Hi, everyone. It's Jared Yates Sexton. We've got a jam-pack show today, but before we get to it, I just want to take a minute to let you know that my new book, The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia in the Coming Crisis, is now available for pre-order from Dutton Penguin Random House. Honestly, I am incredibly proud of this book, and I just can't wait for you to read it. This is the story of how our modern world was built and how we have arrived at this moment of just terrible crisis. It's a new history of how the powerful have used religion, conspiracy theories, and white supremacist lies to both enrich and empower themselves, and how all of those things have now brought us

to the brink of ruin. This was easily the hardest thing I've ever done. And I can't tell you

over the course of the research and of the writing just how much these current events have come

into focus. Again, that's the Midnight Kingdom, a history of power, paranoia,

and the coming crisis. If you haven't preordered a copy, why now go ahead and get that done?

All right. Now, on to the show.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Muck Wrecked podcast. I'm Jared Yates Sexton. And unfortunately,

Nick Housselman is not here today. Nick is out in the world doing

Nick things, which means that I am going to be manning the store for the next couple of days.

We'll have this podcast, and then on Friday, we'll have the Weekender Edition. A reminder,

all you have to do is go over to patreon.com slash muckrag podcast in order to go ahead and get a hold of that and join in on the muckray community and all of that good stuff, Patreon.com slash muckrake podcast.

Now, I hear a lot of you at home sighing saying, oh, I'm so sad that Nick is out in the world doing Nick business. Well, I have good news

for you. Here in just a little bit, after we talk about current events and what's going on and

some stuff that we're going to have to keep our eyes on, I have the one, the only, back by popular

demand, Sarah Kensier. And Sarah's coming on to talk about her new book.

They knew how a culture of conspiracy keeps America complacent. And I got to tell you, this conversation

is one of the best conversations that this podcast will ever feature. I am very, very proud of it.

Every time I talk to Sarah, I have a great time,

I learn, and of course it always feels good to talk to another person who, well, there's no other

way to put this, gets it. So hang on for a little bit. I'm going to go talk to Sarah, but before

we do, we have to talk about a development that this show is going to get deeper and deeper into

as the weeks and months and, God, I hope not, years progress.

...