Our podcast is not actually illegal—yet. Thanks to Trump’s recent Security Presidential Memorandum, NSPM-7, or “Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,” it soon could be.
Today we talk about one of the starkest moves into fascism Americans have yet seen from MAGA: what it is, how pre-crimes can soon be reality, and the fear factor this memo is designed to inspire. We’ll also discuss some possible responses to the next phase of MAGA authoritarianism.
Show Notes
Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators”
What Is NSPM-7? Over 3,000 Nonprofits Sound Alarm on New Trump Directive
Trump Orders Broad Effort to Root Out Groups He Says Organize Political Violence
The meme-ification of political violence
The Upside of Collapse
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56:41
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Bonus Sample: Death is Just A Doorway
The People’s Temple in Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, The Order of the Solar Temple. All cults that ended in tragic mass suicides. How could such lofty aspirations end so badly?
For today’s self-contained installment of The Roots of Conspirituality series, Julian explores the shadow side of the anxiety-relieving religious notion that death is just a doorway into a better place.
How do charismatic prophets indoctrinate believers into ending their lives, and often the lives of their children, in the name of spirituality?
Julian briefly examines each of these groups, along with Paul Nthenge Mackenzie’s Good News International Ministry—450 of whose followers starved themselves to death in a Kenyan forest in 2023. Then he transitions into exploring philosophical, psychological, evolutionary, and neuroscience-based ways of understanding the elements that make these spiritualized perversions of our survival instincts possible.
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Brief: He’s Coming For All Vaccines
RFK Jr posted a seven-minute video earlier this week that assures us that vaccines aren't all that great, actually. Derek reads the studies Kennedy references as proof. You might be surprised to learn the HHS Secretary has very selective reading.
Show Notes
Annual Summary of Vital Statistics: Trends in the Health of Americans During the 20th Century
The Questionable Contribution of Medical Measures to the Decline of Mortality in the United States in the Twentieth Century
Infectious Diseases and Social Change
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277: TikTokTylenol [feat Mallory DeMille]
Did you hear about the pregnant woman who ingested too much Tylenol just to “own Trump” and is now on a ventilator and will likely not wake up, offing both herself and her baby? If you were tapped into social media at all this past week, you likely saw dozens of wellness and right-wing influencers sharing it, each with their own hot take. One problem: there’s still no proof this woman exists.
Mallory DeMille returns to discuss this cursed game of telephone, as well as unpack the mad rush that wellness influencers have been on to sell you their completely legitimate acetaminophen alternatives. Science rocks, y’all.
Show Notes
Meet The ‘American Frontline Nurses’ Telling Parents To Give Kids Ivermectin
Homeopathy is a scam that causes real harm
Kelly Brogan's Conspiracy Machine
Giving Birth in Yogaland
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Bonus Sample: The Wellness Civil War
Listen to the full episode here.
When RFK Jr announced that Tylenol might be implicated in autism, he forefronted correlative research that has yet to prove causation. That didn’t stop a number of MAHA-pilled wellness influencers from running with the narrative. Derek looks at their posts, as well as the immediate pushback, after breaking down Kennedy’s slipperiness during the press conference.
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Dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy-mad yogis. At best, the conspirituality movement attacks public health efforts in times of crisis. At worst, it fronts and recruits for the fever-dream of QAnon. As the alt-right and New Age horseshoe toward each other in a blur of disinformation, clear discourse, and good intentions get smothered. Charismatic influencers exploit their followers by co-opting conspiracy theories on a spectrum of intensity ranging from vaccines to child trafficking. In the process, spiritual beliefs that have nurtured creativity and meaning are transforming into memes of a quickly-globalizing paranoia. Conspirituality Podcast attempts to bring understanding to this landscape. A journalist, a cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic discuss the stories, cognitive dissonances, and cultic dynamics tearing through the yoga, wellness, and new spirituality worlds. Mainstream outlets have noticed the problem. We crowd-source, research, analyze, and dream answers to it.
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