- 82
- Episodes
- 9
- Ratings
- Weekly
- Cadence
- 2023
- First episode
- 54K
- YouTube views
About American Doom
I’m Justin Glawe, writer and journalist, and I’ve spent my career chronicling the violence, unrest and chaos of American life. On this podcast, I’ll discuss the events roiling this complex and troubling country, and speak with some of the people trying to make sense of the madness that pervades our world. This is American Doom. www.american-doom.com (https://www.american-doom.com?utm_medium=podcast)
- Publisher
- Justin Glawe
- Category
- news · news
- Language
- en
- Explicit
- Yes
- First episode
- 24 Feb 2023
- Latest episode
- 15 Oct 2026
Latest episodes
82 episodes in the feed.
15 Oct 2026
The DOJ is already interfering in the election
Things are going to start moving very quickly now and this is one of the best places to stay on top of it all. To support our work, access a discounted subscription to American Doom for $3.60 a month (https://www.american-doom.com/subscribe?coupon=9041cfd8) or throw a few dollars in the Coffee Fund (https://www.american-doom.com/p/the-doom-coffee-fund). There’s going to be a lot of late nights coming up. Help us get through… - jg There is a reason that it has been longstanding Justice Department practice (https://www.american-doom.com/p/more-proof-of-ballot-seizures-support) to avoid major investigative steps regarding elected officials right around an election. That’s because doing something like arresting someone who is running for office just before an election would be perceived by most people as interfering in that election — even if that person was obviously guilty of a crime. But this Justice Department is unlike any other since at least the time of Nixon, and so it’s no surprise that it is placing itself directly in the November midterms by issuing subpoenas for Rep. Ilhan Omar and members of her family. Investigations of public officials are tricky, especially if the people running those investigations are from a rival political party. That’s why the DOJ has long sought to avoid any perception of political motivation behind its investigations. Not so with this DOJ. Right-wing media is noting that the investigation into Omar — which deals with immigration paperwork her father filled out when she was a child — began during the Biden administration. It’s only natural, then, that it’s coming to fruition now! That’s the apparent argument — that mere weeks before an election, Donald Trump’s DOJ has made a break in the case. Even many Republicans surely won’t buy this. When you see something this obvious it is, well, obvious. All of this bodes darkly for November. That the DOJ is willing to interfere this overtly in an election that is 19 days from now means the agency is probably willing to do it in November. That agency, by the way, is increasingly run by people who are inexperienced, Trump sycophants, or both. What will the DOJ and other federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security do to further interfere with the midterms? We’re not sure, but we do have some ideas. The ACLU and other organizations are preparing robustly for possible seizure of ballots and other records by the Trump administration. Voting machines are also a target, as we saw with recent demands from the Georgia State Election Board to have the DOJ and DHS step in to effectively prohibit the use of the state’s voting machines in November. So far, it doesn’t appear that either agency has responded to the request. But the prospect of federal interference in Georgia and elsewhere looms just as — if not more — important than the results of the election itself. Today we’re talking about all of this with Sara Tindall-Ghazal, the lone Democratic member of the Georgia state election board. Listen to our conversation above, on Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/american-doom/id1742801061) and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/2w7dEO50rbS8K4o5edYjuW) podcasts, or at Doom’s home on YouTube. (https://www.youtube.com/@americandoom_) *** Doom social: * Bluesky - @americandoom.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/americandoom.bsky.social) * TikTok - @americandoom_ (https://www.tiktok.com/@americandoom_) * YouTube - @americandoom_ (https://www.youtube.com/@americandoom_) * Instagram - @americandoom_ (https://www.instagram.com/americandoom_/) * Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/americandoom) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.american-doom.com/subscribe (https://www.american-doom.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)
7 Oct 2026
What Georgia’s demand for federal intervention in elections is really about
While an obscure body like the Georgia State Election Board may not seem terribly important, last week’s news shows that it could play a pivotal role in interference efforts in the coming weeks and months. I’ve been reporting on the SEB for years now, and I’m one of the only reporters paying this close of attention. To support my work, from now until Election Day you can get 40 percent off Doom subscriptions (https://www.american-doom.com/subscribe?coupon=9041cfd8), or drop a few dollars in our Coffee Fund (https://www.american-doom.com/p/the-doom-coffee-fund). Programming note: Head to Georgia Public Broadcasting’s Narrative Edge to hear my conversation (https://www.gpb.org/blogs/narrative-edge/2026/10/06/the-personal-cost-of-covering-americas-worst-news-justin-glawe) about my book, If I am Coming to Your Town, Something Terrible Has Happened, with hosts Orlando Montoya and Peter Biello. Later this week, I’ll have more to share from the episode. For anyone interested, you can purchase the book here (https://www.ugapress.org/9781588385734/if-i-am-coming-to-your-town-something-terrible-has-happened/). If you choose to become a founding member of American Doom, I’ll send you a signed copy. Now, on to the news… - jg *** It was a big week last week (https://www.american-doom.com/p/this-weeks-election-chaos-was-a-preview) for displays of unfounded election skepticism here in Georgia, and it’s important to know what it’s really all about. Last week, the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) approved a resolution aimed at giving federal law enforcement access to the state’s voting machines and elections systems. First, this resolution was not legally binding in any way. It was a display on the part of the SEB, a way for them to signal to the election denial community, ‘Hey, we’re doing something about all this.’ Secondly, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger will ignore the resolution and proceed with his election administration plan, which includes use of the state’s current voting machines. By Friday, the board had apparently decided that the resolution wasn’t enough and sent a formal letter asking the Justice Department and Homeland Security to investigate. Except, it wasn’t even the whole board that made this decision. Instead, it was executive director James Mills, a lifelong Republican who has no experience in election administration and has a background as a state legislator and the owner of mini-storage businesses. It’s Mills who is leading the charge on behalf of Georgia’s election denial movement — whose highest goals are seeing Raffensperger arrested for perceived crimes and forcing every Georgian to vote in every election with hand-marked, hand-counted paper ballots. In other words, completely doing away with the state’s voting machines. It’s the machines, operated by Dominion Voting, that last week’s resolution and letter are aimed at. (Elsewhere, election deniers have taken aim at another voting machine company, Smartmatic.) Both documents seek to get Trump administration lackeys at the DOJ and DHS under the hood of voting machines so they can look for any scintilla of evidence that the machines could be hacked or manipulated. How do I know this? Because this was the exact rationale for the Trump administration’s accessing of voting machines in Puerto Rico, as Reuters reported in great detail last week (https://www.reuters.com/investigations/how-trumps-obsession-with-rigged-voting-machines-spread-across-us-government-2026-10-02/). Those efforts were led by Kurt Olsen, a leader in the national election denial movement who was given special government employee status to carry out his hunt for widespread voter fraud. Olsen was the driving force behind the already-adjudicated election fraud claims that led to the FBI raid on a Fulton County elections warehouse in January. “Olsen wanted to search for traces of Smartmatic code that, under his theory, would show how Venezuela or another foreign actor such as China could manipulate Dominion machines,” according to Reuters. In the end, Olsen’s team told the White House that they didn’t find any evidence that the machines had been accessed or fraud had occurred. In fact, they didn’t even find any evidence that the machines could have been hacked or votes manipulated. I’ve been reporting on the Georgia State Election’s board efforts to intefere in elections here for the last five years. Support this work with a paid subscription. But that possibility remains the obsession of election deniers like Mills, and it’s why he is now asking the Trump administration to send lawyers and investigators to Georgia. *** In the last year, Mills has emerged as a bulldog on the board on behalf of the election denial movement. He is particularly adept in raising questions and concerns about things that he has seen people post about on Facebook, and then acting as if those issues are real threats to election security. This pattern became apparent when, a few months back, Mills saw someone comment about long polling lines in a heavily-Republican county and sent the SEB’s new investigator (https://www.american-doom.com/p/meet-georgias-newest-election-investigator?utm_source=publication-search) out to look into things. Mills has allies in three of the board’s four other Republicans: Salleigh Grubbs, Janelle King, and the newly-appointed Carolyn Roddy. That’s why it was so interesting to see that Mills didn’t even wait for Grubbs to approve the letter to the DOJ and DHS — which she certainly would have, considering she is such a vociferous believer in election conspiracies that she once chased a garbage truck that she incorrectly believed contained paper ballots. Instead, he sent the letter on his own, drawing a vocal rebuke from SEB chair and fellow Republican John Fervier, who is unflappable in the face of constant vitriol from Mills and election deniers, and rarely speaks to the press. “We have no control over our executive director, and he does whatever the hell he wants to,” Fervier told Votebeat (https://www.votebeat.org/national/2026/10/04/georgia-election-board-mills-federal-letters-dhs-doj-board-approval/). That much is certainly clear. It’s hard to tell who is actually manning the strings above Mills’ head. It could Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a hardcore Trump supporter who illegally tried to give away Georgia’s electoral college votes to the president in 2020. It could be election deniers in the Georgia legislature, like Sen. Max Burns or Sen. Greg Dolezal. Mills often boasts of his contact with legislators — relationships that have yet to provide the increased legal powers for the SEB that board members like Grubbs have been demanding. Maybe Mills himself, who in the last year has emerged from the obscurity of his longtime position on the state’s parole board to become the face of the election denial movement on the SEB, is calling the shots. Regardless, the loud display of last week’s resolution and letter is as much about trying to give the Trump administration (very flimsy) legal pretext to seize or access voting machines in Georgia as it is about making wild claims that the state’s election systems could be manipulated. Under Mills’ apparent theory, if the machines aren’t entirely secure, then lots of fraud is probably being committed. And if there’s lots of fraud, then the Democratic wins that are likely to come from November’s midterms shouldn’t count. *** Doom social: * Bluesky - @americandoom.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/americandoom.bsky.social) * TikTok - @americandoom_ (https://www.tiktok.com/@americandoom_) * YouTube - @americandoom_ (https://www.youtube.com/@americandoom_) * Instagram - @americandoom_ (https://www.instagram.com/americandoom_/) * Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/americandoom) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.american-doom.com/subscribe (https://www.american-doom.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)
5 Oct 2026
What the hell is going on in North Carolina?
