Good Sunday, friends. To quote the bayou poets of the Honey Island Swamp Band: how do you feel?
I’ve been thinking a lot about feelings, because like many of you, I’ve got a lot of them boiling my brain as we careen helplessly towards Trump’s second symphony of sycophancy. As part of my ongoing adventures at KJZZ, I recently had the opportunity to immerse myself in the mayhem of AmericaFest, hosted by Turning Point USA. If you haven’t heard of Turning Point, it’s kind of like the 2025 version of the Kochtopus, only instead of being run by an unassuming pair of spotlight-averse zillionaire industrialist John Birchers, it’s fronted by a preening, undeniably charismatic millennial evangelical named Charlie Kirk. And Charlie Kirk has no patience for feelings.
As you’ll hear in the piece, which recently aired on KJZZ’s The Show, I went to AmericaFest because I have this sneaking suspicion that Kirk and his minions are the answer to a lot of questions about our current politics. The bad news: Kirk is a peddler of heinous, regressive mind poison, and thirsty young men are lapping it up. The (maybe) good news? His logic doesn’t make a lick of sense.
So: can the left find someone with the oratorial gifts and organizational galaxy-brain to match wits with Kirk? That’s a subject for a future dispatch. But I hope this piece illuminates the urgency of the search.
In somewhat more hopeful fare, I also recently had the chance to interview Ani DiFranco, the one-time voice of such resistance. DiFranco told me that when it comes to politics, she is tired, but undaunted, evidence of which is on display in her haunting new song, More or Less Free. You can listen to our conversation here.
Thank you for reading, and for listening. Stay righteous, babes.
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