Madeline Peltz is a writer, journalist, and researcher born in Chicago. Over the last decade, her reporting has appeared in Media Matters for America, MSNOW, Newsweek, More Perfect Union, and more. She has been quoted as an expert on right-wing media and the conservative movement in The New York Times, CNN, Democracy Now!, The Washington Post, BBC, The Guardian, and elsewhere.
The fight for young minds is happening daily on podcasts, YouTube, and social media—platforms saturated with conservative messaging. The right has spent decades investing in this year-round digital propaganda apparatus, targeting Gen Z’s economic insecurity and distrust of mainstream institutions to push answers rooted in hyper-individualism, misogyny, and bigotry.
In Good Girls and Alpha Males, journalist Madeline Peltz takes readers inside the online conservative sphere shaping the future of politics. From “tradwife” influencers to “manosphere” mouthpieces, she exposes the voices driving Gen Z’s shift to the right along gendered lines. With equal ferocity, Peltz interrogates the Democratic Party’s culpability, condemning the hostility to its younger, more progressive flank.
Philip P. Arnold is a Professor in the Department of Religion and a core faculty member of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Syracuse University. He is the Founding Director of the Skä-noñh—Great Law of Peace Center (2012-15) and repurposed the “French Fort” on Onondaga Lake. He is the President of the Indigenous Values Initiative, which is a non-profit organization to support the work of the Skä-noñh—Great Law of Peace Center, the American Indian Law Alliance, and sister organizations and initiatives to educate the general public about the values of the Haudenosaunee. In 2007, he organized the Doctrine of Discovery Study Group to study the legacy of Christianity’s destruction of Indigenous Peoples. With his wife Sandra Bigtree, he co-hosts the Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery podcast and is the PI for “200 Years of Johnson v. McIntosh: Indigenous Responses to the Religious Foundations of Racism,” a 3-year (2022-24) grant from the Henry Luce Foundation. He is co-editor of the Syracuse University Press series Haudenosaunee and Indigenous Worlds and a founding member of NOON (Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation). His books are Eating Landscape: Aztec and European Occupation of Tlalocan (1999); Sacred Landscapes and Cultural Politics: Planting a Tree (edited with Ann Gold, 2001); The Gift of Sports: Indigenous Ceremonial Dimensions of the Games We Love(2012), and Urgency of Indigenous Values (Syracuse University Press, 2023).
Sandra Bigtree, Bear Clan, is a citizen of the Mohawk Nation at Akwesasne. She is a founding board member of the Indigenous Values Initiative (501C3), which fosters collaborative educational work between the academic community and the Haudenosaunee to promote the message of peace that was brought to Onondaga Lake thousands of years ago. She helped organize the “Roots of Peacemaking” educational festivals in 2006 and 2007; the “Doctrine of Discovery Conference” in 2014; and co-edited the Neighbors of the Onondaga Nation (NOON) educational booklet. She was an original Planning Committee member of Skä-noñh: the Great Law of Peace Center and currently sits on the Educational Collaborative committee. In 1984-85, she was the Administrative Assistant to the American Indian Law Support Center at the Native American Rights Fund in Boulder, CO. In 1980-82, she performed with Indigenous Peoples in the Arts theatre troupe (an affiliate of the American Indian Community House) at LaMama, NYC, and toured the northeastern US. From age 1-30, Sandy performed weekly on the radio, TV, and other venues around Central New York. The Sandy Bigtree Band was well known throughout the 1970s. In 2008, Sandy was the recipient of the Syracuse New Times “Hall of Fame” Sammy Award.
Adam D.J. Brett holds a PhD. in Religion from Syracuse University, a Th.M. and M.T.S. from Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University, and a BA from Warner University. He is a Part-time Instructor at Syracuse University and an Adjunct Professor at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). He is the grant & event coordinator for the Doctrine of Discovery Project. He works for the American Indian Law Alliance and also on the indigenous values initiative, the Doctrine of Discovery Project. He was a nominee for the 2025 MTSU College of Liberal Arts Faculty Mentorship Award. When he is not teaching or coding, he is playing Dungeons & Dragons or watching lacrosse.
