957 - Democracy Soon! feat. Osita Nwanevu (8/4/25)
Osita Nwanevu stops by to discuss his new book The Right of the People: Democracy and the Case for a New American Founding. Osita leads us through his case that American “democracy” as it currently stands isn’t that democratic at all. We discuss the real intentions of the founders, the actual American revolution of the Civil War, and the stalled re-founding of reconstruction. We also look at the potential for economic democracy, the political reforms needed to re-found the country, the problem of the judiciary, and the challenges of a new media environment to democratizing movements. Yes, today the wacky morning DJ actually does say democracy’s a joke.
Pick up Osita’s book here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/704686/the-right-of-the-people-by-osita-nwanevu/
AND, we’ve secured ONE MORE WEEK to get your pre-order in for YEAR ZERO: A Chapo Trap House Comic Anthology at badegg.co/products/year-zero-1
Comments (124)
The beginning makes me want to do a nostalgia run of Hell of Presidents.
Love, love, love this one ❤️
Elite guest booky
This conversation just got better and better. Good and simple point for discussions with fellow workers: The political shitstorm we find ourselves in is *because* we're not organized anymore i.e. We must re-democratize the economy
“Authoritarianism” is not a meaningless moniker, it’s actually a well defined concept despite being general. The idea that you can forcibly restrain, or re-contain freedom of information or individuals’ right to take in or put out information with state authoritarian action is naive and idiotic. Just from a practical standpoint it’s idiotic, that’s putting aside the paternalistic and authoritarian philosophy behind information “maintenance” or regulation by the state and a remedy to the supposed “problem” of people being unable to be trusted to parse information themselves. It’s not the state’s role to “correct” the “medieval peasant” views of people it finds inconvenient or dangerous.
The most that I think I could do to steel-man their argument is that parsing information and discerning the intentions of a given media outlet is a skill that practically has to be taught, and knowing *why* a given media outlet--especially political ones--argues for/against [x] and the way they go about doing that, requires people to be more knowledgeable about Right wing theory that isn't just outright propaganda nor low hanging fruit. The theory has to be engaged critically ofc. Otherwise I agree. The skill--the "tools"--of media literacy is something that should be taught and "distributed" to everyone, but it'll have to be up to them as to what they do with it.
Did bro really go up to bat for Kamala/Joe as bulwarks for democracy, rather than the farcical sham they represent as candidates?
Gay
If you are loving the show for its pure joy, Season 4 was the best for the way it established the way Gus and Walt try to outplay each other.
Love Osita Nwanevu, preordered the book back in February!
Felix haters up through the first leg
The Chapo boys haven’t had fun on the show in years and it shows
How does it show?
In what ways can a "McDonalds/Walmart" worker actually vote on things up to foreign policy as Osita mentions? When did we vote to go to war with Iraq, supply arms to Israel, or to give the CIA 50 billion a year unaccounted for? Did I miss that day at my polling center?
Yeah I thought that was goofy
I follow Michael Hudson thought: democratic capitalism inevitably leads to oligarchy, unless you have a Jubilee. I will try to listen to the rest of the episode but I miss Matt. No war but class war.
I didn't make it 15 minutes. I don't like this guy's way of thinking, and he has an annoying affect to boot.
Bush league
Great ep. Excellent discussion. I expect nothing less from Osita.
A teaser on YouTube. The greed of the framers regarding slavery. https://youtu.be/xGHUWsml5tw?si=eq5S0kiYmTcwqMiU
Osita is a breath of fresh air. If you are interested in watching a 4 episode series that takes a similarly critical look at the founders, check out our website for “Confounding Father” …and maybe Chapo will take a look… https://www.nerdsmakemedia.com/confounding-father
Love Osita as a guest and I think he has the correct analysis, I wish more people would dog on our shitty constitution
Will back once again with a fucking revolting quantity of mucus in his mouth and throat
Why're you so interested in Will's mouth and throat 🤔
Neptune will finish orbiting the sun before you guys get a black female guest. And I’m not talking about Olay. Who I love and don’t hear from often enough. But I guess for now this is OK.
