1037 - The China Syndrome feat. Séamus Malekafzali and Dylan Saba (5/18/26)
The Turbulence crew returns to discuss the state of the Iran War, including potential escalations and Trump taking possibly the first real L of his entire political career. We also talk about the horrifying Nicholas Kristof story about rape in Israeli prisons, discuss AOC vs. MTG, and then close things out on a lighter note with a Wall Street Journal op-ed about how China doesn’t have babes.
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Comments (203)
“What does China have?” factories, the thing Trump was trying to bring back with tariffs
1:20:25 Isn't that what y'all do with Meso-Ametican fishing vessels?
what's the name of the song
i love when theres an article so fucking egregiously stupid that everyone on the pod starts screaming
Amerikkkans have become so desensitized by rape at this point - there is a connection between the failure of men to hold other men accountable for rape in America (whining about "me too going to far,") and the willingness of the American people to fund genocide inclusive of mass dehumanization and rape by Israel. I absolutely believe the Palestinian victims. We have to continue to say NO to normalizing the horrors of war; the ruling class would have us ignore it as a "cost of doing business,"
https://youtu.be/swQ7CKrRPeQ
Seamus’ take on how far to trust people like MTG seems indistinguishable from AOC’s take
Where do people like the op ed writer get the idea that America is the only country on earth where people can start a company? If you travel anywhere in the world you see small businesses, huge companies, mom-and-pop stores, the works. Everywhere! The complete lack of curiosity about the outside world is astonishing.
This episode really brought out the incredibly lame AOC shooters 😑
Felix has lost all his Chicago credentials
Felix didn’t get any pussy in Chi and it’s obvious
I yelled at the fallujah line
Os melões de Sydney Sweeney são um tesouro nacional.
Probably the closest thing we get to an anti-imperialist speech in the US in living memory is Barbara Lee’s post-9/11 speech — “as we act, let us not become the evil we deplore.”
AOC has a 97% congressional record on Palestine tracker, top 4. MTG quit congress instead of fighting zionists and had a much worse voting record.
i dont get the AOC hate. very counterproductive. to imply that mtg, tucker, and aoc are the same and then a minute later remind everyone that mtg and tucker are racist against the arab world is insane
Pretending tucker and mtg are good now and aoc bad is some dumb fuck shit. Matt is sorely missed, the iq dropped so low since he's been gone
Correction: all of the last 8 nba mvps are non American, unless you are counting repeats as 1
Kobe was basically Italian too
finally... 1 dot mp3
Ya’ll have completely lost the plot with the AOC stuff. She lied at the DNC, I’m not defending her for that but her voting record is infinitely better on this issue than MTG. This is particularly ironic considering you guys propped up an actual Zionist last week.
They're fucking hacks now
I'm adding the tucker watermark to the PSL sign in the trap house rn
Like Seamus but he definitely is letting his hatred of AOC cloud his judgment. She’s been a disappointment on Palestine but there’s no credible comparison between her and MTG.
Seamus is just engagement farming at this point
山雀 by Omnipotent Youth Society
Song at the end?
Great guests & interesting conversation thanks
“The team that took fallujah twice” is of the same mind as a pro wrestler saying “I won the world title 18 times”
back to back fallujah champs
Excuse me, the Brianna Joy Gray *and Virgil Texas* show
Who?
Someone upstairs at Chapo Inc. pushed "pretend it never happened" as the official Nithyagate crisis management strategy, and they actually ran with it.
Why would they give a shit? I'm glad patreon still lets us comment without subscribing
I didn’t realize how deep Seamus’s commitment to pronouncing place names in the local way was until he said “Chicago”
AOC/Contrapoints/HRC Summit on the how to depopulate the South China Sea Leftistly when?
Wow they really took a victory lap citing Yao Ming lmao.. (who was a literal CCP experiment) congrats you named ONE lol
Jesse Jackson is the answer
a low-income censorship and surveillance state is the most acute description of the united states i’ve ever heard
no mention of the insane zionist LA mayoral candidate they had to create a special episode for so they could have on the show lmao. and I know he won but you guys could’ve mentioned Chris Rabb’s name to your millions of followers at least once. Hasan came all the way across the country to campaign with him and you couldn’t even say his name. and we’re literally right next to you in NYC, Will. what are we even doing here?
