After the freakout following your Tucker interview, I'm canceling my Free Press subscription and subscribing to Martyr Made. Keep up the good work. Fear and Loathing was brilliant. Looking forward to your deep dive on WWII.
I cancelled my Free Press subscription months ago but I just joined Martyr Made yesterday after seeing the Tucker episode. I'm really looking forward to the WWII series and will check out the previous series as time allows.
It was discouraging to see the lack of nuance from The Free Press. An awful lot of conclusions about the totality of a person were drawn from one answer on a podcast.
I get the concerns from the Paris and Hell tweets - those were edgy and had enough ambiguity to raise questions, but certainly not to condemn someone.
I've heard Cooper admit to Jocko Willink that he's terrible on Twitter, and Jocko agreed. Cooper’s hell tweet was pretty vile. Twitter brings out the worst in people, which I why I stay away. I know myself too well.
My bet (and hope) is that it starts way further back with the effect of the Industrial Revoltion, the German Romantic response, Napoleon and German unification. Truly though, it could even start with Meister Eckhart or the Protestant Reformation. Where ever he starts, we all know it will be another Great series.
I don't read the free press. I do know that Bari is very defensive of the jewish people and the state (I recall she wrote a book tracking how much worse anti-semitism is amongst the right and the left, I didn't read it so can't comment on how sincere an attempt it is). Therefore it isn't shocking that she has has gone after Darryl on this. She is very defensive if Zionism and any rewriting of the WW2 history (or mythos?) could undermine that. I am curious how they have reported on what is happening in Gaza and Israel. Has it just been one-sided completely as I would expect?
It has been mostly one-sided. And they completely ignored the sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by the IDF. I've been a long-time fan of TFP. They've done some salient reporting on topics ignored by the corporate press, and they still do. Unfortunately, their bias about all things Israel has been obvious. The Darryl Cooper controversy and the mischaracterizaion by Bari of what he said was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
Yeah, that's about what I expected. The sexual abuse is so embarrassing it says a lot that they wouldn't even cover it. I can't believe it's even real.
Darryl, I’ll be more critical than your other commenters and say that while I don’t plan to join the mob, I don’t exactly blame them either. When you tweet implying that Hitler is in heaven and that Nazis in Paris are preferable to the Olympic opening ceremonies, you naturally come off as a Nazi sympathizer.
I (and many other fans of your podcast) honestly don’t get how you sound so nuanced and empathetic in many of your podcasts, and then just have such extreme and one-sided tweets. If I hadn’t listened to so many hours of your content before I’d seen your tweets, I too would have dismissed you as just a Nazi.
When all of this dies down, I hope you will take the experience as an opportunity to grow, rather than become even more extreme as a result. If that sounds crazy, I am simply repeating what I remember you saying in the opening of one of your Jim Jones podcasts: when one group of people think you’re human garbage and another group thinks you are amazing, it’s very tempting to completely tune out the first group and bask solely in the opinions of the second group. But it’s a dangerous path to go down.
Hope you take all this in the spirit in which it was intended.
It's also, IMHO, a bad strategy. I think Darryl provides an incredibly valuable perspective and it's frustrating to see someone make it easy for their contributions to be dismissed and have their spread limited, no matter how much fun trolling might be. We all know how the world works and how unfair it can be to alternative viewpoints. Why shoot yourself in the foot before even stepping onto the battlefield of ideas?
A couple weeks ago on X he wrote that he uses it as "the place to vent my spleen".
I wonder if a writer as careful and rigorous as Darryl is, constantly immersing himself in the worst horrors of humanity, needs that kind of dark humor as an outlet.
I am not on Twitter but I have heard DC say he trolls there. I have also heard him say that his political views have been described as being to the right of Attila the Hun. His work doesn't reflect that. It is clear to me that DC doesn't allow his political views to take over his historical work which is something I appreciate.
I agree with all of this. It freaks me out, or maybe disappoints me, that Darryl seems to (sort of, almost) *like* scary tyrants. Darryl has the capacity to tolerate so much nuance, paradox, and pain, but then he longs for a “strong” male leader to impose order from above. Tyrants aren’t strong people—they’re usually narcissistic and antisocial. A concrete, black-and-white political order is not going to undo your traumatic childhood. Bullying gay men doesn’t make you strong. If you want a model of masculine strength, look for men who actually deal with their pain.
Narcissism and antisocialism are strong traits. Narcissism is self confidence, and antisocialism is self reliance. Only difference is those traits are present in someone you don't like.
You are exactly why I am glad Darryl Cooper exists. Uncomfortable and honest conversations make men like you intellectual cowards and interrupt the ability to see the world outside the paradigm of your inherited program. I would bet money you would be diagnosed with a low T count. Coward.
As others have pointed out, Twitter/X (or any social media, for that matter) isn't always the best place to have discourse. Lots of people who are normally good at articulating points in longform writing or in podcasts, succumb to the dopamine hit that comes from sending out a hot take on social media.
