Gaslit Nation

Joining Gaslit Nation this week, Jack Cocchiarella—the Gen Z political commentator, host of The Jack Cocchiarella Show, and future ambassador to Italy under the most progressive White House the world has ever seen—argues that despair, not ideology, is the true driving force behind America's Gen Z vs. nihilism crisis.
Andrea and Jack discuss the radicalization of young men who feel they lack a sense of belonging or purpose; the ways New York City Council Member Zohran Mamdani—whom Jack interviewed early in his campaign when he had no chance of winning—embodies the ideal role model for Gen Z men today; the weird and creepy love affair between MAGA cultist Natalie Harp and convicted felon/cult leader Donald Trump; how the Democrats can start being ruthless and stop playing by the book when the book is on fire; why cryptocurrency lobbyists in Congress are the "controlled opposition"; Trump's plan to hole up in a ballroom-bunker to escape the people whose lives he's destroying; and the progressive case for supporting Ukraine against fascist Russia.
To listen to the full episode, support Gaslit Nation on Patreon and Substack by joining our community of listeners. We are funded entirely by you, not Larry Ellison, which empowers us to say what needs to be said. Discounted annual memberships are available, and on Patreon, you can give the gift of membership. Thank you to everyone who supports the show. We could not make Gaslit Nation with you.
Calling all anti-fascist patriots and democracy defenders: send a powerful message to the media and publishing world by pre-ordering Andrea's new book, A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire. It will help you build a dream project from the ground up, while helping create a better world. A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women is Steve Bannon's worst nightmare—so grab your copy. Pre-order the book and forward your receipt to GaslitNation@gmail.com to receive a special gift and a signed bookplate to stick inside the book.
Show Notes:
The Jack Cocchiarella Show notes: https://jackcocchiarellashow.com/
Jack Cocchiarella on winning the "vibe war" https://www.americanprogressaction.org/article/jack-cocchiarella-on-winning-the-vibe-war/
Jon Ossoff's 'travel with Natalie' shows how candidates win attention in a culture of clips https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/19/media/jon-ossoff-natalie-harp-viral-clips
Trump's ballroom costs are rising. What we know about the secret underground bunker https://www.axios.com/2026/08/12/trumps-ballroom-costs-are-rising-what-we-know-about-the-secret-underground-bunker
Trump wants to build an expanded bunker under the White House. A historian weighs in https://www.npr.org/2026/08/17/nx-s1-5931758/trump-wants-to-build-an-expanded-bunker-under-the-white-house-a-historian-weighs-in
U.S. War in Iran Leaves Ukraine's Air Defense in Limbo https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/05/04/us-iran-war-ukraine-patriot-missiles-air-defense-purl/
The soaring demand for Patriot missiles, from the Middle East to Ukraine https://www.npr.org/2026/08/04/g-s1-137287/us-patriot-missiles-ukraine-middle-east-iran-war
Mayor Mamdani's First Parents' Night Out Gives NYC Moms And Dads From Harlem To Flatbush A Night Off https://www.harlemworldmagazine.com/mayor-mamdanis-first-parents-night-out-gives-nyc-moms-and-dads-from-harlem-to-flatbush-a-night-off/
Mayor Mamdani Advances New York City's First Free Child Care Program Pilot for Municipal Workers: https://www.nyc.gov/mayors-office/news/2026/03/mayor-mamdani-advances-new-york-city-s-first-free-child-care-pro
Kyrsten Sinema Is The Latest Addition To Crypto's Sellout Dream Team. Who Will Be Next? https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/lobbying-draft-class-of-2025/
Sports betting is part of Gen Z's financial strategy, survey finds https://www.newsnationnow.com/business/your-money/sports-betting-gen-z-survey/
Want a plan to bash the patriarchy? Live your most creative life and help build a better world with Andrea's new book A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807202/a-reasonable-guide-for-unreasonable-women-by-andrea-chalupa/
 
EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:
Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit and GaslitNation.Substack.com for our community

New! There's now a California Signal Group for Gaslit Nation listeners to find each other and connect in that state. Join on Patreon or Substack!

The Gaslit Nation Outreach Committee discusses how to talk to the MAGA cult: Join on Patreon or Substack!

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As always, keep it kind in our chat groups, extend grace and assume good faith. A culture of care is how we build a better world.

