When President Trump says things like “fake news,” “witch hunt” or even “Make America Great Again,” he’s not just using catchy phrases -- he’s persuading people into a way of thinking and believing. This week on Code Switch, we talk to Amanda Montell, author of Cultish and co-host of the podcast Sounds Like A Cult, about what the language of MAGA shares with cult language, and why it matters.
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Code Switch
In the U.S., roughly 8 in 10 kids from lower-income households grow up with few or no swimming skills — and Black and Latino children lag behind their white peers. Those gaps aren't an accident. They...
Latinos make up at least 50% of all Customs and Border Patrol agents and 20% of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — which has a lot of critics asking, why? We talk to Geraldo Cadava, professo...
Happy tenth birthday to us! In true Gemini fashion - we're that sign - we're celebrating by exploring our duality through astrology. Our intrepid Aquarius, B.A. Parker, talks to an astrologer and a sc...
Ever heard of the Savannah Bananas? They're a baseball team with millions of followers on TikTok and Instagram — known as much for their dance routines and shenanigans as their actual baseball. Now th...
The passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act marked what many historians mark as the actual beginning of democracy in the US. But last week the Supreme Court gutted what was left of the landmark civil ri...
Parenting is one of the toughest jobs in the world. Between choosing a neighborhood to live in or whether to send your kid to public school, there are a lot of decisions that feel high stakes — and st...
Motherhood in the U.S. is revered. Actual mothers? Not so much. So where's a bedraggled mom to turn when she feels overworked, overwhelmed, and underappreciated? Turns out, momfluencers are stepping i...
Over the past few weeks, there have been multiple high-profile incidents of Black men committing acts of violence against their loved ones, from a man in Shreveport killing his children, to the former...
At most elite colleges and universities, affirmative action is a thing of the past. But admissions offices are still interested in building racially diverse incoming classes — which can mean looking a...
The Trump administration has been very candid about their disdain for all things DEI. But it's not just conservatives who have critiques. On this episode, we're talking to Jennifer C. Pan, author of S...
The Trump administration's recent military actions have had certain observers asking... are we going full empire? But Daniel Immerwahr, a historian and the author of How to Hide an Empire, argues that...
What makes people pay a lot of attention to some wars and crises, but not others? And what does that attention actually do for the people in those situations? We're looking at Sudan, which has entered...
Do you vote Republican or Democrat? And why does that answer reveal so much about the rest of who you are? We talk to political scientist Lilliana Mason about how party affiliation has become a “mega-...
The Trump administration has called more and more groups “terrorists,” from “narco-terrorists” in Ecuador to people who protest ICE to the entire Democratic party. But it’s also nothing new. We talk t...
What do the women in Bama Rush, beauty pageants and President Trump's orbit have in common? Their look traces back to the beauty traditions of the white, antebellum South. We talk to Elizabeth Bronwyn...
The MAGA look -- you know the one: dramatic eyeliner, long, wavy hair, sheath dresses -- is a defining feature of President Trump's Republican party. And it's about a lot more than appearances. Journa...
People have been talking about being "allies" for a long time now. But what has that actually meant, over the years? And how performative should allyship be? One of our guests says, keep it to yoursel...
On Monday, Sen. Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as the newest head of the Department of Homeland Security, replacing Kristi Noem. It's an enormously consequential role that involves taking charge of IC...
When President Trump says things like “fake news,” “witch hunt” or even “Make America Great Again,” he’s not just using catchy phrases -- he’s persuading people into a way of thinking and believing. T...
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth recently put Scouting America — formerly known as the Boy Scouts — "on notice." The once great organization was becoming too woke, he said, and had been tarnished by...
It’s Alabama, 1963. A black woman stands before a judge, but she refuses to acknowledge his questions until he addresses her by the same honorific given to white women: “Miss.” That woman's name is Ma...
Sinners has already broken records — it's the most Oscar-nominated film in the history of the Academy Awards. But is the movie itself actually historic? And what will its success mean for the future o...
Iran has 90 million people of different ethnicities, faiths, and backgrounds, who have very different ideas about the country. Iranian American scholar Sina Toossi shares some of those varying perspec...
We all know what gentrification looks like IRL — boxy, corporate-owned apartment complexes, places to get a quick bowl for lunch, streets that are dubbed "cleaner" and "safer" (even at the expense of...
The late Reverend Jesse Jackson was — and still is — a revered civil rights activist, political trailblazer, and pop culture icon. For his critics, he was also villainized, or at the very least, a pun...
While Puerto Rican independence is in the spotlight after Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show, we're throwing it to our play cousins at La Brega, a show about all things Puerto Rico. We hear from fo...
Jeremy Carl — President Trump's nominee for a senior State Department role -- was called out for his commentary on "white erasure" during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this month. He defende...
The U.S. has been deporting people from Cuba in record numbers. That has come as a shock to many Cuban American communities, who had long enjoyed special protections that don't apply to most other imm...
When President Trump shared a racist video on his Truth Social account last week, the blowback was real. But the video is also part of a tradition that has existed in the U.S. since the early 1800s —...
Dating can be tough. Dating while Black? That can feel nigh impossible sometimes, given how the long tentacles of racism have wrapped themselves around every aspect of our lives (and hearts.) But was...