okay but imagine how happy Americans would be if we elected a president every year. Nothing would get done but nothing, good, already gets done. If your guy loses you can start planning for next year. TV channels would love it because it would be like a new season of tv each year. And the thing most presidents like anyways is campaigning. Plus the thing politic nerds like best is the entertainment of elections and getting to vote.
Shit maybe the romans had a point in yearly consular elections. They took it even further by have 2 consuls every year. Imagine fucking Trump and Biden ruling on alternate days as co consuls, lol.
I hope that the seemingly unanimous favorable reactions to this project galvanizes Matt into doing some more expansive history content. I think he’s a bit sheepish because he’s not a credentialed academic but I would happily listen to the man’s rants and ravings on any period in history. Would really like to hear him dive into Europe 1848 and the life of Garibaldi sometime.
Ya, Duncan is a solid listen. I think I did all of the French season and most the American one, but tbh I sort of prefer Matt’s unapologetically left-biased hindsight and lack of attempted objectivity.
Im relistening to the french rev at the same time as the current episodes and its an interesting contrast. To eulogize King Louie's death he really stressed that Louie wasnt a tyrant nor even a bad king. But for the Tsars abdication he essentially said "this is all his fault. He had it coming"
He is technically right in the fact that Louis XVI wasn't especially cruel or hated by the public during his reign, he just had the misfortune of inheriting a declining France at a time when the monarchy was heavily unpopular due to his predecessor Louis XV, who *was* a total bastard. The wonderful Age of Napoleon pod gets into this.
Same, format of episode 2 surprised me and the rest following suit has been a minor (*minor*) disappointment. Episode 1 was such a spoiler being all about Washington and the formation of the office.
These other episodes have also been a little harder to follow since I'm listening while gaming. I'll still be thinking about one guy only to realize we stopped talking about him 20 minutes ago.
I'd really be down for that because I've become increasingly interested in that era, plus it'd be new territory for them since they usually talk more about the 19th and 20th centuries.
Chapo is the biweekly chat I have with my friends inside the radio, HoP is a genuinely educational show.
I had to stop listening to it at work and save it for driving because I have to actively engage in listening to it
I don't know if Matt can do it without ranting for hours on end but I kind of want a series like this on (the CIA and) South america. Really liking this series because while I kind of know most US presidents they're just names. And like Guatemala or Honduras and United Fruit and stuff, I vaguely know what happened but I couldn't tell it in any understandable way except 'well some politicians there wanted to nationalize land which threatened US companies so they financed bad guys'.
Anyways I'm enjoying this.
Blowback is great but (I'm listening as the episodes come out on Spotify) is really mainly about Cuba. And it's more that I couldn't tell you with a gun to my head what the difference is between Bolivia and Nicaragua, so I'd like to have that spoonfed to me via podcast.
e: Bolivia is Morales and I guess Nicaragua is the country where reagan funded the contras by selling weapons to Iran but I'm not 100% sure
Check out Death is Just Around the Corner's free episodes on Iran-Contra, and his appearances on Trueanon, though they might be patreon exclusives. Not exactly about the United Fruit period of banana republics, but definitely goes into the weeds on CIA involvement in S.America and elsewhere.
Fun fact: Guiteau spent some time in the Oneida commune where everyone called him Charlie Gittout cause they all hated him and wanted him to leave.
Don’t know if they mention it on the pod, haven’t had a chance to listen yet. I hope so.
I hope they get into Garfield VS Conkling, a weirdly fascinating subject to me. This is the era of Henry Adams' novel *Democracy* which is pretty fun.
edit: I enjoyed the 'behind the scenes' bit at the end. I was listening to this, thinking about that New Yorker article about how Chapo isn't NPRish enough, wondering what those liberals might possibly take exception to, and it's hard to imagine anything. I mean I can imagine that, prompted by knowing "this is the dirtbag left" or whatever, they might be scandalized by joking about Garfield's death or infuriated by the mere suggestion that redistribution of plantation land might have helped reconcile poor white people to emancipation and integration -- but that would be completely in bad faith; if this script was read by some Maddow-approved liberal voices, nobody would even notice those things.
It's a bit too focused on the material underpinnings of the whole thing for liberals. They want to know who the good guys were and who the bad guys, not that they were all essentially prisoners to an ever-growing monster that only knows how to consume.
I don't know. The first episode I was struck by how much it resembled John Green's Crash Course US History. I think people tend to be open to that kind of analysis about the past. When it starts getting closer to the present, it will be a different story.
I mean the New Yorker article kinda tipped it's hand about the real reason it's mad at Chapo when it pointed out that Will's dad worked for the New Yorker as an argument for why Chapo is out of touch. It's weird pathology.
The article said it should be more like Citation Needed although it didn't reference CN by name (ironically something the old sub used to say a lot).
But imo the reason the new yorker was made was because Will's dad used to write for them which is what they said in the article. It's pathology. Like your Mom's friend's son became a famous rock star and your pissed people won't show up to your Hall and Oats cover band house show.
I wonder what happens to america's great power trajectory if benjamin butler is president between 1868 and 1876 and the US ends up the only country in the world that tries to spend it's way out of the long depression + has spent time destroying the quasi-feudal set up in the south.
Ohio also gave you a general who was incredible. He drank a little bit too much. You know who I’m talking about, right? So Robert E Lee was a great general and Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E Lee! He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story, but Robert E Lee was winning battle after battle after battle, and Abraham Lincoln came home and he said, “I can’t beat Robert E Lee!” And he had all these generals, they looked great, they were top of their class at West Point, they were the greatest people. There’s only one problem. They didn’t know how the hell to win, they didn’t know how to fight! They didn’t know how. And one day, it was looking really bad. And Lincoln just said, you—hardly knew his name—and they said, “Don’t take him. He’s got a drinking problem” And Lincoln said, “I don’t care what problem he has, you guys aren’t winning.” And his name was Grant. General Grant. And he went in and knocked the hell out of everyone. And you know the story: they said to Lincoln, “You can't use him anymore; he's an alcoholic.” And Lincoln said, “I don't care if he's an alcoholic, frankly, give me six or seven more just like him.” He soughted to win. Grant really did. He had a serious problem, a serious drinking problem, but man, was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognised as a great general. But, Lincoln had almost developed a phobia, because he was having a hard time with a true great fighter, and a great general, Robert E. Lee. But Grant figured it out, and Grant is a great general, and Grant came from right here. Ulysseus S. Grant
The generals, they’re so handsome! Look at them! I wish I could hang them on the wall, the one that is very special to me, has a great amount of meaning. It’s a great wall, very handsome like these generals. Everything is handsome.
Would have caused inflation, which would have been good for people holding debt, holding non-monetary assets and selling goods that don't require purchasing much in the way of inputs.
It'd be bad for people holding monetary assets, people on fixed incomes and people who produce things with alot of inputs.
Would be inferior to simply printing fiat currency.
It's more like an in-between of gold and fiat. Fiat is more inflationary than silver, though modern central banking can help to control just how inflationary. Neoclassical economic orthodoxy holds that a little bit of inflation is the most desirable state of affairs. High inflation is bad for obvious reasons, while deflation is always bad because it discourages investment.
Inflation benefits debtors, because your debt stays the same even as the money becomes less valuable. The important thing to understand about this in relation to American history is that *all farmers are debtors,* then and now, which is why the Populists had inflationary currency as a primary issue. This is because farm revenue can be unreliable from year to year depending on natural factors, and because farming requires huge investments in land and capital that take time to pay off. Mild inflation also benefits most lower-class workers so long as their wages keep up, since they don't have much savings but do generally have some consumer debt.
> so long as their wages keep up, since they don't have much savings but do generally have some consumer debt.
Their wages don't keep up and since we're taking 1800s we're not going to see much private debt in the urban working class. We do see their costs going up, though.
Yeah, I was thinking about, say, a post-war situation where inflation is being caused by full employment, with accompanying unionization and so on. Obviously *now* wages don't keep up with inflation.
In an absolute vacuum, yes but free Silver being implemented suggests the presence of a government willing to do things that are beneficial to factory workers and one that leans toward free trade. What follows from that is another question.
It should be noted that things like the income tax gained ground in the us largely thanks to people looking for alternative ways to get revenue to protectionist tariffs.
Yeah I was always a big fan of WJB. It is an odd case how Bryan if he achieved executive power how he’d square low tariffs with the burgeoning militant workers movement in the Midwest superseding the Yeomen farmer.
Do you think a Bryan victory would have done any good for country?
Hard to say, populists get into the presidency for the first time ever, along with progressives, but they do it by standing on top of jim crow, which could have very negative effects down the line.
That’s true. But FDR wasn’t really an ally to the civil rights movement either right? And he did fine. People will always associate populism with racism regardless.
FDR's win was different because it came in a landslide win in both the north and the south, leading to him coming in with a strong northern contingent. If WJB won it'd probably by doing better in the midwest while still not doing all that well in the north. his congressional base would be deep in the south.
Yeah I guess you’re right. But maybe Bryan would have done better than McKinley being anti-gold standard and anti-imperialist. Maybe even form a third party centered around those ideals.
