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Unf*cking The Republic
by UNFTR Media
Unf*cking The Republic® (UNFTR) is dedicated to progressive politics, leftist economic theories, and social justice in the United States. Join us for deep dives into socialism, labor rights, climate justice, and the fight against inequality. Whether you're curious about Marxist ideas, modern social movements, or progressive policies, UNFTR delivers thoroughly sourced critiques, analyses, and interviews with the historical context mainstream media won't provide. Subscribe for informative and unabashedly progressive coverage of the leftist political and economic landscape.
Episodes
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Omnibus (10-18-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They cover headlines on the SSI asset trap keeping 7.5 million Americans in poverty and the 2028 Democratic slate. Then they tackle listener emails on what AI utopia actually looks like for the rest of us, using credit rating agencies to stop data...
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Why We’re Still Living in Milton Friedman’s Neoliberal World.
More than 20 years after his death, we’re still living in the neoliberal world Milton Friedman made. The arc of neoliberalism begins in 1947, gathers steam in the 1970s, and reaches its zenith in the 1990s before breaking into a million pieces and forever out of the control of its progenitors.…
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Phone A Friend: Francesca Fiorentini of The Bitchuation Room.
The Bitchuation Room’s Francesca Fiorentini returns to UNFTR’s Phone A Friend to break down the midterms, what Democrats need to be focusing on next and how the current leadership isn’t up to the challenges ahead. Progressive politics often finds itself at a crossroads during election cycles. In...
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On The Record (10-13-26).
This week we connected some dots that should scare everyone—Russell Vought’s think tank’s 7 step playbook for refusing to seat elected members of Congress, a raid on Ilhan Omar’s home, and Trump name-dropping Vought as someone about to make history. Then we looked at France, where the eurozone’s...
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Omnibus (10-12-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on what comes after hyperpolitics and whether the DSA becomes a career vehicle or a disciplining force, and the botched Tennessee execution. Then they tackle listener emails on the historical case that federal spending was never...
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On The Record (10-06-26).
This week we diagnosed the economy as a giant zit—good numbers on the surface, all of it concentrated in AI investment and stock market gains for the top 10%, while wages fall below inflation, consumer confidence hits a 12-year low, and the 10-year Treasury just blew past its 2007 peak. Then we...
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Private Credit: Just Because We’re Not Talking About It Doesn’t Mean It’s Not a Problem.
Private credit headlines have calmed down in recent months. It could be because these debt markets are doing just fine...or it could be because we’re too distracted by wars, exploding bond yields, and gas prices. But just because there haven’t been high-profile bankruptcies like last year’s First...
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Omnibus (10-03-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the Paramount-Warner merger as a preview of what oligarchs do when anyone tries to govern them, plastic fusing with coral reefs in a new phenomenon researchers are calling “plasticoral,” and rapid third-country deportations...
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On The Record (09-29-26).
Despite only having between 95,000 and 120,000 members nationwide, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) has a hot political hand. To most Americans the DSA remains a mystery, but its impact is being felt in elections throughout the country. Conservatives are keeping one eye open but are...
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It’s Just Trump Against the World.
An original episode on how Trump will ultimately represent the final chapter of the American experiment. Empires don’t collapse. They crumble. But they’re reduced to a handful of chapters in history texts that depict them in stages with defined beginnings and ends. Donald Trump has already…
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Omnibus (09-27-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on Carney’s airport privatization sellout and the Ebola outbreak in the DRC that’s on pace to be the worst the world has ever seen. Then they tackle listener emails on AI recursive self-improvement hype and the TESCREAL cult...
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The CLARITY Act is Dead (For Now).
The CLARITY Act (Digital Asset Market Clarity Act) failed to pass cloture and won’t be taken up on the Senate floor. This is very, very good news. Despite attempts until the last minute by New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand—a Democrat who is closely associated with the crypto lobby—not a single...
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On The Record (09-22-26).
This week we put a proper endcap on the summer’s debt discussions—the $40 trillion number is real, but the conversation around it is almost entirely dishonest, designed to make cuts to grandma’s Medicare seem inevitable while military spending and corporate tax rates never even make the list.…
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InDeFLATION: F*cked Sideways Either Way.
The Producer Price Index (PPI) dropped and it was worse than expected. PPI is the measure of inflation building in the system and economists use it to forecast what consumer inflation will look like three to four months down the road. If these figures are any indication, inflation is about to hit...
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Omnibus (09-12-26).
Max and 99 are back for another episode of Omnibus. They cover headlines on Israel killing a family of 12 in Lebanon including six children, and a new Elon Musk documentary alongside a fall movie season tackling Big Tech and its leaders. Then they tackle listener emails on childcare costs and the...
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Scott Bessent Can’t Stop Failing: The Most Arrogant Man in the Land.
Scott Bessent can’t do anything right. He just announced a paltry bond buyback that fell flat with the market responding by pushing rates higher. Bessent also proclaimed that he is “the house” and that people shouldn’t bet against him because he has inside information about what the Bank of Japan...
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On The Record (09-08-26).
