1013 - Your Podcast feat. Jonathan Shainin (2/23/26)
Jonathan Shainin returns to Chapo after ten years to talk about what the hell is going on in the United Kingdom. We talk about Keir Starmer and Labour's collapse, his wildly unpopular policies and austerity regime, the rise of the Green Party, and Jeremy Corbyn’s bizarre Your Party. We then talk about Shainin’s new magazine Equator and their pieces on the end of liberal Zionism and the Long 90s.
Check out Equator: https://www.equator.org/
Few tickets left for our April 3rd live show at the Palace Theater in LA: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0900643BE404F182
Comments (152)
Not sure how to feel about British politics being essentially exactly the same as the US…?
Hey my fucking Neighbor 🫂🐸
Thanks for referencing "an hero" Felix, I got a good chuckle out of that
*oink*oink*oink*
Where is our slop!
Crushing Green domination in Gorton-Denton. Welcoming a thousand year imperium of Eco-Woke
Josh is funny but his read and takes on the Texas race are a complete fucking trainwreck
Well Mr Chapo the people have spoken! No more guests that say the word “like” at all for any reason! You are on notice!
The dream of the 90s is alive in Portland.
Will there be a special appearance by Virgil Texas for the 10th anniversary live show?
Can I like get like a you know transcript of this episode just you know for like research purposes
Like like like like like. Motherfucker you're an adult. Learn to talk.
Thank god on the feed merge. I’m Doing the back catalog rn and it’s a pain switching from Patreon to SoundCloud every other episode.
Welsh actually has more vowels than english Felix, screw yourself
I thought that when he said that! He must’ve been thinking about Polish! They have words like pszczyna!
Loved Johnathan in smiling friends
Equator? I hardly know 'er
Jonathan sounds like a Nice Tucker Carlson
Jail support needed for an incarcerated gay comrade
Thanks Chris for getting all those episodes up!
This guy's accent is so crazy that it makes Felix and Will sound eloquent
Labor together sounds like a maternity wards mantra
Actually, Quebec is Canada's Scotland
"you have answered Your Party, meaning me, which is incorrect. only Your Party can prevent the rise of Nigel Farage"
I was also a kid during the 1990’s and I think it was a mostly optimistic and hopefull time but people forget that everyone was subtly depressed for no reason. Thats what grunge rock was. That’s what fight club, American beauty, office space was about. The 1990’s was also the rise of Prozac and antidepressants. But for global and national politics it was a hopeful time.
End of history=end of purpose
If we’re going into Day Three of discussing Shainin’s accent, I would like to recommend John Glover’s performance in Frankenheimer’s 52 Pick-Up. No idea if Shainin is from Baltimore but the music in the voice is the same.
If Kier brings in speedy boarding for ex forces in the UK you know I’m stealing valour for sure! Also you can tell I’m a Brit because I spelled valour properly!
Spelled Keir wrong though. You’ll be ejected back into the sea.
“You should just move to New York!” Ahhh being rich..
Ex guardian writer likes the greens! Who could have predicted it. Boys you need to find someone who doesn't live in London for these ones.
Who do you support then? I’m from Wales so I’m gonna vote Plaid but who tf else do you vote for if you are from England
Guest sounds like Lisa Simpson trying to make friends with the burnouts in the beach town episode
Listening while playing Dark Souls like Felix intended ❤️
Listening while playing with myself as Virgil intended
Worth pointing out most of the Labour dirty tricks stuff in Your Party (anonymous briefing to the press, excluding opponents using bureaucratic maneuvers) primarily come from Corbyn's faction.
I feel like the N-word Tourette's guy was doing a publicity stunt. The fact that this was not censored from broadcasts kind of gives it away.
Aw don’t talk shite, man. I hope you’re joking. Johnny Davidsons experience Tourette’s is probably the most documented case of that condition anywhere in the world. Just go on YouTube. There’s hours of footage of him. A fuckin “publicity stunt” haha.
Omg thank you Chris!! I never have to open sound cloud app again, I am one of the dozen sickos who likes to listen to the show chronologically multiple times, please send help
Letting Jonathan say "Giants of the Senate" without getting a Fetterman joke in there... Damn...
lol, so these 'hero voters' are Schumer's 'The Baileys' but for the UK
Sometimes when I see Mike Johnson I think it’s Shostakovich then I remember he’s evil
Nice boobs
the situation at Ypipo Party is so dire that it demonstrates that not only Unc Jezza is washed, it collapses into some Lewis Hamilton type situation where it casts doubt on how good he ever was in the first place, and that maybe it was all just a generational stroke of good luck
maybe he just really *was* playing against plumbers
Incredible transatlantic accent
Horrific
Thanks for making the entire series available on Patreon. I was wondering what happened to them.
