I am pleased to share with you the PODCAST DEBUT of the up and coming Mushkelji, whose recent piece How We March Through the DC Institutions caught my eye for its excellent insight into the Swamp’s schizophrenic machinations.
But my new friend has been making waves for a little while now, with several pieces that have gone viral including Men Like Me are Coming, a declaration that man’s adventuring spirit stills lies latent, yet ever at the ready even now in the 21st century; Can You Feel it Coming?, Mush’s raw, frenzied commentary reeling hot of the presses from the news of Charlie Kirk’s murder; Stop Falling for Counterinsurgency Tactics, an excellent warning against psyops on the Right (and I must say a spiritual, more serious sibling to my Fuentes & Owens & Carlson… Oy vey!! piece); and last but certainly not least, How Globohomo Killed My Church, in which Mush details the unfortunate degeneration of the Methodists into out and out heresy (I’ll have to have you on again sometime to talk through this one in depth, Mush!).
Did you make it past that paragraph? This is a podcast remember, just press play. Let us do the work for you while you work on infiltrating the system.
Not to insult your intelligence, for I know you are one of the smart ones. Certainly smart enough to be able to tell that the following bulleted timestamps are juiced by AI. But alas, ya boi is pressed for time, and it’s just gon have to make do na’msayin’?
That said, it was great talking with Mushkelji about a wide range of topics. Big thanks to him for joining me on the show. I look forward to talking with him again in the future. If you host a podcast, you’re welcome for the SSS+ lead—the man is an astute student of history with an eye for the truth.
Follow and Subscribe to him here: Mushkelji
Y’all enjoy!
Without further ado, Dissent.20 featuring Mushkelji:
00:00:01 — Intro song; Mushkelji introduced; pseudonym origin from Middle East
00:02:55 — We talk the merits of paid subscriptions/writing with no one to appease.
00:06:30 — Where power actually sits in DC
Discussion turns technical, not ideological.
Mush explains standing committees, focusing on House Appropriations.
Key points:
Any bill involving money flows through appropriations.
Omnibus bills routinely approach a trillion dollars.
Bills are hundreds of pages long.
Members of Congress do not read them.
Much of the language is drafted by lobbyists and committee staffers (often 20s–30s).
00:10:30 — Slush funds as the system
Mush describes how “nice-sounding” programs function as money laundromats:
Daycares
Healthcare centers
Refugee and NGO funding
Explains sub-clauses quietly routing millions to ideologically aligned organizations.
Negotiations don’t reduce spending — they add spending.
00:15:00 — Why outrage politics fails
People fixate on headline items instead of process.
Twitter sleuths discovering line items too late.
Mush argues that if you don’t exploit a fallen system, you get displaced by people who will.
Moral outrage without leverage leads nowhere.
00:20:00 — “Take over the institutions” — empty promises vis a vis the real “how”
Mush criticizes vague institutional-capture rhetoric.
Breaks down judicial pipelines:
Elite law schools (Yale, Harvard, Georgetown).
Clerkships and fellowships.
Vetting committees that pre-select candidates.
Elected officials rely on recommendations they barely interrogate.
Power belongs to filters and funnels, not voters.
00:26:00 — Populism vs reality
Agreement that populist energy keeps dissipating.
People argue about personalities instead of choke points.
Structural capture beats electoral wins.
“Winning” an election doesn’t dislodge staffers, NGOs, or pipelines.
00:32:00 — Media infighting and the fed obsession
Discussion of right-wing and dissident media cannibalization.
Obsession with “who’s a fed” fractures momentum.
Even if accusations are correct, fixation is strategically suicidal.
Counterinsurgency logic: divide, fragment, exhaust.
00:38:00 — Counterinsurgency doctrine
Mush references military and intelligence literature.
Notes influence of Algerian War counterinsurgency models.
Tools discussed:
Psychological mapping.
Informational overload.
Internal distrust.
Insight: modern domestic politics borrows directly from these frameworks.
00:44:00 — Libertarianism and dead ends
Mush explains his shift away from hardcore libertarianism.
Once believed federalism and the 10th Amendment could push back.
Now sees systems as too interwoven to unwind cleanly.
Jurisdictional fights don’t break capture.
00:50:00 — Academia as a filtering mechanism
We trade DEIcademia stories
00:56:00 — Talking heads and controlled opposition
Discussion of figures like Fuentes, Owens, Carlson as “talking heads.”
Point: internal feuds serve the system.
Energy spent policing personalities instead of building alternatives.
01:03:00 — Strategy vs paranoia
Mush stresses the danger of letting paranoia dominate.
Even if infiltration exists, obsession guarantees paralysis.
Divide-and-conquer works because people cooperate with it.
01:10:00 — Literature is dead — and why
Mush argues mainstream literature is effectively dead.
Barnes & Noble booktok smut slop
Mentions Hemingway and McCarthy as among the last serious American writers.
Publishing is ideologically gated, not market-driven.
01:20:00 — Patronage as a real solution
Mush lays out a concrete alternative model:
Buy land.
Create fellowships.
Provide stipends.
No ideological litmus tests.
Mentions real estate prices and feasibility.
Notes left-wing philanthropy already does this.
Argues the right refuses to play the same game.
01:32:00 — Renaissance comparison
Medici model invoked explicitly.
Patrons fund artists for legacy, not ROI.
Modern elites waste money on NFTs instead of culture.
A great book is a bigger flex than crypto art.
I discuss Lumen Reed, the patron of Thomas Cole and his Course of Empire paintings
01:42:00 — Academia, capture, and false reform
Return to academic capture.
CRT bans seen as superficial compliance.
Institutions simply rebrand the same ideology.
Without personnel changes, reforms are meaningless.
01:52:00 — Charlie Kirk’s assassination, political violence on the Left, what’s next.
02:00:00 — Closing: NEVER BLACKPILL—BE THE PENGUIN
fin, thanks for listening!
SELF SHILL SEGUE
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