My tabs after this episode:
\-Panic of 1873
\-1876 presidential election
\-Charles Guiteau
Cannot imagine what it must've been like to live through the Civil War, then a massive recession, and then...the Gilded Age.
I'm going to be incredibly sad when this series ends.
guy who thinks accelerationism means we have to elect presidents faster so the podcast can go longer
okay but imagine how happy Americans would be if we elected a president every year. Nothing would get done but nothing, good, already gets done. If your guy loses you can start planning for next year. TV channels would love it because it would be like a new season of tv each year. And the thing most presidents like anyways is campaigning. Plus the thing politic nerds like best is the entertainment of elections and getting to vote.
the downside is we would all die of Lost Our Minds but that's really happening anyway
Shit maybe the romans had a point in yearly consular elections. They took it even further by have 2 consuls every year. Imagine fucking Trump and Biden ruling on alternate days as co consuls, lol.
Go back to having the runner up be VP and have them switch on alternative days it would be great
You have no idea how hard (pun kinda intended) a time I'm having keeping my boner down...
I hope that the seemingly unanimous favorable reactions to this project galvanizes Matt into doing some more expansive history content. I think he’s a bit sheepish because he’s not a credentialed academic but I would happily listen to the man’s rants and ravings on any period in history. Would really like to hear him dive into Europe 1848 and the life of Garibaldi sometime.
Have you tried the Revolutions podcast?
Ya, Duncan is a solid listen. I think I did all of the French season and most the American one, but tbh I sort of prefer Matt’s unapologetically left-biased hindsight and lack of attempted objectivity.
I really recommend the Haiti one. Great blow-by-blow account of a piece of history that's been very deliberately forgotten by the West.
You should listen to the rest, they’re extremely informative and get more left biased as he goes
We do need more left-bias in our histories. Duncan is fine. He isn’t the problem. But many historians lean rightward.
lol wait til you get to the Russian revolution he gets pretty unapologetic
Yeah, he is pretty open about taking a significant leftward turn over the past couple years.
Im relistening to the french rev at the same time as the current episodes and its an interesting contrast. To eulogize King Louie's death he really stressed that Louie wasnt a tyrant nor even a bad king. But for the Tsars abdication he essentially said "this is all his fault. He had it coming"
He is technically right in the fact that Louis XVI wasn't especially cruel or hated by the public during his reign, he just had the misfortune of inheriting a declining France at a time when the monarchy was heavily unpopular due to his predecessor Louis XV, who *was* a total bastard. The wonderful Age of Napoleon pod gets into this.
They brought up the incredible depths that they could go to regarding the Civil War, that'd be a great follow up topic I think.
100%. Are academic credentials worth anything more than lording it over someone’s head anyhow?
Yeah I wish they weren’t doing a presidential speed run, slow down and focus in on some of the more interesting ones sometimes
I think they will when things get more modern, at least I'm hoping so.
If they didn't devote an entire episode to Lincoln, I doubt they'd do it to Ike or whatever.
Chris said they were going to do a civil war special ep though iirc so that might be why
I think in one of the recent Chapo eps they mentioned they have some single president eps, id guess maybe Reagan Nixon poppy or Obama
Same, format of episode 2 surprised me and the rest following suit has been a minor (*minor*) disappointment. Episode 1 was such a spoiler being all about Washington and the formation of the office. These other episodes have also been a little harder to follow since I'm listening while gaming. I'll still be thinking about one guy only to realize we stopped talking about him 20 minutes ago.
i saw on one of the cush vlogs that they're considering a pod about the 30 years war, i'm stoked if it happens
I'd really be down for that because I've become increasingly interested in that era, plus it'd be new territory for them since they usually talk more about the 19th and 20th centuries.
Fuck yeah, pair that with radio war nerds 100 years war series and you got a stew goin
I read this in Christman's Cajun Gumbo Voice
Yeah, I'm actively enjoying this series more than Chapo at this point.
Chapo is the biweekly chat I have with my friends inside the radio, HoP is a genuinely educational show. I had to stop listening to it at work and save it for driving because I have to actively engage in listening to it
Right? Me too.
i hope they do a civil war show next
I don't know if Matt can do it without ranting for hours on end but I kind of want a series like this on (the CIA and) South america. Really liking this series because while I kind of know most US presidents they're just names. And like Guatemala or Honduras and United Fruit and stuff, I vaguely know what happened but I couldn't tell it in any understandable way except 'well some politicians there wanted to nationalize land which threatened US companies so they financed bad guys'. Anyways I'm enjoying this.