It's why I don't follow "outrage porn" accounts on Twitter/X. Those who create the accounts may sometimes raise valid points, but ultimately, those accounts serve to fuel their dopamine addiction.
Yeah, huge agree. Twitter brings out the worst and those tweets do come across antisemitic, as does implying that the Holocaust sorta just happened and minimizing it. But Mr. Cooper has much to offer.
nice work. i don’t always agree with you, even about big stuff, but you’re always principled, honest, nuanced and compassionate.
often when niche figures go on tucker they seem like his fans. your appearance made it clear that it is you who is influencing his thinking. you should take that as a huge compliment
Darryl, love your stuff. I know you're not a Nazi or a Holocaust denier etc. However, in the tucker interview you did kinda come off as saying that Holocaust was sort of an unintended consequence of capturing a whole bunch of people with no plan to feed them. You obviously know that Hitler put word out to his generals beforehand that killing of 20m or so people was part of the plan to create the lebensraum necessary for German expansion. So yeah. That probably could have been clarified.
Also, coming from one of your oldest fans: some of your Nazi/ Hitler related tweets are... kinda weird. Like do you really think Nazi occupation of France would be preferable to fat drag queens in the Olympic opening ceremony? Do you really think Hitler is in heaven? If so, what the fuck? People who haven't listened to a hundred hours of your content like I have would be forgiven for getting the wrong idea about you if that's all they've seen.
Agree; I have the same questions. The guy who wrote the opening to Fear & Loathing about the guy in bed at night worried about pogroms is hard to reconcile with those tweets.
I've been taking Darryl at his word for a while that he's largely a troll on Twitter and should probably be ignored. I don't think he thinks Hitler is in heaven (I *think* that was a reference to Trump surviving the assassination attempt), but I do think he might be serious about the drag queens. I know I'll disagree with him on that last thing and very many others (like Tucker Carlson being a worthwhile listen), and I'll keep listening to and reading his excellent longer-form thoughtful work, but I mostly ignore his Twitter provocations and suggest you do too.
I am struggling at this point tbh, twitter trolling is all well and good but acting like millions died because of inadequate logistics and perhaps actually for humane reasons is beyond the pale.
He was referring to the millions of POWs they captured. They had no adequate plan to feed so many of them & rather than just leaving them to starve to death, they killed them. I'm not sure what's so 'beyond the pale' about that.
X really brings out the worst in people. As fun as it is to troll the woketards that dominate X, Reddit and other platforms, it just kind of detracts from any valid points you’re ultimately trying to make.
The way I took the drag queen tweet was that it was preferable to live under fascism than in a democratic system that leads to the mockery and destruction of everything in the culture that a nation holds dear. One deprives you of your ability to vote, the other makes a mockery of everything that you love about your country, and life itself.
That said, the sentiment doesn't work at all if you are Jewish or any other group Hitler considered undesirable...
Or it could mean that the solution to Hitler - kicking him out of France - was much simpler than whatever the solution is to the gradual deterioration of your culture from the inside.
Additionally, in the first photo, Paris was being destroyed by the Nazis, an external enemy. In the second photo, Paris was destroying itself through cultural degeneration and blasphemy.
Yes, this was the point of the tweet as I understood it-- in some ways it is better to be conquered than subverted, because conquest is more likely to evoke resistance.
The French have always been dressing like that. Look at paintings of old French aristocrats. Nothing about French civilization is even challenged by a tableau of drag queens. Having a problem with that sort of more open and bawdy sexuality is much more germanic than it is French.
It isn’t the dress. It’s the satanic messaging embedded in the performance. This wasn’t accidental. The blasphemy was discussed, okay’d, planned, choreographed, rehearsed and implemented on a world stage. They knew there’d be pushback. Didn’t care. And, WTF did it have to do with sports? Naw. This was a message. A hateful, divisive, evil message. I refuse to normalize it as just so French.
It's an intentional troll aimed at Christians. "We're here, we're queer, nyah nyah nyah". And of course it's now practically a cliche to mock Christianity. Christians should not lose their cool at all, and use it as an opportunity to say any true word about the gospel.
Oh try not to piss your pants. I have the same contempt for this sort of offence-seeking as I have for those complaining about disrespectful cartoons of the prophet or a joke about Kaitlin Jenner. Looking for something to cry about is pathetic.
Great take. Their are no solutions, just trade offs, and this applies to democracy as well. I personally think democracy only works when built on a moral and cultural foundation. Individualism is great in moderation, when take too far, it leads to selfish degeneracy.
Thank you! I didn’t get it. 🫣 Now I understand WHY he’s so bad at social media. If his MM audience isn’t understanding his posts at first glance, there’s not a chance for anyone else to understand it; and an extremely high probability it’s going to be interpreted the wrong way. Truth be told, none of it matters to me anyway. I like Cooper. I like the fact that he’s kinda hard to read because I want to form my own opinions. He’s one of the few guys just telling the story. Maybe he should bring you on board for X post explanations.