This week we dissected JD Vance’s child care rule change: A Heritage Foundation tradwife policy dressed up as family values, funded by gutting support for the single working parents who actually need it. Then Nathan Robinson joined us to talk about why the socialist moment is real and the DSA…
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Labor Daze: Trump’s Resident Idiot Says the Economy is a Gift.
Trump administration official Kevin Hassett declared the latest jobs report as a “present to the American people” for Labor Day. Really, Kevin? Let’s dig into this claim by looking closely at the labor data. What you’ll find is that more Americans than ever are dislocated from the full-time...
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Omnibus (09-05-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the White House’s Venezuelan oil deal and the money launderer at its center, the Pentagon rolling out its own versions of ChatGPT and Grok, and a Gloria Steinem mantra. Then they tackle listener emails on what drives career...
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Merchants of Death: The Men Who Killed Healthcare in America.
The United States doesn’t have a comprehensive healthcare “system.” It has a patchwork of coverage options that come with heavy price tags and complicated processes. Consistent GOP attacks have made the entire framework untenable, and the results speak for themselves. Healthcare coverage is...
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Did Ronald Reagan Destroy the American Dream?
Ronald Reagan. Champion of neoliberalism. To some, the man who lifted the spirits of a nation and restored a sense of pride and optimism after a period of despair. To others, the Reagan years marked the death of liberalism. A dark turn toward unfettered capitalist exploitation and the…
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On The Record (09-01-26).
This week we tore apart The Heritage Foundation’s spin on the Venezuela oil deal—the “world’s gas station” line slogan, the math on what Venezuela gets back is embarrassing, and what’s really happening is a century-old colonial playbook dressed up in PR language. Then we looked at a Pew chart:...
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Omnibus (08-29-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on John Roberts’ 40-year project to kill the Voting Rights Act and Spirit Airlines selling decades of flight attendant data to Google to train AI. Then they tackle listener emails on wage labor as a central issue, whether UNFTR…
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On The Record (08-25-26).
This week we staged an intervention for Scott Bessent—the failed hedge fund manager who lost 90% of his assets during the greatest bull run in history and is now the most interventionist Treasury Secretary in decades, scoring own goals in the bond market, undermining the new Fed chair, and...
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Don’t Tax the Rich. Cut Them Off.
Billionaires are easy to hate. And there are several efforts underway to get them to pay their “fair share.” In this episode, Max argues that focusing on taxing billionaires is the wrong discussion and distracts from attaining the tax policy we truly need. Instead of focusing on the individual...
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Omnibus (08-22-26).
Max and 99 are back for another Omnibus. They hit headlines on Tether, the $200 billion crypto company nobody can see inside, and a food safety traceability rule that’s stalled for 15 years. Then they tackle listener emails on Flock cameras doing far more than license plate reading, whether the...
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On The Record (08-18-26).
This week we named what’s actually happening to the American economy—Corporate Colonialism, the full realization of the Powell Memo’s 50-year project to hand the keys of democracy to the boardroom—and made the case that the real fight isn’t Trump, it’s the day after Trump. Then we got into the AI...
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Omnibus (08-11-26).
Max and 99 are back in action, (though IRL, Max is still on vacay!). They hit headlines on MAHA’s fault lines, Flock cameras tracking cars, the world’s most prolific Wikipedia editor, and OpenAI flying influencers to a luxury nature retreat. Then they tackle listener emails on the difference...
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The Great Unwind.
The AI trade might have found its canary in the coal mine. Leopold Aschenbrenner—a 25-year-old former OpenAI researcher built Situational Awareness into one of the hottest funds on Wall Street by betting long on the construction and infrastructure side of AI (Micron, CoreWeave) and short on the...
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Slow Moving Disasters: Climate Change, Artificial Intelligence and The Democratic Party.
This is one of those, get it off the chest episodes. A straightforward conversation about three slow moving disasters that threaten our way of life. Climate change, artificial intelligence and the Democratic Party. Obviously, that last one requires a bit of an explanation. This is that…
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On The Record (08-04-26).
This week we went deep on debt—all $72 trillion of it—and made the case that the bond market is the real economy, that the Fed has already lost control of the entire curve, and that when the AI trade unwinds, the flood into Treasuries won’t save anyone the way the textbook says it should. Then we...
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Omnibus (08-03-26).
Max and 99 are back again! They dive into headlines on school choice draining public education, a for-profit hospital disaster, young adults moving back home in record numbers, and nonprofits positioning themselves for the IPO windfall. Then they tackle listener emails on teaching the New Deal…
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On The Record (07-28-26).
This week we dug into the Maduro kidnapping as the entry point for something much bigger—the Cold War racism and corporate vengeance that has driven U.S. Policy toward Venezuela for decades, why there has never actually been a socialist government anywhere on earth, and why the American left…
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Trump and the Black Jelly Bean Theory: CLOs Echo the MBS Fiasco from the GFC.
The New York Fed released a troubling report detailing the risk of Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) exposure in the insurance industry. Over the past several years, private equity has taken larger and larger stakes in insurers who are historically risk averse. But now they’re acting more like...
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Omnibus (07-23-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the Trump administration restricting visas for foreign journalists, tribes suing to block the gutting of the Endangered Species Act, SpaceX’s massive share unlock, and a defense of reading books in an era of mass literary...
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Shitty: The Quest to Make Everything Terrible.
Everything is getting worse, but the country hasn’t collapsed. This is all by design. Donald Trump is a useful idiot for the people behind the scenes and Project 2025, most notably Russell Vought. The Trump administration is using the nation’s finances like a personal piggy bank for themselves…
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On The Record (07-21-26).
This week we went to see The Odyssey and came out thinking about Bronze Age collapse, because Nolan’s Odysseus is haunted by the wreckage of a civilization that mistook conquest for strength—and the parallels basically write themselves. Then we checked in on the Leading Economic Index, which has...
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On The Record (07-14-26).
This week we read the federal budget the way it’s meant to be read: as a moral document. What it shows is individuals paying more, corporations getting refunds, classrooms getting gutted, and the pentagon getting fed, all while the deficit stays exactly where it always was. The “fiscally...
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Omnibus (07-11-26).
Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on the left’s role in silencing Platner’s accusers, the ICE shooting of a Houston father, a parasite outbreak causing explosive diarrhea, and Meta using your Instagram photos to train AI. Then they tackle listener emails on the...
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The New Republicrats: Snakes of the Democratic Party.
Ten sitting house democrats and five candidates just signed the “Promise to America” pledge ensuring the public they are not socialists. It has six banal points with no specifics, no plan, and no agenda that might actually help anyone. Of the six, five are limp, empty platitudes. The sixth is a...
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On The Record (07-07-26).
This week we asked whether 2026 is 2008 or something worse, and the answer is: different disease, same symptoms. The hiring freeze, the housing collapse, the credit stress all rhyme with the last crisis, but this time the economy is drowning in money that just isn’t moving, pooling at the top…
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The Bear and the American Male Archetype: Carmen Shrugged.
The hit series The Bear has finally concluded. The final episode is so uplifting that most reviewers appear to believe the arc of the show’s main character follows suit with a redemptive arc. But the connection to Ayn Rand’s famous book The Fountainhead might reveal the opposite meaning. The…
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On The Record (6-30-26).
This week we mapped out how Wall Street has talked itself into a story it can’t stress-test—Accenture getting punished whether AI succeeds or fails, Saylor quietly selling the Bitcoin he swore he’d never sell, and the hyperscalers borrowing billions to fund a buildout that may be obsolete before...
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Is Private Credit the Pin That Pops the Bubble?
Is private credit the pin that pops the market bubble? The short answer is no—but that’s the wrong question entirely. Private credit is now a $1.8–$3.5 trillion market, rivaling the entire U.S. leveraged loan and high-yield bond markets combined. It’s direct lending, shadow banking, and...
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Omnibus (6-27-26).
Max and 99 are back, back, back again. They hit headlines on the Supreme Court shielding Roundup from cancer lawsuits, Stephen Miller quietly gutting disability rights, a socialist congressman who tried to abolish the Senate in 1911, and the Netherlands criminalizing conversion therapy. Then they...
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On The Record (6-23-26).
This week we said goodbye to Alan Greenspan, the man who spent two decades quietly rigging the economy for the wealthy, and encouraged working people to take on debt he knew would blow up in their faces (he would eventually call this a “flaw” ). Then we looked at housing starts, which just posted...
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We Lost More Than This War: Iran Ascendant.
Trump lost more than the war with Iran. U.S. media tends to look at things through a bilateral or ethnocentric lens of winners and losers. The bigger story is how Trump singlehandedly altered the calculus for multiple nation states, and fundamentally shifted historic alliances. Israel stands to...
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Omnibus (6-20-26).
Your host pals Max and 99 are back for another round of Omnibus! They hit headlines on AI as a political problem dressed up as a spiritual one, Carville’s prediction that Trump walks away by Easter, the new Spielberg film, and a leaked member list from Peter Thiel’s secret society, then tackle...
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On The Record (6-16-26).
This week we took a detour into the joy of the Knicks championship and what it says about New York, collective identity, and why Zohran Mamdani’s politics make sense in a city where the billionaire and the bodega worker share the same sewer pipe. Then we got back to the markets, where a flood of...
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Omnibus (6-13-26).
Max and 99 are here for another round of Omnibus. They hit headlines on Jared Kushner’s foreign entanglements, the screwworm outbreak threatening the beef supply, a tribute to revolutionary historian Gordon Wood, and a 77-year-old who lost his life savings to a gold coin scam. Then they tackle...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Unf*cking The Republic® (UNFTR) is dedicated to progressive politics, leftist economic theories, and social justice in the United States. Join us for deep dives into socialism, labor rights, climate justice, and the fight against inequality. Whether you're curious about Marxist ideas, modern social movements, or progressive policies, UNFTR delivers thoroughly sourced critiques, analyses, and interviews with the historical context mainstream media won't provide. Subscribe for informative and unabashedly progressive coverage of the leftist political and economic landscape.
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