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Straight White American Jesus

The Sunday Interview: Synthetic Hate: How AI Fuels the Far Right

Straight White American Jesus

Axis Mundi Media: Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

News, Politics

4.72K Ratings

🗓️ 31 May 2026

⏱️ 61 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this episode, hosts Annika Brockschmidt and Roland Meyer sit down with media scholar Roland Meyer to dissect the unsettling intersection of generative AI, right-wing extremism, and the emerging aesthetics of digital fascism. Meyer, a professor at the University of Zurich, breaks down why AI-generated visual culture is uniquely suited for far-right propaganda. Rather than acting as a neutral mirror of reality, these algorithms are structurally nostalgic—relying on past training data to build idealized, hyper-masculine mythologies, clean ethnic landscapes, and weaponized "slopaganda." From American frontier myths to European Islamophobic imagery, Meyer explains how mass-produced, engagement-optimized AI content is being actively weaponized to construct collective, racist fantasy worlds at an unprecedented scale. The conversation pushes past simple deepfakes to examine the darker political economy and Silicon Valley ideologies underlying the modern tech ecosystem. Meyer and the hosts unpack the rise of "slop"—voted Merriam-Webster’s word of the year—and how algorithmic distribution networks reward dehumanizing depictions of marginalized groups while turning tech leaders into gladiatorial icons. By exploring how figures like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel's Alex Karp, and Charlie Kirk use these tools, the episode exposes a shared tech-authoritarian vision. This ideology frames AI not as a tool for public good, but as an unregulated, masculine force engineered for white, Western dominance, proving that the struggle over generative AI is fundamentally a battle over who controls the future of reality. Subscribe for $3.65: ⁠https://axismundi.supercast.com/⁠ Subscribe to our free newsletter: ⁠https://swaj.substack.com/⁠ Order American Caesar by Brad Onishi: ⁠https://static.macmillan.com/static/essentials/american-caesar-9781250427922/⁠ Donate to SWAJ: https://axismundi.supercast.com/donations/new Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

AXIS Mundi.

0:12.5

What's up everyone? Brad Onishi here with the one and only Reza Oslon, and we've got something

0:19.5

you do not want to miss.

0:21.1

That's right, Brad. The brand new season of Our Seven Neighbors from the Interreligious Institute

0:26.0

at Chicago Theological Seminary is lives right now. And this year, the United States marks its

0:32.7

250th anniversary. We're stepping back to ask a big question. What is the real story of religion in America?

0:41.3

This season, we're lifting up the deep history of spiritual diversity in the United States

0:45.3

and revisiting the founders' very different visions for the role of religion and public life.

0:50.3

The truth is, there's never been just one religious story in this country.

0:53.3

There have always been many. Exactly.

0:55.0

From the earliest days of the Republic, debates about faith, freedom, pluralism, and power shaped the nation.

1:02.0

Some founders imagined a country with strong protections for religious liberty.

1:06.0

Others had narrower visions.

1:08.0

And alongside them were native traditions, enslaved African spiritual practices,

1:12.6

immigrant faith communities, all shaping America in ways that often go untold. Instead of repeating

1:19.1

a tidy, mythic narrative, this season tells a braver, more accurate story, one that honors the

1:24.3

breathtaking diversity that's always been here. If you care about how religion has shaped American democracy,

1:30.0

if you want to understand how spiritual communities have fueled movements for justice,

1:35.1

if you're ready for a fuller account of our shared history,

1:38.1

this season is for you from the Axis Mundi Podcast Network and Chicago Theological Seminary.

1:43.8

The new season of Our Seven Neighbors is streaming now wherever you get your podcasts.

2:07.7

Welcome to the Straight White American Jesus Sunday interview.

...

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