071 - Casual War Crimes, AI Triage, and a President Who Loves Treason

In this episode, Jimmy and Promise spiral through the “golden age” of Trump’s America, where casual war crimes, collapsing healthcare, and AI-driven cruelty somehow count as a slow news week. They open with the surreal reality that Donald Trump has only been back in office for 11 months and yet feels like a permanent fixture of scandal, treason-adjacent behavior, and open corruption that would have ended any other presidency overnight. From Alina Habba’s disqualification in New Jersey to Trump’s crypto grift and his allies personally cashing in on AI data centers, it’s all treated as background noise in a country that has lost the capacity for shock.​

The conversation dives deep into AI as an existential threat, not just in sci‑fi terms but in how it’s already being deployed by private health insurance to deny care at staggering rates and filter sick, desperate people out of the appeals process. Jimmy and Promise compare capitalism’s usual “creative destruction” narrative to the coming wave of automation that targets every job at once, asking what happens when the system’s only real remedy for those who can’t adapt is to die quietly off-camera. They talk through ERs that now effectively triage by asking only “are you dying right now?” and how AI is being used to maximize profit, minimize liability, and treat human suffering as an acceptable externality.​

From there, they zoom out to fascism, war, and immigration: Trump’s reaction to a National Guard killing by an Afghan man who once worked with the CIA, the call to collectively punish all Afghans, and the total refusal to do the basic math on what wars actually cost if you abandon the locals who risked everything to help you. They tear apart the hypocrisy of those who want sweeping deportations over statistically rare crimes by immigrants, yet cannot tolerate the idea of collective responsibility when you point out that men commit the vast majority of violent crime. The same people screaming about “cancel culture” and “free speech” are happily cheering on bans, visa freezes, and state repression when it targets the right scapegoats.​

Promise brings in the perspective from Finland, where she’s now being interviewed by Finnish media about Christian nationalism, Trump, and the American far right, as Finns start to notice similar far‑right and Christian nationalist currents creeping into their own politics. They talk about how it feels to “escape” the U.S. for a moment only to watch the fireline of fascism and religious extremism inch closer to Europe, and how global warming and AI ensure that no country is really isolated from these crises. There’s also a brutal takedown of people who posture as persecuted truth-tellers while dropping slurs, Nazi references, and anti-trans talking points—and then call it “cancel culture” when others simply refuse to tolerate them.​

The episode also spotlights the ecosystem that rewards bigotry directly with cash, including “Nazi GoFundMe”‑style sites like GiveSendGo that shower six-figure payouts on people caught using racist slurs or abusing children, bolstered by coded “14/88” style donations and anonymous white supremacist support. Jimmy and Promise scroll through campaigns resisting mosques, funding the “canceled,” and laundering fascist politics through the language of religious liberty and “free speech,” showing how these platforms function as a shadow economy for hate. It’s a rare, detailed look at how reactionary movements turn online outrage into material power, all while claiming they’re the real victims.​

Finally, they turn to the Trump White House’s official “media bias” and “media offender of the week” tracker on WhiteHouse.gov, which literally names individual journalists and outlets to sic the base on anyone who tells the truth about the administration. Promise describes the front page pop‑up declaring “Welcome to the Golden Age” with Trump posed beside a McDonald’s‑flavored “America’s back” slogan, while Jimmy points out that weaponizing the official White House site to target journalists is both authoritarian theater and a real threat to press safety. In between, there are lighter moments—Finnish language struggles over Prosecco, dreams of everyone frolicking in Finnish fields, and an extended “would you rather” segment—but even the jokes land against the backdrop of global warming, AI doom, and the slow normalization of fascism.

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