The Chauncey DeVega Show

This is a special joint episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report. Steve Cash is Executive Director of The Steady State, a nonprofit advocacy organization whose members are former senior national security officials. He previously served as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Intelligence & Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security and as Chief of Staff to the Director of Intelligence at the Department of Energy. Cash was deeply involved in drafting much of the legislation that followed the 9/11 attacks, including the USA PATRIOT Act, the Department of Homeland Security Act, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act, which created the position of Director of National Intelligence. He also served as an intelligence officer with the CIA. Cash analyzes Trump's recent "election security" speech to the nation and how its allegation that hostile foreign actors stole the 2020 presidential election for Democrats, and other false claims fit into the Big Lie strategy to rig upcoming elections and undermine American democracy. Steve Cash also offers advice about courage and personal responsibility to pro-democracy Americans and others who have already been — or may soon be — targeted by the Trump administration and placed on enemies lists because they have protested or exercised other constitutionally protected rights, including freedom of speech.

Greg Palast is an investigative reporter whose work has been featured by The Guardian, BBC Television, and Rolling Stone. His books include the New York Times bestsellers The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Billionaires & Ballot Bandits. His latest documentary is Vigilantes INC.: America's New Vote Suppression Hitmen. Greg Palast warns that Donald Trump's recent speech on election "security" and "fraud" was not funny, something to be mocked, or ineffective because it mangled the facts. Palast lays out what he calls a proven, decades-old playbook: voter nullification and voter purges, deployed to surgically target Black, Hispanic, women, and other voters who are key parts of the Democratic Party's base. And Palast loudly sounds the alarm that if Trump and the Republican Party's corrupt SAVE Act passes Congress — or its key elements are implemented via executive order and a MAGAfied Supreme Court — it will be almost impossible for Democrats to win future elections. WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME? On Twitter: https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega My email: [email protected] HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW? Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

This is a special joint episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show and The Truth Report. Steve Cash is Executive Director of The Steady State, a non-profit advocacy organization whose members are former senior national security officials. He previously served as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Intelligence & Analysis at the Department of Homeland Security, and as Chief of Staff to the Director of Intelligence at the Department of Energy. Cash was deeply involved in drafting much of the legislation that followed the 9/11 attacks, including the USA-Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security Act, and the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (which created the position of Director of National Intelligence).  Steve Cash also served as an intelligence officer with the CIA. On this July 4th — the 250th anniversary of American independence — Cash reflects on a shared sense of mourning and sadness over the state of the country's democracy. He talks about what patriotism and civic virtue mean to him and his peers, and makes the case that every American will need to weigh how much sacrifice and commitment they're willing to bear to help the country survive the Age of Trump and authoritarianism.  For those feeling tired or wavering, Cash offers a gut check: America is in a genuinely bad place right now, but if we rise to meet the moment, we can become the next Greatest Generation, building a much stronger democracy and society from the rubble that can last another 250 years. Chauncey DeVega continues his July 4th tradition of sharing the wisdom of Frederick Douglass. For this 250th anniversary, he reads from historian David Blight's account of Douglass's clobbering of the slave master Edward Covey, and reflects on what that story means for the Black Freedom Struggle. WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME? On Twitter: https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega My email: [email protected] HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW? Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast

Nell Irvin Painter is Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, Princeton University. She also holds degrees in painting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers and the Rhode Island School of Design. Painter is the author of many books including Sojourner Truth, A Life, A Symbol; Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over; I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays; and the New York Times bestseller The History of White People. She reflects on the origins of A History of White People and her career exploring how race is manufactured and lived along the color line. She also cautions that the race concept structures societies, but that we should always avoid the temptations of race essentialism. Painter counsels that we need to balance hope and pessimism. The Age of Trump is a calamity but this dark time will not last forever. We need to think nationally but work locally to create immediate change in our communities. And Nell Irvin Painter offers some hard-earned advice about being creative for a living, and balancing our personal and familial obligations and material realities such as paying the bills. *This conversation took place in 2024. Given Juneteenth and Trump's escalating assaults on multiracial democracy and the Black Freedom Struggle, I decided that now was the right time to share it with all of you.

Dr. Michael Valdovinos is a board-certified clinical psychologist and U.S. Air Force veteran. His new book is Moral Injuries: When Good Conscience Suffers in a World of Hurt. His writing has appeared in The Guardian and Time Magazine. Valdovinos argues that the Age of Trump has inflicted a collective moral injury on millions of Americans — the psychological wound that comes from witnessing or being powerless to stop something that violates your deepest sense of right and wrong. He warns that a reckoning will soon be upon us all. Our collective exhaustion, confusion, and dread are normal responses to a profoundly abnormal social and political environment. Drawing on hard-earned experience as an instructor in the military's SERE program (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) and work with the special operations community, Valdovinos offers wisdom many of us desperately need right now: Keep moving. Do not betray your values. Surrender is not an option. Chauncey DeVega reconvenes the secular church family, "marks out" over WrestleMania 42, and honors some of his favorite actors who have recently left this dimension of space and time and transitioned to the next Patrick Muldoon, Valerie Perrine, Matt DeCaro, and TV legend Sid Krofft. Knowing is half the battle. He explains how authoritarians use "hypernormalization" to disorient the public, drain their emotions, and ultimately create a state of learned helplessness among a targeted population. And Chauncey reflects on the failed assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents' dinner, the dangerous allure of conspiracism, and how too many people are lost in the surreal in this increasingly sick society. WHERE CAN YOU FIND ME? On Twitter: https://twitter.com/chaunceydevega On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chauncey.devega My email: [email protected] HOW CAN YOU SUPPORT THE CHAUNCEY DEVEGA SHOW? Via Paypal at ChaunceyDeVega.com: Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thechaunceydevegashow https://www.patreon.com/TheTruthReportPodcast