Conspirituality

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The Democratic Party is in free fall. Still suffering the aftershocks of the 2024 election, a civil war is brewing internally between those who want to build coalitions that can win elections and those who see radicalization as the only way forward.

In April, debate about whether Dems should embrace hugely popular leftist streamer Hasan Piker,or distance themselves from him dominated the discourse.

A week later, two popular online personalities of the left—acclaimed transgender video essayist, Contrapoints, and artist/author Josh Citarella—sat down for an episode of his Doomscroll podcast. Contrapoints made the case for coalition building and pragmatic Democratic electoral politics. Their frank mutual criticisms of the online left outraged some.

Meanwhile, NYT writer and podcaster, Ezra Klein's controversial comments on Charlie Kirk and highly-charged interviews with Ta Na-Hesi Coates and Sarah McBride (the first openly transgender person to serve in Congress) hovered in the background. 

Julian clips key moments from these interactions and offers his thoughts on a way forward for Democrats as we approach the midterms and looming presidential race in 2028.

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On the Whatever Podcast livestreams, alpha debate bros browbeat insecure betas and deride token guest female sex workers while possibly ignorant they're helping promote their OnlyFans accounts. But recently, three steely-eyed women have snuck in, decoded the matrix and fought their way up to stare down the ultimate boss—a chain-smoking, greasy-haired, foul-mouthed Christian nationalist named Andrew Wilson. 

Julian features and celebrates the insurgent grit and intelligence of these three women, who've gone into a hostile environment, and not only held their own, but handed this smug prick and his minions their asses in ways both undeniable and elegant. While it may not be possible to drive a stake completely through the heart of misogyny's zombie internet dragon, destroying the main characters at their own game in front of their own fans sure tastes sweet. Who knows, perhaps it might make some of the younger and more impressionable viewers think twice about the hateful and irrational slop they’re being fed.

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Two-thirds of the Conspirituality staff have new books out: Matthew's AntiFascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times and Derek's Well Enough:  Finding Health Despite the Wellness Industry. Julian "interviews" the co-hosts about themes of each book and their intersections with Conspirituality.

But first, Derek discusses Glucose Goddess's recent partnership with medical device company, Dexcom.

Show Notes

The Sweet Embellishments of the Glucose Goddess

Well Enough: Finding Health Despite the Wellness Industry

Antifascist Dad by Matthew Remski
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In April 2026, Pope Leo XIV, deep in a public feud with President Trump over the Iran war, made his first trip to Africa. He chose Algeria: the birthplace of Augustine, the spiritual founder of his order. Algeria is demanding reparations from France for 132 years of colonial rule and 1.5 million dead. It’s parliament declared French colonization a "state crime" just four months before Leo landed.

Before visiting with any Catholics, Leo laid a wreath at an anticolonial martyrs' monument, removed his shoes in one of the world's largest mosques, condemned "neocolonial tendencies" to the diplomatic corps, and honored 19 Catholic martyrs who stayed to serve Algerian Muslims through a civil war that killed 200,000. 

The right-wing press logged every stop as an outrage. The Arab press read it as vindication. And the old-school Algerian left noted that papal forgiveness might be easier for France to accept than a reparations bill.

Matthew reads the visit through Augustine, historical materialism, liberation theology, and the testament of Christian de Chergé, prior of Tibhirine, who in 1994 wrote about his immanent martyrdom as the insurgents drew near.

In his final testament, de Chergé wrote:

I well know the contempt with which the Algerians taken as a whole have come to be dismissed. I also know the caricature of Islam that a certain kind of Islamism encourages.

It is too easy to put one’s conscience at rest by identifying this religion with the forms of fundamentalism of its extremists.

Show Notes

New Advent — Church Fathers: Confessions, St. Augustine

NPR — Transcript of Cardinal Robert Prevost's first speech as Pope Leo XIV

Vatican.va — Greeting to Journalists during the Rome–Algiers flight

Vatican.va — Meeting with the Authorities, Civil Society and the Diplomatic Corps, Djamaa el Djazair Conference Cnter

Vatican.va — Visit to the Great Mosque of Algiers

Vatican.va — Meeting with the Algerian Catholic Community, Basilica of Our Lady of Africa

Al Jazeera — Algeria declares France's colonial rule a crime in new law

France 24 — French presidential hopeful Macron cealls colonisation a 'crime against humanity'

OCSO — Testament of Christian de Chergé

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Derek reads two chapters from his recently published memoir, Well Enough: Finding Health Despite the Wellness Industry. In Chapters 3 & 4, he discusses his work as a patient monitor looking after suicidal patients in an emergency room, then ending up in an emergency room himself after having a full-blown panic attack.

Show Notes

Well Enough: Finding Health Despite the Wellness Industry
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