The Chauncey DeVega Show

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 425: The Truth Report -- The American People Are Being Targeted and Manipulated By a Disinformation and Propaganda War Feb 06, 2025

Show notes

Lee McIntyre is a Research Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University and a Senior Advisor for Public Trust in Science at the Aspen Institute.

He is the author of many books including On Disinformation and How to Talk to a Science Denier.

Lee McIntyre explains how the American people are being systematically targeted in a disinformation and propaganda war by malign actors both here in the United States and from abroad with the goal of breaking reality, confusing them about the difference between facts and lies, undermining science and rational thought, and causing them to withdraw inward, abandon healthy community, and civic life and democracy.

McIntyre explains the concept and practice of propaganda and disinformation, its origins, and how the American people can educate themselves so that they can effectively resist.

Lee McIntyre also warns that President Donald Trump is a highly skilled and gifted propagandist and practitioner of disinformation who has no real peer or equal in recent American history – if ever.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

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HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

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https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Ep. 424: Author Dayton Ward is a Caretaker of the Star Trek Universe Jan 19, 2025

Show notes

Dayton Ward is a New York Times bestselling author or co-author of more than forty novels and novellas. His most recent Star Trek novel is Pliable Truths. Ward's essays and other writing have been featured at Tor.com, StarTrek.com, and Syfy.com

Dayton Ward reflects on his decades-long love of Star Trek, what it means to be creative for a living and his decision to "take the leap" later in life to become a full-time professional writer, how Star Trek fandom has changed over the decades, and what his wishes are for Star Trek to become in the future.

Chauncey DeVega journeys home for the New Year and Christmas holidays and has more adventures and challenges as the working-class child of an aging parent. Chauncey also reminds us that these are the good days before the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House and how we must keep our hearts open to the amazing examples of humanity and inspiration in our neighborhoods and day-to-day lives. Those experiences are fuel for the hope tank that Americans of conscience and honor will need to survive, resist, and eventually overcome the horribleness of the next four years and beyond.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

Ep. 423: The Truth Report -- Decoding Donald Trump's Great Power and Control Over the News Media Jan 10, 2025

Show notes

David Altheide is the Regents' Professor Emeritus on the faculty of Justice and Social Inquiry in the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University and author of many books including his most recent, "Gonzo Governance: The Media Logic of Donald Trump."

David Altheide explains how and why Donald Trump was and continues to be so amazingly skilled and gifted at manipulating the American news media – so much so that he was able to easily win back the presidency by defeating Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris.

Altheide warns that Donald Trump is now a type of meme and character who cannot be easily countered by traditional understandings of how politics, media, and society are supposed to function in a democracy.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Ep. 422: The Black Working Class are the Beating Heart of American Democracy Dec 19, 2024

Show notes

Blair Kelley is an award-winning author, historian, and scholar of the African American experience. She is currently the Joel R. Williamson Distinguished Professor of Southern Studies at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and the incoming director of the Center for the Study of the American South, the first Black woman to serve in that role in the center's thirty-year history. Her new book is Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class.

Blair Kelly discusses the relationship of the Black working class to the American story of striving, struggle, hope, endurance, tragedy, and triumph along the color line. She also intervenes against a dominant narrative that erases the Black working class from how the country's news media and other elites and general public conceptualizes what it means to be a "real American" and member of the "working class" in the Age of Trump and this era of authoritarian populist backlash and rage. Chauncey and Blair also reflect on their own experiences as proud members of the Black working class, and how they navigate being in elite spaces where that identity and experience makes many people uncomfortable and uncertain.

Chauncey DeVega continues to work through our collective emotions and the public mood in the aftermath of the 2024 Election, this time of growing dread, and Trump's imminent return to the White House. Chauncey also shares two powerful recent essays on Trump's return to power and this time of moral and larger societal crisis.

And Chauncey DeVega travels to the local cineplex and proceeds to share his reviews of the new movies Queer, Werewolves, Day of the Fight, and The Order.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

Ep. 421: Author Willy Vlautin Reflects on Being a Voice for the Working Class Nov 29, 2024

Show notes

Willy Vlautin is the guest on this week's special Thanksgiving Day episode of the podcast.