In a sweeping investigation of the music of megachurches and political rallies, how did songs beloved by white evangelicals become the soundtrack of Christian supremacy’s war on democracy?
Praise and worship music often fits hand-in-glove with Christian Trumpism, and in this unsettling account, journalist Rick Pidcock asks: How did songs like “How Great Is Our God” become anthems of rallies for the regime? How do lyrics like “Praise is the water my enemies drown in” shape the people who sing them? Singing with others creates a powerful sense of belonging and transcendence. So what happens when the music of one movement becomes the soundtrack of another?
Pidcock, who led worship in evangelical churches for twenty years, uncovers how worship gatherings blur into political rallies and vice versa. He takes us to worship gatherings on the National Mall, to charismatic concerts around the country, and into the early days of contemporary Christian music itself. He looks at the racism, misogyny, apocalypticism, and individualism that underwrite the songs, and at the ways children are being indoctrinated by the lyrics of silly songs with disturbing undertones. He uncovers a worship culture increasingly controlled by a set of powerbrokers and looks at how algorithms define the worship repertoire.
Celebrity worship leaders like Sean Feucht and worship collectives like Bethel Music and Hillsong are crafting worship experiences that strengthen the power of those at the top, dehumanize those below, and wage war against people who won’t submit. The same songs sung at your local megachurch this Sunday–about power and punishment, floods and flames, pain and praise–now mark many political gatherings. As praise and worship music sands down the edges between Christianity and politics, Pidcock asks: Where are songs of conquest and spiritual warfare taking us?
Join us on January 15 at noon/MST as we welcome special guest Dr. Matthew Gabriele.
Gabriele is a scholar, author, and speaker focusing primarily on religion/ violence, nostalgia/ apocalypse during the European Middle Ages, as well as how the medieval world has been remembered in subsequent generations, including the politics and pop culture of today. He’s a professor of medieval history at Virginia Tech and member of the Royal Historical Society (UK).
Gabriele has published several academic books and more than two dozen peer-reviewed articles, and has given talks at universities across the US, as well as in England, Scotland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. His public writing has appeared in places such as The Washington Post, Time, CNN, Slate, Smithsonian Magazine, and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC). Interviews with him on radio, podcasts, and TV have aired locally, nationally, and internationally, and he now hosts the podcast “American Medieval.”
See a sample of his writings and interviews here.
Most recently, he’s the co-author of The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe (Harper Books, 2021), and Oathbreakers: The War of Brothers that Shattered an Empire and Made Medieval Europe(Harper Books, 2024). His new book, Violence: A Christian History, will be out with WW Norton in late 2027/ early 2028.
Join us on October 30 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Dr. Kevin Morris to discuss his latest book, An American Problem: How the County Built – and the Supreme Court Broke – the Voting Rights Act.
Kevin T. Morris is senior research fellow and voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
The rise and fall of the Voting Rights Act, from the triumph of its passage in 1965 to its evisceration by the Supreme Court in their 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 finally made good on the promise of the Fifteenth Amendment, which nearly a century before had granted Black Americans the right to vote. The Voting Rights Act was the crowning achievement of the Civil Rights Movement, which had battled for years against voting laws that made it all but impossible for Black Americans to cast a ballot. The act was a resounding success, bringing Americans of all races and ethnicities into the democratic process. And then, in 2013, the Supreme Court brought this progress to a screeching halt with their decision in Shelby County v. Holder. In this book, Michael Miller and Kevin Morris offer a sweeping history of the Voting Rights Act and the attacks it has suffered.
Roughly $1 trillion of the US federal budget is distributed annually through grants-in-aid to state and local governments rather than individuals, heavily impacting local public service quality. While these funding formulas seem impartial and based on objective needs like population or poverty, Leah Rosenstiel’s Politics by Formula reveals they are deeply distorted by political institutions. Congressional committee leaders deliberately design these formulas to favor their own constituencies. Neutral formulas shield these political choices from public scrutiny while simultaneously constraining lawmakers, ultimately driving geographic inequalities and determining whose needs are prioritized across states.
