DROP: It’s Not a Horseshoe. It’s a Business Model.

This is episode 1 of a new side project Julian is doing with Azi Ghaffari, Dr. Inna Kanevsky, and Aaron McCall. Find upcoming episodes via Grifty Podcast and at grifty.org 

The wellness people think your toothpaste is poisoning you. Finance bros think empathy is bad economics. Somebody on the far right thinks Taylor Swift is a Democrat psy-op, while someone on the far left thinks your aunt buying hummus is personally funding colonialism. On parts of both fringes, everything is somehow Israel’s fault. The old antisemitic conspiracies apparently have remarkable staying power among people who think they’re having brand-new thoughts.

Then, while the MAGA right was helpfully laying out its intentions in Project 2025, a corner of the online left looked at Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran, a regime that jails journalists, murders protesters, brutalizes women, and executes gay people, and thought, “Maybe these guys have a point.” It’s impressive how much authoritarianism you can overlook once you’ve decided the authoritarians hate the right people.

Different politics, same inability to enjoy Thanksgiving. And somehow, all of these people have podcasts. Actually, so do we. Welcome to Grifty Pod. We’re opening a season about how America lost its mind, which every podcast host seems to have already solved. In our defense, we’re planning to disagree with each other, which is a terrible way to run a cult.

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