Savage Minds: Savage Minds Podcast

Ida Susser

Julian Vigo — Mon, 11 May 2026 20:46:59 GMT

Ida Susser, distinguished professor of anthropology at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center, examines the Gilets jaunes (Yellow Vests) movement in France as a volatile yet transformative response to the deepening crises of neoliberalism, democratic erosion, and social fragmentation across the West. Drawing on years of ethnographic fieldwork in Paris, Saint-Denis, and provincial France, Susser argues that the movement disrupted conventional political binaries by creating forms of solidarity that exceeded traditional distinctions between left and right. Through concepts such as “commoning” and “thresholding,” she describes how precarious workers, retirees, migrants, and politically disillusioned citizens forged provisional alliances grounded less in ideology than in shared experiences of dispossession, police violence, economic exclusion, and social abandonment. Susser situates the movement within a broader historical trajectory of grassroots resistance, linking the Yellow Vests to Occupy Wall Street, the Indignados, Black Lives Matter, and earlier traditions of horizontalist organizing. She explores how the protests exposed the consequences of gentrification, rural decline, and the hollowing out of public life, while simultaneously generating new forms of mutual aid, including food collectives and neighborhood support networks during lockdown. The conversation also confronts the contradictions embedded within contemporary progressive politics, including disputes surrounding feminism, immigration, populism, and state authority, as Susser reflects on the increasingly unstable boundaries between emancipatory and reactionary movements. Framing the present moment as one marked by the resurgence of authoritarian tendencies and the normalization of state repression, she argues for the urgent construction of a new “historic bloc” capable of defending democratic space through collective struggle, civic participation, and radically inclusive visions of social justice.

Abby Martin

Julian Vigo — Sat, 09 May 2026 21:17:18 GMT

Abby Martin, an investigative journalist and advocacy filmmaker, exposes the catastrophic environmental and human costs of US militarism, arguing that the Department of Defense represents a singular, yet intentionally obscured, force of global ecological destruction. Drawing on her reporting for The Empire Files and her latest film, Earth’s Greatest Enemy, Martin discusses the institutional mechanisms that allow the military to remain exempt from international climate agreements, effectively functioning as a “blind spot” in mainstream environmental discourse while operating as the world’s largest institutional polluter. She challenges the “bipartisan consensus” for US imperialism, criticizing a “media blackout” orchestrated by corporate journalists—or “empire babies”—who normalize systemic violence while placing the burden of environmental responsibility on individual consumers. Extending the discussion beyond carbon emissions, Martin examines the toxic legacy of military operations, from the generational radioactive contamination caused by depleted uranium to the domestic betrayal of service members at Camp Lejeune. She contends that the current global atmosphere of “manufactured amnesia” masks the reality of an empire in its “waning” stages, which increasingly relies on emergency powers and state-sponsored censorship to maintain its grip amid growing public dissent. Reflecting on the ongoing crisis in Gaza and the historical precedents of US interventionism, Martin suggests that anti-imperialism and climate justice are naturally interlinked, viewing her work as a “tool in the arsenal” for movement building aimed at reclaiming transparency and justice within a crumbling global order.