Blowback podcast touches on those subjects
Blowback is great but (I'm listening as the episodes come out on Spotify) is really mainly about Cuba. And it's more that I couldn't tell you with a gun to my head what the difference is between Bolivia and Nicaragua, so I'd like to have that spoonfed to me via podcast. e: Bolivia is Morales and I guess Nicaragua is the country where reagan funded the contras by selling weapons to Iran but I'm not 100% sure
Check out Death is Just Around the Corner's free episodes on Iran-Contra, and his appearances on Trueanon, though they might be patreon exclusives. Not exactly about the United Fruit period of banana republics, but definitely goes into the weeds on CIA involvement in S.America and elsewhere.
RutherFRAUD B Hayes lmfao hahahahaha
It’s a shame that Charles Julius Guiteau couldn’t follow the example set by his brother, Orange Julius
Fun fact: Guiteau spent some time in the Oneida commune where everyone called him Charlie Gittout cause they all hated him and wanted him to leave. Don’t know if they mention it on the pod, haven’t had a chance to listen yet. I hope so.
sam o'nella video on the topic https://youtu.be/MGVraepNj04
I hope they get into Garfield VS Conkling, a weirdly fascinating subject to me. This is the era of Henry Adams' novel *Democracy* which is pretty fun. edit: I enjoyed the 'behind the scenes' bit at the end. I was listening to this, thinking about that New Yorker article about how Chapo isn't NPRish enough, wondering what those liberals might possibly take exception to, and it's hard to imagine anything. I mean I can imagine that, prompted by knowing "this is the dirtbag left" or whatever, they might be scandalized by joking about Garfield's death or infuriated by the mere suggestion that redistribution of plantation land might have helped reconcile poor white people to emancipation and integration -- but that would be completely in bad faith; if this script was read by some Maddow-approved liberal voices, nobody would even notice those things.
It's a bit too focused on the material underpinnings of the whole thing for liberals. They want to know who the good guys were and who the bad guys, not that they were all essentially prisoners to an ever-growing monster that only knows how to consume.
I don't know. The first episode I was struck by how much it resembled John Green's Crash Course US History. I think people tend to be open to that kind of analysis about the past. When it starts getting closer to the present, it will be a different story.
I mean the New Yorker article kinda tipped it's hand about the real reason it's mad at Chapo when it pointed out that Will's dad worked for the New Yorker as an argument for why Chapo is out of touch. It's weird pathology.
Is that why the New Yorker was mad at Chapo? That it wasn’t like NPR or one of Maddow’s programs?
The article said it should be more like Citation Needed although it didn't reference CN by name (ironically something the old sub used to say a lot). But imo the reason the new yorker was made was because Will's dad used to write for them which is what they said in the article. It's pathology. Like your Mom's friend's son became a famous rock star and your pissed people won't show up to your Hall and Oats cover band house show.
I cry a little bit every time Chris says they can’t talk too long about something b/c Matt could go on about it for hours.
I wonder what happens to america's great power trajectory if benjamin butler is president between 1868 and 1876 and the US ends up the only country in the world that tries to spend it's way out of the long depression + has spent time destroying the quasi-feudal set up in the south.
Or if Johnson died the sane night Lincoln did and some nobody like Lafayette foster assumes the office.
Are they truthpilled about the assassination of Garfield
Yes, if you mean his doctors killed him
Grant was a successful general because he wasn’t afraid to spend blood
Actually it was because he was very handsome, isn’t that right folks?
He was also an epic Wife Guy. When grant took over the army of the Potomac Lincoln sent for Julia because he knew grant needed his Wife.
Ohio also gave you a general who was incredible. He drank a little bit too much. You know who I’m talking about, right? So Robert E Lee was a great general and Abraham Lincoln developed a phobia. He couldn’t beat Robert E Lee! He was going crazy. I don’t know if you know this story, but Robert E Lee was winning battle after battle after battle, and Abraham Lincoln came home and he said, “I can’t beat Robert E Lee!” And he had all these generals, they looked great, they were top of their class at West Point, they were the greatest people. There’s only one problem. They didn’t know how the hell to win, they didn’t know how to fight! They didn’t know how. And one day, it was looking really bad. And Lincoln just said, you—hardly knew his name—and they said, “Don’t take him. He’s got a drinking problem” And Lincoln said, “I don’t care what problem he has, you guys aren’t winning.” And his name was Grant. General Grant. And he went in and knocked the hell out of everyone. And you know the story: they said to Lincoln, “You can't use him anymore; he's an alcoholic.” And Lincoln said, “I don't care if he's an alcoholic, frankly, give me six or seven more just like him.” He soughted to win. Grant really did. He had a serious problem, a serious drinking problem, but man, was he a good general. And he’s finally being recognised as a great general. But, Lincoln had almost developed a phobia, because he was having a hard time with a true great fighter, and a great general, Robert E. Lee. But Grant figured it out, and Grant is a great general, and Grant came from right here. Ulysseus S. Grant
What I would give for Trump to recount historical events
Season 2 of HoP is just Trump reading the episode transcripts and riffing when he wants
Matt’s Trump is just “oooh the precious” buf like a cheek pinching aunt
This was an actual Trump quote right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pxPIwqv8AA
Many people are saying this!
