812 - Sweeney Odd feat. Osita Nwanevu (3/5/24)
Contributing editor for the New Republic and columnist for The Guardian Osita Nwanevu returns to the show. We look at a new New Yorker piece on Joe Biden’s last campaign, and the president’s defiant refusal to change gears, adjust policies, or really do anything to address rather dismal polling ahead of the election. Then, switching to the republicans, we look at the increasingly weird and anti-social tact of American conservatism and ask: can the modern right be assimilated into American culture?
Find Osita’s newsletter here: https://www.ositanwanevu.com/
And check out the Flaming Hydra collective (featuring a lot of great writers & friends of the show) here: https://flaminghydra.com/
Comments (90)
The "make being cool a right" is a fascinating subject. They really do want the world to create a space for them instead of carving it out by power for themselves like the reactionaries before them. They demand that everyone respect their cruelty and ignorance. It's quite amazing. Basically a space where non of the "progress" of the past exists and they can all feel like Bronze age Male kings.
it's crazy how the discourse can simultaneously be thinking sydney Sweeney is hot makes you gay but also she's so hot that she makes the woke respecting of women impossible
Great show very insightful
Always good having Osita Villeneuve on the pod
Will's conceit that the election will be determined by voters sharing his deep, pathological hatred for Israel is telling. Would be nice to have an episode without every conversation steered towards Israel.
Why do you pay money for a leftist podcast if you hate leftism
"Disney doesn't seem to have been materially threatened" holy shit this guy lives in a giant bubble. They basically gutted all of ESPN
This guys a baby too. Lots of babies on recently.
Honestly this gave me faith in the supreme court. They're not just gonna side with whatevers been blaring out of cnn and msnbc airwaves for years
Anyone else think this guy sounds like David Schwimmer/Ross from Friends? Haha
Some of these guests’ voices are so hard to listen to sadly
In regard to Sydney Sweeney, I've been seeing the opposite sociopolitical interpretation by the right, which is that her emergence in the zeitgeist signals a defeat of "wokeness" and feminism via a return to traditional American beauty standards (traditionally feminine blondes with big racks). People were quote-tweeting gifs from her SNL appearance with captions saying things like "Wokeness is dead." Meanwhile, the recent Kristen Stewart photoshoot in Rolling Stone triggered the exact opposite reaction from the right, with all those same people basically foaming at the mouth and having a meltdown, talking about how she personifies the destructive force of "wokeness" that is bringing about America's downfall, and that if you find her attractive you must be gay.
Yup im seeing the complete opposite interpretation as well
You can tell Katherine is really putting in the work. Will’s knowledge of current housewife gossip makes me feel seen.
I liked Osita's take on the weird secular turn of the conservatives over the past decade but for me it reeeeally just made the giant Christman-shaped hole in this episode harder to not notice. Something about this one deeply bothered me, and I think it might be that if the right has mostly finally decided that religion is really only a Hugo Boss uniform you put on, while at the same time the democrats have borrowed their ant-frying magnifying glass to use on Gaza in broad daylight, whatever comes next can't be good. It's enough to make a fella want to turn all his Lone Star empties into tin men with a pocket knife.
The Democrats left the light on for the neocons (liberal hawks despite the rebranding) who have largely come home—as above, so below.
Great show. TG for serious substance.
felix said "alienated" the normal way, what the fuck
.td
Good ed but why do all these guys sound the exact same? Everyone sounds like ettingermentum.
Next guest’s mic will be run through My Bloody Valentine’s guitar pedalboard
funny that Osita said that special election results are less good than current day opinion polling because that's ettingermentum's whole shtick lol. still i think it would be nice to have a like Sepultura style Beltway Garage reunion tour where zero of the founding members participate. to go over the whole uncommitted super tuesday stuff
I only want a ceasefire from Israel. I don't care what Hamas is doing in fighting nazis. Nazis stop killing people.
can't think of a single woman i've ever known who doesn't see a young person being a republican as a red flag... it's not our fault you can't get laid stop talking about how everyone is gay and go touch grass Also Kamala makes me sick, what a fucking bullshitter
This guy knows what’s up.
