Political Junkie Podcast

Claire Potter and Neil J. Young
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Politics
  • Updated Weekly

Where contemporary history and politics meet the challenge of today. clairepotter.substack.com

  1. 2d ago

    The GOP’s Unwelcome Mat

    We began this episode with a June 30 clip of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis responding to the United States Supreme Court decision to uphold birthright citizenship. In a feat of MAGA cognitive dissonance, DeSantis was at The Villages, an age-restricted adult community in Central Florida, to unveil a statue of President Abraham Lincoln. Our theme music this week is Redemption Song, written by Bob Marley and sung by Johnny Cash and Joe Strummer, copyrighted music licensed from Lickd. White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller, the architect of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant campaign. Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * It was a big week at the Supreme Court. In addition to the birthright citizenship case, the court declined to take Donald Trump’s appeal of the verdict in the E. Jean Carroll sexual abuse case, and Carroll’s attorneys have asked the judge to release the $5 million damages—now $5.8 million. Here’s a summary of the full term by three experts assembled by the New York Times. The court also upheld existing state bans on transgender girls and women participating in sports designated for women—here is what the ruling has, and has not, settled. The court also rejected the Republican National Committee’s bid to override state laws on the counting and timing of mail-in-ballots. * Colorado held its primaries this week: the well-funded Michael Bennet will return to the Senate after State Attorney General Phil Weiser ate his lunch; at hte time we recorded, the Republican contest between Barb Kirkmeyer and Victor Marx was still too close to call; today, Marx appears to have taken the lead. * Also in Colorado, Democratic Socialists of America are still on a little roll: Melat Kiros, a lawyer and Ph.D. candidate at UC-Denver, toppled 68-year-old progressive incumbent Diana DeGette. Support for Israel appears to have been one issue, but Democratic voters discontent with the party establishment may be a bigger factor. * A series ads attacking Ken Paxton feature the Texas GOP Senate nominee’s moral failings as a husband. Presumably they are an attempt to heighten the contrast with Democrat James Talarico, a devout—and to all appearances, socially proper—Christian. This week, Talarico himself distributed the Daily Mail’s story about Paxton on his social media: not yet divorced, Paxton appears to have traveled to Iceland with a woman not his wife (a different one than the woman who appears to have precipitated the marital split.) But wouldn’t a high focus on 20 years of corruption be more effective? * A new Times/Siena poll reveals that Republicans are in a dogfight to hang onto the governors’ mansions in two red states, Iowa and Ohio, a bellwether state for 2028. Incumbent Republican Senator Jon Husted leads former Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown 50% to 47%, while tech bro Vivek Ramaswamy and physician Amy Acton are in a dead heat for the governor’s mansion—except that Acton is up by three points. That same poll indicates that control of the Senate is up for grabs, with six seats in play: Democrats must take four. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Dred Scott and Harriet Robinson Scott, who filed concurrent suits for their freedom in 1852. The Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 decision on the grounds that, as enslaved African Americans, they had no claim to citizenship, and that—as property—to free them violated the Fifth Amendment. Image credit: The Century Magazine/Wikimedia Commons News focus: Birthright citizenship survives the Trump administration—for now * Yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld the principle of birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara. The vote was 6-3 on the constitutionality of the executive order, but 5-4 on the core constitutional question: does the Citizenship Clause protect the children of people who are temporarily or illegally in the United States? * Two Trump-appointed associate justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh, voted with the majority on the EO; Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the decision, and Clarence Thomas wrote a 91-page dissent: Alito and Gorsuch wrote dissents; Associate Justice Jackson wrote a concurrence rebuking Thomas; and Kavanaugh wrote a concurrence in which he joined the minority on the constitutional question, and urged Congress to pass a law to amend birthright citizenship. You can read about it all here. * Caveat: much as Republicans promise that they will introduce a law to ban birthright citizenship outright, that too would be dead on arrival because of Barbara. The Constitution itself would have to be amended. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) claims he plans to spearhead that effort, while other Republican Senators vow to take up Kavanaugh’s invitation to legislate on the question of temporary or illegal status. * Why does birthright citizenship matter to our democracy? Here is how the citizenship clause of the 14th amendment of the Constitution has been commonly interpreted; here is the Trump administration’s argument against it. * Claire and Neil discuss history of birthright citizenship, how the concept has evolved legally since the Dred Scott case in 1857, and the importance of United States v. Wong Kim Ark (1898). In that case, the Supreme Court affirmed that Asian Americans born in the United States whose parents had been barred from naturalized citizenship were entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection. Nativists then turned to anti-immigration laws to limit the non-white population: the reform of these statutes began in 1952 with the McCarren-Walter Act. * Perhaps the most important reform, and the one most despised by today’s MAGA zealots, was the 1965 Hart-Cellar Act, which eliminated the racist quota system, prioritized highly skilled immigrants, and had a provision for family reunification. Today, most Americans support birthright citizenship. * It is this last provision that white nationalist Republicans have spun into a vast conspiracy theory, contending that the only way Democrats can win elections is by importing and “breeding” voters. It was Jeb Bush, as a presidential candidate in 2015, who promoted the myth of the “anchor baby,” a phrase that first emerged in 1987 in relation to a wave of immigrants fleeing communist Vietnam. * Since 2009, and the rise of the Tea Party movement, a Republican party moving right has leaned in hard on the idea that immigrants defraud the American people, and at the heart of any social and economic problems that may exist. * Trump-aligned forces are now elevating the harm of so-called “birth tourism,” and are vowing to stop all pregnant women who are not citizens at the border. Coming to the United States exclusively to give birth, and registering that child as a citizen under the Fourteenth Amendment, is already prosecutable as visa fraud and is a rare crime. What we want to go viral: * Neil just binged season three of “America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders” (Netflix, 2026), which follows this hard-working squad through the pains and gains of a new season’s selection process. * Claire wants you to read Louisa Thomas’s piece, “Serena Williams Returns to Wimbledon,” (The New Yorker, July 1, 2026) which delivers the sad news that age really does impose limits on the best, most ambitious, hardest-working, and most gifted of athletes. Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. You can also get all audio content for free by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 7m

  2. Jun 26

    It’s Not Easy Being Green

    We begin with a June 22 press conference, in which Donald Trump blames faceless, nameless enemies for the failed renovation of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool. Our theme music this week is Dirty Water, written by Ed Cobb and performed live by the Standells; copyrighted music licensed from Lickd. The Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool on the National Mall as it appeared on June 16, 2026, chokes with algae and with bits of the liner floating to the surface. Photo credit: G. Edward Johnson/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * On Monday, a federal judge in Minnesota unsealed a ruling that six elected officials in Minnesota, including Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison, were improperly subpoenaed in relation to resistance to federal immigration enforcement last winter. Patrick Schlitz, a George W. Bush appointee, said there was no plausible justification for this investigation aside from political retaliation. * New York City’s primaries are over: we saw big victories for candidates endorsed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, several of them dramatic upsets. Former city councilman Brad Lander defeated incumbent Dan Goldman for the nomination in NY-10; Assemblywoman Claire Valdez defeated Antonio Reynoso in NY-07; and in a major upset, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a doctoral student and pro-Palestinian activist, defeated Adriano Espaillat, a five term incumbent in NY-13 and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In NY-12, Micah Lasher dashed the dreams of multiple candidates, including Jack Schlossberg, in a $26 million primary mostly focused on the future of AI. * Yesterday, in a perhaps unprecedented act of petulance, Donald Trump canceled a signing ceremony for a major bipartisan housing bill that seeks expand the residential housing stock and limit the number of units that private equity companies can stockpile (hello, Jared Kushner!) The event was set up in the Capitol when, 90 minutes before it was supposed to start, Trump announced he would not sign it until Congress passed the SAVE Act, federal voting legislation that lacks the votes to pass in either chamber. Both majorities for the housing bill are veto proof—but will Republicans have the courage to not reverse their votes? * In Texas, nine protesters prosecuted as terrorists received decades-long sentences for a protest at a federal detention center that turned violent. They were prosecuted under a September 2025 executive order that designated “antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization. The sentences were longer than any sentence handed down for J6 defendants. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Claire’s favorite social media meme about the Reflecting Pool News focus: President Renovation Strikes Again * Donald Trump has committed over $1.2 billion to 18 different construction and renovation projects around Washington: he has produced conflicting statements about where the money for them is coming from, has made his projects a destination for donor money at the same time as taxpayer dollars are diverted to meet ballooning budgets. The historic Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool is only one of Trump’s efforts to put his stamp on the Capitol. It is an effort that has precedent: during Franklin Roosevelt’s four terms, he made Washington D.C. into a modern metropolis with federal dollars. * The Reflecting Pool has also become a metaphor for the President’s slumping popularity. Here is a timeline of the project, beginning on April 23, that has produced acres of green sludge and detached fragments of flag-blue pool liner. * A firm tied to Trump donor John Cafano got the no-bid contract, the bill for which came to over $16 million: Cafano, who resembles drag king Murray Hill, is a Mar-A-Lago neighbor. His company, Greenwater Contracting, won a no-bid federal contract last year to clean the Tijuana River—also a failure. The Reflecting Pool has been plagued with problems since it was created in the 1920s, and a new liner and filters were unlikely to address them. * Having claimed that the new pool liner was indestructible, Trump now blames vandals for the problem. He has surrounded the tourist attraction with security personnel, and threatened 10-year sentences for the mysterious figures he believes are responsible. U.S. Attorney Jeannine Pirro has vowed to prosecute the culprits. As the Anonymous X account pointed out, the Reflecting pPool is surrounded with security cameras, and any vandal should be easily detected; in other words, there is no evidence that this is anything but a renovation failure. * Yet, according to the Associated Press, in a court filing today a National Parks Service official attested that the liner was cut with a knife or other sharp object. * For historians, this is a relaxing, old-fashioned scandal: Claire and Neil point to Mayor William “Boss” Tweed’s court house at 52 Chambers Street in New York City, opened in 1881. Initially budgeted at $250,000, the Board of Supervisors began to smell a rat when the bill went over $3.1 million; an investigation showed that the project was a pass-through for payoffs and graft. Tweed was convicted of corruption in one of the unfinished building’s courtrooms in 1876. * However, it also seems like Trump, frustrated by problems of his own making, is returning to his roots to create the illusion of success. In 1975, in his first major Manhattan project, he bought the decrepit Commodore Hotel over Grand Central station and built the Grand Hyatt; and in 1986, he took over the renovation of Wollman Rink in Central Park. Another gag at Donald Trump’s expense found on social media. What we want to go viral: * Claire wants you to read (or listen tomorrow which is what she is doing) Tia Levings, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy (St. Martins, 2026.) Don’t miss our conversation about how this book does, and does not, teach us about the politics of gender on the Christian fundamentalist right, and why conservatives are so committed to the gender binary. * Neil is repping Spencer Kornhaber’s article about why a rapper is trying to take America back to the 1990s, “Vanilla Ice Knows When America Was Great,” (The Atlantic, June 24, 2026.) Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. You can also get all audio content for free by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 16m

  3. Jun 20

    No Donald, You Can’t Have A Pony

    We begin with a clip from the June 14 2026 UFC event on the White House Lawn, in which MMA fighter Josh Hokit declares that Jesus Christ is greater than Hulk Hogan and Michelle Obama is a man. Our theme music this week is Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas, copyrighted music licensed from Lickd. President Donald J. Trump and Dana White, President and CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship at the mixed martial arts event on Sunday, June 14, 2026, on the South Lawn of the White House. Photo credit: Andrea Hanks/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * Georgia had its primary on Tuesday: health care executive Rick Jackson beat out Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, and incumbent Senate Democrat Jon Ossoff got the opponent he wants: extremist Mike Collins. Ossoff also got an obscene new nickname from Donald Trump, who has now dubbed a sitting senator Jon Oss(jerk)off. The Jones loss is being read as an upset and a defeat for Trump, since the President endorsed him: but is it really? Since Jackson claims to be embracing a softer version of MAGA, that would mean that Trump, and the movement that brought him to power, are becoming two different things. In other news from The Peach State, election denier Vernon Jones lost his bid to represent the GOP on the Secretary of State ballot line. * Could the District of Columbia be putting a Democratic Socialist mayor right in Donald Trump’s back yard. It looks like it! Democrat Janeese Lewis George has took an early double-digit lead in the primary to replace centrist Muriel Bowser, and never let go of it: her opponent, Kenyan McDuffie, conceded earlier today. Lewis George currently represents Ward 4 on the D.C. Council—and as we know, the Democratic primary is basically the whole race. * Republicans have told us nonstop that cuts to the social safety net are just about fraud and waste, but ProPublica reports that as of this week, over 770,000 children have been cut from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), born in 1939 as a New Deal program commonly known as food stamps. Altogether, almost 1.7 million people have been dropped from federal food assistance using a common tactic: increasing the paperwork necessary to receive the benefit. * In yet another attack on LGBTQ+ people timed for Pride Month, on June 12, the Department of Veterans Affairs ordered VA hospitals to end gender-identity based initiatives, and to dismantle networks and services designed to support LGBTQ+ veterans. This includes mental health and cognitive behavioral health programs designed to help former service people cope with homophobia, as well as removing the presence of LGBT+ folks from the website. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Podcaster Joe Rogan interviews UFC Fighter Ilia Topuria at the ceremonial UFC Freedom 250 weigh-ins on the Ellipse, Saturday, June 13, 2026. Photo credit: Sgt. 1st Class Brittany Primavera/Wikimedia Commons. News focus: * On Sunday, Donald Trump celebrated his own birthday and launched a series of events intended to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence with an Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed-martial arts extravaganza on the White House lawn. It cost at least $60 million, which is said to have been absorbed by sponsors and by the UFC (Dana White, the CEO of the UFC, is a long-time friend of Trump’s.) It’s unclear whether this includes the $700,000 in security provided by the District of Columbia Police. * First of all, what is the UFC—and why do Trump—and other MAGA celebrities like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk—identify with it? The audience is largely male, and Trump has been involved with the sport since 2001, when he owned the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. UFC has also been welcomed to David Ellison’s new CBS: a televised event three months ago drew almost 2,5 million viewers. The UFC is worth over $1 billion, and has an overwhelmingly male audience. * The event sparks memories of other Presidents staging other controversial events at the White House. In 1837, Andrew Jackson installed a 1,600-pound block of cheese in the entrance hall of the White House and invited “the people” to come in and hack away at it; Jackson’s inauguration also turned into a riot, where the guests refused to leave and had to be lured out of the building with ice cream and whiskey punch. During the Senate inquiry into the Teapot Dome Scandal that began in 1923, it was revealed that President Warren G. Harding held smokers in the White House that featured illegal alcohol and fight films. In a different vein, Theodore Roosevelt was at the center of an uproar when he invited Booker T. Washington to dine with him at the White House. And there have been several presidents who have been characterized as rubes: Abraham Lincoln, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton spring to mind. * The New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg, thought it was significant that the UFC fight occurred on the same day that a memorandum of understanding was signed with Iran to end a needless and unprovoked war that has left the United States, and the world, in a worse position than it was before the conflict. Both things, she argues, indicate the nation’s decline. Here’s what the MOU says (it pretty much gives Iran everything they might want in exchange for nothing.) * There are risks to having high-profile events at the White House: the FBI claims to have made four arrests of people allegedly conspiring to attack the event with explosive drones. Apparently the investigation is ongoing: as usual, Keystone Kash announced it, presumably to nudge the Secret Service, which owns the operation, out of the limelight. Fourteen other people were arrested at the event for crimes like disorderly conduct and drug possession. * Hope Reeves, a liberal journalist, wrote about taking her teenage sons to the event, and their love for UFC fighting: what’s the argument about this being an entertainment for kids that isn’t so terrible? What we want to go viral: * Neil wants you to read Matt Flegenheimer, “New Yorkers Are Living in a Peculiar Harmony. Thank the Knicks” (New York Times, May 29, 2026). * Claire wants you to read Claire Hoffman’s “The Gospel of Erika Kirk: Leaning In with the Christian Women of TPUSA” (Rolling Stone, June 13, 2026). Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. You can also get all audio content for free by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 24m

  4. Jun 5

    Clap If You Believe in Fairies

    We begin with a clip from an ad circulated by Lone Star PAC that asserts Democratic candidate for Senate James Talarico is “too weak and weird for Texas.” Today’s theme music is “Lola” (2020 Stereo Remaster) by The Kinks; copyrighted music licensed from Lickd. On February 12, 2026, New Yorkers rallied at the Stonewall National Monument to protest the “de-gaying” of the federal site bu the Trump administration. Christopher Penler / Shutterstock.com In the News: * They still have almost half the ballots to count in California, but the field for the general election is starting to shape up. Republican Steve Hilton is currently leading the pack in the governor’s race, with Democrat Xavier Becerra, former Secretary of HSS in the Biden administration, a close second, and self-funded billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer a more distant third. Incumbent Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass has made it to the general election, but again—with almost half the ballots left to count, Republican reality TV star Spencer Pratt and LA City Council member Nithya Ramen are battling it out for the second spot. Becerra’s success was the big surprise in this election, with some observers claiming that Democrats are embracing establishment figures again. * In Iowa, paralympic athlete and Democratic state legislator Josh Turek soundly defeated his progressive colleague Zach Wahls for the Senate seat left vacant by Joni Ernst’s retirement; he’ll face Representative Ashley Hinson (IA-01), a self-described conservative mom who says she wants to make Washington D.C. run more like Iowa. * Late last week, a federal judge in Miami re-opened the settlement in Donald Trump’s lawsuit against the IRS, saying that the lawsuit itself was “a product of collusion and is itself a fraud on the court.” The White House seems to want to make another deal, signaling yesterday that it has abandoned a plan for a $1.8 billion fund to compensate the President’s various allies for their legal troubles. Both Republicans and Democrats have labeled the proposed compensation “a slush fund,” as has the libertarian Cato Institute; it is to be created as part of a large reconciliation bill currently on the House floor. Acting AG Todd Blanche was back in Congress defending the settlement on Tuesday. * Also last week, the Trump administration released new proposed guidelines by which all federal grants would be held to the litmus test of President Donald Trump’s political priorities. The guidelines turn Trump’s various executive orders into a federal regulation, and prohibit (among other things) grants to projects or groups that “deny the biological reality of sex or the sex binary in humans,” or initiatives that “promote anti-American values,” contribute to illegal immigration, advance diversity, equity and inclusion or assist in voter registration. Grants could also be terminated if the administration finds they are not in “the public interest.” * On Tuesday, we learned that Bill Pulte, a long-time Trump ally and currently head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, will become the acting Director of National Intelligence when Tulsi Gabbard departs in July. Pulte has no national security experience. At all. Pulte is independently wealthy, and came up with the genius scheme to go after Trump opponents Adam Schiff, Letitia James, and Lisa D. Cooke for mortgage fraud. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). USNS Harvey Milk, a John Lewis class replenishment ship in December, 2024. Named after gay activist Harvey Milk, a Navy veteran and the first openly gay man to be elected to office. On June 26, 2025, his name was stripped from the vessel and replaced with Medal of Honor winner Oscar V. Peterson. Photo credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Maxwell Orlosky/Wikimedia Commons News focus: * Last week, when the Democratic nominee for Senate in Texas, James Talarico, confirmed that he is in a relationship with a woman, Congressman Wesley Hunt (TX-38) quipped: “What’s his name?” Republican attacks on Talarico’s masculinity, sexual orientation, and gender identity beyond the fact that he defended LGBT+ people in the Texas legislature: they are part of a larger cultural attack on LGBT+ people. The ACLU is currently tracking 530 bills across the United States that attack LGBT+ rights. * Project 2025 took aim at policies that promoted LGBT+ equity and human rights. The document criticized USAID for imposing an LGBT+ “agenda” on African nations, referring to it at one point as “bullying.” It criticized HHS for LGBT+ family equity, saying such policies should be replaced with new rules that encouraged “marriage, work, motherhood, fatherhood, and nuclear families;” and that the agency had unjustly penalized those who had opposed pro-choice and LGBT equity policies on the grounds of conscience. It also argued that Trump should rescind ant-discrimination policies that prohibited “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, transgender status, and sex characteristics.” * On January 20, 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order eliminating federal recognition of transgender people: buried in that document were five orders to eliminate federal guidance on harassment and inequity by sexual orientation in schools and the workplace. * But LGBT+ people are also literally being erased from patriotic sites. In June, 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth renamed the USNS Harvey Milk, commissioned in 2021: he replaced Milk’s name with Medal of Honor winner Oscar V. Peterson, saying that he was “taking the politics” out of the military. * Since then, states have gone into motion to suppress discussion of LGBT+ people. Seven states have banned the teaching of all LGBTQ texts and topics from publicly funded schools (Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and North Carolina.) Arizona, Texas, Mississippi, and Oklahoma ban discussion of LGBT+ sexuality in sex ed; while Florida, Texas, Utah, and Iowa ban LGBT+ books from public and school libraries. All in all, 19 states have at least one law of this kind. * Utah, Idaho and Montana ban the flying of Pride or Black Lives Matter flags on public property; there are similar bills pending in Wisconsin, Tennessee and Ohio. Florida and Texas have prohibited street art, painting crosswalks, and bridge lighting with Pride themes. * Other than a 2019 Twitter thread, Donald Trump has never recognized Pride Month: in February, 2026, the National Parks Service removed the Pride flag from the Stonewall National Monument (it was restored after protests and a lawsuit.) However, references to transgender people have been removed from the physical site and the website, and NPS has put a pause on any donations to or research at the site. * But this year, MAGA has gone further, by choosing June as the month to celebrate heterosexuality, patriotism, and “traditional” values. In Arkansas, on May 27, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared June to be “Fidelity Month,” during which Arkansans are urged to commit to fidelity to God, family, community and country, all of which contribute to human flourishing and support a stable society. In Tennessee, Governor Bill Lee signed a proclamation in April that designated June “Nuclear Family Month.” Mike Braun of Indiana and Spencer Cox of Utah have signed similar proclamations. * Attacks against lesbian and gay people on social media have also accelerated. Representative Andy Ogles (TN-05) celebrated Pride Month by posting on X “Homosexuality has no place in America,” although he later claimed the post had been put up by an errant staffer. Meanwhile, South Carolina Congresswoman Nancy Mace, who will face Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette in that state’s Republican primary, has issued a campaign ad charging that Evette’s consulting company “took millions from the woke mob” to implement DEI. The ad is decorated with Pride and Trans flags. What we want to go viral: * Neil updates us on right-wing influencer and conspiracist Candace Owens’ new passion: Russia! In “Why Candace Owens Went to Russia” (The Free Press, June 3, 2026), Parker MacDougald digs into an infatuation that is becoming more common among MAGA dissenters—who may be running a massive propaganda operation on behalf of a foreign state. * Claire wants you to read Yudhijit Bhattacharjee’s “In Plain Sight” (The New Yorker, May 18, 2026), about a Guinean girl named Djena who was trafficked by her father, first to a highly placed political family in Guinea at 8. They then trafficked her to the United States at the age of ten to work as an unpaid servant for their daughter and her family. Important fact: over 70% of people trafficked to the U.S. are brought not for the sex trades, but for coerced labor. Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. You can also get all audio content for free by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 21m

  5. Jun 3

    What Trump Really Meant? Make America White Again!

    Thank you to everyone who tuned into this video live! In this bonus episode, recorded yesterday as a Substack Live, Princeton sociologist Paul Starr and I discuss his new article in The American Prospect, “Stephen Miller’s Impossible America: The ethnonationalist strategy for white replenishment won’t work” (May 26, 2026). Starr shows how multiple policy threads—pronatalism, deportation, and so-called “remigration” of ethnic Americans born and raised in the United States—support a fantasy that the United States can be the “white” nation that it never was. Listen and: You know how I am always asking you to support me? Well, do me a mitzvah and check out The American Prospect. A progressive journal of ideas, politics and power founded by Starr, Robert Kuttner, and Robert Reich, it is available online for free: this spring they eliminated intrusive programmatic ads. So, if you liked this conversation: What I’m reading: * Ling Ma, Severance (New York: Picador, 2019.) As far as I can tell this novel has nothing to do with the television show of the same name, and because it was written before Covid-19 pandemic, the deadly fungus that travels the globe to devastate American society is a figment of Ma’s imagination. The novel imagines an apocalypse created be unrestrained global capitalism, and which leaves virtually nothing but trash behind. It’s also a great read—which I can vouch for because I almost never read science fiction or futuristic fiction, I can’t put it down, and it won a basket of prizes. Also it’s pink! Short takes: * Democrats have plenty of good ideas—but unlike Republicans no coherent view of what the future should look like. “It is not that these policies are bad,” Jamelle Bouie writes at The New York Times. “Most of them, from what has been revealed, are good: worthwhile plans to break up utility monopolies, support child-rearing, regulate social media and artificial intelligence, and curtail corporate abuse. But none of this reflects or represents a far-reaching or comprehensive idea of what the nation might be.” (June 3, 2026) * Can the left rediscover the hope inherent in patriotism? Many on the left say no—despite the fact that social change has often appealed to the founding ideals. “That most Americans continue to be patriotic only demonstrates to these progressives their blindness to, if not complicity in, evils wrought by the men and women who rule the imperial state,” Michael Kazin writes at The Atlantic. “Leftists already have such harsh critics on their side. If they wish to govern, though, they will need to win over the majority of Americans who love their country but also believe that it needs to change. As the late Todd Gitlin, an erstwhile leader of the New Left, wrote a year after the attacks of 9/11: ‘It is time for the patriotism of mutual aid, not just symbolic displays, not catechisms or self-congratulation. It is time to diminish the gap between the nation we love and the justice we also love. It is time for the real America to stand up.’” (June 3, 2026) * Where in the world is Gregory Bovino? You remember Bovino—the Border Patrol guy who marched around Minneapolis in Nazi-adjacent gear? He’s in Portugal, according to Marion Soletty at Politico, mingling with “European far-right activists who advocate the mass deportation of immigrants and their descendants,” otherwise known as remigration. “In an interview with a far-right website ahead of the summit,” Solely continues, “Bovino — who didn’t wear his controversial coat — referenced Nazi Germany’s lead general Erwin Rommel as an inspirational figure and offered his help to end what he described as a ‘creeping horror,’ echoing racist terms used by far-right extremists to describe migrants.” (May 31, 2026) Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. You can always subscribe for free—but what about supporting us for as little as $5.00/month? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    29 min

  6. May 29

    We’re Not Dead Yet!

    We begin with a clip from Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus’s 2013 press conference, where he presented the autopsy on Senator Mitt Romney’s failed presidential campaign. Today’s theme is Luck Be a Lady written and performed by Frank Loesser. Copyrighted music licensed from Lickd. DNC Chair Ken Martin speaking at a Minneapolis, MN campaign event in November, 2020, when he was chair of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer-Labor party. Photo credit: Minne2020/ Wikimedia Commons In the News: * Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard became the most recent bowling pin (and the fourth woman) to fall in Donald Trump’s cabinet. Late last week Gabbard announced that due to her husband’s cancer diagnosis, she would leave her post at the end of June. Narrowly confirmed, Gabbard’s 15 months in the job have been without accomplishment or even visibility, unless she was promoting conspiracy theories. Deputy Aaron Lukas will serve in an acting capacity until a new DNI can be approved by the Senate, which might be never, since the Senate will be out of town by June 31. Bets on Trump using recess appointments on this one for the rest of his presidency? * In April, a new Super PAC called “Lean Left” filed paperwork with the FCC. But, as Judd Legum reports at his Popular Information Substack, observers have picked up peculiar spending patterns. Based at a P.O. Box in Tallahassee, Florida, Lean Left seems to only spend money on whacko candidates in swing districts: one of those candidates was Maureen Galindo, who was denounced by the DCC for making antisemitic remarks and suggested that pedophiles—probably also Zionists, in her view--be castrated. She lost a runoff in Texas 35 to Johnny Garcia this week—decisively. Democrats are outraged—except, of course, that they did the same thing 2022. * Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that two Trump appointees at the Treasury Department have been waging a campaign for over a year to create a $250 bill with Donald Trump’s face on it. Created by a British artist, the mockup would also feature “America 250” branding, and possibly the colors of the American flag. No living person has appeared on American currency since a Treasury employee put his own face on a 5 cent note in 1866: Congress prohibited further self-commemorations; a law reversing that is floating around in Congress. * Finally, in the week’s retribution news, yesterday we saw a report that the Department of Justice had opened a perjury investigation of 82-year-old journalist E. Jean Carroll; today it appears that the funding for the litigation, provided by tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, is the administration’s primary target. Carroll successfully sued Donald Trump for sexual assault, winning a $5 million judgement in 2023. Carroll won another $83.3 million in a 2024 defamation lawsuit. Both cases were upheld on appeal. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has recused himself from the case, since he was Trump’s defense attorney at the time. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Image credit: Svet foto/Shutterstock News focus: * Here is a link to the DNC draft autopsy, otherwise known as an “internal audit” or “post-election review” of the failure to elect Kamala Harris president in 2024. * Released by Democratic National Committee chair Ken Martin, the report is much delayed and incomplete: here are five takeaways from the report and a response by political strategist Paul Begala. * Much of the blame has fallen on Martin, who was already under fire—despite the fact that Democratic candidates have been successful at the ballot box and are surging in the polling in many races. * Political parties have studied their losses since the 19th century, but these were rarely public documents. The first use of the word “autopsy” was in 2012, when the Republican National Committee released a report on Mitt Romney’s 2012 loss that stressed broad inclusion; yet, Donald Trump ran hard in the other direction and won in 2016. * But what if we included other insurgent documents in this history? For example, Phyllis Schlafly’s A Choice, Not An Echo (Regency, 2014; orig. 1964) was a populist battle-cry that positioned the GOP’s failures as part of a larger problem: its unwillingness to attend to American conservatives. Then, there is Paul Weyrich’s famous challenge to the Republican Party in the fall of 1980: “I don’t want everybody to vote;” and Donna Brazile’s Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-Ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House (Hachette, 2017), that dissected the failures of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign? * Similarly, The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 created a template for governance that it promised the Trump administration would deliver. * Most prominently, what the autopsy does not address is voters’ lack of enthusiasm for party politics, or at least the choices they have been given. What we want to go viral: * Neil is simultaneously catching up on his true crime and art obsessions with Michael Finkel, The Art Thief: A True Story of Love, Crime, and a Dangerous Obsession (Penguin/Random House, 2023), a chronicle of a man who stole art for art’s sake in Europe’s lightly guarded collections. * Claire wants you to read Princeton University sociologist Paul Starr’s “Stephen Miller’s Impossible America: The ethnonationalist strategy for white replenishment won’t work” (The American Prospect, May 26, 2026) to understand what the Republican racial agenda is, the history it is steeped in, and how pronatalism and immigration restriction combine to forward the new white supremacy. Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. You can also get all audio content for free by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 27m

  7. May 22

    Queer Eye for the MAGA Guy

    We begin with a clip from an interview with the content creator and looksmaxxer Clavicular, a.k.a. Braden Peters broadcast on CBS Australia last month. Clavicular ended the session early when he was asked about his relationship with Andrew Tate, an indicted felon and MAGA influencer. Copyrighted music licensed by Likd: Le Freak (Original Mix) by Diego Forsinetti and Suki Soul. Braden Eric Peters, known online as Clavicular, after his arrest for illegally discharging a firearm in the vicinity of an alligator on March 26, 2026. Image credit: Broward County Sherriff’s Office/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * Primaries this week have demonstrated once again that Donald Trump has a solid grip on the 70% of Republicans who support him. MAGA voters in Kentucky’s Fourth Congressional District knocked off Thomas Massie and mustered behind State Representative Andy Barr, who defeated outgoing Senator Mitch McConnell’s pick to replace him. In Georgia, former Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger will not be the Republican nominee for Governor, while two Republican incumbents fended off well-funded Democratic challengers for the State Supreme Court. After these successes, Trump urged candidates aligned with him to jump into a primary against Lauren Boebert (CO-4) at the end of June, however the deadline has passed and she will run unopposed. * Despite these primary successes, Trump still faces a bleak midterm outlook: Democrats need only four flips to take control of the Senate, and they could get more. One will come in North Carolina, where Governor Roy Cooper is kicking Michael Whatley’s behind; there are three toss-ups (Maine, Michigan and Ohio); and reaches in Georgia and New Hampshire. After Trump announced he was backing Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in the Texas Republican Senate runoff, the Lone Star State may be in play for the first time since Lloyd Bentsen was elected in 1988. Republicans in the Senate are distressed and angry that Trump has undermined a key member of their leadership team. James Talarico, the Democratic nominee, is currently leading both Republicans in the polling. * A California judge has barred the New Jersey-based nonprofit with an ear worm jingle, Kars4Kids, from advertising in the Golden State. As it turns out, the proceeds from donated cars do not go to children more broadly, but to a charity called Oorah, which gives some of its money to some kids. A faith-based Jewish nonprofit that spends primarily in New York and New Jersey, Oorah does not identify itself in the ads as religious, but most of its spending goes to programs that take youth of varying economic backgrounds to Israel and a Jewish dating service. Recently, the organization also purchased a $16.5 million building in Israel. * In academic news, Harvard University’s faculty voted yesterday to limit the number of A’s awarded in any given class to 20% plus four. In the 2024-25 academic year, 2/3 of grades awarded were A’s. No other grades will be capped: 201 faculty voted against and 458 voted for. Here are some reasons why experts think that grade inflation matters. As faculty members Jason Furman and David Laibson wrote in The New York Times today, the generic A makes it “hard for truly exceptional students to stand out from their merely successful peers.” Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). In early April, Clavicular appeared to be overdosing in a club while doing a Kick Livestream. Image credit: screenshot by author/YouTube News focus: Clavicular and MAGA masculinity * From Trump on down, the MAGA movement is preoccupied with masculinity, good looks and power—but not with any of the virtues that might be associated with adult manhood. Journalist Jill Filipovic calls this “the adolescent style in American politics:” an ecology of influencers has grown up around the idea that they can sell wealth, beauty, wellness, and power to young American men adrift in the economy. * Here’s a recent profile of Clavicular from the New York Times. Born Braden Eric Peters in Hoboken, New Jersey, Clavicular became interested in looksmaxxing—a dedication to raising oneself to the highest standard of masculine beauty-- as a young teenager. During the Covid-19 pandemic, 14-year-old Clav became addicted to online incel and looksmaxxing content and began injecting himself with testosterone he purchased on the dark web. By 2025, he became a top TikTok streamer: he has almost a million followers. * Looksmaxxing appears to be a form of body dysphoria that emerged in 4chan in the 2010s and has now gone mainstream. Young men seek to “ascend”—or gain social power—by refining their personal appearance and gaining wealth; they are particularly focused on their faces, and on becoming lean. It is mostly associated with right-wing manosphere, the incel community, and white supremacy, although there is a small and embattled subset of Black looksmaxxers. * Looksmaxxing is about male dominance—specifically, power over women, but also power over other men. This dominance, or “mogging,” which can be learned and is theoretically available to all, offers a path out of irrelevance and failure. * But looksmaxing, while it draws on fitness culture, is specific to the internet, and is the most recent form of self-improvement ideology that has been an aspect of American masculinity since the 19th century. But it also derives from gay culture. * Although he claims he is not political, Clavicular has been associated with Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes; he draws his constituency from online far right and gamer communities, and is a descendant of the shock-jock ecosystem that elevated Donald Trump in his first campaign. He is on the Kick platform, which is controversial for its promotion of online gambling content and relaxed moderation policies towards violent language and harassment. * Another connection to politics is how Clavicular mirrors the do-it-yourself “healthmaxxing” of RFK, Jr.’s MAHA coalition, an ecosystem of health and beauty influencers who make significant incomes through sponsorships and subscribers. Clavicular is said to be making $100K a month. * Clavicular is open about his drug use, particularly methamphetamine and testosterone. He has also had recent run-ins with the law: police were called to a Fort Lauderdale Air BNB in February because of a fight between two women that he instigated or staged, and in mid-April, he appeared to overdose in a restaurant while streaming. Later in April, he was arrested for shooting into a swamp, allegedly at an alligator, which he settled last week in a plea bargain. What we want to go viral: * Neil wants you to read Katherine Stewart’s new essay, “A Very Authoritarian Semiquincentennial Celebration” (The New Republic, May 15, 2026), where she points out that instead of celebrating American Independence this summer. Donald Trump and his white Christian Nationalist allies are asking us “to settle for a festival of corruption, lies, bigotry, and divisiveness.” * Claire wants you to run, not walk, to see The Devil Wears Prada 2 (David Frankel, 2026) starring Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci. A sequel to the original move of the same name, it takes on the demise of journalism, America’s new Gilded Age, and is a tribute to the pleasures of work for ambitious women. Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 24m

  8. May 15

    Should Democrats Be Frank?

    Here’s a shout out to new subscribers Richard Russell, Josha Crabtree, Jen Aleric, Romano Scaturro, mlc257 (rest of email redacted), Hope Munro, Michael Koenig, and mondojohnson. Thanks for hanging out with us! Today’s theme is Home Life by Avocado Junkie, and we begin our episode with this clip, in which Barney Frank recalls coming out to Speaker of the House Tip O’ Neil in 1987. Representative Barney Frank embraces then-Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Warren on November 1 2012, five days before she defeated Massachusetts incumbent Republican Scott Brown for Senate. Image credit: ElizabethforMA/Wikimedia Commons In the News: * On Tuesday, we learned that Representative Jen Kiggins, a Republican incumbent in a tough fight to keep her seat in VA-02, cosigned conservative talk show host Rich Herrerra’s observation that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries should “keep his cotton-picking hands off of Virginia.” They were discussing redistricting, and what it would take to unseat the entire Virginia Supreme Court after it nullified the successful redistricting referendum. After Democrats responded that the comment was a racist dog whistle, Kiggins backtracked. But other Republicans insisted that since whites had also picked cotton, the phrase was not racist, and the outrage performative. * Conspiracy much? In a YouGov poll released yesterday by information watchdog NewsGuard, 25% of Americans believe that the attempted mass shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was staged. Respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 were more likely to believe this than older people: only 45% believed it was real, and 32% were not sure. The poll is roughly the same as one taken after the 2025 attempt on Trump’s life in Butler, PA. Fewer people believed that the 2024 shooter arrested at the Trump International Golf Club was fake—but a similar number were unsure. Should we blame Trump and MAGA Republicans for the fact that so many Americans in both parties have difficulty with reality? * Yesterday, attorney and financier Kevin M. Warsh was confirmed by the Senate in a 54-45 vote as the next chair of the Federal Reserve Bank: Democrat John Fetterman crossed the aisle to vote yea. The Fed, under the leadership of outgoing chair Jerome Powell, has up until now maintained its independence from Donald Trump. Warsh has signaled that he wants the bank to be less active in the economy, and elevate the use of interest rates—rather than buying government debt—to backstop the economy. Warsh has challenges ahead, prominently a war in Iran that has pushed inflation to a 3-year high. Trump wants a rate cut, whereas the economy points to higher interest rates. * The Food and Drug Administration has lost two top officials to resignation following the Trump administration lifting a ban on flavored vapes. A vehicle for nicotine, vapes were banned in 2020 on the theory that they were a gateway to smoking. The ban was controversial at the time: some critics said that banning flavored vapes eliminated a tool to help smokers quit. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). On January 19, 1995, Republican Representative Dick Armey (TX-26) called Barney Frank “Barney F*g” in a radio interview: Armey later apologized, but claimed that he had simply mispronounced Frank’s name. Image credit: Joe Hoover/Wikimedia Commons News focus: * Last week, former Congressman Barney Frank (MA-04) made the news by announcing he was in hospice care for congestive heart failure, and by giving several interviews about the future of the Democratic party from the home he shares in Maine with his husband, Jim Ready. * Frank, a legendary progressive politician and the first national lawmaker to voluntarily come out as gay, grew up in a working-class home in Bayonne, NJ, graduated from Harvard College in 1962, and participated in Mississippi Freedom Summer while in the Ph.D. program in government at Harvard. * Leaving Harvard in 1968 to become Chief Assistant to Boston Mayor Kevin White. In 1972, Frank was elected to the state legislature, where he served for eight years. During that time, he completed a degree at Harvard Law and was admitted to the Massachusetts bar. Simultaneously, Elaine Noble ran successfully for the Massachusetts State Legislature as the first “avowed homosexual” in the nation to be elected to office. In 1980, a year when Republicans ran the table nationally, Frank toppled the Republican incumbent to take his seat in Congress, endorsed by Father Robert Drinan. * In 1981, Frank was one of eleven House Democrats who filed a civil lawsuit to end the Reagan administration’s aid to the military junta in El Salvador: another member of that lawsuit was Barbara Mikulski (MD-03), a closeted lesbian. * Frank was outspoken from the moment he arrived on the Hill. He made his reputation as a supporter of liberal policies: the separation of powers, financial regulation, consumer protection, and opposition to tax cuts intended to shrink federal spending on social programs. When New York Mayor Ed Koch urged Democrats to return to the center, Frank said: ‘’I don’t think we should plead guilty to a caricature.’‘ * Frank’s career almost ended in 1982 because of a gerrymander, retribution for bucking the Massachusetts Democratic machine, that put him in a race against moderate Republican Margaret “Pirouetting Peggy” Heckler. That win secured his seat until he retired in 2012. * In 1987, Frank publicly came out as gay, ahead of a burgeoning scandal: a sex worker, friend and personal assistant living in his apartment was operating an escort service there. On LGBT civil rights issues, Frank was persistent, but famously incrementalist: he defended Clinton’s Don’t Ask, Don’t tell military policy, and urging activists to slow-walk demands for gay marriage. * On January 19, 1995, Republican Representative Dick Armey (TX-26) called Frank “Barney F*g” in a weekly meeting with radio journalists, and had to apologize on the House Floor. Armey also apologized privately but blamed the media for repeating what he claimed was a mispronunciation of Frank’s name. Frank did not entirely accept the dishonest apology. * In 1998, Frank defended President Bill Clinton vigorously during the Judiciary Committee hearings that led to impeachment proceedings in the House. * In 2010, with Chris Dodd of Connecticut, Frank wrote a bill that overhauled the financial system that led to systemic financial collapse in 2008. * As trans liberation moved to the forefront of LGBTQ politics in the 21st century Frank resisted folding them into lesbian and gay rights, a position he continues to hold today. In 2007, he stripped gender identity from the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) so that it would pass the House. In the 2009 and 2011 versions of the bill, those provisions were restored; in 2013, it passed the Senate, but then failed in the House. * Recently, Democratic Representative Sarah McBride (DE-01), the first trans member of Congress, has also argued that the trans rights movement does not have the broad support it needs to pass equality legislation. What we want to go viral: * Neil wants you to read Claire’s new piece, “Kill Canvas. Now” (Chronicle of Higher Education, May 14, 2026), an essay about higher education’s dangerous dependence on an edutech platform that serves the interests of neither faculty nor students. * Claire is fascinated by Ava Kofman’s reporting on 64-year-old Chinese oligarch Guojun Xuan and his wife Silvia, who have arranged for the birth of more than two dozen children via surrogate motherhood in less than a decade. The first story, “The Babies Kept in a Mysterious Los Angeles Mansion” (February 9, 2026) tracks the history of this odd, and ultimately somewhat sinister, project and its intersections with a surrogacy industry in the United States that is almost unregulated. The follow-up, “The Fate of Twenty-One Los Angeles Siblings” (May 11, 2026) talks about the resulting legal case when the children under the Xuans care, as well as 6 other babies still in uteroin five other states, were taken into the custody of Child Protective Services. Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. You can also get all audio content for free by subscribing on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe

    1h 17m
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About

Where contemporary history and politics meet the challenge of today. clairepotter.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Claire Potter and Neil J. Young
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    131
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Claire Potter
  • Show Website
    Political Junkie Podcast

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