Hear the ad-free episode at http://usefulidiots.substack.com 2021 was a shit show, so who better to help us dig through it than friend-of-show Thomas Frank, author of Listen Liberal and What’s the Matter with Kansas. So what happened in 2021? Democrats and Republicans definitely both sucked. Covid got better and then a lot worse. Dems didn’t do the one thing to ensure they’d never lose another election. And politics turned from policy to pure culture war. We go through it all, why it happened, w...
Dec 31, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Hear the ad-free version at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Dec 24, 2021•59 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Hear the ad-free version at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Journalist and professor Christian Parenti’s latest NonSite (the Adolph Reed site) article, The First Privilege Walk, if nothing else, has the greatest subtitle of all time: How Herbert Marcuse’s widow used a Scientology-linked cult’s methodology to gamify Identity Politics and thus helped steer the U.S. Left down the dead-end path of identitarian psychobabble.The article, which Matt described as “an article after my own heart,” to whi...
Dec 17, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 31
Nils Melzer responds to the Julian Assange verdict on a special Useful Idiots Livestream. Nils Melzer is the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture; Human Rights Chair, Geneva Academy; Professor of International Law, University of Glasgow; Vice-President IIHL, and the author of The Trial of Julian Assange (https://twitter.com/nilsmelzer) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/do...
Dec 10, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Subscribe at http://usefulidiots.substack.com for the ad-free version, which helps independent journalists through the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. He wrote and directed multiple classic, culture-defining American movies. He created groundbreaking documentaries, interviewing Putin, debunking Russiagate, and uncovering JFK’s murder. He won three Academy Awards. There was only one thing left for Oliver Stone to do: Become a Useful Idiot. Stone’s new documentary, JFK Revisited:...
Dec 03, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Season 2Ep. 38
See the ad-free episode that helps independent journalists at http://usefulidiots.substack.com When Professor Adolph Reed joins the zoom call, Matt welcomes him: “Hi, Professor, how are you doing today?” Reed responds: “I can’t complain.” Matt eyes him, incredulous. Reed smiles. “Actually, I can complain. And I’m going to.” Reed, author of the forthcoming book The South: Jim Crow and its Afterlives and host of the new podcast Class Matters, has a lot to complain about White liberal #resistance f...
Nov 26, 2021•57 min•Season 2Ep. 37
See the ad-free episode at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/useful-idiots-with-katie-halper-and-aaron-mate/donations Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy...
Nov 19, 2021•44 min•Season 2Ep. 36
See the ad-free episode at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Your two favorite Russiagate addicts are back and feeling very vindicated. We watch as Adam Schiff, the Washington Post, and more slowly realize their facts were only conspiracy theories. Now we’re just waiting for a resounding “Great job, Matt and Aaron!” Aaron Maté of The Grayzone’s Pushback has spent years putting in journalistic work to track down facts, read thick dossiers, and interview top suspects who were ignored by the entire ...
Nov 12, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Subscribe for ad-free extended interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com This week, Taibbi went down to Virginia to get Useful Idiot boots on the ground for the crucial election. Let’s just say it didn’t go as planned for Dems. What does this mean for 2022? 2024? What caused the disastrous loss? Was it messaging? The candidate? Bernie and the progressives? In our election wrap up, we cover it all, and if you’re hankering for more election coverage, see the full live election special here: I...
Nov 05, 2021•46 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com for an ad-free listen and extended interview On this week’s show, award-winning journalist David Sirota justly rips Democrats for not only selling out the American people but for enabling Right Wing authoritarianism: “Democrats get elected promising to help people, promising various programs to directly help people. And then you get into power and you shield your corporate donors who don't want that change. You choose your corporate donors and you betray yo...
Oct 29, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Subscribe for extended interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Facebook is changing its name. The reason? They’re not just a social media platform anymore. They’re so much more! Definitely not the reason? Distract and distance from a whistleblower scandal, rampant fake news issues, and an evil reputation. No, really, it has nothing to do with those things… Activist and writer Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, joins the Useful Idiots to discuss The Company Soon to Be Known As T...
