Pop Trends Price Culture

It was a long time ago, but not so far away: A great historian's timeless essay defined an ugly black thread that is embedded in the fabric of U.S. history. "The Paranoid Style in American Politics" proved so insightful that it anticipated the tragi-farce spectacle known as the election of 2016, fifty-plus years ago. Hear it for yourself in this episode of Pop Trends, Price Culture.

If you watched the three presidential debates, maybe you thought to yourself, "I wish I could ask a question." Robert Folsom sure did. And he knows what his question would have been. In this episode of Pop Trends, Price Culture he recreates what that exchange might have sounded like.

If Pop Trends, Price Culture is still an active podcast during the NEXT presidential election cycle, we are definitely going to replay today's episode at the right time in the year 2020. Because what we say now will be even more true of the incumbent candidate then. Listen in, and you'll "get it" as we go…

"My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over." Well, almost over. That comment is from Gerald Ford on August 9, 1974, after he was sworn in as President upon the resignation of Richard Nixon. At the risk of melodrama, I invoke that famous quote because Ford meant to capture the emotional toll on America that attended the ouster of a sitting president. In 2016, we've suffered through a trauma simply to get a president elected. In other news, please listen on to hear mood at work in Zika guidelines, the Battle for Mosul, and, of course, in various other themes from the 2016 election cycle.

Money. Politics. The media. Plus, subplots that include narcissism, greed, betrayal and sex scandals. Of course these issues lead today's news, yet this episode of Pop Trends, Price Culture offers hard evidence that this election cycle amounts to life imitating art from 75 years ago.

More than a half-dozen U.S. states have made it mandatory in elementary schools, and 40 more states may do likewise. Have you heard what's on the leading edge of instigating the "Return to Basics"? (hint: ink stains…)

Master political infighter. Student of human weakness. Bureaucrat supreme. Brilliant Machiavellian schemer. And, "American History's Greatest One-Man Barometer of Social Mood." Discover who this person was -- through a socionomic lens.

Immigration policy has been an epic contradiction all thru U.S. history. America is “a nation of immigrants,” yet major political trends in American frequently include outbursts of anti-immigration sentiment. Pop Trends, Price Culture offers a way to un-puzzle this issue – including recent-cases-in-point – via the clarity that comes with understanding social mood.

Which "unusual" category had three books climb to Amazon's list of 10 best-selling books in 2015? Hint: The last time anything like this happened, John F. Kennedy was in the White House and Barbara Streisand had a weird, sappy hit about these very kind of books…

It's easy to think that financial and social manias are fueled only by the unsophisticated and gullible crowd. Yet, please allow us to introduce you to the pseudoscience of Eugenics. That is the trend we discussed in our previous episode.

This is one person's story. An anecdote. So why tell it? Because, this story personifies a trend that was much, much larger. What trend is that? Listen in to part one of the two-part tale.

What is the most common activity in America that gets citizens arrested? It's a serious question. As you think about an answer, think also about how serious an arrest record is. It follows you like a brand to the forehead. It makes it harder to be employed, get an education, or get credit. You know, the stuff you need to have a life...

Does news coverage of "threats" help you know what the threats really are? How DO you think about real vs. perceived threats -- to your safety, health, and life? And, what the heck do bookmakers have to do with these questions? Check out this episode of Pop Trends, Price Culture for the answers.

Why are so many people are playing Pokémon Go? For starters, it's lighthearted fun. Catching Pokémon is kind of like when you chased fireflies as a kid -- they're cool. You want to catch 'em, not kill 'em. And, hordes of Millennials are playing Pokémon Go out of nostalgia: They grew up on Pokémon and now it's on their single-most indispensable device -- the cell phone. Less obvious is the peer pressure -- which is a watered down way of describing social mood. Yes, I'm going there. And I can credibly say that we started "going there" with Pokémon back in 1999...

There's an old saying in war and in politics: "Never interrupt your opponent when he's destroying himself." Yet the two major-party candidates can't even follow that simple wisdom -- which is one of the many reasons we explore, Why People Keep Asking, "Is This 1968?"

Even hard-core political junkies have labored to keep up with the 2016 election headlines. Yet in the onslaught of news, there is a huge untold story: Social mood is depopulating the two major political parties…

Before the moral panics that tried to stamp out rock-n-roll, video game violence and satanic ritual abuse, came the first -- and most successful -- crusade to stop the "Seduction of the Innocent." The fact that most people don't know about it tells you just how effective it was… 

If a nation can have a bad week, then the week beginning Sunday June 12 was pretty awful. We all know about the mass shooting in Orlando. Yet what followed only made things worse. The murder of 49 people has been grotesquely politicized -- far MORE politicized than in any instance of a mass shooting. Pop Trends Price Culture considers, "Why?"

In the 20th century or any other, there's never been a one-man intersection of sports, politics and pop culture, the way we witnessed in Muhammad Ali. Yet this podcast is not mere tribute. We do have something to add, a relevant context to the epic and very public life that Ali lived. And I may as well take the risk of saying that our observation is one you won't hear elsewhere...

Can you name the MOST authoritarian government document in U.S. history? A Pulitzer Prize winning author described it as a plan "for America's intelligence services ... to monitor the communications of American citizens, intensify the electronic surveillance of dissidents, read their mail, burglarize their homes and offices, and step up undercover spying." Pop Trends, Price Culture connects the dots from the 1960s to the 1970s and to our day.