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This is your brain on propaganda

Next Comes What

Release Date: 12/26/2025

Survival shouldn't require sainthood show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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 show art 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...

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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: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/subscribe
 
Read the post that inspired this episode: https://degenerateart.beehiiv.com/p/you-re-soaking-in-it
 
 
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., the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the government's direct targeting of medical care for trans kids. Bizarre bathroom measures taken in Texas also get a mention, and show how politicians use these measures to garner political power for themselves. Turning to the UK, Andrea explores how quickly propaganda can shift a country's baseline acceptance for rights of minority groups when staff at key news outlets actively embrace exclusion. Considering how the recent shift in the US toward transphobia is being generated--especially the wave of anti-trans legislation--Andrea discusses evangelical Christianity's strong tradition of policing gender roles. From women's rights to the acceptance of gays and lesbians in the US, she shows how the expansion of rights is being strategically undone today.
 
Rep. Sarah McBride's informal speech on the Capitol states last week about being trans, as well as her prior public statements, offer useful ways to think about sidestepping the kind of back-and-forth that's unlikely to be productive in addressing transphobia. Andrea considers the value and shortcomings of shitposting in offering solidarity and changing hearts and minds. She closes with a look on how to find the most effective means to help close to home, where propaganda is weakest and easiest to undo.