Mrs. Orwell will be at the Brooklyn Book Festival on Sunday, September 27 at 12pm ET. Details here and in the show notes. I would love to meet Gaslit Nation listeners! So if you can, come by and say hi. In the meantime, above is the April 13 book launch of Mrs. Orwell at PowerHouse Arena. Thank you to the listeners who came out–it was a joy to see you! 
There would have been no George Orwell without Eileen O'Shaughnessy Blair. She saved her husband's life twice, including while they fought fascists on their honeymoon in the Spanish Civil War.
Eileen was more Orwell than Orwell. While Eric Blair served in the Indian Imperial Police in Burma, she studied literature under J.R.R. Tolkien and became one of Oxford's earliest women graduates. She trained in child psychology and shaped Animal Farm–a children's book. Her descendants credit her great influence on that now classic novel. Their friends even noticed that Eric's writing transformed after meeting Eileen.
Mrs. Orwell, illustrated by Brahm Revel and born from my film Mr. Jones, which features Orwell's Animal Farm, restores Eileen to her proper place of literary greatness. Her courage inspired me since I discovered her in Orwell's preface to the Ukrainian edition of Animal Farm, which my mother's family carried from a World War II refugee camp to New York City. 
Eileen's close friend Lettice Cooper said Eileen and Eric "live by a burning morality." Mrs. Orwell reminds us truth-telling takes a team.
Get your copy of Mrs. Orwell here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250877857/mrsorwell/
Meet Mrs. Orwell at the Brooklyn Book Festival: https://brooklynbookfestival.org/event/women-changing-history/
Calling all anti-fascist patriots and democracy defenders: send a strong message to the media and publishing industry by pre-ordering A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire. It will help you build a dream project from scratch, aligned with creating a better world. It's Steve Bannon's worst nightmare, so grab your copy. Pre-order, forward your receipt to GaslitNation@gmail.com, and we'll send you a special gift and mail you a signed book plate.

Allison Guerriero helped expose a traitor inside the FBI. Now she's dead in Florida, cause unknown.
Guerriero tipped off the feds about Charles McGonigal, the traitor inside the New York FBI who ran counterintelligence, pretending to hunt Russian, while being on the payroll of loyal Putin oligarch, Oleg Deripaska. McGonigal got 50 months in prison. Guerriero was found dead, hours after posting about McGonigal, the FBI, and Jim Jordan. 
This week Gaslit Nation traces the line from Guerriero to McGonigal to Deripaska. We have to hold space and demand accountability for the mysterious deaths of Kremlin critics and whistleblowers. Accountability is what keeps us, and our democracy, safe.
To listen to the full episode and support the independent journalism that warned you first that Trump wanted to be a Russian-style dictator, turning America into a Russian-style oligarchy, join our community of listeners on Patreon.com/Gaslit or GaslitNation.Substack.com. Discounted annual memberships are available, and on Patreon you can give the gift of membership.
Calling all anti-fascist patriots and democracy defenders: send a strong message to the media and publishing industry by pre-ordering A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire. It will help you build a dream project from scratch, aligned with creating a better world. It's Steve Bannon's worst nightmare, so grab your copy. Pre-order, forward your receipt to GaslitNation@gmail.com, and we'll send you a special gift and mail you a signed book plate.
Show Notes
Who Is Allison Guerriero? Woman Who Exposed FBI Official for Working With Russians Found Dead   Newsweek   https://www.newsweek.com/allison-guerriero-michael-mcgonigal-fbi-exposed-working-russian-oligarch-dead-12392795
Former Special Agent in Charge of the New York FBI Counterintelligence Division Sentenced to 50 Months   U.S. Department of Justice, SDNY   https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/former-special-agent-charge-new-york-fbi-counterintelligence-division-sentenced-50
Former FBI spy hunter sentenced to 4 years for taking money from Putin crony in Russia sanctions case   NBC News   https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/former-fbi-spy-hunter-sentenced-4-years-taking-money-putin-crony-russi-rcna129871
Friends of Kremlin Critic Dan Rapoport Don't Believe He Died by Suicide   The Daily Beast   https://www.thedailybeast.com/friends-of-kremlin-critic-dan-rapoport-dont-believe-he-died-by-suicide/
Want a plan to bash the patriarchy? Live your most creative life and help build a better world with Andrea's new book, A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire   https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807202/a-reasonable-guide-for-unreasonable-women-by-andrea-chalupa/