Is this serious? This was your thought when you were listening to this? Nothing about, idk, anything that was discussed?
Democracy manifest was a fat Englishman being arrested for eating a meal - a succulent, Chinese meal! Who needs books??
I thought he was Australian, no? Not saying youre wrong im asking
To defend Achen and Bartels a bit, they argued for wealth redistribution to the poor as their solution to the US’ fake, dysfunctional democracy. No doubt many ghoulish reviewers missed that part, and represented their book as an argument against democracy as such - but they were arguing against standard political “science” apologetics for the US system, aka the folk theory of democracy gussied up with a bit of math and stats
Anyone know what this Peter Onuf thing Will mentioned is? It sounds interesting
Not sure if this is exactly what he's talking about but I had to read this from Onuf in a class and touches on similar points re the American revolution and empire https://www.jstor.org/stable/24913722?seq=10
I feel like Bart watching Krusty interview George Meany
Love you guys
I know I only got a C+ in junior year social studies and never read any text on any subject since I was 19 but let me tell you why Osita is wrong about American history….
This episode made me miss Matts analysis, Nwanevu’s historiography meshes well with the old episodes. One thing I’d like to suggest in regards to social media, is perhaps a public social media platform would be a positive step towards democracy. We should have a platform explicitly designed for people to communicate and organize. Live feeds and archives of national and local legislative assemblies and town halls and the documents they produce. Starting petitions for legislation and even voting could be handled through it. One thing I thought was interesting about the French Revolution is that their constitutional deliberations were recorded, and one idea was that after el presidente vetos the legislature, the legislation should go to the public as a referendum. If we had a live way to interact with our government, i think it could actually facilitate levels of democracy higher than anything in history. Especially because embracing technology also allows us to overcome language barriers.
Osita was on a great ep or 2 with Matt years ago. He’s not new to the universe.
Felix, speaking for the first time in 40 minutes after careful consideration: "What's the democratic response to American media consumption and the effects of it? Because when I talk to libs about it I feel like I'm talking to a brick wall where they refuse to acknowledge it." Osita, democracy understander: "I wouldn't worry about it."
Yeah, that was my reaction: American federalism, in a alot of ways, is a rube goldberg machine that assumed: 1) parties would never be ideologically cohesive 2) the country was too big to ever have a consolidation of power into a cohesive class of elites, and 3) the eternal bounty of an economic system best understood as "its free real estate." The consensus reality of the post war period was more fragile than people recall and briefer than we like to think, but that doesn't mean we're "back" to some form of pre-closure-of-the-frontier politics. Ideologically "polarized" parties and an emergent unitary executive, in a profoundly fragmented media environment... I dunno, this is not your parent's version of twister.
I'm only like 28mins in but I wanted to say that William Hogelands books, Declaration, Founding Finance, and whiskey rebellion, should deff be mentioned in any convo like this about the founding and the ideas of the founders. Instead of just republic vs democracy, Athens vs Rome, etc. Some brilliant radio war nerd episodes on them. Currently reading, Autumn of the Black Snake, while in Crete =]
Whatever man this shits boring who cares.
boring and gay
Too dumb for this boring shit gimme the real slop
Felix, the democratic answer to your question on media consumption was answered by a little guy named Mao. It's called New Democracy. Not even kidding. You need a vanguard party that operates in the people's interests to dominate the media and regulate its consumption. Chinese democracy is thriving and an overwhelming majority of Chinese people believe democracy is important and that they live in a democracy. ~90-95% approve of their government. We are significantly more brainwashed than the Chinese and our numbers are in the gutter compared to them
Given how opaque Chinese society is to Americans (thanks in part to propaganda on both sides), how can we confirm the veracity of those spectacular public approval ratings?