Leah Rosenstiel is assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University. A central interest of her work is understanding how politics affects the distribution of federal funding and the design of government assistance programs. Some of this research appears in my book, Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities, published by the University of Chicago Press. Her other research is published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and Science.
She received a joint Ph.D. in Politics and Social Policy from Princeton University in 2021 and a B.A. in Political Science from Carleton College in 2014. Prior to beginning graduate studies, she worked as a research assistant on K-12 education policy at the Congressional Research Service.
Join us on August 21 at noon/PT as we welcome director Liz Smith and producer Noelle Cook to discuss their new documentary film, The Conspiracists, in which a January 6th insurrectionist takes a British filmmaker and an American researcher on a road trip and attempts to convert them to her world of conspiracy theories. We recommend watching the film before the presentation on 8/21; you can rent it here for $4.99, check your local library catalog, or watch for free (with ads) on Roku.
Three women set off on a road trip across America. One of them is a MAGA supporter and conspiracy theorist. She has just been sentenced to 30 months in prison for her role in the storming of The US Capitol. They meet other “patriots” along the way and as the journey unfolds she leads her travel companions deeper into her labyrinth of conspiracy, determined to open their eyes to what she sees as the real truth. By the trip’s end will she have converted them to her “5D world”?
Noelle Cook is an ethnographer and researcher examining how identity, belief, and belonging shape women’s participation in conspiratorial and right-wing movements. She is the author of The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging and is featured in the documentary The Conspiracists.
Liz Smith is an award-winning British documentary filmmaker. Her work is centred around human rights. The films she makes at Page 75 Productions are the outcome of years of study on the issues driving the rise of populism and the erosion of our democratic rights. However, researching the issues can only go so far. Her approach of spending time with affected communities on the frontline delivers a much deeper understanding of the forces driving these trends.
Her recent feature documentaries include I Am Gen Z, The Line We Crossed and The Conspiracists. I Am Gen Z investigates the impact of digital technology on the first generation to grow up with mobiles in their pockets. It premiered at CPH:DOX in 2021 and won Best Feature Film at the Lower East Side Film Festival.
The Conspiracists explores the profound and unsettling impact of conspiracy theories on individuals and society and won the award for Best Documentary Feature at The Miami Women Festival 2025. The Line We Crossed exposes the alarming erosion of the right to protest in the UK and had a successful theatrical release in the UK in 2025 as well as winning the award for Best Feature Film at the Environmental Film & Screenplay Festival.
She is currently completing the feature documentary, The Humanitarians, about the right to asylum and the rise of anti-immigration sentiment across Europe. She is also in the early stages of production of an investigative documentary about the growing anti-rights movement in the UK and writes about human rights issues in her Substack.
Learn more and follow on social media:
@p75investigates and noellecookdotcom on Instagram.
Despite fifty years of idealistic, diverse new lawmakers arriving in Washington, Congress remains paralyzed and inhospitable to change. In Stuck, Maya Kornberg explains that well-intentioned reforms have been thwarted by systemic forces: political violence, skyrocketing campaign costs, constant fundraising, diminished staff, and centralized party leadership. Furthermore, social media has fueled a performative culture that prioritizes spectacle over substance. This gridlock reveals how internal dynamics cripple America’s central democratic institution, causing citizens to lose faith. Ultimately, Kornberg argues that saving American democracy requires targeted structural reforms that empower new members and restore Congress’s capacity to function.
Maya L. Kornberg is a senior research fellow at NYU Law’s Brennan Center for Justice and the author of Inside Congressional Committees: Function and Dysfunction in Lawmaking.
Join us on July 31 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Wendy Via, Co-Founder, CEO and President of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, to learn about Christian nationalism at the DOJ and DHS.
Launched in 2020, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) was founded by Heidi Beirich and Wendy Via to address the gap in efforts to stop transnational hate and far-right extremism movements, particularly U.S.-based activity that is exported to other countries and across borders.