Got another episode where you attacked leftist politicians on Palestine without a lot of specificity. I can’t really listen to you guys just say they’re bad at it without articulating in a little more detail what the problem is.
CHOW YUN FAT! The Chinese Mads Mikkelsen. The God of Gamblers. Too many excellent films to list.
Recently saw A Better Tomorrow, with a recent John Woo interview at the end. In it, Woo praises him for being "so talented and handsome, and also box office poison" during the 80s. And that is goals
Did they really say something along the lines of name a significant Chinese writer?
wow, Viktor Belenko reference out of nowhere. That's kind of an insane deep cut
history of war according to US sentiment: - before WWI: we fucking hate war - during WWI: we fucking love war - before WWII: we fucking hate war - after WWII: we fucking love war - during Korean War: we're profoundly ambivalent about war - early Vietnam: we fucking love war - late Vietnam: we fucking hate war - 80's south america wars: only real heads are into war but they truly love this shit - gulf war 1: we fucking love war - kosovo war: we fucking love war - afghanistan: we fucking love war - early iraq: we fucking love war - late iraq: we fucking hate war - libya: there's a war?? - isis: well I guess there's a war - ukraine: *HR smile with blood dripping from canines* - palestine: this feels dirty, I don't like it - venezuela: real indie war heads are huge into this one - iran: we fucking hate war
Yes
Hi 👋
Oh really
USian who moved to China here. It’s great, you’d have to pay me a hell of a lot to get me to go back to the world’s number 1 shithole country
Would have truly lmao’d if they’d casually thrown in nithia Raman in the discussion of shitty disappointing soc Dems like nothing happened
This episode got me looking at all my friends here in chicago differently..
I go to a gym in LA and there’s this ex-IDF guy in there who is always talking crazy about Iranians in the way mentioned in this episode. He talks about raping them, and how they want to die so they get their 72 virgins. It’s nuts, he tells it to everyone. I’m just trying have a sweat in peace
It’s very easy for MTG to take a “principled” stand now that she’s out of office and after Trump torpedo her chances to be Governor of Georgia.
You fuckers are so lucky you mentioned how cool and hot Tony Leung is or I was going to let you have about some of this other stuff.
I still wonder why they gave a tee-ball interview to L.A. mayoral candidate Nithya Raman. Not one question on The Gaza Genocide. We would all find it interesting if Will and Felix explained why.
DTI DTI DTA
Did not expect Chris to be a 万能青年旅店 listener
The Chinese: bad at logistics
our brightest minds at Harvard and Cornell trying to use quantum physics to generate the most incorrect statement
most zoomers haven't seen a single live action movie but watched all 89 seasons of One Piece so yeah
high schoolers in Saudi are learning Korean to sing along to BTS, it's hard to truly depict how the US is washed
Admittedly, I am not American. I'm from a lower population country that has the same number of stupids per capita, but a lower number of stupids overall. But our only growing industries are surveillance and censorship?
And sports betting.
Very much a Chapo Classic vibe to this reading series. Very fun. Very much a 2016 style article
I must say... I am a certified movie-head and pop culture is a part of my job, but the only time I ever hear anyone talk about Sydney Sweeney is when some conservative writer is having one of these public wet dreams about her. Have we ever seen someone less relevant more written about?
Why isn’t hasan running for president?
😂 I need to know how Felix fucked up his first visit to his girlfriend’s parent’s lake house
Pleased to hear Will MovieMindset acknowledge Tony Leung’s global handsomeness 🤩
As a certified ugly person from Chicago I would have to agree with Felix. I was just voted 5th handsomest Chicagoan. It’s bad out here.
We should all start training our dogs now for when Zion eventually falls...
Which country has the hottest statesman. China has Zhou Enlai. America has... er...
I was one of the kids Byrd told not to “get mixed up” with the Klan.
Did it work?
AOC says: genocide AOC sends: weapons to israel Mamdani says: arrest netanyahu Mamdani sends: police to stop protesters
The purpose of the system is what it does.
new drinking game take 20 shots every time the parking lot metaphor gets brought up
The most beautiful women in North America speak French and live in Montréal
don’t ranki women by beauty even ironically
that said have you been to Pittsburgh
AOC needs to have been better on Gaza since the beginning. That said, the shitting on AOC is more Third Way astroturf than anything else and you shouldn't let yourself get used by them.