Ah. Yeah the shooter was looking for his Hitler (Trump) and is disappointed to only find the shitheads that Rittenhouse popped. If it’s that tricky for us to figure out, of course the media isn’t going to get it.
I am not on X but when I saw the tweet I saw it as reflective of the fact that there was a clear and obvious way to fight against Hitler, physical warfare. There was a very easy to define enemy (they kindly wore uniforms so you could tell who to shoot at) and the problem could be solved by the age old art form of extreme violence.
The destructive potential of the movement that brought us the trans Olympic nonsense is every bit as terrible as that of the Nazis but it’s harder to know how to combat. Clearly French resistance fighters trying to take out the performers and those involved the way they fought the Nazis isn’t appropriate. Even if it was how do you identify the “enemy”? They don’t wear uniforms. We know how to defend our nations and our peoples from an outside martial threat, we know what to do against Barbarian hoards. We might not always win but at least we know what to do.
It’s much less clear how to fight the rot from within. When foreign soldiers march through my city streets in their uniforms I know what time it is and what actions must be taken. It’s much less clear to me how to respond when my kid’s school wants to have explicit material available to twelve year olds or even teach it. It’s less clear to me how to respond to foreign criminal gangs taking over buildings and neighborhoods when law enforcement refuses to act. It’s less clear to me how I should respond when the government wants to draft my son because they DEI’d the military to the point that no one wants to join and then they went and got into multiple hot land wars anyway.
Nazis in the streets of Paris are bad and the solution is to shoot them is pretty simple. Not easy but it’s simple. Fixing the moral rot of our societies and institutions is neither simple nor easy.
" I know you're not a Nazi". The Nazis were a 1920s-1930s political party in Germany. Literally, no one here is a "Nazi". I detest that shorthand, no offense intended towards you.
Dude, my comment says almost the same thing. Includes the tweets. Part of me thinks is he subconsciously acting out the intro to Dan Carlin’s Wrath of the Mongols
I very much appreciate your in depth, even handed and honest approach to your topics. We all should know by now that our history schoolbooks rewrite history all the time. I actually canceled a subscription today after reading the principal of the platform call you a "psuedo-historian". They are certainly entitled to their opinion, but I am damned well not going to pay to read that sort of stuff. Keep up the excellent work DC. I am very much looking forward to your next series.
The Dossier for me. From a interesting (and mild) conversation, Jordan Schactel got the vapors. He embedded Tweets from Martyrmade implying deep antisemitism. I listened to hours of Fear and Loathing and can call bullshit on Schactel. He is apparently only a good journalist when it jibes with his preconceived Narrative.
I cancelled it as well. He posted a terrible article today attacking Darryl and Tucker. I posted a respectful comment disagreeing with him that got liked by 27 other readers so he proceeded to ban me to hide the comment. I cannot support someone that disrespectful.
I've been a long-time subscriber to TFP, but I've had enough. It will be hard to let go of TGIF, but I can find news with less bias elsewhere. Breaking Points, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Dave Smith, and Megyn Kelly keep me in the know.
What article are you referencing? I find their work to be mostly even handed and they cover topics the corporate media doesn’t touch. Hard to find any journalism with thinking outside the box.
Zionist yes but they’re covering aspects that corporate media doesn’t touch. For example the rioting and protesting on college campuses along with other woke nonsense the left is doing in its service as useful idiots to the Islamists. Or covering the rapes and murders of Oct 7, which has been denied by many on the left as well.
Been a subscriber since 2021. Originally subscribed because I appreciated your honest and thoroughly-researched perspective on areas of history with which I was unfamiliar. I don't know you personally, but seeing your work get the attention it deserves is like watching your favorite sports team win a playoff series for the first time.
Pundits too dumb or disingenuous to acknowledge that criticizing Churchill isn't a tacit endorsement of the Nazis can pound sand.
I say the same about the Soviets. God they were awful but people ride their nuts just because they fought the Nazis. Dan Carlin’s contemporary views aren’t great but he said it best with something along the lines of “make no mistake, it was bad guy against bad guy in the east”. Couldn’t ever say this on social media without getting destroyed but my hot take is I wish we let the Soviet Union fall to Germany without Lend-Lease, just let the Germans steamroll through. Then we either fight Germany or let them have their sphere of influence in the east. Kind of hard to reckon with my Zionist views though
You've been taking a lot of heat in the comments on Sasha Stone's "Free Thinking" and in the posts on Bari Weiss's "Free Press" Substack (which went after you twice today, so you clearly have them scared ). However, you have received a lot of support as well in the comments. All that being said, I find the phenomenon itself quite interesting, especially with the number of commenters who admit that they know nothing about you or your podcasts right before they pontificate on what you think and why you are so dangerous. It was this phenomenon that I felt needed to be addressed, which is why I posted the following comment on the Free Thinking Substack:
I am a fan of Tucker and have been a fan of Daryl, particularly his history podcasts since stumbling upon his Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem as a result of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History and Danielle Bollelli's History on Fire podcasts. I do not have to agree with everything either of them says to value their contributions nor do I look to them to tell me how to think. What I do look to them for is to share new information as honestly as they can, challenge my assumptions or beliefs and then make an argument that I can accept or deny based on the strength of their argument. Sometimes I agree with them from the outset. Other times they get me to rethink my position and after that, I either change my mind based on the strength of their argument or I strengthen my argument based on the new information I have learned. Regardless, I am richer and wiser for the experience.