Between this one and the last one what the flying fuck happened to the people on this show. Why has "like" become the most used word.
Wittle baby want his proper speech?
heres the axios pamphlet they talk about in the ep re: DNC and Gaza https://archive.is/y5OlI
https://archive.is/y5OlI
Those were 25 plates so 195 bench which is consistent with his frame and effort expended
Everything parochial and moronic about Britain has a way of becoming futuristic in America, and I don't think it'll be long until "journalists" are not only willing but proud to advertise their patron/employee status. We're pretty goddamn close already. The American who believes "In a New York TIMES investigation" and wouldn't believe "Bill Gates hired the Smartest Reporter in the Fucking WORLD," or vice versa, is a condemned species
Vocally this guest sounds like Paul Thomas Anderson
Keir’s launching of Skills England as one of his accomplishments took me back to the good days of the skills wallet
Good ep and great accent!! Also the Equator mag looks very cool, I just read the "How Gaza Broke the Art World" article and I highly recommand it.
All I can think about with starmer is the guy going “get out of my pub! That man is not allowed in my pub!”
Damn the name Danny Fetonte sent me into a vivid and deeply unpleasant Proustian reverie
Great ep, always love hearing about what the British are up to
Omg thank you for the RSS fix Chris, I can finally uninstall soundcloud 🙏
Where is this liberal zionism article that Jonathan referenced?
https://www.equator.org/articles/we-have-talked-enough-about-ourselves
Feel like a weirdo doing this, but the conversation about Brits and Equator makes me feel like I should: A British friend and I have been doing a podcast on the aesthetics of the end of history called “Death Is a Photograph,” totally free on Patreon, Spotify, Apple, etc. Guests have already included Chapo/Movie Mindset mainstays like John Dolan of RWN and Eddie from Extended Clip. Also have featured one of Fight Club’s producers, Eileen Jones from Jacobin, C. Derrick Varn, and JG from Parallax Views. Check us out if this kind of thing is interesting to you.
Oh, and the link: https://www.patreon.com/deathphotopod?utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan
"There is a general rule in socialist politics: the more the Left focuses inward on itself, the more idiotic its fallouts will be" - Bhaskar
Why does this guy sound like John Darnielle
When the older generation was young & hippies they were bullied out of all their better instincts & values which were replaced by the virtue of bipartisanship. Now that they are the older conservative generation, not only do they carry the typical resentment of a conservative elder to a progressive youth but, having internalized the ephemeral nature of progressive politics, they expect to be able to bully the younger generation like was done to them. To the contrary, they find themselves with the dual humiliations of being bullied out of their better values in youth and now being bullied out of their conservative bipartisanship in old age.
Bully slop Will have to say it's extremely ironic to get on DSA for their dirty laundry sharing after glazing Will Stancil. Been an dirty laundry elemental on Bluesky for the last month
I do not give a fuck how much you woke wokily to the woke woke. Will Stancil literally took to the street and lead protests and fought tooth and nail against people for the right of his neighbors to remain his neighbors and that makes him objectively superior to 99% of the do-nothings who are bitching at him every hour of every day and trying to throw him out of a movement he's done more for than any of them. If every single liberal in this country had his level of bravery and fight, this country would be in much better shape.
Jonathan is a very compelling guest. He should come back to speak more on UK politics. I only suggest he might consider putting a moratorium on the words "like" and "you know".
I agree, he seemed knowledgeable. And I don't expect Will and Felix to call him out on all the "likes" on the show. But IMO we need to get better, as a society, at shaming people who can't articulate themselves without eight different filler words per sentence. I know that it's trendy to fill your twitter posts with filler words ("Like. Here's my sentence.") so that you sound more "authentic" or whatever, but if people think that Epic Bacon Millennial-style online rhetoric aged poorly, just wait.
Just to clarify, Johnny Davidson wasn’t the star of the film. He was the subject. The guys a bit of a national treasure here in Scotland and has been an unalloyed force for good in tackling ableism and the stigma around Tourette’s. There are two or three documentaries about him that have become staple patter in Scotland. It’s been a tough watch on social media since yesterday, reading the attacks on him. He’s an ordinary guy, working as a janitor at a youth club and living in the most deprived bit of Scotland. It’s like some early woke era fever dream reading some of the pile ons, with absolute multi millionaires like Jamie Foxx going after him. It’s been fuckin tragic.