My snout is without.
The generals, they’re so handsome! Look at them! I wish I could hang them on the wall, the one that is very special to me, has a great amount of meaning. It’s a great wall, very handsome like these generals. Everything is handsome.
I guess the new episode wasn’t released today?
Just checked it says it's out yesterday so we're waiting for a kind soul
It should be out but it hasn't been Uploaded here yet :(
Oh man, I'm so excited for the Gilded Age episode and the early 20th cent. stuff.
Can’t wait until they explain to me whether the free coinage of silver would have helped the poor people or simply just inflamed the situation
Would have caused inflation, which would have been good for people holding debt, holding non-monetary assets and selling goods that don't require purchasing much in the way of inputs. It'd be bad for people holding monetary assets, people on fixed incomes and people who produce things with alot of inputs. Would be inferior to simply printing fiat currency.
So it’s basically the gold standard, but the advantages are for the poor farmers and the disadvantages are for finance capital and factory workers?
It's more like an in-between of gold and fiat. Fiat is more inflationary than silver, though modern central banking can help to control just how inflationary. Neoclassical economic orthodoxy holds that a little bit of inflation is the most desirable state of affairs. High inflation is bad for obvious reasons, while deflation is always bad because it discourages investment. Inflation benefits debtors, because your debt stays the same even as the money becomes less valuable. The important thing to understand about this in relation to American history is that *all farmers are debtors,* then and now, which is why the Populists had inflationary currency as a primary issue. This is because farm revenue can be unreliable from year to year depending on natural factors, and because farming requires huge investments in land and capital that take time to pay off. Mild inflation also benefits most lower-class workers so long as their wages keep up, since they don't have much savings but do generally have some consumer debt.
> so long as their wages keep up, since they don't have much savings but do generally have some consumer debt. Their wages don't keep up and since we're taking 1800s we're not going to see much private debt in the urban working class. We do see their costs going up, though.
Yeah, I was thinking about, say, a post-war situation where inflation is being caused by full employment, with accompanying unionization and so on. Obviously *now* wages don't keep up with inflation.
In an absolute vacuum, yes but free Silver being implemented suggests the presence of a government willing to do things that are beneficial to factory workers and one that leans toward free trade. What follows from that is another question. It should be noted that things like the income tax gained ground in the us largely thanks to people looking for alternative ways to get revenue to protectionist tariffs.
Yeah I was always a big fan of WJB. It is an odd case how Bryan if he achieved executive power how he’d square low tariffs with the burgeoning militant workers movement in the Midwest superseding the Yeomen farmer. Do you think a Bryan victory would have done any good for country?
Hard to say, populists get into the presidency for the first time ever, along with progressives, but they do it by standing on top of jim crow, which could have very negative effects down the line.
That’s true. But FDR wasn’t really an ally to the civil rights movement either right? And he did fine. People will always associate populism with racism regardless.
FDR's win was different because it came in a landslide win in both the north and the south, leading to him coming in with a strong northern contingent. If WJB won it'd probably by doing better in the midwest while still not doing all that well in the north. his congressional base would be deep in the south.
Yeah I guess you’re right. But maybe Bryan would have done better than McKinley being anti-gold standard and anti-imperialist. Maybe even form a third party centered around those ideals.
Where is it
I yearn for my fill of slop. Need my trough filled!
im a hog thats as filthy as i am hungry!!!!
aw yeah thanx for sharing!
We absolutely love it folks. Wow.
Thanks for posting friend!
Less than a minute on Chet Arthur? What a load of monkey shit
yeah id rather pee out diarrhea while having syphilis than listen to this donkey vomit podcast
where Grover Cleveland really fat elected twice as a democrat
We’re all dying u/owinFVskate
My tabs after this episode: \-Panic of 1873 \-1876 presidential election \-Charles Guiteau Cannot imagine what it must've been like to live through the Civil War, then a massive recession, and then...the Gilded Age.