American Prestige

Danny and Derek are joined by Will Menaker and Matt Christman of Chapo Trap House to talk about one of the great 90s war movies: Three Kings. The gang discusses how the film relates to the "end of history" moment in which it was made, what the film says about the American approach to war, how it fits into the larger history of war films, and much more.

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AP champion Stephen Wertheim, senior fellow in the American Statecraft Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, returns for a discussion of his recent piece for Carnegie, “Strategic Change in U.S. Foreign Policy.” The group muses on the difficulty of altering established foreign policy paradigms before delving into several case studies such as NSC-68, Nixon's Vietnam Withdrawal, Carter's Failed Korea Withdrawal, NATO Enlargement, and the Global War on Terror, emphasizing the need for foresight, strategic planning, and a willingness to incur political costs to make such change possible.

Check out the companion piece to this episode, Rethinking U.S. World Power w/ Michael Brenes and Stephen Wertheim.

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Kevin Schultz, Chair of the Department of History at the University of Illinois-Chicago, returns to the program to continue the discussion of his new book⁠ ⁠Why Everyone Hates White Liberals (Including White Liberals): A History⁠. In this second part of the discussion, Danny, Derek, and Kevin get into the origins and power of the "radical chic" and "limousine liberal" criticisms, the concept of "positive polarization" as championed by figures like Spiro Agnew, the perceived abandonment of the white working class by the Democratic Party, the role of Nixon in this political shift, the influence of Phyllis Schlafly and George Wallace, George McGovern and the "acid, amnesty, and abortion" label, Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s attempt to redefine liberalism, the transition of some Cold War liberals to neoconservatism, the Democratic Party's embrace of neoliberalism and the rise of "Atari Democrats," the cultural phenomenon of "owning the libs," the association of the professional managerial class with contemporary liberalism, and potential new political vocabularies beyond the "liberal" label, and more.

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Check out Danny and Derek’s recent appearance on the Michael & Us podcast talking about Barry Levinson’s 1997 satire Wag the Dog.

In Barry Levinson and David Mamet's WAG THE DOG (1997), a political spin-doctor teams with a movie producer to fake a war and save an incumbent president. You've heard of manufacturing consent, but to what extent can Hollywood and Washington manufacture reality?

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Danny and Matt Christman from Chapo Trap House talk about “The Suicide Squad,” the latest cinematic masterpiece from the DC Universe. They go into director James Gunn’s fetish for subversion, the exhaustion of liberal culture, and how the film reflects the United States’ long-standing and brutal relationship with Latin America.

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