Venezuela, Greenland, Minnesota: The Monarchical Theory That Explains Everything

Straight White American Jesus

Axis Mundi Media: Bradley Onishi + Daniel Miller

News, Politics

4.7 • 2K Ratings

🗓️ 12 January 2026

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode of Straight White American, Jesus, Brad Onishi kicks off 2026 by unpacking a new framework that helps make sense of the escalating cruelty, chaos, and seemingly self-destructive moves of the Trump administration—from ICE violence in Minnesota to threats against Greenland and Venezuela. Drawing on a recent paper by scholars Stacey Goddard and Abraham Newman, Brad introduces “neo-royalism”: a vision of power that rejects democracy in favor of loyalty to a sovereign, enforced by political, economic, and military elites. This theory, Brad argues, clarifies Trumpism as a project of extraction, hierarchy, and domination rather than governance, and mirrors the core argument of his forthcoming book, American Caesar: How Theocrats and Tech Lords Are Turning America into a Monarchy. Brad shows how neo-royalism operates both abroad—through tariffs, territorial threats, and deal-making with other strongmen—and at home, where protection, funding, and even basic rights are treated as rewards for loyalty to the king. He connects this logic to Christian nationalism’s shift from nostalgia for the 1950s to a far older vision rooted in monarchy, divine right, and exclusion, where cruelty is justified and institutions are dismantled because they limit absolute power. The episode closes with updates on the show’s expanded 2026 plans, including new long-form Sunday interviews and the launch of Reign of Error with Sarah Posner, plus an invitation to subscribers to dive deeper into how neo-royalism, Christian nationalism, and authoritarian politics are reshaping the American experiment. Goddard and Newman, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-organization/article/further-back-to-the-future-neoroyalism-the-trump-administration-and-the-emerging-international-system/ABB12906CA345BBCA5049B544363D391 Reign of Error: https://redcircle.com/shows/fbed712f-0027-40af-a33b-fd9de05efc5chttps://redcircle.com/shows/fbed712f-0027-40af-a33b-fd9de05efc5c Subscribe: https://axismundi.supercast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	AXIS Mundi.
0:12.4	To succeed in the future of work, forward thinkers use AI to deliver measurable results.
0:19.6	Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that
0:22.6	frees you from the mundane so you can focus on more meaningful work. Workday, moving business forever
0:28.5	forward. Welcome to Straight White American Jesus. I'm Brad Onishi, author of the forthcoming,
0:34.6	American Caesar. How theocrats and tech lords are making America into a monarchy.
0:41.0	I'm also the founder of Access Moody Media.
0:43.6	Today I want to talk about Venezuela and Greenland. I want to talk about what's happening in
0:48.4	Minnesota. And I want to do that by discussing a new theory that I think explains what's happening in this country, what's
0:56.4	happening with ICE and immigration and the cruelty, what's happening with the threat to
1:01.1	invade Greenland, tariffs, and all of those things.
1:04.5	It's called neolroyalism, and I think it will help you understand Trumpism in ways you have never been, have never before.
1:14.0	A lot to cover. Let's do it.
1:35.1	Thank you. All right, y'all, welcome to 2026.
1:39.4	We have exciting plans for this year for our show.
1:45.6	One of them is we're going to be moving our interviews to Sundays, and we'll start that at the end of January.
1:49.9	And you're going to hear a kind of chorus of voices in those interviews.
1:53.0	We're going to be looking at them as a kind of Sunday long form.
1:58.7	And they'll be expanded to more like an hour or around there.
2:04.7	And you'll hear me, Brad, but you'll also hear Leah Payne, who's the host of Spirit and Power and just an award-winning podcast or an author, somebody who you've heard on this show many times.
2:10.8	And also, Anika Brock Schmidt, who is somebody you've heard on this show, is an author and a journalist,
2:21.6	and to me, one of the most insightful voices on these topics around.
	...

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