Episode · Behind the Bastards · 2026-02-07
Books mentioned on It Could Happen Here Weekly 218
All of this week's episodes of It Could Happen Here put together in one large file. - CZM Rewind: Dogwhistle Politics and Nazi Code Hunting - Panama 1989 to Venezuela 2026: What History Can Teach Us feat.
Garrison Davis discussed Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher. Robert Evans discussed They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer. Also mentioned: Emperors in the Jungle by John Lindsay-Poland.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Capitalist Realism
Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher is a cultural and political critique arguing that capitalism has successfully occupied the horizon of thinkable thought, creating a pervasive cultural atmosphere where no alternative economic system is believed possible.
Discussed“And again to quote from my goat the anti-goat quote Mark Fischer in Catholicism quote ultra authoritarianism and capital are by no means incompatible. Interment camps and franchise coffee bars coexist.”
Where to get it
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Emperors in the Jungle
Emperors in the Jungle by John Lindsay-Poland is a historical account examining United States involvement, interventions, and environmental impacts in Panama.
Recommended“Now, all of this and what follows was recounted in Emperors in the Jungle: The Hidden History of the US and Panama by John Lindseay Poland, which I picked up from my library, and it was really a fantastic book that served as my main resource for this research.”
Where to get it
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They Thought They Were Free
They Thought They Were Free by Milton Mayer is a compelling journalistic study that examines how ordinary citizens in the Weimar Republic gradually accepted and accommodated themselves to the Nazi regime.
Discussed“There's a book I come back to again and again when trying to puzzle out my own path forward in these unsettling times. It's titled They Thought They Were Free, and the author was a Jewish American progressive journalist and educator named Milton Meyer.”
Where to get it