Woke biased cherry picking coverage, lame.
As a Pennsylvanian, watching Democrats trying to lean into memories of January 6th in order to position themselves as the "party of Democracy" is particularly hilarious, when I have more recent memories of Democrats last year conspiring to keep progressive WFP candidates off the ballot in Philadelphia, them endorsing "fascist" Republicans over progressive canidates, and most recently, kicking officials out of their party for endorsing progressive candidates.
I was told to vote for Kathy Hopeless on the WFP line to ensure Zeldin didn’t win in 2022. It would “send a message that progressives won her the election.” Now she’s building a football stadium for a billionaire, contemplating nuking Canada, unironically celebrating Big Brother in the subway, nominating Republican judges to state courts, and giving up when some cretin on Long Island makes the slightest screech over maybe building a 5-story apartment complex near a LIRR station. She got the message, alright, but the message was “the left are fucking chumps.”
Jeeesus when did Tim Heidecker get so serious? His surreal shit is next level
Wanting to be with a woman? how gay is that? You win sex with a man thats as straight as it gets.
The closest social equivalent to war is sex. Any straight man must attain honor by conquest of other men. All men dream of the double envelopment.
Remember when Republicans lost in 2012 and there was a big deal about how they were going to really reflect on why they lost and work to change some things? They didn’t, of course, but they at least TALKED about it. After 2016, Democrats did none of that. They immediately started blaming everything but themselves. There has been absolutely no effort to even think about changing things. They nominated Joe Biden, for Chrissake, and “won” an election in 2012 they should have won by 85%, They took that narrow victory as confirmation of everything they thought and and now confident they can never loose again. Assuming he doesn’t die, Trump is going to win again. Biden was a huge mistake, a razor-sharp example of hubris and not understanding anything real about politics or how to gain actual power.
He had the chance to be a truly impactful one-term president who immediately prosecuted Trump for January 6th before it got politicized/polarized — and threw that all out the window bc he’s either too power-hungry to give up the office or too senile to remember he said he would do so. At least we have the cold comfort of knowing Biden will be remembered poorly by the historians huddled around flaming trash cans in a hundred years
Love Osita eps
Liberals appeal to the courts because they need someone to affirm their rightness. They're not focused on winning or changing anything; they just want their worldview confirmed.
Perpetually looking for an adult to give them their banana sticker.
Chris you always choose the best songs. Love u 😘
The person hollering and going nuts in the background of the Harris ceasefire clip gets me every. time.
Ben Franklin was not complimenting the Constitution when he called it "a bundle of compromises" and only idolating evangelical dipshits could be stupid enough to believe it was conjured by a bunch of God-kissed super lawyers
Was ettingermentum busy
protip: get your voting results analysts on the pod *after* the voting. that way he can do his job : )
I gotta defend psychoanalysis here and point out that Jordan Peterson is not a psychoanalyst
He’s a Jungian, which is TECHNICALLY psychoanalysis.
Boring episode
Conservatives don't like Sydney Sweeney? I thought that she was a sainted canceled celebrity. Last I recall,Libs went after her for photos of her dad in the Blue Lives Matter shirt from her mom's birthday. Has she endorsed the Democrats, or something?
Dude came in with a scalpel holy
Harris's comments reminded me of the 2020 rebranding of Medicare/single-payer from "Medicare for all" to "Medicare Advantage . . . for all who want it". That long pause before she went into the temporary ceasefire bait and switch really had me going. As far as Biden repacking himself goes, good luck. He has the highest negative favorability rating of any incumbent since George W. Bush in 2007. If a clear majority of people don't like or trust him, it doesn't really matter what policy he's selling -- a critical mass of people won't buy what he's selling. The only reason that I think he might be half-way viable is that Trump seems to have lost some of the juice from 2016. Trump has obvious vulnerabilities as well in connection with reproductive health and other domestic policy areas. I still think Trump is going to win if Biden is the nominee, because the Biden people think they are running an election in 1996, and Biden doesn't appear to know what year it is either.
