The Professional Left Podcast with Driftglass and Blue Gal

Episode 1023 tracks how Republicans keep telling us who they are, from Darren Bailey embracing young-earth creationism to Trump calling Democrats "the enemy from within" over and over again. Driftglass and Blue Gal line up years of Trump's own words describing political opponents as existential enemies, then ask a hard question: if the Right sees this as a real war, shouldn't we believe them and plan accordingly? The episode also catches Erick Erickson, a longtime Trump critic turned supporter turned critic again, warning about white nationalist infiltration of conservative institutions, proving that even his own allies can't escape the monster he helped build. It's a call to stop assuming compromise will work with people who have told us plainly that compromise was never their goal. Links for this episode: Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1022 asks what history's hardest lessons — Reconstruction's collapse, the Allies' insistence on unconditional German surrender — have to teach about defeating a movement built on grievance and racial resentment rather than "economic anxiety." Driftglass and Blue Gal make the case for treating the whole GOP as an enemy of democracy, not a rival to reconcile with, and for why repetition of hard truths may be the only weapon the Left has left. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1021 exposes a $6 million Republican ad campaign that manipulated grieving parents of murder victims into unknowingly slandering North Carolina Senate candidate Roy Cooper with lies their own children's killers had nothing to do with. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace how this fits a decades-old pattern — Fox News and Hate Radio building a toxic "coal ash pond" of propaganda so complete that facts bounce off true believers, illustrated by journalist Barton Gellman's failed attempt to fact-check a January 6th supporter into reality. The episode contrasts that with Illinois' actual record — credit rating upgrades, record tourism, real economic gains — that MAGA voters refuse to acknowledge no matter how much evidence piles up. It's about what happens when lies become load-bearing walls in people's minds, and why no amount of truth can dislodge them once they're structural. Links for this episode: Question Everything Link: https://www.kcrw.com/shows/question-everything/stories/3-the-journalist-and-the-firefighter Gellman Atlantic Link: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/ News and Observer Link: https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article317086926.html Capitol News Link: https://capitolnewsillinois.com/news/sp-global-upgrades-illinois-credit-rating/ Links for this episode: Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1020 opens with a deep dive into the Snoopy vs. the Red Baron novelty songs — where continuity gets rewritten and enemies become "friends" who never have to answer for their body counts — before turning that fairy tale into a warning about how Republican history keeps getting whitewashed the same way. Snoopy shoots down the Red Baron, then toasts him as a "friend" — no accountability, no memory. Sound familiar? Bush's real damage to America's reputation got erased, replaced by the fictional Obama "Apology Tour" lie. Now ask: who fixes what Trump broke, and how? More at proleftpod.com. Links for this episode: Driftglass on The Bob Cesca Show https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-9-2-26/ Driftglass on The Nicole Sandler Show https://nicolesandler.com/9-2-26/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1019 asks the question rarely posed — "Is our Republicans learning?" — and finds them relearning the exact same 2006 playbook: distance yourself from an unpopular president, rebrand as "independent," and blame everyone but yourselves. Driftglass and Blue Gal line up MAGA voters furious about tariff-driven beef prices, ICE snatching their own spouses, and grocery costs, all while insisting none of it is their fault after voting for Trump three times. The episode traces the eerie parallel between Bush's 2006 collapse — GOP candidates scrubbing his name from campaign ads and a mass rebranding into "independents" that eventually became the Tea Party and then MAGA — and today's Illinois Republicans barely mentioning Trump's name at the state fair. It's about pattern recognition as the Left's greatest weapon, and why this time "the lifeboats" need to burn. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1018 features Driftglass in conversation with Dr. Cinde Wirth, the Democrat running to flip Indiana's 6th Congressional District. A seventh-generation Bartholomew County Hoosier, high school science teacher, and first-generation college graduate with a Ph.D. in cultural and educational policy, Wirth brings an unusual résumé to the race — including a stint as a congressional fellow writing science and education policy. The conversation covers what drove her to run for office, her priorities around working families, public education, healthcare access, and the environment, and what it takes to flip a seat in deep-red Indiana. It's a chance to hear directly from a candidate who says Hoosiers are worth the fight. Her website: Wirth For Congress: https://wirth4congress.com/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1017 puts a decade of Never Trump confessions on trial, dissecting this unusual week where Tim Miller, Stuart Stevens, Rick Wilson, and Joe Scarborough all admitted, in various roundabout ways, that they'd known the Republican base was rotten all along. Driftglass and Blue Gal ask the only question that matters — did they know, or were they delusional? — and prove with two decades of receipts that they knew, they profited from it, and now they're profiting again by pretending to be "the first ones brave enough to say so." (Fun Fact: Rick can't even get the timeline right.) The episode also honors Dolly Parton, contrasts a manosphere UFC event (that may have killed the manosphere) with Zohran Mamdani's genuinely joyful "bro culture," and shows Abdul El-Sayed outmaneuvering Jesse Watters by refusing the culture-war bait entirely. It's about judgment as a moral obligation, not a sin, and why remembering things accurately is the one thing the Never Trump grift can never survive. Links for this episode: GQ Link: https://www.gq.com/story/ufc-at-the-white-house Mamdani’s Bro Culture https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/nyregion/mamdani-bro-culture-sports.html Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1016 puts Tone Policing on trial, tracing the long history of the powerful lecturing the powerless about civility while dodging the actual substance of their protests — from abolitionists to MLK to anti-war marchers, memory-holed by CNN in 2005. Driftglass and Blue Gal revisit David Brooks' unhinged 2005 meltdown over Harry Reid daring to question the Iraq War intelligence, proving that the Tone Police always overreact hardest exactly when someone hits a nerve. That pattern plays out live this week when Jon Ossoff makes one factually accurate remark about Trump's laziness and his aide, Natalie Harp, triggering a Fox News meltdown, a Newt Gingrich tantrum, and a media firestorm that made "Natalie Harp" the most-searched name in Washington. The episode's verdict is simple: until Democrats are out from under MAGA fascism, f**k Courtesy Class. Links for this episode: The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/19/trump-white-house-attacks 2005 NBC Transcript: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9438988 The Hill: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/6036115-ossoff-calls-trump-crook/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1015 takes apart James Carville, the "rusted-out antique device" who trashes progressives on Fox News over a single deleted Thanksgiving tweet and then pivots to backing the very candidate he just attacked, all while forgetting his own most famous line ("It's the economy, stupid"). Driftglass and Blue Gal do the math on his supposed DSA takeover panic — two national officeholders versus 257 mainline Democrats — and coin a new verb, "Carvilling," for pundits who tantrum toward MAGA cameras whenever Democrats won't chase imaginary hippies. The episode also solves a year-and-a-half mystery: why Jamelle Bouie waited so long to demolish a David Brooks column, tracing it back through Bob Herbert, Paul Krugman, and Reagan's Neshoba County dog whistle to an unwritten New York Times rule against columnists attacking colleagues in print. It's about faithless allies, decibels versus messaging, and the actual math behind a manufactured crisis. Links for this episode: Driftglass on The Bob Cesca Show – https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-8-12-26/ Driftglass on The Nicole Sandler Show – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyneHDGQkr8 Carville on CNN https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/05/politics/james-carville-election-what-matters Jamelle Bouie, full video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46tpqFxfomI More at proleftpod.com. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1014 dismantles the "Democrats in Disarray" panic after Dr. Abdul El-Sayed's progressive primary win in Michigan, tracing Third Way's $15 million war chest against democratic socialism back to nearly identical Red Scare rhetoric almost a century ago. Driftglass and Blue Gal prove that the same "socialism!" screeching Republicans threw at Obama just two weeks into his presidency in 2009 is word-for-word the same panic thrown at another Democrat facing deep economic crises a century earlier. That "Red Scare" was funded then by Hearst's media empire and is now funded by Big Pharma, Big Banks, and Big Tech. The episode also indulges in a little well-earned schadenfreude over a solar-industry-funded super PAC quietly picking off the Republicans who sabotaged clean energy, one primary at a time. It's about corporate "centrist Democrats" manufacturing a crisis, media amnesia as a weapon, and why the same lies have been recycled for 100 years. Links for this episode: https://www.newsweek.com/we-are-all-socialists-now-82577 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/06/us/politics/democratic-party-socialists-moderates.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/03/centrist-democrats-launch-new-pledge-moderate-party/ https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brooks-and-capehart-on-what-progressive-primary-wins-mean-for-democrats https://www.commondreams.org/news/cheri-bustos-next-american-era https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/29/fema-democratic-disaster-requests-trump-01013938 https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/us/politics/kennedy-center-tours.html https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2026-07-31/alaska-road-permit-shows-how-trump-upends-business-norms https://crooksandliars.com/2026/08/theres-nothing-we-could-do-cornyn-concedes https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/10/white-house-max-miller-pressure-campaign-01031353 https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/10/trump-vaccine-executive-order-autism.html https://www.politico.com/news/2026/08/07/how-solar-donors-helped-take-down-a-trump-backed-republican-01028209 More at proleftpod.com. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Driftglass sits down with Blue Rep in a Red State! Democratic State Representative Gregg Bush of Missouri is in the superminority in the Missouri State Legislature. We go over Tuesday's Missouri ballot initiative and how Missouri voters turned back a Republican attempt to take their power away. Also, the future of the Democratic Party, and how a Covid-era nurse got elected to the State House. All this and more in this truly fascinating conversation. More at proleftpod.com. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

In a special crossover episode, Driftglass sits down with Matthew Sheffield of Flux and the Theory of Change podcast — a journalist with a genuinely unusual vantage point on American radicalization. Sheffield grew up in a fundamentalist Mormon family, left that world, then spent years as one of the internet's first conservative bloggers before walking away from that movement too, disillusioned by its hostility to facts and to people. The conversation explores why things are happening the way they are in politics, religion, and media, rather than just chasing the next news cycle. It's a rare chance to hear two people compare notes from opposite sides of the same long road out of, and against, movement conservatism. More at proleftpod.com. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1011 argues that the Fauci witch hunt and the White House Correspondents' Dinner were the same show: theater staged to give a cult desperate for a villain someone new to hate. Driftglass and Blue Gal use Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death" to describe legacy media pundits partying safely behind castle walls while the plague of modern Republican fascism finally breaks through the door. The episode names the psychological trap keeping disengaged voters stuck in "Yeah, but Democrats..." thinking, and exposes how devastating SNAP cuts are quietly starving hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans while being sold as "reform." It's about who the real cavalry is, why nobody's coming to save us but us, and why the midterms are the only thing that can pull the brakes on a car that no longer has any. Links for this Episode: Driftglass on The BradCast https://bradblog.com/?p=18314 Driftglass on the Nicole Sandler Show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozwmgb421eI Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1010 dissects the White House Correspondents' Dinner disaster, where Trump used his own celebration of press freedom to attack the journalists in the room with vile personal insults. Driftglass and Blue Gal replay a decade-old clip from their own archives—recorded the week Trump effectively won the 2016 nomination—to prove that Liberals saw this coming while the legacy media obsessed over Hillary's emails. The episode argues the real scandal isn't Trump's cruelty, which was never a mystery, but a media class that keeps getting blindsided by exactly what it refuses to honestly examine. It's about pattern recognition, receipts a decade old, and why nothing about the GOP or its media enablers has gotten better—only worse. Link for this episode: Status. https://www.status.news/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1009 asks what happens when you're 20 miles into the political marathon and there's no cavalry coming over the hill to save the day. Driftglass and Blue Gal explore the difference between American "hero arrives just in time" storytelling and the harder truth found in movies like Spotlight and Lincoln—where victory comes from grinding, patient work, not a last-minute miracle. The episode confronts what it feels like to hit The Wall after decades of activism that moved the needle but not nearly far enough, while also finding real hope in how DSA ideas about time, freedom, and healthcare are quietly winning the battle of ideas. It's about exhaustion, endurance, and why you should never take political advice from your enemies. This week, thanks again to Hal Sparks who had Driftglass on Monday. Bob Cesca and Nicole Sandler who put up with him for an hour each, back to back, on Wednesday. Hal Sparks https://www.youtube.com/live/QPVAxnKjtV4 Bob Cesca show https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-7-22-26/ Nicole Sandler show https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2acNSp9cNVg More links from the episode: https://patricemersault.substack.com/p/part-2-i-went-to-a-meeting-of-young https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/dont-take-advice-from-your-enemies https://campaign-trails.ghost.io/punching-left/ The Internet Kitty’s book, “Futura” https://www.amazon.com/Futura-Michael-Laser/dp/B0G9Q9GSTF/ref=sr_1_9 Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1008 continues the "No Fair Remembering Stuff" retrospective: Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the throughline from Biden's early economic wins and Republican obstruction, through the January 6th hearings, to broke state GOP parties and Bari Weiss's billionaire-funded "anti-woke" grift. This sad yet hilarious episode reveals how the same media failures—perpetual surprise at good economic news, endless both-siderism, and refusal to name who actually funds Republican radicalization—keep repeating no matter the year. It's proof that the receipts have been there all along, for anyone willing to look. Link for this episode: Driftglass on Hal Sparks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPVAxnKjtV4 Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1007 celebrates Blue Gal's birthday with a nostalgic trip through 16 years of podcast archives, revisiting what was happening in politics on or around her birthday each year since 2010. Driftglass and Blue Gal trace a remarkable through-line from the Tea Party's rise and the "Evil, Stupid, or Crazy" game, through Obama-era both-siderism, Trump's 2016 takeover, and the pandemic's collapse of conservative respectability. The episode reveals how the same cast of media enablers and Republican radicals keeps reappearing decade after decade, proving some patterns never change even as the crises get bigger. It's part one of a two-part birthday retrospective, with 2021 through 2026 still to come. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1006 uses the beloved 1990 teen rebellion movie "Pump Up the Volume" to ask a deeper question: what happens when you take "Truth is a virus" and unrestricted free speech into the real world, where the fascists aren't outsiders trying to break in—they're already running the show? Driftglass and Blue Gal trace the death of the Fairness Doctrine in 1987 through the rise of Hate Radio, Gingrich's language wars, Citizens United, and the collapse of every institution that was supposed to protect democracy from tyranny. The episode explains why lying became profitable, why corporate media's "Both Sides" obsession taught citizens that democracy was somebody else's job, and why an uninformed public is the only thing tyranny has ever needed. It's about how free speech got inverted, and why the FCC villain in a 1990 teen movie may have been onto something after all. Links for this episode: The movie “Pump Up The Volume” (1990) is streaming ($) on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home. Clips are available on YouTube. Music from the “Pump Up The Volume” soundtrack can be found at this YouTube playlist: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjDvaXwceFJTg_uhw4cymaJGtBdJZT7OJ&si=RxUS9h7X1OeGsbY2 Music clips from this episode: Was Not Was: Dad, I’m In Jail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MZKkz4xefk Above the Law: Freedom of Speech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q338zPrnwGw The movie “Pump Up The Volume” (1990) is streaming ($) on Amazon Video, Apple TV Store, and Fandango At Home. Clips are available on YouTube. Driftglass on other podcasts! Nicole Sandler https://nicolesandler.com/7-8-26/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

Episode 1005 of The Professional Left makes the case that if you really want to understand America — not a focus group of twelve Trump voters in Florida, not three congressional primaries in Brooklyn, not the punditocracy's endless parade of confident predictions about things they fundamentally don't understand — you should probably be paying attention to Illinois, the most statistically representative state in the country, which the elite media treats as flyover country and nothing more. Driftglass and Blue Gal dispatch the Maine Senate mess quickly and cleanly, remind everyone of the crucial difference between how Democrats handle scandal and how Republicans do, and then spend the bulk of the episode doing what almost no one else in political media bothers to do — reporting on what an actual Democratic majority government looks like when it's governing well. The episode also takes a long, hard look at the prediction industrial complex and why mistaking a focus group for a national trend, or a New York City primary for a Democratic Party revelation, is not journalism — it's just filling airtime between mattress ads. Illinois, it turns out, has all the answers. Too bad nobody's asking. Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show

It goes in circles but never gets anywhere It’s all horses’ asses And there is no brass ring. Driftglass on the Bob Cesca Show : https://www.bobcesca.com/the-bob-cesca-interview-driftglass-day-7-1-26/ Stay in Touch! Email: proleftpodcast@gmail.com Website: proleftpod.com Support via Patreon: patreon.com/proleftpod or Donate in the Venmo App @proleftpod Mail: The Professional Left, PO Box 9133, Springfield, Illinois, 62791 Support the show