies. Tens of thousands to millions of dollars, we’re told, are being handed out like candy so scientists can sit around watching monkeys clench their jaws, putting shrimp on treadmills, and give cocaine to rats. And who gets to choose which studies are funded? Wasteful ultra woke organizations like the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Health and Human Services. 

It’s true that some research doesn’t end up having much practical relevance––indeed this is the nature of scientific inquiry! There are sometimes cul-de-sacs and wrong paths. But the majority of the time, studies that are trivialized in media and on the Senate floor aren’t superfluous at all. 

While soundbites like “shrimp on a treadmill” might paint a ridiculous picture, they’re also taken out of context, obscuring the scientific merit and moral import of the research and researchers, who work for years on often obscure, tedious lines of inquiry only to have their lives’ work reduced to a cheap punchline by bad-faith demagogues playing to the public’s ignorance and lizard brain impulses. 

So, why is this media and political punchline so popular? And what’s the agenda of the lawmakers and media organizations that denigrate and misrepresent research and science more broadly, and the larger current of conspicuous anti-intellectualism that has always been present in American political culture, but in the last ten years has entirely taken over the modern American Right? 

On this episode, we discuss the decades-old, anti-intellectual gambit of mocking and attacking the “frivolous study,” examining how it warps and devalues science and international cooperation in a broader effort to defund public institutions, both scientific and otherwise.

Our guest is Brenda Ekwurzel, Senior Director of Scientific Excellence at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Ep 221: Anti-Science Mugging on the Right and the Ascent of American Anti-Intellectualism

“Democrats Need to Face Why Trump Won,” states The New York Times' Ezra Klein Show. “Democratic strategist issues ‘hard truth’ to party members after losing election,” CNN tells viewers. “This Is Why Kamala Harris Really Lost,” writes Eric Levitz for Vox.

Since the 2024 presidential election, elite Democrats and the pundits in their orbits have taken to newspapers, podcasts, and cable channels to attempt to explain why Kamala Harris lost and Donald Trump won. Chief among the explanations is this one: Democrats became controlled and overtaken by the "Wokes," becoming overly concerned with pronouns and political correctness, too soft on immigration and crime, while the electorate drifted to the right and that, to win the future, Democrats have to––alas, and with the putative heavy heart––go right with them.

Instead of contending with how the Democratic Party has abandoned a working class composed of all races and gender identities, chased big money and been overtaken by venal PR flacks and lawyers, Democratic party officials, big donor funded “pollsters,” “strategists,” and elite media have done what they’ve always done whenever there's an alleged “soul searching” in the Democratic party: scapegoated vulnerable people, insisted on a fixed, intrinsically conservative voting base and repackaging what is simply a newer version of corporate-friendly status quo liberalism.

On this episode, part one of a two-part series we’re calling "The Empire Strikes First,” we examine how party elites sought, before the election was even called on the night of November 5, 2024: to control the narrative and maintain their status and power within the party, blaming everyone but themselves, relying on tortured data and transparently self-serving conclusions which permit them to continue their longstanding process of justifying elite-serving, center-right policy, feigning Deep Concern for the preferences of Joe Six Pack, all while making sure their “consultant” gravy train chugs along unabated.

Our guest is UC-Berkeley professor Jake Grumbach.

The Empire Strikes First Part I: Party Elites Who Lost to Trump (Twice) Blame Everyone But Themselves

Ep 223: The Empire Strikes First, Part II — ‘Abundance’ Pablum as Counter to Left Populism

In this public News Brief, we break down the selling of an unpopular, disastrous war in record speed. 

News Brief: Pundits Speed-run 15 months of Iraq War Propaganda for Iran in Five Days

Covering everything from the Big Beautiful Bill, to Ted Cruz's interview with Tucker Carlson, to Israel's latest attempts to pull the United States into another war(s), to Trump's potential nuking of Iran

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 397: You Did Not Seek This Moment, This Moment Sought You

This week we're joined by returning guest Tracy Rosenthal to discuss the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign: how it was shaped, how it won the Democratic Primary, what it may look like going forward, and how the rest of the media and political class is reacting to it. But first, we catch up on some housekeeping re: Israel and the U.S.'s war against Iran, and talk very briefly about Peter Thiel's fixation on the Antichrist.

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 398: If You Don't Fight, You Lose (w/ special guest Tracy Rosenthal)

Comedy legend Larry Charles (Fridays, Seinfeld, Borat, Curb Your Enthusiasm & much more) returns to the show to discuss his new book Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Blood, Guts, and Laughter. We have a wide ranging discussion of Larry’s life in comedy including post-war Brooklyn as a comedy incubator, grinding out avant-garde sketch comedy with Andy Kaufman, the prevalence of coke and other drugs in the comedy writing scene, getting tackled by the Secret Service trying to get a joint to Jimmy Carter’s sister, and the difficulties in comedic creative relationships. Larry also gets candid about his disappointment with the prevalence of zionism among his erstwhile comedy partners, and we talk about the humanizing force of humor in the face tragedy and despair.

Pick up Comedy Samurai here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/larry-charles/comedy-samurai/9781538771549/?lens=grand-central-publishing

AND: get your pre-order in for YEAR ZERO: A CHAPO TRAP HOUSE COMICS ANTHOLOGY starting today at www.badegg.co

947 - Laugh Now, Cry Later feat. Larry Charles (6/30/25)

Will & Hesse sit down with Ari Aster, director of Hereditary, Midsommar, Beau is Afraid, and the upcoming Eddington. They rap on evil movies, mixing stupid slapstick humor with pain & discomfort, creating a contemporary western out of the recent past, some of Ari’s favorite films & filmmakers, and of course…the all-consuming sense of impending doom & lurking doubt that surrounds us.

Check out Eddington, in theaters this summer on July 18th.

Movie Mindset Bonus - Interview With Director Ari Aster

Recorded on 7/2/25, so a little late on getting this one out. Nonetheless, a fun dive into Herodotus and the story of Cyrus The Great

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 400: A Different Level Of Criminality

Will & Felix discuss the dire starvation crisis now gripping Gaza, and the rapidly changing attitudes among certain political & media elites now that this has all apparently finally “gone too far.”  We also try to keep up with Trump’s Epstein trouble as the President attempts to drown the whole thing off with old scandals and some showstopping showtunes.

Please consider donating to Gaza relief through the Sameer Project: https://linktr.ee/thesameerproject

And just three days left to pre-order YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology at badegg.co/products/year-zero-1


955 - Memory (7/28/25)

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Ep 223: The Empire Strikes First, Part II — ‘Abundance’ Pablum as Counter to Left Populism

Citations Needed Podcast