Sectoral bargaining. So... Enterprise bargaining? Which is how unions work in Australia, and have for decades?
All the “this isn’t radical enough” commenters need to try canvassing. You will absolutely red scare the hoes that are normie Americans. He makes the point that this is about couching more meaningful ideas in the familiar and beloved terms of our sacred democracy. It’s oinking for the hogs, obv.
Canvassing is a lib concept for cucks.
People are being too nice about this. Even at its most “radical” edges, Osita’s vision for renewed democracy is something that existed historically: the Weimar Republic. Curiously, both the fact that it was only won by a failed revolution in which worker’s and solider’s councils were established across Germany and the fact that it produced a ruinous stalemate of class forces that could only be resolved through the quasi-monarchical power of the furor are overlooked!
Christ, it’s always Weimar. There are and have been many social democracies in Latin America, Scandinavia and other parts of the world. I have many critiques of social democrats, but implying they’ll inevitably bring about Hitler is ridiculous, sorry.
Great ep. Definitely putting this one in my hidden archive for the civilization that rises after the next 1000 years of slavery
I do not hate what Osita is trying to do but I echo a lot of the critiques in these comments. 1. Starting from first principles and economic democracy is useful in describing a better way of life that utterly discredits our current system. So to talk about fixes to this current system in the same discussion is a bit too far for me. 2. This also ignores the fact that the capitalist state has safeguards against these kind of radical proposals. Sander’s 20% policy was cool precisely because they would have shot him first! So there is just too much of a gulf between an egalitarian society and our own that discussing a non-radical transition inspires whiplash. But I do not hate this project as a trojan horse. More people should feel the cognative dissonance that we feel in comparing our own society to an actual democracy.
I think it's very valuable to have an alternative system ready to go when you're trying to organise people to overthrow the system that runs the world. Especially one that, rebuilt from first principles and informed by our modern situation, is therefore less likely to trigger the semiotic traps that have been so deeply implanted throughout popular culture over the last century to stop us simply adopting the Chinese, Cuban or Soviet system. Anyway, haven't you been to r/TheDeprogram and seen the "China won't save you, bro, the USSR tried that international revolution shit and got merked, every nation must organically build its own revolution, or it won't work." copy pasta posted five times a day alongside the one debunking Tiananmen?
Why couch this talk of "economic democracy" in liberal idealism (talk of first principles, metaphysics, etc)? Is the word communism too alienating? Historical materialism is true and explanatory, why not just be up front about it? Piker is one of the most influential people in the country, don't think the kid gloves are as necessary these days 🤷♂️
To communicate with libs.
I’m not sure how that factoid about the revolutionary war and it’s death toll whatever whatever King Phillips war had a much higher death toll per capita, even eclipsing the Civil War
Felix leads into every question with a fucking essay lol
20:55—22:00 preach
All business on this one…
Bonnie Rait if she was a seagull: let’s give em something to squawk about! How about loaaaaves!
Sometimes when i have an itch i don't let myself scratch it with my hands, i try to rub it up against something else, and i had an itch on the back of my thigh so i went up to this corner of the wall and i started rubbing my thigh on it and this lady who works in my office (but not from my organization) came around the corner and saw me rubbing my butt against the wall and she just kinda started doing it too
Dear Penthouse,
First principles
Great episode
Three weeks of very depressing or incredibly boring free episodes. You gotta do better
They should review come and see and all the Felix movies in one long episode and have Jacques as a co-host for three episodes
Isn’t the “New American Founding” a background element from the Purge movies?
Holy shit Felix is on this episode?
This shit just makes me sad..that someone this knowledgeable filters all that knowledge into such a clear dead end under the pretense of optimism is bleak.
Selling snake oil out the back of a cybertruck
Counter point: burn the shit to ground. Not one aspect of the US is salvageable. Any “refounding” would just allow many of the cursed organs of this capitalist, white supremacist, treat Reich to continue existing. Just raze the entire shit to the ground.