That being said, this entire kerfuffle reminds me of controversies over a movie before it is released when all any of the commentators have even seen is the trailer. The trailer is designed to generate interest and is not the film itself. It is little more than a snapshot into the entire work. Daryl is still in the research phase of this project and forecast that the first installment would not be out until sometime well into next year. Anyone who listened to his interview or has listened to his podcasts knows that his history podcasts are an evolutionary processes for him as he meticulously researches his subjects, discovers new information and finds connections that are conventionally overlooked in an attempt to develop a more cohesive whole.
While I have admiration for Churchill (although he was no friend to the Irish, from where both my parents immigrated back in the 30's), I think Daryl was primarily challenging the binary narrative between Churchill, good and strong, and Chamberlin, bad and weak. I know something about Churchill and next to nothing about Chamberlin, so my measure of both men is based on little to no detailed knowledge. Remember that Churchill appreciated the power of narrative better than ordinary politicians as he once predicted that history would be kind to him because he would be writing it. I am inclined to take him at his word.
Let's also agree that Hitler is a historically evil man (which I don't think Daryl or Tucker ever questioned, although they both expressed genuine curiosity as to what drove him to be evil). I live in Los Angeles and there is a cafe in Venice called Mao's Cafe and it has been operating there for years with no controversy. Why is that? Moa tortured and killed more people than Hitler but we all know that Hitler's Cafe wouldn't last a day without massive backlash. Why was it okay to align ourselves with Stalin to win WWII and then abandon Eastern Europe to the Communist Regime and call it victory? My guess is that if you give Daryl time to do his work, you will find that he asks similar questions leading back to that central question that runs through all of his work, why do we believe what we believe?
Given that the podcast series will most likely be well in excess of 30 hours delivered over several years, what you heard in this interview does not even qualify as scratching the surface. So may I counsel everyone to sheath your swords, let the man do his work, make his arguments and after you have heard him out, come to your own conclusion and then challenge his arguments where you find them in error. The only weapons he is using his brain, his work ethic and his ability to make an argument. If that frightens you, it says more about you than him
Last I looked, five of the most recent six stories at The Free Press were about the Tucker interview. I decided tonight that my subscription money which once proudly supported TFP would be better spent here.
The far left gets a free pass that the fascist right never would. I think it has to do with the fact that academia and the intelligencia is almost exclusively left of center and gives the extremes on their side a free pass. We saw this up front and center during 2020.
The intellectual and spiritual grandparents of the current left -- the faculty advisors, board chairs, editors, etc. -- were ACTUAL Stalinists with some regularity.
This is what explains it. Being a Stalinist means never having to say you're sorry.
Darryl, thanks so much for your perspective. I will say there were a couple of instances in your conversation with Tucker Carlson that made me think "whoa, those are strong words." However, I do remember you saying, to the effect, that you can't fit everything about WWII into an hour. Thus, I knew not to read too much into anything in which you were essentially summing things up.
I do think Dave Smith said it best on Part of the Problem, in which he believes that what really caused all this pushback is that WWII was the start of the American empire, and to question is to question the American mythos. (Of course, one may argue that's not the only reason.)
Anyway, I have plenty of thoughts about the issues the United States has dealt with in the post-WWII era (domestic and foreign alike, including a few some may not think about) but that's for another day. Thank you for your continued work, Darryl. It's why I'm happy to be a paid subscriber.
Darryl, fortunately I’m disconnected enough to have google (Duck Duck Go just doesn’t roll off the keyboard as easily) it to find out what the newest internet drama was.
As you’re well aware, any alternative, or even deeper view, on the chosen narrative tends to bring the machine down on individuals.
I have yet to listened to your interview with Tucker Carlson, but now I’m moving it to the top of the next list.
As someone who has listened to (almost) your entire library along with multiple interviews I want to thank you for your work.
Great work DC. We're glad your perspective is reaching a wider audience. It feels like almost all the American foundational myths are getting torn down, on both sides of the political divide. While it's both healthy and painful to see our personal blind spots be exposed, we better be ready to do the hard work that comes with building whatever has to come next to replace whats been torn down.
I cannot believe the blowback on The Free Press. You struck a nerve. The Armstice was signed in November of 1918. The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919. During that interim Churchill was the architect of the naval blockade of Germany that led to the starvation of over 300,000 German citizens. It is mind boggling how "Great Men" engage in the slaughter of innocent's for the better cause. The Tucker interview was first rate. Keep working towards the truth.