Peter McCullough

Julian Vigo — Thu, 07 May 2026 21:23:26 GMT

Peter McCullough, an internist, cardiologist, and epidemiologist, reflects on the political, medical, and social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, arguing that the global response fundamentally altered public trust in science, medicine, and democratic institutions. Drawing on his background in cardiovascular medicine and public health, McCullough discusses studies he believes demonstrate links between mRNA vaccines and myocarditis, sudden cardiac arrest, and broader cardiovascular complications, while explaining the biological mechanisms behind troponin elevation and inflammatory damage within heart tissue. He challenges mainstream public health narratives surrounding vaccine safety, criticizing what he describes as the suppression of dissenting medical voices and the failure of institutions to adequately investigate adverse events associated with mass vaccination campaigns. Extending the discussion beyond medicine, McCullough examines the broader political and cultural atmosphere that emerged during lockdowns, including censorship, social compliance, economic devastation, and the normalization of emergency powers across Western democracies. He argues that public discourse during the pandemic was shaped by coordinated messaging between governments, media organizations, pharmaceutical companies, and global institutions, creating a climate in which skepticism toward official policy became socially and professionally dangerous. Reflecting on athlete deaths, VAERS reporting controversies, vaccine mandates, and unresolved questions surrounding the origins of COVID-19 and the Wuhan laboratory, McCullough contends that the pandemic exposed deep contradictions within modern liberal societies concerning bodily autonomy, transparency, and informed consent. Yet amid this, he points to growing public skepticism toward institutional authority, suggesting that the long-term legacy of the pandemic may ultimately be a broader reevaluation of the relationship between citizens, governments, and public health systems.

Nader Hashemi

Julian Vigo — Tue, 05 May 2026 18:54:13 GMT

Nader Hashemi, Director of the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, reflects on how his experience of the 1979 Iranian Revolution shaped a lifelong inquiry into the fraught relationship between religion, secularism, and democracy. Hashemi situates his intellectual trajectory within the tension between a Western secular framework—often equated with progress—and its very different reception across the Middle East, where it has frequently been associated with authoritarianism and externally backed regimes. He challenges dominant Western narratives about Iran and the region, arguing that media and policy discourses systematically erase the historical context of colonial intervention, coups, and geopolitical interests that continue to structure contemporary conflicts. From the Green Movement of 2009 to the Women, Life, Freedom protests, Hashemi examines the internal struggle for democratic reform under conditions of repression, economic sanctions, and external pressure, emphasizing how these forces have eroded the social base necessary for sustained change. Extending the discussion to Gaza, Israel-Palestine, and broader regional dynamics, he highlights the stark double standards in Western foreign policy and the persistence of imperial logics beneath the language of human rights. Yet, amid this, Hashemi points to a generational shift: younger audiences, shaped by social media and alternative information flows, are increasingly able to challenge entrenched narratives and recognize the contradictions at the heart of the so-called rules-based order.

Daniel Levy

Julian Vigo — Sun, 05 Apr 2026 17:26:16 GMT

Daniel Levy, a political commentator and president of the US Middle East Project, argues that Netanyahu did not stumble into this war—he engineered it. For decades, Levy notes, successive Israeli governments tried and failed to pull the United States into a military confrontation with Iran. He traces what finally made it possible under Trump not to any coherent American strategy but to its opposite: the systematic hollowing out of the interagency process, expertise sidelined, and a small ideological cohort elevated whose interests aligned perfectly with Israeli leadership. Tracing this logic to its conclusion, Levy contends the result is a war serving Israel's ambition for regional hegemony far more than any plausible American interest. Dismantling the claim that attacking Iran was about nuclear threat management, he points out that Israel itself is an undeclared nuclear state and that Iran's supreme leader had issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Looking beyond the conflict, Levy asserts that any durable solution requires a decolonisation 2.0—a reckoning with the inequities of the post-colonial order. With American empire visibly fraying and Marco Rubio offering imperialism 2.0 as the alternative, he sees the burden falling squarely on middle powers and non-Western states to chart a different course.

Daniela Danna

Julian Vigo — Sat, 04 Apr 2026 21:57:00 GMT

Daniela Danna, a sociologist and research fellow and lecturer at the University of Salento in Lecce, argues that gender identity legislation is not about protecting vulnerable people—it is about making biological sex legally invisible. Drawing on her analysis of the defeated Zan Bill in Italy and parallel legislation across the Anglophone world, Danna contends that the push to enshrine gender identity in law serves a dual purpose: it dismantles the legal foundations of women’s sex-based rights while opening a vast new market for pharmaceutical and medical industries that profit from lifelong hormonal dependency. She is particularly alarmed by the targeting of children, pointing to kindergartens in Germany already teaching gender fluidity and to Italy’s public gender clinics, which she argues are affirming rather than treating young people in distress. On surrogacy, Danna is equally unsparing: Meloni’s much-publicised ban, she suggests, is largely theatrical, with enforcement gaps so wide as to render it meaningless. Throughout, she traces a through-line between gender ideology, surrogacy, and capitalist logic—the reduction of bodies, and children, to commodities.