Bad take
Seamus is always the goat but holy shit Dylan absolutely cooked on this episode
Wait I’m actually obsessed with saying “name a Chinese movie star” 😭🤣
That Fallujah line was actually jaw-dropping. The whole reading series felt like classic Chapo.
Draw dropping
i think the political analysis is spot on in this one. When I heard AOC say “we can’t let this happen to OUR movement” I got a bone-deep premonition that Felix was right, that this could end with nothing but land acknowledgements about unceded Jaffa and Bethlehem.
Give me a rifle, a magazine, and point me to Tel Aviv.
That op ed was directly out of the Iraq war era. Just had updated references.
Chapo, bring back Nick Mullen, please save him
We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, gayer.
Sydney Sweeney is hot and has big tits but Seamus is correct: Iranian and Lebanese women are on a totally different level.
Sydney sweeney is mid
Didn't Parenti run for president under the green ticket once? He's pretty Anti-Imperialist.
Felix, Falls Church is in beautiful Virginia and the headquarters of Northrop Grumman
Hebei Pangzai is greater than every single American celebrity
Ann Arbor mentioned. All I can say is that it's a good thing Felix apparently didn't go north of Dexter or anywhere between Ypsilanti and Detroit, it's basically a methed out version of the Jim Henson workshop.
The Kentucky gubernatorial race becoming the most expensive of all time because of Israel is truly insane
Matthew Hennessey has a master's degree in political science, but his piece is as dumb and as uniformed as an average right-wing jingoistic meme on Facebook.
Nothing about the Gaza flotilla intercepted?
Which one?
Regarding the United States dominance in pop culture vs china: it’s hard for us to know these things (pop stars, actors, artists, etc) in china as an America because the American government sensors info out of china. There’s no way we have a realistic view of what china is actually like unless we’ve been there. Our government wants us to think it’s a socialist hell hole. It’s prob more like America than we realize, for day to day normal people living their lives
That's not even about censorship. You're surely not very informed either about pop culture in Greece, Sweden, Mexico, etc. Most of people are less informed about pop culture from other countries, except when the other country is the local hegemon, especially since there's a lingustic barrier.
remember 2020 when trump was like hitler in the bunker in downfall and anonymous was tweeting shit like he’s gonna kill himself because our tweet just got 3,500 views? truly astonishing how he was able to wiggle out of that (and all the fucking felonies) and manage to insert himself into an even worse position. it would be so funny if he just fucking dies and all the monsters in his administration are left with this mess
instead of october fest i make my jewish family go on october 7th fest
C'mon man what the fuck do the Chinese have? Besides high speed rail, nuclear fusion, cheaper AIs, automatic factories, hypersonic glide vehicles
They also have this lady https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIDEuxAiq5Y
This op-ed was NOT paid for by the 'rich libertarians with asian wives' Facebook group
your criticisms and hatred of AOC are misguided. I will gladly vote for her if she runs for Senate or better yet for president. I live paycheck to paycheck and i'm not a media person like all of the people speaking on this podcast. "Anti-imperialism" is a fine critical framework but as a working person, AOC speaks to my needs as a precarity worker, is highly-critical of Israel, and that's enough for me. it's not going to be my end-all be-all. sorry. also sorry, but your continued focus on Contrapoints for something she said like a year ago is transmisogynistic.
Some self-declared leftists will do anything possible not to win an election bc they're comfortable being in opposition and afraid to having to govern
Someone want to link me to that piece on Kushner and Witkoff when it comes out? Otherwise I will forget to look at it...
A lot of ink has been spent talking about Irans drones and missiles but yeah it really is the Age of the Tunnel
America is not in the middle east because no tunnel.
It is pretty funny to imagine trump being all contemptuous like "man up, take the dick out of your asshole and RUN THE GAUNTLET you PUSSY. Do it for me, your favorite fraudster, because Daddy needs a win!"
10 years ago we had Apple, the NBA, and Sydney Sweeney. Now we got GMO apples, the Ballroom, and...
I love the idea that the entire Iranian military is in tehran when theyve been firing missiles from all over the country Americans simply cannot understand how decentralized command works, or rather they don't understand that non-whites also have individual initiative
Felix going full Charles Barkley on Chicago
Sydney Sweeney is Americas latest fish girl. Idk what it is with America but we love those blonde fish. She looks like flounder from the little mermaid.
