Survival shouldn't require sainthood
Next Comes What
Demanding a perfect victim to justify outrage when law enforcement kills someone is a trap we don't have to step into. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: Watch YouTube: TikTok: This week, Andrea Pitzer considers four recent killings by law enforcement officers responsible for apprehending or detaining immigrants. She goes through the huge outpouring of sympathy after the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in...
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What 'ABOLISH ICE' Should Mean
Next Comes What
The correct response to Dachau was not better training for the guards. We can end the current nightmare. Subscribe to to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: Watch this episode : TikTok: This week's episode discusses how societies come to concentration camps, and the ways ICE is helping the US to solidify into a concentration-camp regime. Andrea Pitzer discusses the rapidly rising numbers of those detained in immigration detention--some 66,000 at the end of 2025--with the agency's already stated eventual goal of...
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Finding Your Outside Voice
Next Comes What
The US government is attacking its own people (and others), but you don’t have to spend your life feeling helpless or marinating in fear and fury. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: Watch this episode YouTube: TikTok: This week's episode covers the gravity of the moment in the US, the curse of glib centrist pundits, and how to come together in useful ways to fight the abuses the federal government is inflicting on civilians daily. Andrea Pitzer considers...
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Why This Is Bigger Than Trump
Next Comes What
Donald Trump is just a symptom of our national disease. We have to--and we can--change the system that coughed him up. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: Watch this episode: TikTok: This week, Andrea Pitzer focuses on the U.S. attack on Venezuela, looking at what we know, how recent events fit into history, and why it's important to stop Trump. But she also dives into why the president is just a symptom of what ails the country. The episode speed-runs the...
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This is your brain on propaganda
Next Comes What
The tactics Trump allies are using to gin up hate against trans people reveal how propaganda works and why it's so dangerous. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: TikTok: In this week's episode, In this last episode for 2025, Andrea Pitzer reviews recent actions by the US and state governments targeting trans women and trans youth, showing how propaganda takes root and becomes effective over time. She considers the recent announcement by RFK Jr.,...
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Shredding Public Knowledge
Next Comes What
Why the Trump administration (and a lot of other people) are trying to kill journalism, and what we can do to stop them. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: Watch this episode: TikTok: In this week's episode, Andrea Pitzer looks at a new report on journalism from the Roosevelt Institute that reveals how corporate interests have prioritized power and profit, shattering news organizations and journalism itself. She goes further than the report to suggest that the...
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No one knows exactly what will end Trump
Next Comes What
None of us know what exactly will end Trump's rule. But we can keep expanding the possibilities. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: Watch: TikTok: Our episode this week is a deep dive into the variety of ways the president's current authoritarian overreach is meeting blowback. Andrea Pitzer covers developments from recent days, including a Washington Post report about the deliberate execution of two shipwreck survivors in...
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Quiet, Piggy
Next Comes What
Trump's denigration of women is part of the authoritarian playbook. Here's how to stop it. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: Watch this episode: TikTok: Our episode this week looks at Donald Trump saying "quiet, Piggy" to a reporter aboard Air Force One and the larger context of what the president is doing. Andrea Pitzer looks at Trump's long history with denigrating women, from journalists who ask him hard questions to his ex-wife Ivana, who at one point...
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Update your bingo card
Next Comes What
What if you threw a party to transform the country—or at least your little corner of it—and everybody came? Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: TikTok: This week's "Next Comes What" is a snapshot of a city responding to the havoc of the second Trump administration, and follows the drafting of a candidate for Congress who aims to flip the tables. Andrea Pitzer visited Roanoke for the fourth time in the last year, having been intermittently involved in a group of...
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Ending Trans Panic
Next Comes What
Standing up for trans folks isn't just the right thing to do—which it is!—it's also a way to win elections. Subscribe to Andrea Pitzer’s Degenerate Art newsletter to support Next Comes What and get Andrea's posts first: Read the post that inspired this episode: TikTok: Our episode this week focuses on how trans people have been demonized by politicians, and why that approach backfired in elections around the country last week. To find out why this kind of hate mongering seems to be a weapon of choice for the Republican Party right now, Andrea Pitzer looks...
info_outlineSaturday's NO KINGS is the beginning of a movement. Thoughts on what it means and where we go from here.
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Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/what-just-happened
Watch this episode: https://youtu.be/-ozqcCEtRRc?si=nyvG3tY3-UGofGEd
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This week, Andrea Pitzer looks at the October 18 No Kings marches and rallies nationwide and jumps into what seven million people showing up means for the country. She narrates the Saturday march from Arlington National Cemetery across the Memorial Bridge into DC and along the National Mall. Along the way, she talks to demonstrators, members of the National Guard stationed in the District, and DC cops. She recaps surveys of those who showed up and what matters to them, including data from Dana Fisher* and some great points made this week in a conversation between Erica Chenoweth and Steven Levitsky.** Addressing why police departments around the country put out press releases, Andrea wonders if—for their own reasons—they're trying to create some distance between themselves and the administration. She also reviews how shook the White House was by No Kings.
Different people will play different roles in mass protests, and they may diverge even more in their approaches as mass protests become a mass movement. Andrea considers how this range of experiences, goals, and tactics can be a strength, rather than something that deepens conflict. And as always, at the end, she reviews ways to think about and take action in the moment, to push back against authoritarianism.
* Fisher's topline data from Saturday is now available here: https://danarfisher.com/2025/10/23/nokings-2-0-brings-joyful-resistance-across-the-us/
** You can see the whole conversation between Chenoweth and Levitsky in The Breakdown from the Ash Center: https://youtube.com/live/dqoSPLEK2Mg?si=C1f53eivbGGV2Pm3