I’ll never not be upset that Gamergate was the primordial ooze from which the current crop of right wing psychos mutated from.
OMFG, enough with the soc-dem navel gazing already. They're not conservatives anymore. They're fascists. You are describing fascism.
Difference?
The only image in my head going into November is the little guys from a Bosch painting trying to chase a cat.
“You kissed a girl? That’s so gay!!” -Jimbo Jones, 1 term senator from the state of [redacted]
Conservatives said "Go woke go broke". Then Disney kept making money and they realized democracy wasn't going to work for them
Great ep
can confirm that im gay because i love women
They might mean the old meaning of gay which is happy and enjoyable. Women, football, sex, pop music, that's all gay AF. I'd rather be gay than be in they're miserable club
Joe Biden needs to lean into it and do a Hot Shots Lloyd Bridges thing.
O man thinking of him with the flag going out both his ears right now.
Biden needs to run on the Make America Innate Again platform
Give us another episode of Adam Friedland talking shit 🙏🙏🙏
I'm still upset Norm Finklstein did not abuse him and put up with his nonsense.
The point to me of recognizing Biden's eminent replaceability isn't so much to get them to do it. It's to interrogate how a Party that doesn't do this still maintains it's credibility. The answer is probably the same old cultural signifiers of merit, West Wing brain poisoning, etc. But maybe worthwhile to keep pointing out how that stuff is fucking us.
You're right about it fucking us, but they aren't us - they'll just blame anyone who didn't vote for Biden with the same tone that Pelosi used when she told the Gaza slaughter protestors to go back to China. And then they'll get to sit back and fund-raise for another four years - or until Trump actually executes them, whichever comes first.
I think all anyone can hope for at this point is for the republicans to just get too weird again this year for normal people in the suburbs.
heading for the Zero Turnout election. it's gonna be between the 10% zionist democrat and the 10% anti-sex league republicans
i am calling for an immediate ceasefire for pell grant recipients who operate a small business for at least three years in disadvantaged communities
to last 6 weeks, after which any missed bombing sorties will be initiated with interest on any missed collateral damage.
Always funny when Felix isn't heard from until like 15-20 minutes in
No country for good women
Felix with the 49 minute mark appearance
Sydney Sweeney is proof that this country is still capable of greatness
🐷🐷🐷🐷
The Secret Service can't protect the President from his greatest enemy, stairs. Only HE can. Coming this Fall - staring Gerard Butler - Biden Has Fallen.
My conspiracy theory is that Joe Biden is such a classic SNL fan, he's deliberately staying in office through his senility just to make Chevy Chase's Gerald Ford impersonations seem precient and ahead of their time. I mean, the dude is LITERALLY falling down the stairs!
Two days in row of chapo treats? I will take it. Matt, take care. Can't wait for your return.
Lolololol what I guess I’m gay since Sidney Sweeney is babelicious
fellas is it gay to like a woman with huge tits and a conventionally attractive face?
Unrelated, but been enjoying Felix's fighter jet posting recently
its like seeing an abandonned moldy Ferrari 355 rolling shell going for 1500 on craigslist and thinking "wow me and my friends could go F1 racing if we felt like it!"
Last hour of work with a Chapo episode - gold
I wish Matt was on. Sydney Sweeney disproves his theory that Kate Upton was the last big titty blonde ultra-celeb. Need his commentary on these developments.
2024 trend forecast: normcore babes are IN, alt kink girls OUT
Love osita
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We love you Matt!! Can’t wait to hear you again ❤️❤️❤️
I read this comment to mean he was back on this show.
Continuing my campaign for another Hasanabi guest appearance, thanks for the slap boys!
I fully expect him to funk up their schedule the way Stavvy did but would be 100% worth it lmao
first
2018 called it wants its username back