Fiona M. Girkin

Julian Vigo — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 22:59:00 GMT

Fiona Girkin, researcher and specialist in female dark personality traits, discusses her PhD findings on female psychopathy, covert manipulation, and the structural silencing of victims—particularly men—who suffer at the hands of toxic women. Girkin argues that female psychopaths differ fundamentally from their male counterparts in their methods: rather than overt physical aggression, they deploy relational aggression—rumour, social sabotage, gaslighting, and the cultivation of protective "posses"—making their behaviour extraordinarily difficult to prove or challenge. She introduces the concept of the "sleeper cell" psychopath: charming, likeable individuals who remain dormant until their power is threatened, then turn ruthless overnight. Her research focused on the community services sector—therapists, social workers, psychologists—where she found far more psychopathic individuals than anticipated, drawn by the covert power that caring roles confer over vulnerable people's lives. Girkin also addresses the professional backlash she faced after speaking publicly about comparable rates of male and female domestic violence, including losing her university position teaching police. She argues that feminist organisations have systematically suppressed recognition of female-perpetrated violence, leaving male victims without resources, disbelieved by courts, and vulnerable to legal weaponisation through divorce and parental alienation. Things are changing, Girkin contends, as female violence becomes less covert and harder to ignore.

Richard D. Wolff

Julian Vigo — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 17:26:23 GMT

Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and co-founder of Democracy at Work, argues that the United States is living through the terminal phase of imperial overreach. Drawing on the history of empires from Persia and Rome to Britain, Wolff contends that no empire has ever escaped the arc of birth, expansion, and decline—and the US is no exception. Having emerged from World War II as the world’s undisputed economic hegemon, the US has spent decades in self-deluding arrogance, mistaking a historically anomalous post-war moment for permanent, God-given supremacy. The rot is now unmistakable: $35 trillion in debt, a proposed $1.5 trillion war budget, and a string of military defeats from Vietnam to Afghanistan. China, growing at two to three times the US rate for thirty consecutive years, has quietly displaced American economic dominance. The war on Iran—a civilisation far older than the Judaeo-Christian tradition attacking it—may prove the final overreach. With the Strait of Hormuz closed and NATO allies refusing to help, Wolff sees Trump as a latter-day Nero, fiddling while the empire burns. The solution, he insists, is redirecting military spending toward the American people.

Lawrence Wilkerson

Julian Vigo — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 15:32:41 GMT

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, 30-year Army veteran, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Senior Fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network, discusses the deep structural rot he believes is consuming American democracy and its military empire. Drawing on his experience from Vietnam through the Iraq WMD debacle, Wilkerson argues that the United States has become a force as much for evil as for good, and that the current war against Iran represents the most reckless and dangerous expression of that trajectory yet. He traces the unravelling of legitimate statecraft from the post-Cold War squandering of peace dividends, through 9/11 and the institutionalisation of torture under George W. Bush, to what he describes as the Caligula-like presidency of Donald Trump—whom he regards as history’s most brazen grifter and the architect of an illegal war of choice. Wilkerson raises urgent alarm about Pete Hegseth’s injection of Christian Zionist ideology into the Pentagon’s ranks, the militarisation of domestic law enforcement, the looming threat of cancelled midterm elections, and the very real spectre of a second American civil war. A searing, unflinching conversation with one of Washington’s most candid and consequential insiders.

Nolan Higdon

Julian Vigo — Wed, 18 Mar 2026 19:27:20 GMT

Nolan Higdon, author and Disinfo Detox host, dismantles the "aberration" myth surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, exposing his deep ties to US/Israeli/Russian intelligence, insider trading, and elite blackmail networks spanning politics (Trump, Dershowitz), tech (Thiel, Palantir), academia (Chomsky, Summers), and media. Higdon reveals how partial Epstein file releases coincide suspiciously with Trump's Iran strikes—launched amid 30% approval and domestic scandals involving ICE—serving as potential distraction from scrutiny over unreleased files and foreign influence (Adelson/AIPAC). He contrasts US corporate media's sanitised narratives of regime changes (Venezuela's Maduro/Flores kidnapping echoing Panama 1989) with international reporting showing Iran's technological resilience and Israeli military setbacks. He critiques NATO's militarised "media literacy" weaponising education against disinformation while shielding Israel-led wars, Gaza genocide denial, and DARVO "self-defence" claims. Higdon warns of AI surveillance eroding youth cognition/social bonds, big tech's eugenics ideology (Yarvin/Thiel), economic fallout from oil spikes, Greenland piracy, and empire's dehumanising normalisation of child trafficking. Urging diverse sourcing beyond legacy media's Politburo-style control, he reveals 2026's fractures—war profiteering and unaccountable power elites.

Radhika Desai

Julian Vigo — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:56:30 GMT

Radhika Desai, professor of Political Studies and director of the Geopolitical Economy Research Group at the University of Manitoba, brings her historical materialist framework to bear on what she calls the “senile” or “moribund phase” of capitalism—marked by deindustrialisation, financialisation, speculative necromancy, ecological destruction, a precipitous decline in political leadership quality, and the imperial wars now ravaging Venezuela, Cuba and Iran. Desai traces the arc from Karl Marx’s monopoly phase thesis through the post-war golden age, the neoliberal turn and its miserly, punitive politics towards working people, to the present moment in which the US-Israeli war on Iran is accelerating the collapse of dollar hegemony and the everything bubble. She connects cultural neoliberalism—identity politics, DEI, pronoun politics—to a deliberate corporate strategy for generating a patina of progressivism while delivering nothing material to working people, with the professional managerial class administering this hypocritical regime. Desai addresses the BRICS question with characteristic nuance, distinguishing between countries that have genuinely rejected neoliberalism and those, like Modi’s India, whose multipolar rhetoric conceals a servile comprador relationship with Washington. Her analysis of the everything bubble, the Triffin dilemma and Iran-driven inflation carries a stark warning—when interest rates rise far enough to contain the oil shock, the dollar system will come down with them.

Olga Cherevko

Julian Vigo — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 19:34:07 GMT

Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, draws on over twenty years of experience working in conflict zones across Liberia, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen to bear witness to what she describes as a level of destruction without parallel in her career. Beginning with the physical transformation of Gaza since her first deployment there in 2014, Cherevko traces the systematic obliteration of water, sanitation, and healthcare infrastructure, explaining how humanitarian teams are reduced to improvising repairs with the wrong materials because the right ones are blocked at the crossing. Cherevko challenges the public perception that humanitarian assistance is simply about food parcels, arguing that it is fundamentally about restoring dignity, and identifies the dual-use classification system and NGO registration restrictions as among the most consequential obstacles to scaling up the response. Addressing the psychological dimension of the crisis—the dimension she argues receives the least attention—Cherevko describes children who no longer flinch at explosions, parents shattered beyond recovery, and a population whose light of hope she watched dim month by month. She warns that a ceasefire does not end suffering, noting that the moment the world looks away is often the moment conditions deteriorate further, and closes with an appeal to keep Gaza on the global conscience long after the guns fall silent.

Michael Fox

Julian Vigo — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 22:59:53 GMT

Michael Fox, a multimedia journalist based in Latin America with two decades of on-the-ground experience, dissects US interventions across the hemisphere—from the Monroe Doctrine’s enduring legacy and Trump’s “Dunro Doctrine” to the January 3rd invasion of Venezuela, capture of Nicolás Maduro, and parallels with the 1989 Panama operation under the guise of drug wars masking oil grabs and geopolitical plays against Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico. As host and producer of podcasts like Brazil on Fire, Stories of Resistance, and season two of Under the Shadow, Fox exposes the weaponization of AI-generated misinformation—fake crowds cheering US troops, manipulated images of Maduro’s detention—and hybrid warfare tactics that erode sovereignty while regional leaders like Gustavo Petro invoke the jaguar awakening resistance amid rightward governmental shifts in Chile, Argentina, and Honduras. Critiquing the true costs of bombings in Caracas—100 dead, millions traumatized—he contrasts mainstream narratives of “clean” tech strikes with harrowing victim testimonies from affected neighborhoods, revealing how US policies fuel migration yet demonize migrants as a boogeyman. Fox draws direct lineages to historical regime changes, puppet installations, and resource colonialism, emphasizing grassroots protests chanting “Down with the Monroe Doctrine” and Caribbean nations’ vocal opposition to boat strikes in their waters. His reporting for NPR, The Intercept, and The Nation prioritizes ground truth over viral fakes, unpacking the human toll of empire’s revival in a multipolar world.

Kathryn Sikkink

Julian Vigo — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 21:07:18 GMT

Katherine Sikkink, international relations scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School and leading constructivist theorist, argues that human rights are a social construction—not in the sense that violations are unreal, but that the legal frameworks protecting people from them were built through sustained struggle. Legally enforceable international human rights protections only came into existence with the covenants on civil, political, economic and social rights in 1976, and they continue to require active defence. On transitional justice, Sikkink draws on her landmark work The Justice Cascade (2011) and her ongoing research through the Transitional Justice Evaluation Team. Her comparative data across countries shows that nations which implement transitional justice—through prosecutions, truth commissions and reparations—experience fewer future human rights violations and a lower recurrence of war. Prosecutions that reach senior officials and heads of state produce the largest measurable impact. Sikkink traces the origins of transitional justice to Greece and Portugal after their dictatorships, followed by Argentina’s landmark 1985 junta trials. She highlights the creative legal strategies activists have used to overcome obstacles such as amnesty laws and statutes of limitations, including leveraging international treaty obligations that prohibit statutes of limitations for crimes against humanity. On the current era, Sikkink warns that the Trump administration’s reliance on what she calls “weaponised interdependence”—using hard economic and political power to coerce other states—may yield short-term compliance but it fundamentally erodes the trust and reputation that sustain long-term international relations. She also cautions that US democracy is under genuine threat, stressing that the upcoming midterm elections represent the single most important avenue for citizens to push back, urging American citizens abroad.

Kajsa Ekis Ekman

Julian Vigo — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:58:00 GMT

Kajsa Ekis Ekman, a Swedish author, literary critic, and journalist, addresses the "two-front war" against women, marked by the conservative right's abortion rights backlash and the progressive left's problematic views on prostitution and gender identity. She critiques neoliberal and far-left perspectives on sex work, advocating for the term "prostitution" to highlight the dangers and exploitation within the industry, especially on platforms like OnlyFans. Ekman also discusses the global exploitation of surrogacy and calls for its ban due to the suffering of women and commodification of babies. Furthermore, she criticises the exploitation of empathy for women to justify military interventions and the selective empathy displayed by some feminists towards certain victims while ignoring others. Ekman defends feminism as a relevant force against violence and inequality, emphasising the importance of feminists focusing on the dialectical conflict between men and women and advocating for ad hoc movements and alliances to address specific issues like prostitution and surrogacy. She touches on the gendered fear-mongering used to garner support for geopolitical conflicts, the instrumentalisation of women's rights for Western agendas, and the need for feminists to hold their line and avoid conflating issues. She also reflects on the state of contemporary society, criticising the pursuit of money and fame at the expense of values and equality, drawing parallels with the Epstein scandal and the P. Diddy documentary. Finally, Ekman emphasises the need for analytical tools that fit the task at hand, arguing that feminism is not a geopolitical tool and should not be used to justify military interventions or ignore the complexities of international relations.

David Rovics

Julian Vigo — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 16:57:44 GMT

David Rovics, a Portland-based songwriter and podcaster, articulates his experiences with censorship and cancellation, noting a troubling trend of intolerance within both the left and right. He recounts his recent YouTube cancellation, during which his complete discography was removed and his channel deleted only to be restored later. Rovics explores the factors contributing to the current state of societal fragmentation, where individuals increasingly engage in social interactions primarily through social media platforms, driven by algorithmic addiction. He argues that these algorithms, while designed to keep users engaged, predominantly foster conflict and division, thereby maximizing advertising revenue through prolonged user engagement. To provide context, Rovics references historical struggles of industrial workers and free speech movements from the 1960s in Berkeley, reflecting on a time when political discourse centered around ideas rather than identity politics. He critiques the left's adoption of authoritarian tendencies, which have become fodder for ridicule from the right, sharing his encounter with efforts by Rose City Antifa to cancel him. Drawing a parallel to a scene in the film Barbie wherein Barbie goes into the high school cafeteria and is almost immediately called a “fascist,” Rovics asserts that today’s cancel culture, though pronounced, is not without precedent. Furthermore, he contrasts the current fixation with online habitual behavior to previous generations' “couch potato” lifestyle, suggesting that while the media landscape has transformed, the alienation from authentic life experiences persists.

Ricardo Vaz

Julian Vigo — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 21:57:57 GMT

Ricardo Vaz, a journalist and political analyst in Venezuela, critically discusses the US operation to kidnap Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, highlighting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s framing of the incident as a domestic law enforcement issue, despite Venezuela being outside US jurisdiction. He critiques the role of corporate media, particularly The New York Times and The Washington Post, which he argues ignored the impending US military action to protect US soldiers, demonstrating their complicity in supporting US imperialist objectives. Vaz characterizes a division within the US political landscape, noting that while Democrats opposed the execution of the kidnapping due to the lack of a plan to install Maria Corina Machado, they continue to support underlying imperial ambitions. Vaz further explores the dynamics of Venezuelan politics, highlighting the long-standing resentment from elite factions towards both Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro. He underscores the elites’ aspirations to re-establish themselves as US-aligned powers in Venezuela, illustrating their predicament where regaining control without US assistance has proven unfeasible. The ascendance of Chávez disrupted their ambitions and engendered a sense of entitlement among the elites who resented the prospect of working-class representation in government. Additionally, Vaz draws attention to the deteriorating situation in Cuba, establishing a critical link to Venezuela’s oil supply, which has been vital for Cuba’s public transportation, airline industry, and electricity generation for the past two decades. This connection emphasizes the broader implications of Venezuela’s political crisis on its regional relationships, marking it as a pivotal issue with significant socio-political ramifications.

Alex Howlett

Julian Vigo — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:27:49 GMT

Alex Howlett, an independent scholar affiliated with The Greshm Institute, discusses Universal Basic Income (UBI). Beginning with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), an offshoot of post-Keynesianism, he addresses its key principles: notably Keynes’ belief that the Great Depression was caused by a deficiency in aggregate demand, leading to sustained involuntary unemployment that the market could not self-correct. Howlett deflates Keynesian theory that assumes that economic policy aims for full employment, asking, “To what extent actually does it make sense for people to be workers?” while explaining that labour is not the most effective or efficient way to get money to people. Howlett sees UBI as solving this problem of distributing money to people while dispensing with the need to ensure that everyone has a job, dispelling the notion that only if every single person is working can an economy run at full capacity. Assessing some of the major criticisms of UBI—from fiscal feasibility, economic incentives, and social justice—he responds to the fears of inflation, worries that borrowing will lead to reckless fiscal policy and a loss of central bank independence, or that UBI would dismantle already established welfare programmes. Responding to counter-arguments to UBI, such as the claim that the economy will not have the labour pool it requires or that people won’t be working as much, Howlett turns these arguments on their head demonstrating how the demand for labour is artificially inflated as a way of getting people jobs, noting the historical overstimulation of the financial sector to encourage firms to borrow so they hire workers. Howlett contends that with UBI, the economy does not have to play into the push and pull of labour supply and demand, stating, “You hear this fear that people aren’t going to work as much at the same time that you hear this fear that there aren’t going to be enough jobs available, right? It’s like, well, wait a minute…. Isn’t it good if those things kind of go together?”