Agreed, Jamie Foxx is out to lunch. What a jerk.
Good episode, equator mag looks like a project to stay up to date with
The Amy’s Baking Company episode of Kitchen Nightmares is such an incredible little encapsulation of the evil of Zionism
They just missed the MAGA movement. Could have said the woke left was trying to cancel them and made millions.
Excuse me Felix, what is Nicks address?
Correction, the guy DID NOT apologize. Another like, troll episode full of like, rage bait, like the last one. Later
????
Okay, so the take home here is that it doesn't matter where you were born if you live in England long enough you will adopt the fashion of falling in love with the sound of your own voice and using far too many words to explain nothing.
Ears perking up with excitement every time they mention bi elections followed by crushing disappointment when I remember that doesn't mean what I thought it did
Bi elections are like registered independents, lean heavily towards one party but always make a big deal about being open to both.
Neoliberals be like - history belongs to us, but tomorrow belongs to me!
Dude said "like" approximately 1700 times
Hell yeah dude
It all comes down to how many boomers are left in the voting population.
I agree with Felix. Us DSA members need to stop posting org disputes online. It sucks and doesn't make anyone want to join.
I was not aware of Equator, very glad to have found it. Pankaj Mishra's article about the misguided memory culture ("Memory Failure", LRB) of Germany when it comes to Israel is one of the best I have read on the topic, and I am inclined to read anything with his name on the masthead.
Over under on will three stooges stuck in doorframe references. Bet now!
Thank you Chris
Can anyone place Shainin's accent?
East coast american who’s spent too long in the UK AKA reverse Nathan J Robinsonism
I forgot about Rishi Sunak.
You guys should have Jim E. Brown on to talk about local Manchester politics and English cuisine!
Kinda creepy for them to interview a teenager though.
What’s with this episode and the one at the end of last week taking some of the funniest news stories in a while and turning them into the most boring discussions possible? No offense to the guests but where are Alex Nichols and Eyup Lovely when you need them? Ugh I feel horrible saying this but the CSPAN energy is like knives to my ears
Even Jacques would've killed it here
Once again, not a single word on how Kamala would have been worse? You guys are totally estranged from your audience
Felix should do all UK-based episodes as Cap Jackson
Crazy to have Tucker Carlson as a guest 🤔
can’t believe i heard an Amy’s Baking Company reference come out of Felix
It's actually happened before lol I forgot the episode tho
All these Zoomers talking about "un-aliving" themselves ... nobody's brave enough to be an hero, anymore.
the labour policy popularity chart is extremely FlossLatino-coded
Completely ignored my reason for voting Polanski - his titty enlargement hypnotism! Smh
I think identifying w the person with Turret’s should be an item on the openness to new experience-authoritarian personality spectrum
Good episode 8.3/10
This guy comes in the chat and posts the N word btw
It’s awesome that no matter where you are, there is a “political genius” who exiles a massive portion of the voter base to win the prize of Yet Another Third Way Party.
Scots tourettes N word incident is a cumtown bit
I was really hoping for a Eyup victory lap
As are all Scroungers subscribers
I 100% believe that the sabotage of Corbyn and the re-re-making of the UK Labour party was all to get Mandelson back in so his ties to the Epstein and Maxwell operation could continue to be put to use. I think the pedo ring was and likely is the most valuable thing for both the American and UK governments and he was a key part of it. I even believe that's why Sunak lost so badly. I think he was in on it and threw the election in a bipartisan move to get things "back to the way they were". Additionally, Starmer famously screamed "YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE PROTECTING ME!" at his staff so that showed he's not in charge, he's just doing what he's told by the larger right-wing group within the Labour party. It's why there have been no votes of "no confidence" against him. He's a tool, literally. He's working for a bad collective. Lastly, I think the Corbyn and Sultana thing all came down to Corbyn being a "democracy obsessive" and Sultana not being that. He wanted the party members to collectively make every single party decision (Name, logo, colour of the HQ wallpaper etc) which is just inefficient and Sultana was not on board with that and tried to push ahead for the good of the party who needed to take advantage of the small window they got from the Labour collapse. I do believe she was doing what was right but the leaders couldn't detatch themselves from the aforementioned obsession and it ended in a stalemate and the window closed. The Greens knew better and it's why the next election is them vs Reform.
