Presidential Deathmatch

It's over! After 196 (or 197, who's counting) Presidential losers the genie curse has been lifted and Aaron and Dennis can talk about whatever they want again. Which is presidential losers, as it turns out. Before leaving them behind forever Aaron and Dennis consider a list of Also-ran historical rankings and make their own, before re-answering the natural question of who they would have wanted for president anyway. Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

It's been a long time coming, but at long last Aaron and Dennis have reached the end of the rainbow: the final presidential losers they need to talk about. What magic wisdom do these final socialist candidates have in store? Only one to find out! Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

The boys manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory! Editing is taking a little long this week so Aaron talks about Hyrum and Verlan Lewis' book The Myth of Left and Right which asserts that Left and Right are not only unhelpful labels for political ideas, but are instead post hoc creations to justify a disparate set of beliefs! It's a hoot. Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @Pronoia

In what must be a first for Presidential Death-Match Dennis and Aaron fall into two substantive discussions over the course of the episode. Luckily there's plenty of silliness inbetween as they look at the remains of third parties since the year 2000. Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

Aaron and Dennis are back from their respective travails to finish their discussion on failed independent candidates (and successful racists) of the late 1900s! send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

Jessica Kelly Garrett guest hosts an episode all about those lovable huggable segregationists: the Dixiecrats! Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

We know that no third party or independent has ever successfully become president- but not for lack of trying! Aaron and Dennis begin to take a look at the 1950s and beyond during a time of fringe candidates fighting for the restoration of segregation (and other melancholy times)! Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

Aaron and Dennis are separated by time, space, and fate. Still, they persevere and tell you the life and times of George Wallace and John B. Anderson. Dennis does an absolutely hysterical bit, and Aaron does dry history stuff. The world is as it should be. George Wallace is the last moderately electorally successful third party candidate and John B Anderson pleaded for a centrist lane against the progressive poles of Carter and Reagan. Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at Paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia.

Due to a big rock getting rolled away Dennis and Aaron are momentarily reflecting on the last season's episodes and checking in to see how much Dennis retained. Did Ulysses Grant's horse get any electoral vote? Who wanted a third term? And who was Orval Fauvus? All these questions and little else are answered on this edition of Presidential Death Match! Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

After a rousing bout with Vicky Blood last week Aaron and Dennis return to the business of dressing down some people who history chose to forgot. Did you know the inventor of Jell-O ran for president, and that he is the oldest person to do so? Or that the corrupting influence of politics turned a labor reformer into a white supremicist? It's all inside this episode of Presidential Death Match! Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

We end up only talking about Victoria Woodhull today! It's a good time. Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

Aaron and Dennis jump so quickly into it you'd swear they were already recording! In-between sloppy jokes and in-depth analysis of early American party politics they talk about the rest of the failed Presidential aspirants from 1824-1852, and in case you were wondering, yes we do talk about Governor John Floyd of the Nullifer party. So many years people have been crying "when are you going to talk about Governor John Floyd of the Nullifer party?!" "If you don't talk about Governor John Floyd of the Nullifer party I'm cancelling my subscription!" "Give me Governor John Floyd of the Nullifer party or give me death!" Well, we've listened and today, you get to hear our thoughts on the man. I hope the wait was worth it. Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

An episode so chockablock with failures and aspirants they had to break it into two! In this first part Dennis and Aaron talk about the rest of the people who didn't quite make it to the presidency from our first election to 1820! When life gets you down remember that no matter how much you fail you'll never fail as big as them. Try not to remember that you probably won't ever accomplish as much as they did to get to that failure either. Samuel Huntington, Charles Pinckney, Rufus King, and so many more people you've never heard of are covered in this week's salute to Old Losers! Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

It's a heady episode this week as we examine the success and failures of two real presidents (Wilson and FDR) in shaping public perception of wars that defined their administrations and compare the exploits of two non-presidents (DeWitt Clinton and Douglas MacArthur) and how they attempted to shape reality around them. Special thanks to Jason Jonathan Rivas who graciously let his thesis, _Scripting Memory: Hollywood, The Federal Government and Public Memory in WWII, be the foundation of this episode. Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

In this 23rd year of our new Willenium we look at two nineteenth-century titans of the only industries that matter in America: banking and cannabis medicine, and how they'd do at fundraising for their various causes. Can Samuel Tilden finally notch a win in our topsy-turvey system or will our current model of small-dollar donations leave him as cold as he was all his life? Also, we had fedualism in America! Who knew? Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

Another deep dive into a dying political party! The Socialist Labor Party is America's first socialist party, and it enjoyed (qualified) success in its early years. A series of schisms over proper application of theory drove the membership down and today it is a dessicated corpse of what it once was. How did Socialism express itself in the late 1800s, what did it want, what did it get, and how are they connected to a late 19th century novel about the abolition of prostitution? Find out! Send retractions to: contact@pronoiatheater.com Support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia.

Boy howdy is Aaron off his game for this episode, luckily we've got Andrew Stout to carry on the conversation. Dennis, Aaron, and Andrew talk about the Superbowl Halftime show and what it might look like if socialists of America's yesterday ran it instead. We've got everything from a dancing Jimmy Hoffa to a man drowning in a river (there's no not sad way to introduce that fact.) Send retractions to contact@pronoiatheater.com You can support the show at paypal.me/pronoiatheater or venmo: @pronoia

In a breathtaking epsiode (mostly because Aaron is having trouble,) Aaron takes a closer look at the five remaining Libertarian and Prohibition Party candidates as he tries to speed this season along to its natural conclusion. 

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You didn't think we'd let this Speaker drama pass without a trip down ridiculous American history lane? Aaron pokes his head up from the break to talk about a definite villain, possible hero of the 1800's, Benjamin Butler. 

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Tragically Aaron-less once more, Dennis welcomes barbecue savant and environmental engineer Cameron McKay to discuss the merits of Texas brisket and its lesser BBQ brethren. Unemployment insurance changemaker Jake Coxey Sr. does his best to weather the undeniably apropos return of Ross Perot for the battle of the best pitmaster. Smokin'!!

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