In a group text with friends and someone sent the interview with Tucker (who I personally am not a fan of) or a clip of the interview. Take was Darryl is a nazi apologist and “Tl;dr from this guy: Churchill was the real villain of WWII, Hitler wanted peace, the Holocaust was an unintended consequence.” No one was aware I was very familiar with Darryl and have listened to most of his stuff. I responded back saying I haven’t seen the interview but I have listened to his 30 hour podcast on the Israel Palestine conflict and it’s a nuanced middle of the road take, and moreover, he starts the podcast with getting you to imagine what being in a pogrom was like. Said a lot of other stuff as well and that sometimes Darryl comes across as leftist (the coal mining labor union series or the Jim jones civil rights era). Unfortunately they sent darryls twitter (such as saying nazis in Paris were better than the Olympic ceremonies, the trump assassin in hell suggesting hitler was in heaven, and about hitler calling for peace and would work for a solution to the Jewish problem) which I couldn’t really speak to because some of that stuff is tough to swallow.
After the freakout following your Tucker interview, I'm canceling my Free Press subscription and subscribing to Martyr Made. Keep up the good work. Fear and Loathing was brilliant. Looking forward to your deep dive on WWII.
I cancelled my Free Press subscription months ago but I just joined Martyr Made yesterday after seeing the Tucker episode. I'm really looking forward to the WWII series and will check out the previous series as time allows.
It was discouraging to see the lack of nuance from The Free Press. An awful lot of conclusions about the totality of a person were drawn from one answer on a podcast.
I get the concerns from the Paris and Hell tweets - those were edgy and had enough ambiguity to raise questions, but certainly not to condemn someone.
I've heard Cooper admit to Jocko Willink that he's terrible on Twitter, and Jocko agreed. Cooper’s hell tweet was pretty vile. Twitter brings out the worst in people, which I why I stay away. I know myself too well.
I hope it's 30-40 hours long and starts with 10 hours talking about 1917-1933.
My bet (and hope) is that it starts way further back with the effect of the Industrial Revoltion, the German Romantic response, Napoleon and German unification. Truly though, it could even start with Meister Eckhart or the Protestant Reformation. Where ever he starts, we all know it will be another Great series.
"The story of WWII starts in 410 AD with the Visigoth sack of Rome..."
I don't read the free press. I do know that Bari is very defensive of the jewish people and the state (I recall she wrote a book tracking how much worse anti-semitism is amongst the right and the left, I didn't read it so can't comment on how sincere an attempt it is). Therefore it isn't shocking that she has has gone after Darryl on this. She is very defensive if Zionism and any rewriting of the WW2 history (or mythos?) could undermine that. I am curious how they have reported on what is happening in Gaza and Israel. Has it just been one-sided completely as I would expect?
It has been mostly one-sided. And they completely ignored the sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by the IDF. I've been a long-time fan of TFP. They've done some salient reporting on topics ignored by the corporate press, and they still do. Unfortunately, their bias about all things Israel has been obvious. The Darryl Cooper controversy and the mischaracterizaion by Bari of what he said was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
Yeah, that's about what I expected. The sexual abuse is so embarrassing it says a lot that they wouldn't even cover it. I can't believe it's even real.
Darryl, I’ll be more critical than your other commenters and say that while I don’t plan to join the mob, I don’t exactly blame them either. When you tweet implying that Hitler is in heaven and that Nazis in Paris are preferable to the Olympic opening ceremonies, you naturally come off as a Nazi sympathizer.
I (and many other fans of your podcast) honestly don’t get how you sound so nuanced and empathetic in many of your podcasts, and then just have such extreme and one-sided tweets. If I hadn’t listened to so many hours of your content before I’d seen your tweets, I too would have dismissed you as just a Nazi.
When all of this dies down, I hope you will take the experience as an opportunity to grow, rather than become even more extreme as a result. If that sounds crazy, I am simply repeating what I remember you saying in the opening of one of your Jim Jones podcasts: when one group of people think you’re human garbage and another group thinks you are amazing, it’s very tempting to completely tune out the first group and bask solely in the opinions of the second group. But it’s a dangerous path to go down.
Hope you take all this in the spirit in which it was intended.
It's also, IMHO, a bad strategy. I think Darryl provides an incredibly valuable perspective and it's frustrating to see someone make it easy for their contributions to be dismissed and have their spread limited, no matter how much fun trolling might be. We all know how the world works and how unfair it can be to alternative viewpoints. Why shoot yourself in the foot before even stepping onto the battlefield of ideas?
Agree.
A couple weeks ago on X he wrote that he uses it as "the place to vent my spleen".
I wonder if a writer as careful and rigorous as Darryl is, constantly immersing himself in the worst horrors of humanity, needs that kind of dark humor as an outlet.
Then that's how he's going to be associated.
I am not on Twitter but I have heard DC say he trolls there. I have also heard him say that his political views have been described as being to the right of Attila the Hun. His work doesn't reflect that. It is clear to me that DC doesn't allow his political views to take over his historical work which is something I appreciate.
