Interviews with people who have lived through or studied periods of great change, upheaval, chaos, and authoritarian takeover.
www.rhymingchaos.com (https://www.rhymingchaos.com?utm_medium=podcast)
Seva Gunitsky is author of Aftershocks: Great Powers and Domestic Reforms in the Twentieth Century. He studies Russian and late Soviet politics, international relations, and hegemonic transitions and their global effects as associate professor and George Ignatieff Chair of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Toronto, and writes the excellent newsletter Hegemon (https://hegemon.substack.com/).
We chatted on March 24, 2026. The New York Times top headline that day was: “Trump Says U.S. Is Negotiating End to War, but Iranians Push Back (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/world/middleeast/iran-war-trump.html).”
Our discussion included these topics (the links are to relevant articles by Seva):
* Hegemonic suicide (https://hegemon.substack.com/p/2025-hegemonic-suicide-and-other): The U.S.S.R. and the current American crisis.
* The fatal misunderstanding in Trump, Stephen Miller and gang’s tough guy reading of Thucydides’ aphorism “The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must (https://hegemon.substack.com/p/the-strong-will-suffer-what-they).”
* The return of Medieval Peasant Brain (https://hegemon.substack.com/p/how-to-monetize-the-rise-of-medieval?) and antisemitism.
* Personalist leadership (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/personalist-global-order) in Russia, China, and the U.S.
* Why Putin and Xi might not like their wished-for multipolar world (https://hegemon.substack.com/p/you-got-your-multipolar-world-now).
* The Three Gulf Wars of American hegemony (https://hegemon.substack.com/p/the-three-gulf-wars-of-american-hegemony): Stages of U.S. decline in the wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and against Iran in 2026.
* “The Epstein Files and Russiagate are the same thing (https://hegemon.substack.com/p/the-epstein-files-and-russiagate).”
* What outsiders see that Americans miss about how much worse things can get.
The Rhyming Chaos podcast is produced by Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova, and edited by Cadre Scripts (https://cadrescripts.com/). The theme music is Paper Boy, composed and performed on the guzheng by Wu Fei (https://wufeimusic.substack.com/). Our closing music is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, arranged and performed by Wu Fei. Our cover art is by Li Yunfei (https://www.cpgill.art/).
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19 Jan 2026
"That devil has to follow you everywhere"—activism in Singapore
Kirsten Han, Managing Editor of Mekong Review, examines Singapore's political landscape, media control, and challenges faced by activists, including the LGBTQ community and those working to end the death penalty, in this interview.
7 Jan 2026
China's disastrous first president
Historian James Carter discusses Yuan Shikai's disastrous presidency in post-imperial China, exploring his rise, governance, political turmoil, and the impact on the Warlord Era in this interview with Jeremy Goldkorn and Maria Repnikova.
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