She looks like every character in the will smith fish car wash movie
Aoc derangement syndrome in full effect here. If you all think it’s a good idea to uplift MTG and Tucker Carlson in the short term for a completely symbolic foreign policy win, that’s your prerogative but you’re objectively insane. Do you think AOC’s problem with MTG might come from the fact that she stalked and harassed her the entire time they were “colleagues”? This nearsightedness on Israel and having that be the end all be all on leftist credibility is so tiring. Can’t wait to hear you all lose your minds when she inevitably gets the nomination.
👎
Love the turbulence boys, was happy to cancel my very long standing Grey wolf feed and sub to turbulence on Substack.
The Joker saying gasoline is cheap...truly a twisted individual
But you know if you think about it maybe he's right
I grew up and still live in the Boston area. My high school buddies and I decided to do a trip out to Chicago one summer and we were blown away by how beautiful and friendly all the women were there. Not a good look for Boston…
The only things we produce in this country are degenerate entertainment, financialized bullshit, and death machines everything else comes from China.
Even then a lot of the important parts of the death machines, and the raw materials that makes the parts that go into the death machines, go through China.
This kinda makes me want a sub-series about the ugliest cities in the US, my vote is Dallas, like Chicago without any public transit PS: sorry to Seamus for commenting about his age
AOC allowing right wing figures to outflank her makes her sound jealous and petty when she speaks. You can hear it in her voice. What a disappointment she has become for the left.
I dunno. I think she's pretty good and I still support her.
Szidney Zhweeney
Who cares what your politician believes or says they believe. It only matters if they click the right yes or no button. The expectation for AOC or Mamdani or even Sanders to betray the empire or their political class or the class that allows them to remain in power is setting a bar that is too high for changes to the empire that can happen via electoral/social democratic reforms. Set expectations like “what books can be allowed at my local library” that’s an achievable goal under this type of politics.
speech is ephemeral but it ain't inconsequential
Do hondourasgate
I’ve been trying to catch and stop myself from having imagip
Falls Church, WV? That's sadly the kind of fake mistake a fed would make....
The AOC derangement sucks ass. Hating her is insane. Grow up.
The Chapo guys being pro Bernie but anti AOC is honestly pathetic. She’s to the left of Bernie on most policies.
Klaus Barbie used dog rape too! Makes you think!
The comparison of Zionism to to America’s enslavement and abuse of Africans is apt. Both horrors were (are) perpetrated by people who absolutely believe they are a superior race with every natural right to treat those who they see as animals any way they wish.
Its also worth a different comparison: the slave owning states were given comical levels of compromise and treated with baby gloves throughout their entire existence. And the second actual resistance to their fuckery was challenged at a federal level they were more than willing to tear the country apart.
Really did not expect this to be such a funny episode but the opening trump truth and the ending reading series had me howling. The us is in its ascendancy because of all these things we are hopelessly dependent on china to build for us.
I love that Trump is inadvertently alluding to the Merneptah Stele, erected after an Egyptian campaign in the levant: “Desolation is for Tjehenu; Hatti is pacified; Plundered is the Canaan with every evil; Seized upon is Gezer; Yanoam is made non-existent; Israel is laid waste—its seed is no more”
Well I bet if that op-ed mentioned Hunter Schafer insted of Sydney Sweeney, you guys wouldn't dare comment on it.
Deleting comments lol. There's a reason why everyone is happy about Seamus but no one happily mentions Saba. He adds nothing.
?? I thought he was good
All women are beautiful as far as I'm concerned.
Agree completely with Felix about Chicago. Visited in 2016 for 5 days, did not see a single attractive person, regardless of gender. Not in the city, not in the suburbs, not in the University campus. Least there in fact.
this man is 50 years old btw
Emergency episode to cover the Oklahoman Israel x okc thunder op ed
How's everyone's countries doing with a dwindling supply of gas and fert? $11usd a gallon and rising here.. yay for America 👏👏👏
A year from now people in Asia, including Japan, might be starving to death because of the war in Iran. In around August Japan will run out of supplies for dialysis treatment. I don’t know if there’s a work around. It’s kind of beyond the point of avoiding severe consequences
Today the Japanese association of auto repairers announced that repairs will cease at the end of May. That’s only ten days away. We are fucked
What the fuck still no review of Tulsa King season 3? Guys this is not what we paid for.