I agree with all of this. It freaks me out, or maybe disappoints me, that Darryl seems to (sort of, almost) *like* scary tyrants. Darryl has the capacity to tolerate so much nuance, paradox, and pain, but then he longs for a “strong” male leader to impose order from above. Tyrants aren’t strong people—they’re usually narcissistic and antisocial. A concrete, black-and-white political order is not going to undo your traumatic childhood. Bullying gay men doesn’t make you strong. If you want a model of masculine strength, look for men who actually deal with their pain.
Narcissism and antisocialism are strong traits. Narcissism is self confidence, and antisocialism is self reliance. Only difference is those traits are present in someone you don't like.
Incredible...
".....dangerous path to go down."
You are exactly why I am glad Darryl Cooper exists. Uncomfortable and honest conversations make men like you intellectual cowards and interrupt the ability to see the world outside the paradigm of your inherited program. I would bet money you would be diagnosed with a low T count. Coward.
As others have pointed out, Twitter/X (or any social media, for that matter) isn't always the best place to have discourse. Lots of people who are normally good at articulating points in longform writing or in podcasts, succumb to the dopamine hit that comes from sending out a hot take on social media.
It's why I don't follow "outrage porn" accounts on Twitter/X. Those who create the accounts may sometimes raise valid points, but ultimately, those accounts serve to fuel their dopamine addiction.
Agree
Yeah, huge agree. Twitter brings out the worst and those tweets do come across antisemitic, as does implying that the Holocaust sorta just happened and minimizing it. But Mr. Cooper has much to offer.
nice work. i don’t always agree with you, even about big stuff, but you’re always principled, honest, nuanced and compassionate.
often when niche figures go on tucker they seem like his fans. your appearance made it clear that it is you who is influencing his thinking. you should take that as a huge compliment
Hell yeah to this. I felt the same way.
Pretty cool to see you getting wider exposure to your work, even if it does come with a few headaches 😂 Keep up the great work man
Darryl, love your stuff. I know you're not a Nazi or a Holocaust denier etc. However, in the tucker interview you did kinda come off as saying that Holocaust was sort of an unintended consequence of capturing a whole bunch of people with no plan to feed them. You obviously know that Hitler put word out to his generals beforehand that killing of 20m or so people was part of the plan to create the lebensraum necessary for German expansion. So yeah. That probably could have been clarified.
Also, coming from one of your oldest fans: some of your Nazi/ Hitler related tweets are... kinda weird. Like do you really think Nazi occupation of France would be preferable to fat drag queens in the Olympic opening ceremony? Do you really think Hitler is in heaven? If so, what the fuck? People who haven't listened to a hundred hours of your content like I have would be forgiven for getting the wrong idea about you if that's all they've seen.
He was referring to the deaths of POWs being an unintended consequence of capturing so many of them without an adequate plan to feed them.
He didn't mention the Holocaust.
Agree; I have the same questions. The guy who wrote the opening to Fear & Loathing about the guy in bed at night worried about pogroms is hard to reconcile with those tweets.
He wants to be a serious academic but he can't keep the troll in sometimes.
Well put. Darryl is a mystery. I wish he would stay off social media and stick with his wonderful deep dive history podcasts. That’s where he excels.
I've been taking Darryl at his word for a while that he's largely a troll on Twitter and should probably be ignored. I don't think he thinks Hitler is in heaven (I *think* that was a reference to Trump surviving the assassination attempt), but I do think he might be serious about the drag queens. I know I'll disagree with him on that last thing and very many others (like Tucker Carlson being a worthwhile listen), and I'll keep listening to and reading his excellent longer-form thoughtful work, but I mostly ignore his Twitter provocations and suggest you do too.
I am struggling at this point tbh, twitter trolling is all well and good but acting like millions died because of inadequate logistics and perhaps actually for humane reasons is beyond the pale.
He was referring to the millions of POWs they captured. They had no adequate plan to feed so many of them & rather than just leaving them to starve to death, they killed them. I'm not sure what's so 'beyond the pale' about that.
X really brings out the worst in people. As fun as it is to troll the woketards that dominate X, Reddit and other platforms, it just kind of detracts from any valid points you’re ultimately trying to make.
Well said.
The way I took the drag queen tweet was that it was preferable to live under fascism than in a democratic system that leads to the mockery and destruction of everything in the culture that a nation holds dear. One deprives you of your ability to vote, the other makes a mockery of everything that you love about your country, and life itself.
That said, the sentiment doesn't work at all if you are Jewish or any other group Hitler considered undesirable...
Or it could mean that the solution to Hitler - kicking him out of France - was much simpler than whatever the solution is to the gradual deterioration of your culture from the inside.
This is a very good point.
Additionally, in the first photo, Paris was being destroyed by the Nazis, an external enemy. In the second photo, Paris was destroying itself through cultural degeneration and blasphemy.