Ok. You start and show us what to do, and we’ll be right behind you.
Without interrogating the role of settler colonialism in the very essence of the Amerikan state, you’re just spinning wheels. Settler colonial occupation is antithetical to democracy. You can’t change that leopards spots.
Well that's the thing though, when you learn about 'minority rights' in school your brain immediately goes to 'oh yeah like how black people are a minority' but no, the minority the founders were talking about was the *wealthy*
Democracy Soon is an all time title TBH.
felix @ roughly 36:10
Listening and waiting to hear about decolonialism and how America is an illegitimate state… it’s gonna be brought up right?
It's the state we have and it's not going away any time soon. You can fantasize all you want about the decolonization of Amerikkka or whatever. The people who live here are still going to take the fucked up tools at their disposal and try to use them to influence the system that already exists
Snooze
No Ostia slander allowed
Just a little bit on public media, NPR isn't going away (vast majority of their funding is from listener donations hence the annoying pledge drives) but it's probably dying in rural areas
If there’s one thing rural voters need, it’s less educational television.
Read theory read Lenin
People reading some random pamphlets genuinely be more productive than listening to Osita’s faggy rambling about Democracy lol
What is this, NPR?
I loved your Where the Sidewalk Ends. Certainly not unclear about where your politics end— hail! Helmsman!
another great Osita ep. Matt especially missed on this one
Need to add that as an addendum to the Hell of Presidents list. Good shit. Wish Matt could have been there
There’s a passage I remember from Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy that stuck with me. I can’t remember the exact wording, but it went something like “the key question of our age is whether economic institutions are going to be democratized, or whether the state/society will be overcome by the logic of industrial capitalism, which is fundamentally autocratic.” I do feel the need to play devil’s advocate for the American Revolution, because as much as you can go on about the aristocratic biases of New England patricians and Virginia planters, you still have to account for the fact that the system that came out of it was more participatory than the one that went in, and which continued to become more so over time. Because by the time you had the conservative reaction of the constitution, you’d had decades of people railing against unelected royal governors, absentee colonial trustees and institutional capture by things like the East India company. That did put a lot of questions into the institutional logic of the US that demanded democratic answers. And while elites were typically hypocritical, they were often overridden by people who were more consistent.
TGDR
Bay State Mention
Appreciate the CAKE reference in the description
We are building Matt Christman, we are building him bigger
Felix begins speaking at 36 minutes and 7 seconds
Felix jump scare
Felix not speaking until 40 minutes in threw me, I thought he was still in vacation
Nobody expects the Felix inquisition.
I didn’t think it would be possible to both mumble and talk too fast at the same time but Nwanevu somehow does it—and a foot from the mic for good measure. At a certain point, I just gave up.
I noticed this with him and a few others a couple years ago. I call it scribble voice.
"sectoral bargaining" isnt that just a fancy way of saying "one big union" :p but no seriously, thats *exactly* what the Industrial Workers of the World has been advocating and working towards for the last century. Building our new world within the shell of the old, and all that.
How’s that Colo copper mining membership drive, goin, Big Bill?
Real democracy is closer to communism than most liberals are confortable with so it's not engaged with. It's just an empty signifier of "good"
Yeah. but first, id like to state that, as he was a literal Nazi, i do not, under any circumstances, have to give it to him. but. Carl Schmidt's critique of liberalism does have some very valid points. The liberal fear of, and simultaneous attachment to, sovereign power. The futility of liberal attempts to restrain sovereign power whilst simultaneously maintaning its fundamental characteristic, IE, the ability to act unrestrainedly when "necessary". His concept of the state of exception. Overall, his diagnosis of the problems of liberalism seems pretty on point to me. His remedy, though. Eesh. "instead of abandoning the concept of soverign power like some sort of (((communist))) we must instead worship it!" yeah. no thanks my dude.