Atrios is still one of the good ones. (His shitlib blog commenters are prob. gonna be pissed for weeks about the Chapo mention, though)
I came here to reminisce about the days of the Shrub administration and reading Eschaton like five times a day
We appreciate your sterling work, Chris - it's always annoyed the hell out of me that the old episodes weren't in the Patron feed
Chris has that borderline Andrew Tate lutton/USA fusion accent
The funny thing about the guy with tourettes syndrome yelling the n word at the BAFTAS is that the BBC didn’t edit it out of the broadcast despite there being a 2 hour delay but they did edit out a different guy saying”free palestine”! Cool stuff!
D-Ream is a deep cut, the Brits here feel seen.
Finally, some N word coverage
been waiting for ages for you guys to deep dive the UK and immediately botch the facts and the episode description is already paying dividends ♥️
Fixed that!
Why was he in the audience when they knew he would disturb the broadcast with outbursts, he could have said the N word at home like the rest of the Britons
Yes famously no Americans have ever said the N word
You're Party™ has just held its first leadership elections, and the turnout is about as high as last year's green party leadership elections (~24k voters out of ~60k members for yp vs ~25k out of ~65k for the gpew), which means that the party is still alive and could get back on track once an actual leadership team is in place
Inshallah
How does the guest not know the basic facts of McSweeneys background?
Really think the analysis of the dissatisfaction with the labour party happened way before Corbyn. .it had several causes the main cause was disagreement on immigration and Brexit. Not Corbyn's foreign policy stance on Hamas.
can't say I'm happy about the prospect of The Nige Imperium but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying watching the crew who ratfucked my beautiful Jez getting exactly what they deserve
How do these fuckers still have a monarchy goddamn GUYS CMON.
I think they should keep everything but the royals. I want to be able to visit Balmoral and watch staff make hard boiled eggs and trim hedges and stuff for no one in particular.
Felix bragging that he can remember something from a full decade ago is an anti-weed-guy hate crime.
As an alcoholic heroin / oxy and benzo addict, I feel we should expand the category of said hate crime.
I’m British and I’m fuming! We have a stupid country! 😅😭😖
Well we have Trump so you aren’t the only one living in a stupid country.
Do most people really not have crippling intrusive thoughts? People acting like he has any control over the matter (beyond skipping altogether) is confusing. Can people actually control their thoughts like that? I won’t say I worry often about accidentally saying a racial slur, but if I had Tourette Syndrome I’m sure I’d say some crazy shit.
Thanks, I was genuinely curious. I guess my assumption was that everyone experiences the same kind of intrusive thoughts, but most people experience them very infrequently. Sounds like that’s not the case. Funny though, I also had a very uncomfortable trip once and spent a long time in a bad state. But the worst part for me was the constant battling to keep the intrusive memory of the experience out. That’s just one example, but in general if there is any thought I don’t want to have, it will enter my head. So I totally sympathize with the guy, and it was kinda upsetting to hear some of the takes that discounted his and other’s experiences to claim that his intrusive thoughts are actually his feelings, and he’s actually racist.
A week behind brace and Liz on this one
I just wanna say that so far as I can tell the discourse around the BAFTAs isn't so much that the poor gentleman with tourettes shouted the n word. It's that for some bizarre reason the BBC didn't censor the N word despite their being a several hour delay between the live awards and the broadcast, but they were RIGHT ON TOP of making sure to censor when Akinola Davies Jr. shouted "free Palestine." Right up there with when the NFL censored Kendrick Lamar when he specifically said "and we hate Po Po" at the Super Bowl in terms of showing national priorities. Which people didn't make a big deal of or think was that deep when we really probably should have.
The accepted liberal position seems to be that he should have been made to attend from separate sound proof accommodations, even though he left after the incident. I’ve also seen black people say he did it on purpose (because that’s how racist he is?) or argue “he shouldn’t have that word in his vocabulary to begin with, why didn’t he tell another word if it’s uncontrollable?” So not sure there is a reasonable consensus here.
Felix begins speaking at 56 seconds
A good antidote to the youtube account that comments "God! Felix is so fucking unfunny" under every free episode released
Onision mention
Starmer? I hardly know'er!
don't we have trashfuture for this? interested to see what if anything this will add to the conversation beyond mocking brits (im neither american nor english so i don't really have a horse in this race)
Some of us only listen to a few podcasts, not every podcast
Firths
Of Fifths
I'm gay
I'm so hard
Oi