Today we’re talking with Jeremy Borden, executive director of Beacon Media (https://www.beaconmedianc.org/beacon-stories/), a non-partisan non-profit focused on giving voice to North Carolinians working to strengthen democracy in the Tarheel State. As in Georgia, many of North Carolina’s county election boards are run by Republican election deniers. As part of my conversation with Borden I took a look at some of those board members and have updated my list of local election officials who support Trump’s lies about election fraud. I’ve also removed the paywall from the list so that new subscribers can access it. View the list here (https://www.american-doom.com/p/almost-100-local-election-officials). American Doom is one of the only publications with a complete list of local election denial officials across the country. To support this work, please choose a paid subscription or drop a few dollars in our Coffee Fund (https://www.american-doom.com/p/the-doom-coffee-fund). Through Election Day, you can get 40 percent off subscriptions (https://www.american-doom.com/subscribe?coupon=9041cfd8) to American Doom. Now, on to the news… - jg Since 2020, Republicans across the country have set out to remake how elections are run, ballots are cast, and votes are tabulated. They’ve done this in support of Donald Trump’s lies about widespread election fraud, and in some places, have been wildly successful in ensuring that Republicans have an advantage in elections. There is perhaps no state where this scheme has been more successful than North Carolina. In the wake of Trump’s loss in 2020, Republicans in the Tarheel State began work on remaking the state’s election administration laws, rules and practices. As a result, Republicans now control all manner of election administration — ripping away power from the state’s Democratic governor — and ensuring that election deniers in place across the state have the power to close polling locations in Black and brown areas (https://www.county-beacon.com/editorial-a-shameful-nonsensical-early-voting-plan-for-granville-county/), and throw out mail-in ballots. North Carolina is a test-case for what election administration looks like when it’s dominated by Republicans. So far, the results of this have been as expected: Republicans have closed polling locations in areas with a high percentage of Black, largely Democratic voters, making it more difficult for them to cast their ballots. Republicans have also made it easier to throw out mail-in ballots based on highly partisan challenges from election denial activists throughout the state. Perhaps as a result of anticipated ballot challenges, requests for absentee ballots are down 30 percent compared to the 2022 midterms (https://www.cbs17.com/news/capitol-report/absentee-ballot-requests-down-30-in-north-carolina-compared-to-2022-midterms/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email). This means that many North Carolinians are planning to vote in-person, and possibly at early voting locations to avoid having their votes cancelled by new mail-in ballot rules and challenges that favor Republicans. It was Republican gerrymandering in North Carolina that helped to give the GOP a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. The legality of that redistricting could be on the table if Democrat Justice Anita Earls holds off her Republican opponent to retain her seat on the state’s Supreme Court. Despite these efforts, voters in North Carolina have rebuffed Republicans. They elected a Democratic governor last year. Now, Republicans are pulling funding from North Carolina (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/us/midterms-election-republicans-north-carolina-kansas.html) as U.S. senate candidate Michael Whatley trails in the latest polls by 12 points (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/polls/north-carolina-us-senate-election-polls-2026.html) to his Democratic opponent, former governor Roy Cooper. Listen to our full conversation, watch the discussion on American Doom’s YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@americandoom_) or Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/american-doom/id1742801061) and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/2w7dEO50rbS8K4o5edYjuW) podcasts. *** Doom social: * Bluesky - @americandoom.bsky.social (https://bsky.app/profile/americandoom.bsky.social) * TikTok - @americandoom_ (https://www.tiktok.com/@americandoom_) * YouTube - @americandoom_ (https://www.youtube.com/@americandoom_) * Instagram - @americandoom_ (https://www.instagram.com/americandoom_/) * Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/americandoom) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.american-doom.com/subscribe (https://www.american-doom.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_2)
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
- YouTube views
- 54,269
- Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025
- Apple Podcasts (US)
- 5.0 / 5
- 5 ratings
- Spotify
- 5.0 / 5
- 4 ratings
Podcast Authority Score: 56 / 100
A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.
- Quality
- 65
- Social presence
- 0
- YouTube
- 85
- Engagement
- 32
Contact American Doom
- Guest appearances
- Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of American Doom?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show
Podcast research with Pod Engine