A Message on Christmas, from Useful Idiots

Hey Useful Idiots,

This year has been a long one. To name a few highlights: a deadly war, a brutal election season, scary Supreme Court rulings, Covid continuation, too many Jan 6 hearings, unchecked mass killing abroad, and huge losses for workers, students, and Assange.

It’s hard (as it’s probably clear from those increasingly depressing Absurd Arena articles), not to internalize the constant news of power, killing, and deception. The job of journalists, in short, is to show the public how much the people in power suck, and that means there’s no escaping the ceaseless bludgeoning of news.

But when we’re dragged down into that darkness, the light that pulls us out week after week is you.

The thousands who join our Monday Mourning livestreams, the tens of thousands who watch each episode with inspiring guests, the three million podcast downloads in 2022.

Knowing you’re out there, by our side, struggling and fighting and laughing through it all, is what keeps this podcast going. It’s what makes fantastic guests like Norm, Noam, even Tobias Fünke (remember that?) keep coming back. And it’s what helps new people each week stumble across this show and slowly fall down the rabbit hole with us.

It’s people who fight to learn what’s really going on in a world hellbent on lying and who fight to share the truth with anyone who still will listen. It’s people who are, as we lovingly call them, Useful Idiots.

Thank you all for sticking with us. This year we added new segments, threw down on crazy media moments, got absurd in the new discussion board, and really began to see the formation of a Useful Idiot community. It wouldn’t be nearly as fun to watch the world burn without you laughing by our side.

Happy holidays to you and your families.

With love,

The Useful Idiots

Katie, Aaron, Matt, and Wilson