#654 - Fascinating Fascism

Michael and Us

Luke Savage and Will Sloan

Society & Culture

4.5 • 696 Ratings

🗓️ 12 September 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Leni Riefenstahl remains the most famous of all Nazi propagandists, but to what extent can films like Triumph of the Will be rescued from their fascist origins. The revelatory new documentary RIEFENSTAHL (2024) argues persuasively: not at all. Join us on Patreon for an extra episode every week - https://www.patreon.com/michaelandus "Fascinating Fascism" by Susan Sontag - https://www.nybooks.com/articles/1975/02/06/fascinating-fascism/

Transcript

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0:00.0	my audio drivers do not seem like they're properly set up so allow me to correct this and we are
0:16.2	off to the fucking races you sound better now yes that yes. That's right. I sound way better.
0:21.6	You know what I discovered, Will? I discovered that on Zoom, there's now something called the AI companion. And you know what that is? Well, I'll tell you. Question. Do you get to have sex with it? Is it that kind of a companion? I mean, you can have sex with anything if you want to. True. I'm not here to stop you or, you know, erect prohibitions of any kind.
0:42.0	Pun intended.
0:43.0	No, there's this thing called the AI companion.
0:45.4	Apparently this will like listen to our conversation and then it will provide us with like
0:49.4	minutes or a transcript of the conversation after, which like like, I guess we wouldn't need the latter
0:57.1	because obviously, as we've long established and long been, you know, quite transparent
1:02.2	about on this show, all these conversations are scripted.
1:05.4	Like, we wrote this, what was it?
1:06.9	Back in July, I think we wrote this one, right?
1:09.2	Yeah, I mean, we have a superpower here kind of
1:11.7	similar to Nicholas Cage in the movie Next, where folks will call it in that movie. He had a
1:16.9	superpower where he could predict what would happen like two minutes in the future. We're like
1:21.7	that six months in the future, but only for things the people say on Twitter. Welcome to Mike Lentuss. I'm Will Sloan. Here is always with.
1:30.2	Luke Savage, welcome back, everyone. Just here with our new third Mike, the AI companion.
1:36.3	Already, I feel the AI companion kind of messing up the normally easy chemistry of the podcast.
1:42.4	I mean, normally, you know, you and me get us together. We're like
1:45.6	Abbott and Costello. We're like Coltrane and Davis. We're like any of the great duos. But now all
1:50.9	of a sudden, the AI companion has come in, you know, like we've become a thruple. And suddenly the
1:56.2	balance is off. I don't know what to do about that. Well, the big thing that everybody has been talking about
2:01.5	this past week has, of course, been the killing of Charlie Kirk. I think Luke and I are
	...

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