Ep. 401: The Vince McMahon Sex Scandal Allegations Are About So Much More Than Professional Wrestling
Release Date: 02/13/2024
Ep. 434: Navigating Trumpistan and the MAGAverse One Day at a Time
The Chauncey DeVega Show
Sabrina Haake is a federal trial attorney with twenty years of experience specializing in First and 14th Amendment defense. Her essays have been featured in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Reader, and Raw Story. Her Substack newsletter is . Sabrina Haake reflects on how the Age of Trump and his return to power have negatively impacted the interpersonal relationships and mental and emotional health of the American people -- and how they need to hold on to hope and a belief in human decency when it is so easy to so succumb to cynicism and despair in these dark times. She also ponders how and...
info_outline
Ep. 433: How White Fear Fuels The Age of Trump
The Chauncey DeVega Show
Andrew Goldberg is an Emmy-Award-winning investigative producer and journalist. He has directed 14 prime-time documentary specials for PBS/public television, and both long and short-form segments for outlets like CBS News Sunday Morning, ABC News, Live From Lincoln Center, and National Public Radio. His new documentary film is . Andrew Goldberg details how Donald Trump and his propagandists, the Republican Party, the larger “conservative” movement, and the Fox News right-wing echo chamber worked together to channel and amplify white racism to win the 2024 Election with the ultimate goal...
info_outline
Ep. 432: Screenwriter Rob Edwards Reflects on His Life Journey From "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" to "Captain America: Brave New World"
The Chauncey DeVega Show
Rob Edwards is a thirty-year veteran of movies and television who wrote and produced shows including The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Full House, and In Living Color before writing two classic animated films for Walt Disney Feature Animation: the Academy Awards and Golden Globe nominated The Princess and The Frog, and the Academy Awards nominated Treasure Planet. His new project is the graphic novel Defiant: The Story of Robert Smalls. Rob Edwards reflects on being creative for a living, the difference between tourists and pretenders and being a real professional, and how he feels obligated to...
info_outline
Ep. 431: How "Iron Mountain" and Other Conspiracy Theories Birthed the Age of Trump
The Chauncey DeVega Show
Phil Tinline is the author of the new book . Over the course of twenty years working for the BBC, Tinline has made and presented many acclaimed documentaries about how political history shapes our lives. He has also written for The Times (London), The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The New Statesman, BBC History Magazine, and Prospect. In this wide-ranging conversation, Phil Tinline explores how conspiracy theories and conspiracism helped to birth the Age of Trump and its authoritarian populism and anti-intellectualism, the allure of the conspiracy...
info_outline
Ep. 430: Trump's 100 Days, America's Empire is Rotting From Within
The Chauncey DeVega Show
Norman Solomon is an author, journalist, media critic and activist. He is co-founder of RootsAction.org and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Solomon’s books include War Made Easy, and Made Love, Got War. His new book is War Made Invisible: How America Hides the Human Toll of Its Military Machine. In this wide-ranging conversation, Norman Solomon reflects on the first 100 days of Trump’s return to power. He counsels that the struggle to defend, restore, and then improve America’s democracy and a humane society will take many years -- if not much longer. Why?...
info_outline
Ep. 429: Honoring the Titan Nikki Giovanni
The Chauncey DeVega Show
On this impromptu Easter Day installment of the podcast, Chauncey DeVega reflects on our collective discombobulation (and mass disinhibition), building our inner Noah’s Ark to survive these dark times that are getting much worse and much faster with Trump’s return to power, and the . Following through on the importance of building our inner Noah’s Ark and filling it with things that bring us joy, Chauncey shares his thoughts on this year’s WWE WrestleMania 41 event, and what should have been an epic bout between John Cena and Cody Rhodes with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson...
info_outline
Ep. 428: The Age of Trump is an Extreme Moral, Ethical, and Spiritual Crisis
The Chauncey DeVega Show
There are two guests on this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. Dr. Justin Frank is a former professor of psychiatry at George Washington University. He is the author of several books including Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank returns to the podcast and explains the importance of listening to and trusting our feelings and emotions in this time of fear, exhaustion, and collective trauma. Dr. Frank also interprets some of the common dreams that people experience during times of great stress and anxiety. He also shares his expert advice...
info_outline
Ep. 427: The Democrats Are Now Willingly Surrendering to Trump's MAGA Shock and Awe Campaign
The Chauncey DeVega Show
This is a special joint episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report. is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His new book is Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge. Professor Fish returns to the podcast to warn that the Democrats continue to be weak and ineffective in their opposition to Donald Trump and his MAGA movement because they refuse to be high-dominance leaders who shape the public mood and inspire their followers. The most recent example: The Democrats in...
info_outline
Ep. 426: President Trump's Shock and Awe Campaign and the American People’s Mental and Emotional Health
The Chauncey DeVega Show
There are two guests on this week’s episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. Dr. Justin Frank is a former professor of psychiatry at George Washington University. He is the author of several books including Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. Dr. Frank reflects on how the American people and their collective sense of normal, safety, and security has been dramatically disrupted by Trump’s return to power and his “shock and awe” campaign against American democracy and society. Dr. Frank counsels that feelings of dread, fear, and anxiety are totally normal...
info_outline
Ep. 425: The Truth Report -- The American People Are Being Targeted and Manipulated By a Disinformation and Propaganda War
The Chauncey DeVega Show
Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and a Senior Advisor for Public Trust in Science at the Aspen Institute. He is the author of many books including On Disinformation and How to Talk to a Science Denier. Lee McIntyre explains how the American people are being systematically targeted in a disinformation and propaganda war by malign actors both here in the United States and from abroad with the goal of breaking reality, confusing them about the difference between facts and lies, undermining science and rational thought,...
info_outlineIrv Muchnick is one of America’s leading sports writers and investigative journalists.
His essays and other writing have appeared in Sports Illustrated, People, The Washington Monthly, and the Sunday magazines of the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He is the author of the books Chris & Nancy; Wrestling Babylon; Concussion Inc., Without Helmets or Shoulder Pads: The American Way of Death in Football Conditioning; and Underwater: The Greed-Soaked Tale of Sexual Abuse in USA Swimming and Around the Globe.
Irv Muchnick reflects on why the recent “revelations” about Vince McMahon’s alleged Caligula-like sexual exploitation of an employee, harassment, and of creating a larger environment of sexual predation at the WWE/WWF should in no way be a surprise given what has been publicly known for decades.
Irv also offers some context from his long history of reporting on the subculture(s) of professional wrestling and other sports such as swimming and gymnastics about how and why sexual harassment and abuse are unfortunately all too common both in those spaces and across American society.
And Irv connects the dots between Donald Trump and Vince McMahon and what he describes as the “Trumpification” of American politics and life.
Chauncey reflects on nostalgia, innocence, joy, pleasure, fan culture, and how to reconcile loving professional wrestling (and other things) with knowing about the real-life drama and human cost that it brings to its participants and others in that world. Ultimately, is innocence bliss?
And Chauncey shares a story about being a hero in your own neighborhood (even when sick), thanks everyone for their support during his battle with the cooties, and in that spirit makes a public health announcement about the merits of folk medicine and the all-powerful asafetida bag.
At the end of this episode of the podcast, there is also an “Easter egg” bonus segment from the archives with writer, movie producer, and director Barry Blaustein where he reflects on making the landmark professional wrestling documentary Beyond the Mat.
WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?
On Twitter:
https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega
On Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega
My email:
HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?
Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com
Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow