Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior

On our one billionth week in self-isolation, we discuss the trauma of the coronavirus crisis and how it’s reshaping our political landscape. We conclude with a special interview with Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker kidnapped from Crimea and imprisoned in Russia for his activism. Sentsov’s story of persevering under brutal conditions, and never surrendering his commitment to his art and his principles, is one that we need to hear in these dark times of self-imposed isolation.

We discuss how Trump, a life-long mobster and aspiring autocrat, is trying to shake down individual states and deny medical workers and their patients life-saving equipment. While he is more overtly sadistic to so-called “blue” states, Trump is also endangering residents of so-called “red” states – and that dichotomy is going to get worse as the crisis moves over the next few months from hard-hit big cities like New York to rural areas that no longer have hospitals thanks to GOP defunding.

We call out the disaster capitalists running this horror show, including Treasurer Steven Mnuchin, one of the only people who profited off of Bernie Madoff’s ponzi scheme and who currently serves as an oligarch lackey about to make yet another fortune off a tragedy. We delve into the history of this sadistic corporate culture.      

On the first Gaslit Nation recorded from self-quarantine from a pandemic, we discuss the terrible political, psychological, and economic toll of the coronavirus. The pandemic has exposed our nation’s hypocrisies and flaws, including income inequality and corruption. The coronavirus catastrophe is currently being overseen by a group of kleptocratic lackeys like Pence, Mnuchin, Miller, and, of course, Jared Kushner. 

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and we’re feeling…not particularly great about that! In this special pre-quarantine Gaslit Nation, we discuss the coronavirus and its potential to revolutionize the world. This is a terrifying time in human history, and every country’s flaws and vulnerabilities are being exposed. This is a time when we need to pull together, and help each other with the determination and compassion that so many doctors and medics and others have shown in the afflicted nations.