He is the author of seven novels including Lean on Pete, The Motel Life, and The Night Always Comes. His new book is The Horse. He is the founder of the bands Richmond Fontaine and The Delines.

Willy reflects on his life journey and working-class roots, the challenges of being creative for a living, how music helps to sustain him, and what it means to him to write working-class stories about strivers and survivors and why janitors and waitresses deserve their own novels too.

Chauncey DeVega continues his crusade against traditional Thanksgiving turkey dinners, and reflects on questions of gratitude and our collective and individual emotions in this time of great troubles and uncertainty following the 2024 Election and what comes next.

And Chauncey wades into the great controversary of the day: How should you navigate your relationship this Thanksgiving, the holiday season and beyond with your Trump-supporting family member(s)?

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

Ep. 420: The Corporate Democrats and the Mainstream News Media were the Midwives For Donald Trump's MAGA Victory in the 2024 Election Nov 18, 2024

Show notes

There are two guests on this week's special post-Election 2024 episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Heidi Siegmund Cuda is an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter, filmmaker, and bestselling author. Her Substack newsletter is Bette Dangerous. She is the co-host and producer of RADICALIZED Truth Survives podcast.

Heidi Cuda reflects on her emotions and feelings of rage, betrayal, demoralization and the dangerous allure of too much "hopium" following Donald Trump's defeat of Kamala Harris. Heidi Cuda also shares her thoughts on the role that white privilege, white rage, racism and sexism played in the defeat of Kamala Harris and the ascendance of Trump and the MAGA movement (and the likely end of multiracial democracy in America for the foreseeable future).

Henry A. Giroux is a leading social theorist and cultural critic. He is the author of many dozens of books. His most recent books include The Terror of the Unforeseen; Race, Politics, and Pandemic Pedagogy: Education in a Time of Crisis; Pedagogy of Resistance: Against Manufactured Ignorance; and Insurrections: Education in the Age of Counter-Revolutionary Politics. His forthcoming book (co-authored with Anthony DiMaggio) is Fascism on Trial: Education and the Possibility of Democracy.

Henry Giroux counsels that the American people are in for a nightmare with Trump's second rise to power and the regime of cruelty and trauma that he will unleash upon the country and the world. Giroux is very critical of the corporate Democrats and a mainstream news media that minimized and mocked the rage and pain of the tens of millions of Americans (and the millions of others who did not even bother to vote) who elevated Donald Trump as a savior in a moment of collective destruction.

Chauncey DeVega journeys to Trump Tower on Election night 2024 and shares his thoughts on the defeat of Kamala Harris and the rise of MAGA fascist America in real time.

Chauncey also reflects on his exhaustion, sadness, frustration, and feelings of futility and anger at his years of (mostly) ignored attempts to warn the American people and their elites about the growing dangers of Trumpism and how Donald Trump was easily going to defeat Kamala Harris and President Biden.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

Ep. 419: Election Day 2024 is Finally Here. Harris or Trump? What Comes Next? Nov 05, 2024

Show notes

There are four guests on this week's special Election Day 2024 episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show.

Joe Walsh was a Republican congressman and a leading Tea Party conservative. He is now a prominent conservative voice against Donald Trump and the host of the podcast The Social Contract with Joe Walsh.

D. Earl Stephens is the former Managing Editor at Stars and Stripes and the author of Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump's Very Important Letters. His Substack newsletter is Enough, Already!

Steven Beschloss is a journalist and author of several books, including The Gunman and His Mother. His Substack newsletter is America, America. His essays and other work have been featured in The New Yorker, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New Republic, Smithsonian and The Economist Intelligence Unit, among many others.

These four guests share their reasoning behind and predictions about the outcome of the 2024 presidential election and if Vice President Harris will win and American democracy will continue or if Dictator Trump will take power and unleash a reign of terror, revenge, and destruction on his personal and political enemies.

This week's guests also offer their expert insights about what happens after the 2024 Election, the necessity of democratic renewal, the likelihood of political violence and unrest, and how deeply broken the American people and their institutions and culture are for Donald Trump to even be the Republican Party's nominee and so very close, again, to victory.