GPAHE tackles the issue of hate and extremism by working to reduce the associated violence that terrorizes communities and our society and tackling systemic problems rooted in hate in our governments and societies. As we’ve seen in recent years in the U.S., as well as in countries around the world, we can no longer separate hate and extremism from our leaders and politics.
Wendy Via is an expert in the intersection of technology and far-right extremism and the effect on democracy as well as in achieving change and influencing narratives and actions around some of the most pressing civil and human rights issues of our time, including far-right extremism, systemic racism, economic inequality, immigration, criminal justice reform, and LGBTQ+ rights. For the last two decades, she has successfully directed high-impact philanthropy initiatives, exposed hate and extremism in institutional systems, designed influential policy and advocacy campaigns, leveraged research, and highlighted storytelling to educate the public and create lasting change.
In 2020, Via cofounded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism to address the transnational nature of hate and far-right extremism and how these movements harm flourishing and diverse democracies. She serves on the core committee of the Christchurch Call Advisory Network, founded by the governments of France and New Zealand, which seeks to stop the proliferation of online violent extremism and terrorism, and is the author of numerous reports on transnational extremism. She regularly provides expert advice to members of Congress, including testimony to the January 6 select committee and the Canadian Parliament, and other intragovernmental bodies, is regularly interviewed by leading media outlets, and serves as advisor to various tech companies.
Prior to co-founding GPAHE, Wendy was the Chief Communications and Development Officer at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where she led numerous teams. She also helped launch Justice for Migrant Women, dedicated to ensuring that migrant women can live and work with dignity and free from violence, and worked with Jeremiah Program, dedicated to disrupting generational poverty for single moms and their children. She holds a BA in Humanities from Auburn University, Montgomery.
Madeline Peltz is a writer, journalist, and researcher born in Chicago. Over the last decade, her reporting has appeared in Media Matters for America, MSNOW, Newsweek, More Perfect Union, and more. She has been quoted as an expert on right-wing media and the conservative movement in The New York Times, CNN, Democracy Now!, The Washington Post, BBC, The Guardian, and elsewhere.
Philip P. Arnold
Sandra Bigtree
Adam D.J. Brett
Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Smithsonian, Slate, The Nation, The Boston Globe Magazine, and Boston. His newest book, 
Gabriele is a scholar, author, and speaker focusing primarily on religion/ violence, nostalgia/ apocalypse during the European Middle Ages, as well as how the medieval world has been remembered in subsequent generations, including the politics and pop culture of today. He’s a professor of medieval history at Virginia Tech and member of the Royal Historical Society (UK).
Kevin T. Morris is senior research fellow and voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
Join us on October 16 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Leah Rosenstiel, PhD, to discuss her new book 
In Blazing Eye Sees All, journalist Leah Sottile investigates the modern New Age movement, examining why women become devoted to self-professed gurus like Love Has Won’s “Mother God.” While tarot and crystals dominate social media, Sottile reveals that this seemingly gentle world of “love and light” has long been built on conspiracies, antisemitism, nationalism, and anti-science views. Driven by modern anxieties like climate change and pandemics, people seek relief in these spiritualities. Ultimately, Sottile separates genuine healing from dangerous “snake oil,” helping readers find true clarity amid the rise of New Age influence.
Noelle Cook is an ethnographer and researcher examining how identity, belief, and belonging shape women’s participation in conspiratorial and right-wing movements. She is the author of The Conspiracists: Women, Extremism, and the Lure of Belonging and is featured in the documentary The Conspiracists.
Join us on August 7 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Maya Kornberg, PhD, to discuss her new book 
Sarah Stankorb is the author of the national best-seller Disobedient Women (Worthy Books/Hachette). The award-winning, Ohio-based writer is a fan of heart-felt truth telling. Her work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, O Magazine, Marie Claire, Vogue, Longreads, Glamour, Catapult, Slate, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Newsweek, CNNMoney, GOOD Magazine, Salon, KIWI, Babble, The Morning News, DAME Magazine, Cincinnati Magazine, and formerly as a regular contributor to GEN. She writes about religion, politics, feminism, health, technology, and the public good. Learn more here: https://sarahstankorb.com/new-about