Oct 22, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 32
See the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “By the time Biden won the presidency, I was struggling to square what I was learning about the family's business dealings with the folksy image I had of him and his family. I just wanted to tell the story in full.” Author Ben Schreckinger dug up the history of a family dynasty and put it into his book The Bidens, which explores the Biden family, Joe’s childhood, weird Delaware loyalty politics, the shady business dealings of Joe’s broth...
Oct 15, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Season 2Ep. 32
We did Idiots Live this week instead of the Four Food Groups. Let us know what you think of it. “We're at the beginning of the fourth quarter.” This is what The Intercept’s D.C. Bureau Chief Ryan Grim predicts for the play unfolding in Washington: Will Biden get his bill passed? He analyzes the major players. The Dems. 48 of them want a bill that has free college and a whole bunch of other Sandersian provisions. This really confuses us after they spent the last two elections trying to bury Berni...
Oct 09, 2021•1 hr 58 min•Season 2Ep. 31
See the extended interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Josiah Zayner wants to teach you genetic engineering. For two reasons: 1. He thinks it’d be awesome. And 2: It would hurt Big Pharma. “Gene therapies can cure and treat diseases,” he explains. “We can engineer animals and plants to make fuels and food and crazy stuff. The applications are limitless. We just need people working on it. And the only reason people aren't is because there's that knowledge gap.” But the knowledge gap is so...
Oct 01, 2021•1 hr 30 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Subscribe at http://usefulidiots.substack.com During the first Gulf War, there was a transformation to an era of constant new news. The face of this change was CNN reporter and Useful Idiots Hero Charles Jaco. Views went from checking the news once or twice a day to constantly staying plugged in, anchors got famous and the whole thing became a spectacle. Jaco’s response? “What the devil is going on?” Jaco, who’s the star of the weekly UI segment "Jaco of the Week,” discussed the negative impacts...
Sep 24, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 30
See the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “The charade of statesmanship played out by George W. Bush and his enabler, Condoleezza Rice, as they wander the Middle East is a fitting end to seven years of misrule, stripped of power and transformed from monsters into buffoons. One half expects to see him stand up at the next president's inauguration and screech ‘I’m melting! I’m melting!’ as he sinks into a puddle of slime.” This was penned by friend-of-show and Pulitzer Prize-winni...
Sep 17, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Subscribe at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Matt lost his voice this week, so we’re unpaywalling this extended interview with Adolph Reed. We’ll be back next week with Monday Mourning and a new UI episode. Subscribers can still get their UI fix with Katie’s attempt at the Taibbi dating app, also out today. “But if that doesn’t happen, then that’s gonna be the end of American democracy in the next year.” Does he mean Republicans taking the senate? The creation of a new religion of Wokery in def...
Sep 10, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Subscribe for the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “That was what the unity after 9/11 really concealed: who it was aimed against.” Next week marks the 20th anniversary of the September 11th attacks. And as usual, Obama’s apology-free drone strikes, the domestic racism, the enhanced government surveillance, and curtailed civil liberties will be downplayed, if not completely ignored. “The longer this war on terror circumstance goes on,” says Spencer Ackerman, Pulitzer Prize-winn...
Sep 03, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Subscribe for full interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com After 9/11, the US government jumped into war in Afghanistan, giving shells of reasons for their aggression. But at least they still gave reasons. However, after Bin Laden was killed in 2011, even the illusion of a reason for this war was gone. It’s been time to come home for a while. In an April interview with Matt, Adrian Bonenberger, author and veteran, predicted that Biden would execute the withdrawal from Afghanistan. And lik...
Aug 27, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Subscribe for full episodes and extended interviews at http://usefulidiots.substack.com Lesley Blume is a journalist. She married a journalist. Her father wrote for Walter Cronkite. Her whole community is journalists. So, in 2016, when Trump rose to power, her community was suddenly under attack. “All of a sudden to see your entire community be under assault like that and be designated as enemies of the people was so shocking and demoralizing, and it felt like an all hands on deck moment.” The b...
Aug 13, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Subscribe for the full interview at http://usefulidiots.substack.com “America finally had enough media awareness after being taught in high school to look for bias that they suddenly were able to see, with new eyes, just how slanted and silly and contradictory and boring [corporate media is.]” Thus spoke Walter Kirn, writer for Time magazine and author of eight novels including Up in the Air (which was turned into a George Clooney movie), on this week’s Useful Idiots. And, like Matt and Katie, K...
