Hey everybody. Welcome to the Muckrake podcast on Jared Yates Sexton. No Nick

Houseman today. It's taking the day off, out on vacation somewhere in beautiful, beautiful

California, which is unfortunate because I think if Nick was here,

I think he would get a real kick out of talking about the biggest story in the world,

which is, of course, Will Smith slapping Chris Rock live on the Oscars,

and the resulting media firestorm that is developed around

it. We have a lot more important things to talk about today, including Jenny Thomas getting caught,

wanting to overthrow the Democratic presidential election of 2020.

A federal judge saying that Donald Trump probably committed felonies in trying to overturn that election.

And, you know, the fate of democracy and so much more.

But I do want to talk about that incident real fast.

Not for the pop culture components of it. I think that is a pretty thin gruel, to be honest with you, and also symptomatic of a lot of what's

wrong with the United States of America and Western culture as it has created and proliferated around the world.

But I think it's a weirdly enough, a really instructive moment for something larger that we have to discuss.

This is one of those moments where, you know, as a college professor,

you see something happened that maybe catches the attention of everybody for just a moment.

And then you go in the classroom and you're like, you know what? Let's break this down for

just a quick little second. So if you'll allow me, I want to give you my take on all of this. For anybody who

doesn't know, I can't imagine at this point that anybody has avoided this discourse because this

was a perfect pop culture moment for what this country has become.

It included violence.

It included mysteries of compulsion.

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