Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace — not because he legally had to, but because he bowed to etiquette, tradition, and the unwritten rules of political “decency.” In this episode, Mookie Spitz unpacks that moment in history when decorum outweighed actual law, especially when the law was murky or absent. Nixon didn’t have to quit. He chose to — because back then, the script said he should.
But today? That script’s in flames. From Nixon to Trump to Musk, Mookie charts how we’ve lurched from resignation and shame to shamelessness, from following norms to blowing them up. Trump flouted every rule of political conduct and still pulled millions into his orbit. Musk trashes presidents, impregnates multiple women, trolls on a platform he bought purely to shitpost — and millions cheer him on.
Mookie doesn’t stop there. He dismantles how all of us — marketers, PR strategists, brand gurus — still cling to old illusions about “reputation” and “playing it safe,” while the reality is people crave boundary-smashing spectacle. He points out that most humans operate on tribal power plays, gossip, and selfish instincts, so it’s no surprise we worship trolls who embody all of that on a global stage.
He also digs into how our tolerance for chaos and narcissism has exploded, fed by social media and now by algorithms that will soon know us better than we know ourselves. It’s a raw, unfiltered riff on power, attention, and why the future might be even more dominated by trollish mega-egos — because secretly, we wish we could be them...
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