Why Now? A Political Junkie Podcast

The show begins with a clip from right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson’s November interview with Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem after the NFL announced that Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny would perform at the Super Bowl halftime show. Our theme this week is Ride It Like You Mean It by Kristian Leo. Image credit: AtlasStudio/Shutterstock In the News: * “Melania” opened last weekend to mostly terrible reviews but a decent box office of $7 million, although in Australia 33 theaters reported sales of just over $32,000. But some are questioning how those tickets were sold. One report points to bulk sales and private screenings; other reports show blocks of seats supposedly sold that were not then filled with patrons. Moviegoers who did show up were overwhelmingly white, female and over 55. * Over the weekend, ProPublica reported that the two men who murdered Alex Pretti, an ICU nurse and Minneapolis ICE observer, are Border Patrol Agent Jesus “Jesse” Ochoa and Customs and Border Protection officer Raymundo Gutierrez. Both men are veteran agents normally based in South Texas. Ochoa is a gun enthusiast who owns over 25 weapons, and Gutierrez as a specialist in rapid-response high risk operations. * On Monday, following the raid on the Fulton County, Georgia, elections office, President Donald Trump told reporters that Republicans should move to “nationalize” elections in at least 15 states. The presser is part of Trump’s attempt to revive 2020 election conspiracy theories prior to this year’s midterms. * It looks like former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will testify before Representative Jim Comer’s (R, KY-01) Oversight Committee after all: nine Democrats crossed the aisle to hold them in contempt, and the motion was on its way to the full House when the Clinton’s reversed their decision. Comer halted all investigations into Trump that were underway in the last Congress, and has completely dedicated himself to pursuing prominent Democrats. Your hosts: Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller. Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024). You can get all audio content by subscribing for free on Apple iTunes, YouTube, or Spotify. News focus: The Super Bowl * The Super Bowl shows the trajectory of football as a popular sport. The first one was played on January 15, 1967: 61,000 people attended a game between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs, at the Los Angeles Coliseum which the Packers won 35-10.It was not sold out, but it was broadcast on two networks, CBS and NBC, with an audience of 50 million. It also marks the maturity of the AFL, which had been founded in 1960; the two leagues had just merged in 1966. * Traditions have grown up around the event: the Super Bowl party, wagering on the game, the halftime show, and the broadcast as a showcase for advertising agencies to display their talents and top clients. This Sunday, we will see an advertisement for Trump Accounts. * Another tradition, since the George W. Bush presidency, is the Super Bowl Sunday Presidential interview: it is so entrenched that Joe Biden’s decision not to do it in 2023 and 2024 was controversial. Donald Trump will do the interview although he will not attend the game as he did last year. * It’s the biggest television audience of the year, and predominantly North American: last year a record 127.7 million viewers tuned in. Here are the demographics of that audience. * It’s also a big day for domestic violence, and the most dangerous day of the year to be at home with an abusive partner. * At least one study by Brianna McNary, a former sociology major at Ohio State and now a sports reporter and news producer in Nashville, argues that because of the sport’s hyper-masculinity, the NFL is also more homophobic than any other men’s professional league. There have been only 16 players who have come out as gay or bi in NFL history, and all but one, Carl Nassib, were retired at the time. The NHL has none, there have been two in the NBA and three in MLB. * Football began as a segregated sport. Approximately 70% of players are Black, but only 20% of the broadcasters and 30% of the coaches are Black. Only three head coaches are Black. This year, out of 10 open head coaching jobs, only one new hire was not White: Robert Saleh, of the Tennessee Titans, who is of Lebanese descent. * So, let’s talk about Bad Bunny: born Benito Ocasio, he just won three Grammys (including album of the year for DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, the first time a Spanish-language album to win that award, will perform at halftime. It’s