Yes, this was the point of the tweet as I understood it-- in some ways it is better to be conquered than subverted, because conquest is more likely to evoke resistance.
This makes a lot of sense. You bond with your neighbors, rather than end up at odds with them.
Excellent point!
The French have always been dressing like that. Look at paintings of old French aristocrats. Nothing about French civilization is even challenged by a tableau of drag queens. Having a problem with that sort of more open and bawdy sexuality is much more germanic than it is French.
It isn’t the dress. It’s the satanic messaging embedded in the performance. This wasn’t accidental. The blasphemy was discussed, okay’d, planned, choreographed, rehearsed and implemented on a world stage. They knew there’d be pushback. Didn’t care. And, WTF did it have to do with sports? Naw. This was a message. A hateful, divisive, evil message. I refuse to normalize it as just so French.
It's an intentional troll aimed at Christians. "We're here, we're queer, nyah nyah nyah". And of course it's now practically a cliche to mock Christianity. Christians should not lose their cool at all, and use it as an opportunity to say any true word about the gospel.
Oh try not to piss your pants. I have the same contempt for this sort of offence-seeking as I have for those complaining about disrespectful cartoons of the prophet or a joke about Kaitlin Jenner. Looking for something to cry about is pathetic.
You're just making stuff up to be mad about. I think being mad about this stuff is sign of weakness. But do you.
It's the decision to use a tableau of drag queens to represent your culture when its on the biggest world stage imaginable.
And the ideology they represent - intersectionality and post modernism - despises tradition and French culture and history.
The display was a deliberate f*ck you to Christianity.
If your God is that weak he's not a real God. So no need to respect false idols.
If your faith is that weak, then that's on you not Jesus or anyone who may or may not have mocked him.
Self evidently wasn't Jesus to those of us who don't have a weak faith we must pretend to be strong about.
You're speaking to a non-religious person; but your point would be just as nonsensical either way.
You're confusing Paris with France. The majority of France does not act like that.
Great take. Their are no solutions, just trade offs, and this applies to democracy as well. I personally think democracy only works when built on a moral and cultural foundation. Individualism is great in moderation, when take too far, it leads to selfish degeneracy.
Thank you! I didn’t get it. 🫣 Now I understand WHY he’s so bad at social media. If his MM audience isn’t understanding his posts at first glance, there’s not a chance for anyone else to understand it; and an extremely high probability it’s going to be interpreted the wrong way. Truth be told, none of it matters to me anyway. I like Cooper. I like the fact that he’s kinda hard to read because I want to form my own opinions. He’s one of the few guys just telling the story. Maybe he should bring you on board for X post explanations.
Ah. Yeah the shooter was looking for his Hitler (Trump) and is disappointed to only find the shitheads that Rittenhouse popped. If it’s that tricky for us to figure out, of course the media isn’t going to get it.
I am not on X but when I saw the tweet I saw it as reflective of the fact that there was a clear and obvious way to fight against Hitler, physical warfare. There was a very easy to define enemy (they kindly wore uniforms so you could tell who to shoot at) and the problem could be solved by the age old art form of extreme violence.
The destructive potential of the movement that brought us the trans Olympic nonsense is every bit as terrible as that of the Nazis but it’s harder to know how to combat. Clearly French resistance fighters trying to take out the performers and those involved the way they fought the Nazis isn’t appropriate. Even if it was how do you identify the “enemy”? They don’t wear uniforms. We know how to defend our nations and our peoples from an outside martial threat, we know what to do against Barbarian hoards. We might not always win but at least we know what to do.
It’s much less clear how to fight the rot from within. When foreign soldiers march through my city streets in their uniforms I know what time it is and what actions must be taken. It’s much less clear to me how to respond when my kid’s school wants to have explicit material available to twelve year olds or even teach it. It’s less clear to me how to respond to foreign criminal gangs taking over buildings and neighborhoods when law enforcement refuses to act. It’s less clear to me how I should respond when the government wants to draft my son because they DEI’d the military to the point that no one wants to join and then they went and got into multiple hot land wars anyway.
Nazis in the streets of Paris are bad and the solution is to shoot them is pretty simple. Not easy but it’s simple. Fixing the moral rot of our societies and institutions is neither simple nor easy.
" I know you're not a Nazi". The Nazis were a 1920s-1930s political party in Germany. Literally, no one here is a "Nazi". I detest that shorthand, no offense intended towards you.
Dude, my comment says almost the same thing. Includes the tweets. Part of me thinks is he subconsciously acting out the intro to Dan Carlin’s Wrath of the Mongols
I very much appreciate your in depth, even handed and honest approach to your topics. We all should know by now that our history schoolbooks rewrite history all the time. I actually canceled a subscription today after reading the principal of the platform call you a "psuedo-historian". They are certainly entitled to their opinion, but I am damned well not going to pay to read that sort of stuff. Keep up the excellent work DC. I am very much looking forward to your next series.
