The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal

Trump's State of the Union was a two-hour Willie Horton ad designed to keep his shrinking base loyal through blood-soaked imagery borrowed from imperial Rome. Proleftpod traces how Michele Bachmann's 2011 Tea Party response prefigured today's MAGA lies by pretending the Great Recession never happened, just as Trump pretends away ICE murders, the Epstein files, and economic chaos. It's about memory, manipulation, and why the anomalies we remember from the past tell us exactly where we're headed. More at proleftpod.com.LINKS FOR THIS EPISODE:  Driftglass covers SOTU on The Bob Cesca Show: https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-2-25-26/ Driftglass (with Digby and Desi) on the Bradcast with Brad Friedman: https://bradblog.com/?p=15649Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

Episode 971 examines why fact-checkers keep losing to Republican lies in America's ongoing culture war, and why better stories—not more facts—are the only way to win. Driftglass and Blue Gal break down Will McGrath's powerful essay "In the Resistance, We Drive Minivans" to show how real stories about real people cut through propaganda in ways statistics never can. The episode also tackles why centrist pundits are tying themselves in knots now that "resistance liberals" turned out to be right about Trump and fascism all along, yet still can't be allowed to lead. It's about storytelling, leadership, and why some people would rather let their Bullshit Igloos collapse than admit the Left saw this coming a decade ago.Links for this episode: Will McGrath: "In The Resistance, We Drive Minivans" The New Republic:  "What’s Behind the Centrists’ Resistance to the “Resistance Liberals”?"Crooks and Liars:  "This Dingus Of The Week Also Seems To Be A Voyeur"https://crooksandliars.com/2026/02/dingus-week-also-seems-be-voyeurStay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

Episode 970 asks why Democrats are always expected to play by rules that Republicans openly mock and destroy, and whether apologies from Trump voters mean anything without actual accountability. Drawing on one writer's (Jamil Smith) refusal to accept an apology from a Trump voter, the show tackles the question of what comes after "I'm sorry" in American politics.Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

Episode 969 explores how politicians and media use vague phrases like "the American people," "the voters," and "the public" without anyone agreeing on what these terms actually mean. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace these polyfunctional words through American history, from Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth to Nixon's "silent majority" and today's political battles over who gets to speak for the nation. They examine how these phrases do political work rather than descriptive work, often excluding people while claiming to represent everyone. The episode reveals why this ambiguous language matters so much in the ongoing fight over American democracy and who counts as part of "we the people."Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

Probably no need to play catch-up on this, except for future reference when we hit episode 2000 and are trying to convince the Neo-Republi-tarian Constitutional Independents who will come to dominate the media in 2045 after the Great Forgetting of 2032, that all of this actually happened...More at proleftpod.com. Link for this episode: Chelsey Gods with that song about Kristi Noem.  Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

Average voters stay permanently undecided because they get their information from toxic media sources that have been poisoning them against Democrats for decades, making "running to the center" mathematically impossible and politically useless.Links for this episode: Volts ϟ 1.30.2026 – Michael Hobbes (All About "Reactionary Centrism") https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5cFRQtPbcM Ian McKellen (on Colbert) 'using Shakespeare to tear off the false moral mask that xenophobes wear across the West.'  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQiw9xbQUYQ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

The legacy media's "Both Sides Do It" conventional wisdom is a rotting corpse they've been sleeping with for decades while pretending they couldn't see Trump's fascism coming. David Brooks gets rewarded with cushy jobs at The Atlantic and Yale after being spectacularly wrong for 22 years, while PBS replaces him with a right-wing nobody who praises Trump as "the voice of reason" because of course they did.  It's past time to destroy the media's claim that "nobody saw this coming" by pointing out that liberal bloggers have been right all along.  But liberals are kept off mainstream air because acknowledging their critique as correct would wreck the legacy media's business model. Meanwhile, resistance continues in Minneapolis with street memorials, and a federal judge issues a scathing opinion comparing Trump's deportation forces to the tyranny that sparked the American Revolution.Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

The amnesia machine is already warming up as Republicans rehearse their "I was never really MAGA" speeches while Trump falsely claims Ilhan Omar staged her own chemical attack by a convicted felon Trump supporter. The episode tears apart the advice that Democrats should run against their own party to win over "average voters" who get their information from toxic sources that have been poisoning them against Democrats for decades with the Both Sides lie. As the Washington Post collapses and David Brooks gets rewarded with cushy jobs at The Atlantic and Yale, the media prepares its "both sides struggled with immigration" framing while Trump's FBI raids Georgia election offices to rig the 2026 midterms. The only path forward is relentless pressure and refusing to forgive or forget what Republicans have done, because expressions of GOP "concern" are just theater to test what polls better.Cover Art: Amazing Stories 20th Anniversary Issue, 1946.  https://amazingstories.com/2016/12/the-amazing-years/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

The killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are called what they really are—lynchings carried out by Trump's armed thugs who were then protected from investigation and sent back out on the streets. A direct line connects decades of right-wing hate radio promising to eliminate liberals to today's fascist violence, explaining why there will be no magical "national awakening" to save us. Never Trump pundits who now support "Defund ICE" after spending years attacking Democrats over "Defund the Police" get dismantled for their hypocrisy, with an explanation of why better messaging won't fix a problem caused by the right's massive propaganda machine. The only path forward is relentless pressure, cutting off money and legitimacy to Republicans, and refusing to forget what they've done when this is over.Cover photo credit: The Library of Congress via PBS.Links for this episode: Driftglass and Bluegal on The Bill Show!  The New Republic: CBP Boss Says He Moved Agents Who Shot Alex Pretti to Avoid “Doxxing” https://newrepublic.com/post/205690/customs-border-protection-cbp-agent-alex-pretti-reassigned Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show

Welcome to 'The end of the world [order] as we know it' in which we defend anti-ICE protesters who disrupted a church service in St. Paul, Minnesota, after discovering the pastor moonlights as an ICE official, calling out the shocking hypocrisy of a supposed man of God working for Trump's deportation machine.Contrast this peaceful protest with ICE's actual fascist behavior—armed agents terrorizing churchgoers in Chicago and preventing clergy from providing religious services to detainees. We also tear apart Trump's deranged, lie-filled speeches at Davos and the White House, where he embarrassed America on the world stage with conspiracy theories and obvious falsehoods. Trump's Justice Department is going after peaceful protesters while ignoring police violence against immigrants, proving we're watching democracy collapse into authoritarian rule in real time.More at proleftpod.com.Recommended:  From ancient Rome to today, war-makers have talked constantly about peace. https://theconversation.com/from-ancient-rome-to-today-war-makers-have-talked-constantly-about-peace-273095Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.comWebsite: proleftpod.comSupport via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpodor Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpodMail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791Support the show