Trillbillies coverage of Election Day 2020

Also please welcome our newest Trillbilly member, Aaron Thorpe, who we couldn't bus up to Kentucky for this episode but who was on our most recent Patreon episode and will be on our upcoming episodes: @posadist_trapgd on Twitter if you'd like to say hello

And please check out Tarence's article at Verso: https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/4905-a-view-from-trump-country

And finally you can support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 171: Thank You, Kentucky

Comedian James Austin Johnson joins us to do expert reporting and analysis on the election that's still happening or is over or is still happening I can't tell. Then Donald Trump calls us to announce his resignation sort of.

JAMES AUSTIN JOHNSON
@ShrimpJAJ on Twitter and IG
@WTAWTPod

ATLANTA SOLIDARITY FUND
https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/contribute-to-the-atlanta-solidarity-fund
@ATLSolFund

PHONE BANK FOR RAPHAEL WARNOCK
https://www.mobilize.us/warnockforgeorgia/event/331688/

MERCH
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PATREON
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2020 ELECTION ANALYSIS BREAKDOWN w/ James Austin Johnson & Donald Trump

It's another week of begrudgingly covering the news. Is Trump attempting a coup? What can Biden's transition team tell us about the future? How will honest Americans like the MAGA Florist and Stormin' Norman fare under a repressive Biden regime? Tune in to find out...

Tarence has a new article about Congressman Hal Rogers up at Dissent Magazine: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/hal-rogerss-kentucky-kingdom

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

Episode 172: Stormin' Norman and the 10,000 Biker Coup

This week we discuss the theory of NEOFEUDALISM, company towns, EPCOT center, and the gig economy.

SOURCES
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/neofeudalism-the-end-of-capitalism/
https://lingojam.com/EnglishtoShakespearean
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPCOT_(concept)

HELP THE GEORGIA SENATE FIGHT:
https://Janemcalevey.com

ALEX'S MOVIE SPACE TRASH:
https://vimeo.com/295924793

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GIVE ME FUEDALISM GIVE ME FIRE GIVE ME THAT WHICH I DESIRE

We are joined by LA comedian Sarah Squirm and SF tenant organizer Shanti Singh to talk about CALIFORNIA and her various PROPS and JOWLED GHOULS.

SARAH SQUIRM
@SarahSquirm

SHANTI SINGH
@uhshanti
https://www.gofundme.com/f/room-keys-for-unhoused-folks-during-covid

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON
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CALIFORNIA UBER ASS w/ SARAH SQUIRM & SHANTI SINGH

Environmentalist and author Thea Riofrancos is here to rap with the kids about about ecosocialism and talk shit on John Kerry. Dare we defy the all powerful Climate Czar? He whose divine blood gives us the Earth itself?

CHECK OUT HER BOOK
Resource Radicals: From Petro-Nationalism to Post-Extractivism in Ecuador https://www.dukeupress.edu/resource-radicals

SUPPORT THE SHOW AND GET MORE EPISODES @ patreon.com/poddamnamerica

TYRANNY OF THE CLIMATE CZAR w/ Thea Riofrancos

President-elect Joe Biden has promised what he calls a return to "decency" and "unity," and American media has broadly characterized his victory over Donald Trump as, in the words of New York Times columnist Charles Blow, "The Third Term of the Obama Presidency." Many of the same holdovers — Samantha Power, Antony Blinken, Michèle Flournoy, Bob McDonald, Jake Sullivan, Susan Rice, Sally Yates, John Kerry and many in the revolving think tank, consulting outfits, marketing firms, undersecretary advisor world are expected to be back into the White House come January 20, 2021.

While they have many obvious superficial differences, the Obama and Biden White Houses will more or less borrow from the same playbook: slick, marketing-focused, technocratic, centrist, hawkish maintainers of the neoliberal status quo. As such, many lessons can be learned from the media’s coverage of the Obama White house and what mistakes not to repeat again.

From Obama’s prosecution of foreign occupations to directing dirty wars, supporting the destruction of Yemen to running a drone strike regime, pushing austerity dogma to continue the brutal war on drugs, inhumane immigration enforcement to many routine cruel and violent policies — because they lacked the partisan hook and sadistic fervor of Trump — were largely ignored, downplayed, or soft pedaled by U.S. media from 2009 to the beginning of 2017.

This is Part I of a two-part episode breaking down these "media mistakes" - major areas where the American press failed to hold the most powerful person in the world to account. We explore how the Obama era may provide a blueprint of what we may expect under the upcoming Biden administration and how activists can get ahead of these failures before they inevitably manifest.