I'd rather listen to a full week of Nithya than a single minute of them doing tulsa king
The atrocities with the dogs are similar to stories about abuse that occurred at Guantanamo Bay
When you say you want a moral aspect to foreign policy, I feel like you are being an international relations nerd. Just don't feel like its something we can start with when we try to reorganize the working class. Some of the most annoying people in DSA are ones that think about Anti-Imperialism at the exclusion of everything else, and they are so weird they scare off the normies
Organized labor alongside empire was the story of post-war America. Look where that ended up.
omg picking an omnipotent youth society song as the outro!!!!! (山雀 off their 2nd album for anyone interested)
Thank you!
Nighhobi
wait patreon doesn't show comments in chronological order anymore wtf?
there's a toggle between "top" and newest
Chongqing owns, awesome city. If any american went to china they would end up preferring it, if only because the Great Firewall would get them off the american internet and functionally make them about 180% happier than they would be at home.
Footnote: this is effectively what happened to european missionaries to china for hundreds of years but replace "american internet" with "european christendom"
China stands no chance.. Where’s their LeBron? Any Wemby’s over there?
They’ve already got LeChina
Surrender isn’t enough, Israel wants a sustained attack on infrastructure like Gaza and Lebanon
It's become abundantly clear to me that there is no daylight between America and Israel; Americans are spiritually Israeli and Israelis are literally Americans (generally speaking).
I think there's a chance the war restarts, but think it will be after the November election. There are a few things Trump responds to - the market, polling, Republican members of Congress, and Israel-first donors. The Israel-first donors likely want the war to restart as soon as possible. However, those other factors are all likely pushing against a resumption of the war in the near-term. I would throw Saudi Arabia into the mix too. Would Saudi Arabia allow its airspace to be used for offensive operations again? They didn't a couple weeks ago. Also, Pakistan military is positioning itself in Saudi Arabia. If there is another round, I think we're looking at increased attacks against UAE and friends (Bahrain, Kuwait), Israel, Jordan. Who knows . . .
One thing they didn't mention is Trump posted that the gulf monarchs urged him not to attack again. I think Iran's initial war plan of randomly bombing the shit out of their neighbors was a genius move because it targeted two truths: that the U.S. cannot operate in the region without gulf state hosting, and that the gulf states are total cowards. I think between Israel doing everything it can to re-light the fire and the Saudis and Qataris doing all they can to blow out the match there's a good chance Trump pulls out completely, leaving Iran to set up their own NATO in the Middle East.
Bombing wasn’t random. It was targeted at their essential industries.
How will the oil crisis affect the market for photos of oiled up man ass?
natural gas is used as fuel for power plants, so your electricity bill may go up, making browsing gay pornography more expensive. physical gay pornography magazines may also be affected, as modern magazines' glue and waxy finish come from petroleum products.
Turdulence
Sell Cindy Sweeney to China.
Come back to us drew
Now that's some real turbulent juice
Felix will make at least four family annihilation jokes by 23:24
Fucker said nuclear dust
Seamus +1.5h ep?? Hell ye
Love me a Seamus ep
Im gonna guess two Iceman references from Felix before listening
Pittsburgh syndrome > China syndrome
Felix comienza a hablar en el minuto 2 y 47 segundos.
Ese guey felix mi la chupa
If the Nithya blunder is not discussed in this episode, I propose we take Will and Felix to reeducation camps and subject them to struggle sessions
"I have engaged in intercourse with your wife or significant other"
butt chugging this episode so I can get depressed about world events as fast as possible
Hi 👋
Last week: damn no news. This week: damn, the news
If there's gas shortages by July 4th, Trump's gonna drop a nuke. P.S. it'll be nice if Chris shares his needle drops for each episode. I wanna be hip, I wanna listen to post-music.
i can definitely see a local 58 style 4th of july happening
Seamus, quick! Quote Lenin on the pod again, we’re losing the socialists
I’m gay my wife left me etc
How bigs your penis tho
Just missing Nichols
Last!
No MIDS!
Yay!
Great ep guys
First and Last and Always
Last