Americana: the Odd, Strange & Creepy (with Cole Costello)

In this episode, Alex starts by talking about Liz Cheney endorsing Kamala Harris. Then he shares the final part of his interview with Cole Costello. They talk about the darker and more nefarious side of Americana — the domestic and historic shared culture of the United States. America’s early history is littered with strange mysticism, nationalism, and individualism. Aside from its own legends and myths, it also has involved different groups of people doing their own thing and wanted to be isolated in the process. Regional and ideological isolationism can lead to an early America that has one not knowing what kind of people are in the town over from them. Cole talks about the second wave of this phenomenon and they relate this concept to modern politics, division, and more. Cole argues that some of the nostalgia that Americans feel today can stem from this hard to define yet easy to understand concept of Americana culture.