Chauncey DeVega offers counsel that the American people and the pro-democracy movement need to prepare for the worst and hope for the best -- and do the necessary hard work -- to ensure the future of their multiracial pluralistic democracy and the American project.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

Ep. 419: The Truth Report -- The Lincoln Project's Stuart Stevens Predicts That Kamala Harris Will Win the 2024 Presidential Election Nov 04, 2024

Show notes

Stuart Stevens has worked as a strategist and consultant for the Republican Party at the highest levels including with the Dole, George W. Bush, Romney, and McCain presidential campaigns. He now serves as a senior advisor to the Lincoln Project, a political advocacy group founded by "Never-Trumpers" and former Republicans that is committed to defeating Donald Trump and his MAGA anti-democracy movement.

His most recent book is The Conspiracy to End America: Five Ways My Old Party Is Driving Our Democracy to Autocracy.

Stuart Stevens explains why he believes that Vice President Kamala Harris will defeat Donald Trump – by more than what the conventional wisdom suggests – to become the next President of the United States. However, Stevens warns that the weeks that follow may be some of the most dangerous and violent in the country's history.

To that point, Stuart Stevens is trying to prepare the American people for the reality that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement and the larger neofascist threat will not suddenly disappear or otherwise dissipate even if he and they are defeated on Election Day.

Stuart Stevens reflects on his role in creating today's Republican Party and why it is incapable of being fixed or salvaged because it has sold its soul to Donald Trump, MAGA, and American and global fascism.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Ep. 418: AEW Professional Wrestler Eddie Kingston Reflects on His Emotional and Mental Health Wellness Journey Oct 31, 2024

Show notes

Eddie Kingston is an American professional wrestler currently signed with AEW (All Elite Wrestling). Kingston is a twenty-year veteran who has wrestled for and held championships in leading promotions all around the world including New Japan Pro-Wrestling (NJPW) and Ring of Honor (ROH).

Eddie Kingston reflects on his life journey and decision to be open and vulnerable about his struggles to be a more mentally and emotionally healthy man as shown by his widely-read and viewed essays, social media posts, and videos in support of mental health and suicide prevention.

Chauncey DeVega and Eddie the "Mad King" Kingston also talk about the lost art of "kayfabe", promos and authenticity, and the importance of storytelling and the human dimension in the drama that is professional wrestling.

Chauncey DeVega continues to sound the alarm that Kamala Harris is likely going to be defeated by Donald Trump and feels a deep disturbance in The Force from Donald Trump's Madison Square Garden hate festival.

Chauncey is also very exhausted from doing battle with local slumlords and other life travails and is blessed to encounter a real-life superhero.

Hal Brown is the guest on a special bonus segment for this week's podcast. He is a clinical social worker and was one of the first members of the Duty to Warn group.

Hal Brown has extensive expertise in working with multiple personality disorder (now called dissociative identity disorder). His daily essays on American politics and society can be read at his eponymous blog here.

Hal Brown reflects on his four decades of experience as a clinician and shares some advice and insights about managing our emotions, trying to be healthy, and doing the things that make us happy as a way of fighting back against despair and surrender when our society (and personal lives) often feel so dark and dire.

Hal Brown was in transit, and we spoke via phone. The bonus segment can be listened to at the end of the podcast.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via PayPal at ChaunceyDeVega.com

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow

Ep. 417: The Polls Show That Kamala Harris Will Likely Lose the 2024 Election to Donald Trump – Here is What She Must Do To Win Oct 23, 2024

Show notes

This is special joint episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report.

M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley. His new book is Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy's Edge.

Professor Fish returns to the podcast and warns that with less than two weeks until Election Day that Kamala Harris is at risk of losing to Dictator Trump because she has deviated from the high-dominance leadership style she used to crush him during their only debate and that gave the Democrats life after President Biden made the brave and honorable choice to stop aside.

Professor Fish outlines how Harris should emphasize Trump's extreme danger to the country, unfitness for office, counterprogram him at every rally and other event, and attack his ego.

Professor Fish also explains how Harris and the Democrats should emphasize their record of patriotism and economic growth to counter master propagandist Donald Trump's skill of doing horrible and unconscionable things -- and as well as making genius moves such as holding rallies in blue states such as New York and California -- to captivate the public and news media.

WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME?

On Twitter:

https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega

On Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega

My email:

chaunceydevega@gmail.com

HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW?

Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com:

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow