Critical Wade Theory

The episode explores a recent ICE shooting of a woman in Minnesota, then shifts to Mark Burnett’s role in shaping Donald Trump’s rise as a media figure. From there, I analyze the influence of Burnett’s wife, Roma Downey, focusing on her role in producing Christian media. The argument is that Downey’s soft, “New Age–inflected” Christian messaging may function as a gateway that draws in audiences who wouldn’t normally engage with overtly right-wing content, even if her work is not explicitly political.The analysis connects Christian media, reality television, and spectacle-based entertainment such as professional wrestling, UFC, and boxing, highlighting shared narrative structures that normalize hierarchy, authority, and simplified moral frameworks. I argue that these media forms have helped condition audiences toward MAGA-style thinking over time. Finally, the episode places this within a broader historical pattern, showing how “apolitical spirituality” is often mobilized or exploited during rightward political shifts, presenting the case in a historically grounded way rather than as a conspiracy theory.

Today I'm talking about After We Fell, the 2021 romantic drama and the third installment in the After franchise. If you’ve made it this far into the series, you already know what kind of ride you’re signing up for. Big emotions, messy relationships, and a lot of arguing in nice-looking rooms.

[NOTE: I will upload a fuller video of this, if there is a demand for it, with "demand" meaning if even 1 person asks for it.]In his latest documentary work, Homegrown, filmmaker Michael Premo turns his camera away from institutions and figureheads and instead focuses on the everyday people who became wrapped up in the events surrounding January 6. In this conversation with me (for VENTS Magazine online, and for this podcast), Premo talks about responsibility, radicalization, ethics, and what he learned by staying close to the personal lives of those involved.The documentary will be released in North America on January 6, 2026, marking the five-year anniversary of the attack on the U.S. Capitol. The film Homegrown is also currently available at homegrown.film.

If you think of the Divinyls purely through the lens of “I Touch Myself,” you'll have an idea of what this album might provide — even if the lyrics don't unsettle prudes as much as their hit about handling the bearded clam.

Released in 1965 as the title track of Dylan’s album Highway 61 Revisited, the song stands as one of the clearest statements of his break from acoustic folk into electric blues-rock. This wasn’t a gentle evolution. It was a confrontation — with tradition, with authority, and with the idea that music should behave itself.