Our guest is Peter Hart, National Communications Manager for Food & Water Watch.

Ep. 125: Obama-Era Media Failures We Shouldn't Rehash Under Biden (Part I)

We are joined by Breht from Rev Left Radio and Brynn Nieboer from Beep Beep Lettuce to discuss Vladmir Lenin's 1901 pamphlet, What Is To Be Done?, and how it relates to how we currently need to do things.

BREHT
@RevLeftRadio
@Red_Menace_Pod
https://www.revolutionaryleftradio.com/

BRYNN NIEBOER
@WeedPod
@GenLossPod

THAT INTERSTITIAL MUSIC WAS
STAY DEAD
by
DOG MAN PIZZA PARTY
https://dogmanpizzaparty.bandcamp.com/track/stay-dead

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@feraljokes
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What Is To Be Done? Do We Need To Do Things? Let's Find Out! w/ Rev Left Radio & Brynn Nieboer

This is the second installment of our scoldy, buzzkill, two-part episode on Obama-era media failures we should be on the look out for as the Biden administration takes office. On this episode, we examine five more tropes that, sadly, are already being resurrected.

Our guest is Roberto Lovato, author of Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs and Revolution in the Americas.

Episode 126: Obama-Era Media Failures We Shouldn’t Rehash Under Biden (Part II)

"Sen. Mark Warner said progressives' calls to 'defund the police' were in part to blame for Democratic losses in the House in a cycle when the party was expected to gain seats," The Hill tells us. "How ’defund the police' sabotaged Democrats on Election Day," Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune writes."'Defund the police’ is killing our party, and we’ve got to stop it," said South Carolina Representative Jim Clyburn. In the wake of the Democrats’ disappointing Congressional showing in last month’s elections, centrist Democrats and their media mouthpieces were quick to blame Black Lives Matter and the "defund the police" movement for their subpar results.

There’s only one problem: there is no empirical basis for this claim in any of the above comments or reports. No studies, no evidence––not even anecdotally––is provided. Before the printer ink was dry on the ballots, centrist Democrats who lost or underperformed––or made a career out of defending those that do––rushed to blame the so-called "defund the police" movement, highlighting rightwing attack ads featuring the label. After some initial goodwill immediately following the global outpouring of protests after the horrific police murder of George Floyd, mainstream democratic party line has reverted back to it’s old playbook of blaming the Left and Black activists for offending or alienating a nebulous cohort of moderate white voters.

As the economy crashed and the world was turned upside down in the Spring of 2020, Democratic leaders had a chance to lobby for robust social welfare programs, guaranteed income, mortgage and rent cancellation and single payer healthcare to get us through this ongoing crisis, whose disastrous implications will extend well beyond the introduction of a vaccine. Instead, however, they lowered expectations, blamed Trump for their own unforced ideological limitations and almost never publicly took credit for the extension of unemployment benefits––the one good thing Democrats actually did achieve, albeit fleeting.

The result was a once in a generation opportunity blown, a possible leftwing shock doctrine that was crippled by unmovable austerity ideology. So when the elections came around and the Democrats underperformed, who was to blame? It can’t be party leadership blowing the COVID-19 response and it can’t be the security state-curated centrist tofu candidates who lost or barely won. It has to––once again––be those pesky far left activists. Because Democratic party leadership cannot fail they can only be failed, a scapegoat was needed.

On this week’s episode we discuss why "defund the police" and the broader abolitionist movement was that scapegoat, the long history of concern trolling Black activism and perennially blaming movements for justice for right-wing, white backlash from bad faith actors. We also detail how activists are now on the defensive as Democrats, having successfully exploited the broad sentiment of the George Floyd protests for Get Out The Vote fodder, now seek to lower expectations, purge Black Lives Matter of its truly radical elements, and go back to business as usual.

Our guest is human rights lawyer and abolitionist Derecka Purnell.

Episode 127: Democratic Leadership's Predictable Scapegoating of 'Defund the Police'

We say goodbye to 2020 with the episode everyone has been waiting for: Is the Yeti Real? Also, what is up with the Grinch? Happy Holidays everyone, what a fucking year it’s been.

Episode 126: Merry Cryptids

Gothic socialist comedy podcast by two idiot comedians: Jake Flores and Anders J. Lee. @poddamnamerica 
patreon.com/poddamnamerica

What Is To Be Done? Do We Need To Do Things? Let's Find Out! w/ Rev Left Radio & Brynn Nieboer

Pod Damn America