Peter Salerno

Julian Vigo — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 21:51:17 GMT

Peter Salerno, a retired licensed psychotherapist, nationally recognised expert on personality disorders and pathological relationships, and author of The Nature and Nurture of Narcissism and Traumatic Cognitive Dissonance (2024), discusses his work in the field of narcissism. Beginning with his appearance in the Hulu documentary on Ted Bundy, Salerno rejects the claims by those who believe Bundy’s serial killing was a kind of reactive aggression, criticising those who believe Bundy’s actions were somehow a result of a childhood trauma. To the contrary, Salerno notes how Bundy was able to sustain relationships, even working on a suicide helpline, such that he was able to earn the trust of others, all while Bundy kidnapped, sexually attacked, and murdered others. Salerno draws parallels between this type of psychological assessment of serial killers and the narcissist, where there has been an inclination in the field to understand the narcissist’s aggression and control as reactive instead of proactive. Covering the genetic and biological roots behind narcissism, he highlights the scientific findings and neuroimaging that reveal the physiological underpinnings and genetic propensities towards narcissistic behaviour, noting, “This isn’t just personality. This is all psychopathology and all mental health or mental disorder.” Salerno historicises research in this field, which is rapidly changing in how it frames narcissism and its victims. For instance, he elucidates the damage that narcissists inflict upon others, what he terms “traumatic cognitive dissonance,” observing how narcissists inflict damage by “insert[ing] a dilemma inside of you, and you don’t know what’s real or not.” Evidencing how narcissists often intentionally give mixed messages, causing distress in their victims, Salerno explores how this creates a constant state of ambiguity and confusion in “a normal person who simply wants to collaborate and cooperate,” while chronicling how the trauma of narcissistic abuse plays into the victim’s goodwill as victims often attempt to understand why the narcissist would terrorise another person. Salerno relates how those suffering from traumatic cognitive dissonance are caught in a double-bind as they attempt to rationalise such behaviour by believing that this was reactive abuse which actually keeps them from seeing this person as a proactive abuser as they think: “Well, you know, they must have been really traumatised. That makes sense why they would be treating me this way.” Salerno carefully examines how narcissists seek out loving and trusting victims to exploit, while self-justifying their actions, even reversing and externalising the blame.

Michael John-Hopkins

Julian Vigo — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 22:57:00 GMT

Michael John-Hopkins, a legal scholar and a senior lecturer in law, discusses the theory of international law and its practice—from its conceptual foundation to what international law promises (sovereignty, non-use of force, equality of states, the UN Charter, rule of law) versus how it is actually applied (power politics, selective enforcement). He delineates the historical context of US foreign policy in Latin America, including the Monroe Doctrine, to show its continuity with current events, explaining why certain actors fail to observe international law and what contributes to this failure. Querying if the recent US kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores is uniquely egregious under international law, John-Hopkins delves into the broader patterns within US foreign policy and the myriad historical examples throughout US history of its regime-change and resource-grab colonialism, now set within a modern context. Vituperating the use of economic boycotts and sanctions as a means of strong-arming democracy, he notes how such acts of hybrid warfare constitute violations of international law while also signalling the erosion of the rules-based order. John-Hopkins considers Israel’s repeated violations of international law from the inception of its statehood through the present, scrutinising Israel’s illegal military operations, settlement policies, responses to terrorism, and the genocide of Palestinians all of which demonstrate the gap between norms and practice globally.