the first time that concert will be entirely in Spanish; the show also calls attention to how few Puerto Rican players there are in the NFL. * This is really getting under MAGA’s skin: there has been a lot of chatter about Bad Bunny not really being “American,” revealing a great deal about what it means to “belong” in Donald Trump’s America. * But it isn’t just that Bad Bunny is Puerto Rican, or opposes the form immigration enforcement has taken in the past year, it’s that football is a hyoer-masculine sport and —although he identifies as a straight man—Bad Bunny is an LGBTQ+ ally and presents as gender-fluid. * Yet, almost 60% of NFL players approve of the league choosing Bad Bunny: two Seahawks players, QB Sam Darnold and defensive end DeMarcus Lawrence, have stated openly that they are fans. * Nevertheless, Turning Point USA has created counter-programming: a so-called “All American” halftime show headlined by Kid Rock will stream on YouTube and a handful of right-wing platforms. * The controversy is perhaps unsurprising, as some observe that the Super Bowl is a snapshot of the nation at a particular moment. What we want to go viral: * A blackmailer threatens to release confidences intended to remain in the treatment room unless the ransom is paid. Neil is binging “Ransom Man,” a 2026 BBC podcast about a hack at a Finnish virtual psychotherapy network that combines a real-life thriller with the question: is Finlad really the happiest nation in the world? * What’s in that spandex? Claire wants you to read “Are ski jumpers enhancing their penises to fly further?” Philip Buckingham’s reporting about the skin-tight aerodynamic were that allow people to fly like birds at the Olympics. (The Athletic, February 6, 2026) Short takes: * As The Washington Post implodes, its multi-billionaire owner Jeff Bezos has eliminated parts of the paper he believes perform poorly: one section that has bitten the dust is the Post’s legendary Book World. “But quality had nothing to do with the decision to cut book reviews, just as it had nothing to do with cuts in the paper’s sports and international coverage,” Adam Kirsch writes at The Atlantic. “Rather, the Post was making the same business decision that most other publications have made. People don’t want to read book reviews—at least, not enough people to make publishing them worthwhile. It’s a vicious circle. As people feel less of a need to keep up with new books, they stop reading reviews; publications respond by cutting books coverage, so readers don’t hear about new books; as a result, they buy fewer books, which makes publications think they’re not worth covering.” (February 6, 2026) * Analysts are starting to unpack the 14-point trouncing Republican Leigh Wambsganss took from Taylor Rehmet in Texas’s SD-09, a district the Democrats have not won since 1990. According to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, Wambsganss’s Moms for Liberty censorship agenda is a big part of why she lost. “Wambsganss, though, is a type of woman who is instantly recognizable to anyone who has lived in the Bible Belt,” Marcotte writes: “the crazy church lady who wants total control over the lives of her neighbors, dictating what they read, who they socialize with, how they spend their free time and who they have sex with. While most Republicans in the MAGA era either support or at least tolerate giving miserable theocrats that much power, there are still some holdouts who believe in personal liberty and separation of church and state.” (February 6, 2026) * John McWhorter leads out Black History Month with a complex portrait of Lillian and Amanda Randolph, talented and highly-trained sisters who performed in film, radio, and television during decades when few parts for Black women did not put them in a maid’s uniform. In other words, most of the 20th century. “The early stages of both sisters’ careers — especially Amanda’s — are lost to us because of how expensive and cumbersome cameras and recording equipment were,” McWhorter writes in The New York Times. “In part as a result of that scarcity, we see the Randolph sisters’ work as occurring in a distant and perhaps peculiar past. But they didn’t feel it that way, and when we can get a peek at what they were doing, it can be fascinating to imagine ourselves in the lives they led.” (February 5, 2026) Political Junkie is a reader-supported publication. Don’t miss new drops from Claire and Neil. You can subscribe for free or support us for only $5 a month. You can also become an annual supporter for $50/year and choose Neil’s Coming Out Republican or Claire’s Political Junkies: as a welcome bonus. Get full access to Political Junkie at clairepotter.substack.com/subscribe