I just saw an article that said that BP have found a huge oil deposit near Brazil and are refocusing away from renewable energy and back to fossil fuels to “boost investor confidence”. I don’t need to say how insane this is to anyone in here. But what are we going to do about it?? I really badly and seriously want to know! I live in Japan and it’s been 100° for like a month and will continue for the next month. Everyone I talk to here says it’s noticeably getting worse. This semi-sentient economy is setting us up for mass death events and there’s fucking nothing we can do about it. We’re watching a genocide every day and there fucking nothing we can do about it. How does this change?
Bl... I mean, uh, kinetically intervene to achieve decohesion of the climate-harming structures.
lol did my man say Whit Waltman?
We'll still have "Antiques Roadshow," it'll just be owned by Peter Thiel, and all the antiques will be skeletons of boys he molested during Starcraft LAN parties
I like the cut of this guy's jib and I fundamentally agree with almost everything he says. BUT. I feel like we're just reinventing the wheel here with this discussion of liberal institutions, the nature of the republic, and what is to be done about it when we already had the answer-- dictatorship of the proletariat. We already live in a dictatorship of capital. No amount of academic navelgazing about the way democracy *should* function really survives when faced with the reality that any system of government that seeks to put the working class in a position of political authority needs an enforcement mechanism. Otherwise there's nothing binding the landholding and capital holding class from adhering to any of it, or finding ways to undermine it when they start from a position of much higher authority. No amount of peaceful democratic economic and land reform can survive some asshole saying "no" the moment you need to take it from them unless there is a method of forcing them. Even Athens, the supposed beacon of direct democracy according to this guy in comparison to the Roman Republic, was a slave state maintained by state violence. The solution isnt to cling to a flawed idea of democracy that never really existed while saying "real democracy has never been tried", it's to understand how mechanisms of state power are maintained and make sure that they are controlled and put in the service of your class interests. Then once you have it, defend it at all costs because the assholes you clawed it from will never stop trying to take it back. Anyway. It's not that I think examining the conceptualization of American democracy isn't useful or interesting. I just think that trying to build a framework for liberation around "correcting" that idea of it is already a foregone conclusion.
We don't have the answer because nobody born in this country possesses the tools to come together in order to overthrow the bourgeois death machine
am I missing something? he says obvious things
Seems pretty informative to me. I’m only 22 minutes in and his take on experts were very insight
Democracy Soon! with Amy Mehman
Impossible for me to hear Osita keep saying “First Principles” without hearing Hannibal Lecter tell Clarice “Read Marcus Aurelius.”
Osita rules, I've already told my dad we're reading his new book and talking about it
Fuck yes. One of my favorite guests.
I keep having a tedious argument with a radlib friend where he is talking about how democracy is so important etc but he doesn’t seem to have any idea what that democracy should be for beyond just it being there to have it. Like having the democracy is the most important thing regardless of if it actually does anything for anyone, but economic democracy doesn’t come into it at all. I keep saying like ‘yeah I do want to be able to vote on who our elected officials are, but more important than that I want to be able to vote on who my boss is etc as that has more of an economic impact on me’. Dunno if this interview touches on this as I haven’t listened to it yet so dunno if they touch on this so maybe I’m just getting my dick out for no reason here
Libs harp constantly on democracy yet somehow you are only ever allowed to vote for their party. And they never do anything about gerrymandering, felony voting laws, super PACs, the Electoral College, or the other thousand things preventing us from having meaningful democracy. And when the Dems lose it is not due to any of those things…but “the Left.”
What if instead of the nelk boys it was the “jelq boys?”
Have a nice jelq 👋🏻
im felix biederman and welcome to jackass, this is the minnesota mudslide
Nelk boys talking to Bibi is witnessing room temp IQ morons talk to a war criminal. Not even good content.
that one nelk boy who wears baseball caps backwards just seems so mentally vacant. nothing going on upstairs.
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
1
Gay.