Ep 409 - This is the End w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW)
Nostalgia Trap
The recent death of Val Kilmer got Justin and I thinking about Jim Morrison and the curious legacy of The Doors in American pop culture. In this conversation, we continue our exploration of the amorphous brand of white masculinity embodied by Morrison and other doomed rock gods of the late 20th century, as we share memories of how The Doors blew our alienated teenage minds before the massive buzzkill of adulthood forced us to reckon with the cringier elements of Morrison’s persona and cultural imprint. From psychedelic drugs and beat literature to sex, cars, and jazz – The Doors broke us...
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News Trap 4.23.25 - Trapdoor (PREVIEW)
Nostalgia Trap
I'm reading S.C. Gwynne's incredible book , and it's making me think about Israel, Gaza, and the fatal arrogance of the leadership class throughout history. A brings that arrogant tendency right up to 2025, as we witness the Democratic Party's inability to conjure a coherent battle plan to confront Trump and company's unbelievably evil intentions.
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News Trap 4.16.25 - See You in the Camps
Nostalgia Trap
As the Trump administration tests the "Hamilton glitch" in the U.S. Constitution by sending Abrego Garcia and others to a foreign concentration camp without legal due process, I thought it might be time to contemplate what ordinary people can do to express their outrage/disapproval/humanity in the face of injustice.
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News Trap 4.11.25 - Hard Decoupling w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW)
Nostalgia Trap
Trump's tariff carnival is doing real damage to the global economy, and Justin shares his thoughts on how a collapsing financial architecture will impact big capital, our daily lives, and the Trump project itself. Plus, we address the "Hamilton glitch" of judicial weakness, baked into the Constitution, that's creating a rapidly escalating showdown over who's really in charge.
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News Trap 4.3.25 - Tariffs? I Just Met Her!
Nostalgia Trap
Trump is dismantling the global neoliberal economic order that has served as the left's boogeyman for years, which SHOULD be an opportunity for the left to offer something beyond shrugging ambivalance and lib-dunking. Why isn't that happening?
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News Trap 3.28.25 - FOMO w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW)
Nostalgia Trap
Guitar Center dudes and their insanely rigid opinions lead to a conversation with Justin about the political psychology of FOMO, the rise of the pedophile hunter influencer class, the masculine desperation of emoji-driven war-planning group chat jerkoff sessions, the abject horror of students kidnapped off the streets for their views on Israel and Palestine, and Trump's assault on free trade scrambling the political alignments of the past several decades.
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Ep 408 - The Final Frontier of Sociopath Presidents? w/ Adam Kotsko
Nostalgia Trap
Adam Kotsko is a writer and cultural critic whose work focuses on American pop culture, from to our . His latest book, considers how the Star Trek series has evolved (or devolved) in the political economy of streaming TV and the Marvel-ization of feature filmmaking. In this conversation we talk about how his work on TV sociopaths holds up during the new Trump administration, and the challenges of participating in fan culture within a fracturing and cynical landscape of cultural production.
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News Trap 3.21.25 - Irreconcilable Differences (PREVIEW)
Nostalgia Trap
Fascism comes to my local city council meeting, a proud Israel supporter haunts my gym, Elon Musk's transgender daughter drives him off a cliff, Trump wants to send people to foreign torture camps for Tesla vandalism, and the incompatible worldviews boil hotter than ever.
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News Trap 3.19.25 - Against the Wall
Nostalgia Trap
Today I fall into paranoid android mode, thinking about what it means to "own the libs" from the left in the new Trump Reich. My message to an increasingly marginalized left flank: be careful what you wish for! Check out John Ganz's terrific Substack, for access to all our bonus content
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News Trap 3.14.25 - Blowback w/ Justin Rogers-Cooper (PREVIEW)
Nostalgia Trap
Trump and Elon Musk are actively working to destroy the global economic order, but to what end? This week Justin and I consider the wacky cartoon reality that Americans inhabit, and speculate about the different forms "blowback" might take when the punishment gets real.
info_outlineA critical but often overlooked chapter in American labor history, the animator’s strike that shook the Walt Disney Corporation in 1941 was part of a wave of labor struggle in World War II era Hollywood. Jake S. Friedman’s book The Disney Revolt: The Great Labor War of Animation’s Golden Age chronicles the strike in colorful detail, and includes plenty of eye-popping images of the strike’s particularly cartoonish aesthetic. Friedman joins me for a conversation about his book, the strike, and the wider history of the Disney project, which shifted dramatically in the wake of the rebellion by its key artists. From communist infiltrators to mafia-connected union leaders, this is a fascinating picture of the intersection of art, industrial capitalism, and pop culture.
For more on the book, including lots of great images from the strike: https://www.thedisneyrevolt.com/
Our previous episode on World War II era Disney history: https://www.patreon.com/posts/trap-tv-brick-to-75566223
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