Aug 06, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com for full episodes and extended interviews Even just days before the election in Ohio’s 11th district, Nina Turner is pulling voters to her side. Just this week, an influential city councilman announced he switched his support from opponent Shontel Brown to Turner because on one side he saw angry attack ads, while on the other he saw policy. And this race is centered on policy: Brown, backed by corporate dems like Hillary Clinton and pro-Israel lobbies, repr...
Jul 30, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Join our substack for the full interview and bonus content http://usefulidiots.substack.com Subscribe for clips and full episodes Follow us on twitter at https://twitter.com/UsefulIdiotpod The press is a crucial part of democracy, checking on the government and alerting the public to what’s going on. The water supply has been poisoned––that's the kind of thing we depend on the fourth estate to report about. But where have they been? The national press was universally late in reporting on the Fli...
Jul 23, 2021•1 hr 27 min•Season 2Ep. 20
In the past few weeks of the crucial case for free speech and press, Wikileaks-founder Julian Assange was granted a new appeal on his extradition trial and it came out that a key witness (who is a diagnosed sociopath) admitted to lying, a smear campaign distorted much of what we know, and psychological torture was reported in the prison where he’s being held. Remember all that? You don’t? Well, do you read the New York Times and Washington Post? You do? But do you watch CNN and MSNBC? You watch ...
Jul 16, 2021•1 hr 46 min•Season 2Ep. 19
As PC culture, led fearlessly by Miss Woke 2021 Robin DiAngelo, moves deeper into decreeing what terms and actions count as racist, Professor Adolph Reed has a warning for us: “Both the discursive and institutional have emerged around a systemic disposition to find ways to evade talking about class and economic inequality, then it just grows in that dark environment with other fungi and so forth and so on.” That’s “historian of ideologies” talk for a simple yet important concept which he explain...
Jul 09, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Season 2Ep. 18
What do you do when your congressman is an a**hole who celebrates the January 6 insurrection and uses it to try propel himself to governor of New York? You run against him and f*cking beat him. At least that’s what attorney and former Onion writer Austin Smith plans to do. And he’s using his “furious, blood-boiling” anger toward Lee Zeldin and the rest of Trump’s losers to help the people of New York’s first district to finally get a decent guy to represent them. Smith, who previously worked for...
Jul 02, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Season 2Ep. 17
Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Norman Finkelstein, the prolific (and widely canceled) political scientist, and author of 11 books, joins the show to give us a sneak preview of his new book on cancel culture and identity politics. He explains what makes today's cancel culture new, what makes it not so new, and why it’s worse, in some ways, when the Left does it: “Obviously there’s cancel culture on the right. But the cancel culture on the right, or the mainstream, the establishment, whate...
Jun 25, 2021•1 hr 25 min•Season 2Ep. 16
Subscribe at usefulidiots.substack.com Ross Barkan on the New York Mayoral Race and Cuomosexuals, Plus Whale Mouthwash, Republicans Hit the Pipe, and Jeff Bezos Should Eat the Mona Lisa “This is kind of the Holy Grail for the left that can never quite get pulled off,” says Ross Barkan, author of The Prince: Andrew Cuomo, Coronavirus, and the Fall of New York. “It usually gets pulled off by moderates, or Barack Obama.” We talked to Ross about one of our favorite people — the demented neoliberal m...
Jun 18, 2021•1 hr 31 min•Season 2Ep. 15
“Protest with a guitar? Not this candidate.” This written about a 21-year-old city council candidate with hippy sensibilities and a drive to help the underdog: Dennis Kucinich. Since that article in 1967, Kucinich served 16 years as the US house rep from Ohio, gained national fame in his two presidential bids, and was vindicated by the Washington Post as the future of American politics. Now, Kucinich is out with a new book The Division of Light and Power, which shares stories of his early days i...
Jun 11, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Season 2Ep. 14
After a groundbreaking and enormously successful run at The Hill, Krystal and Saagar have followed the iconic path of a certain former rock music podcast, going solo by launching a subscriber-supported show called Breaking Point that debuts next week. The longtime friends-of-show are true pioneers in the modern media age. At a time when virtually every other political discussion show is aimed exclusively at one political demographic or another, their Rising program represented literally the only...
Jun 04, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Season 2Ep. 13