"Mar-a-Lago face" is what happens to white women when they try to secure proximity to power by joining a death cult. Feminist icon Soraya Chemaly, author of All We Want is Everything: How We Dismantle Male Supremacy and Rage Becomes Her, joins Gaslit Nation to discuss why MAGA women want to look like the plastic morphing faces in Soundgarden's cinematic masterpiece for "Black Hole Sun." 
Andrea and Soraya discuss how to bash the patriarchy, and what perks are in it for the men if we succeed. We also look at what the system does to boys, stripping them of their humanity. Male supremacy convinces boys and men that they are entitled to the three pillars of masculine socialization: providing and protecting and presiding, which requires a woman who cannot provide, cannot protect herself, and does not decide. The research shows that women who wear makeup at work get paid more, because it signals such compliance. We also discuss the progressive Brooklyn moms who may be unknowingly raising incels; the expiration dates of the trad wife economy when the credit card gets cut off; the SAVE America Act coming for married women's voter registrations; and the pornographic rape culture behind media's ominous pivot to short videos. When even Amy Goodman wears eye-shadow, that's when we know it's time to double-down on our rage and resistance.
To listen to the full episode, be sure to support Gaslit Nation on Patreon and Substack by joining our community of listeners. Discounted annual memberships are available, and on Patreon you can give the gift of membership. Gaslit Nation is funded by our listeners – we could not make this show without you. Thank you to everyone who supports our independent journalism in these tough times. 
The world is on fire. It's time to be unreasonable. If you want a concrete plan to find your purpose and help create the world you want to live in, pre-order Andrea's new book today.
🎁 Special Bonus: Get an exclusive gift when you pre-order! Just forward your receipt to GaslitNation@gmail.com.
Get your 20-step guide here: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807202/a-reasonable-guide-for-unreasonable-women-by-andrea-chalupa/
Show Notes:
Check out Soraya Chemaly's books here: https://www.sorayachemaly.com/
Women who wear makeup are paid more, according to bummer study — UC Irvine School of Social Sciences https://socsci.uci.edu/newsevents/news/2016/2016-05-20-penner-wong-bustle.php
Almost a third of Gen Z men agree a wife should obey her husband — King's College London https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/almost-a-third-of-gen-z-men-agree-a-wife-should-obey-her-husband
Almost a third of Gen Z men globally agree a wife should obey her husband — Ipsos https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/almost-third-gen-z-men-globally-agree-wife-should-obey-her-husband
The SAVE Act: Overview and Facts — Center for American Progress https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-save-act-overview-and-facts/
How the SAVE Act Could Disenfranchise Millions of Married Women and Trans Voters — National Women's Law Center https://nwlc.org/how-the-save-act-could-disenfranchise-millions-of-married-women-and-trans-voters/
How the SAVE America Act would affect the 2026 elections — Votebeat https://www.votebeat.org/2026/02/16/save-america-act-passes-house-proof-of-citizenship-register-vote-photo-id/
H.R.7296 — SAVE America Act, 119th Congress — Congress.gov https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7296
The SAVE America Act could make it harder for women to vote — The 19th https://19thnews.org/2026/02/house-passes-save-america-act-married-women-vote/
Changes in self-esteem in black and white girls between the ages of 9 and 14 years: The NHLBI Growth and Health Study — PubMed https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9648018/
Research: Women Are Getting Angrier. (Women: We Know) — The Story Exchange https://thestoryexchange.org/research-women-are-getting-angrier-women-we-know/
State of American Men 2025 — Equimundo https://www.equimundo.org/resources/state-of-american-men-2025/
About Equimundo: Center for Masculinities and Social Justice https://www.equimundo.org/about/

Joining us for this week's bonus show is the tenacious genius Michele Hornish, Executive Director of Every State Blue, a Missouri-based organization supporting the overlooked races in rural areas, building progressive infrastructure on the ground, election after election. We discuss the frontline strategies for defeating Republican autocracy.
In our exclusive bonus episode, available in full for our Patreon and Substack communities who sustain Gaslit Nation, Andrea shares her insights from living in the belly of the beast–Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia–to expose how America is a corporation and how the sausage actually gets made in the world's most powerful military/budding dictatorship. 
Ready to fight back? Pre-order Andrea's new book, A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World On Fire, your mentor on your shelf for overcoming the fascist threat by unleashing the power of your wildest dream. Grab your copy, get one for a friend, and send a message to the media and publishing worlds that we need to get this book into the hands of as many women and girls as possible. Plus support independent journalism and unlock the full episode by subscribing on Patreon or Substack today!
Pre-order A Reasonable Guide: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807202/a-reasonable-guide-for-unreasonable-women-by-andrea-chalupa/
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