The Dossier for me. From a interesting (and mild) conversation, Jordan Schactel got the vapors. He embedded Tweets from Martyrmade implying deep antisemitism. I listened to hours of Fear and Loathing and can call bullshit on Schactel. He is apparently only a good journalist when it jibes with his preconceived Narrative.
I cancelled it as well. He posted a terrible article today attacking Darryl and Tucker. I posted a respectful comment disagreeing with him that got liked by 27 other readers so he proceeded to ban me to hide the comment. I cannot support someone that disrespectful.
Did you cancel The Free Press today, too?
Yep - that's the one!
I've been a long-time subscriber to TFP, but I've had enough. It will be hard to let go of TGIF, but I can find news with less bias elsewhere. Breaking Points, Matt Taibbi, Glenn Greenwald, Dave Smith, and Megyn Kelly keep me in the know.
Don't forget Ken Klippenstein!
What article are you referencing? I find their work to be mostly even handed and they cover topics the corporate media doesn’t touch. Hard to find any journalism with thinking outside the box.
There is nothing balanced or “free” about TFP. Its a Zionist publication to the core.
Zionist yes but they’re covering aspects that corporate media doesn’t touch. For example the rioting and protesting on college campuses along with other woke nonsense the left is doing in its service as useful idiots to the Islamists. Or covering the rapes and murders of Oct 7, which has been denied by many on the left as well.
JON RAPPOPORT is a must follow.
Been a subscriber since 2021. Originally subscribed because I appreciated your honest and thoroughly-researched perspective on areas of history with which I was unfamiliar. I don't know you personally, but seeing your work get the attention it deserves is like watching your favorite sports team win a playoff series for the first time.
Pundits too dumb or disingenuous to acknowledge that criticizing Churchill isn't a tacit endorsement of the Nazis can pound sand.
I say the same about the Soviets. God they were awful but people ride their nuts just because they fought the Nazis. Dan Carlin’s contemporary views aren’t great but he said it best with something along the lines of “make no mistake, it was bad guy against bad guy in the east”. Couldn’t ever say this on social media without getting destroyed but my hot take is I wish we let the Soviet Union fall to Germany without Lend-Lease, just let the Germans steamroll through. Then we either fight Germany or let them have their sphere of influence in the east. Kind of hard to reckon with my Zionist views though
When Stalin is constantly worried about you doing something, it's probably the right thing to do.
You've been taking a lot of heat in the comments on Sasha Stone's "Free Thinking" and in the posts on Bari Weiss's "Free Press" Substack (which went after you twice today, so you clearly have them scared ). However, you have received a lot of support as well in the comments. All that being said, I find the phenomenon itself quite interesting, especially with the number of commenters who admit that they know nothing about you or your podcasts right before they pontificate on what you think and why you are so dangerous. It was this phenomenon that I felt needed to be addressed, which is why I posted the following comment on the Free Thinking Substack:
I am a fan of Tucker and have been a fan of Daryl, particularly his history podcasts since stumbling upon his Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem as a result of Dan Carlin's Hardcore History and Danielle Bollelli's History on Fire podcasts. I do not have to agree with everything either of them says to value their contributions nor do I look to them to tell me how to think. What I do look to them for is to share new information as honestly as they can, challenge my assumptions or beliefs and then make an argument that I can accept or deny based on the strength of their argument. Sometimes I agree with them from the outset. Other times they get me to rethink my position and after that, I either change my mind based on the strength of their argument or I strengthen my argument based on the new information I have learned. Regardless, I am richer and wiser for the experience.
That being said, this entire kerfuffle reminds me of controversies over a movie before it is released when all any of the commentators have even seen is the trailer. The trailer is designed to generate interest and is not the film itself. It is little more than a snapshot into the entire work. Daryl is still in the research phase of this project and forecast that the first installment would not be out until sometime well into next year. Anyone who listened to his interview or has listened to his podcasts knows that his history podcasts are an evolutionary processes for him as he meticulously researches his subjects, discovers new information and finds connections that are conventionally overlooked in an attempt to develop a more cohesive whole.
While I have admiration for Churchill (although he was no friend to the Irish, from where both my parents immigrated back in the 30's), I think Daryl was primarily challenging the binary narrative between Churchill, good and strong, and Chamberlin, bad and weak. I know something about Churchill and next to nothing about Chamberlin, so my measure of both men is based on little to no detailed knowledge. Remember that Churchill appreciated the power of narrative better than ordinary politicians as he once predicted that history would be kind to him because he would be writing it. I am inclined to take him at his word.
Let's also agree that Hitler is a historically evil man (which I don't think Daryl or Tucker ever questioned, although they both expressed genuine curiosity as to what drove him to be evil). I live in Los Angeles and there is a cafe in Venice called Mao's Cafe and it has been operating there for years with no controversy. Why is that? Moa tortured and killed more people than Hitler but we all know that Hitler's Cafe wouldn't last a day without massive backlash. Why was it okay to align ourselves with Stalin to win WWII and then abandon Eastern Europe to the Communist Regime and call it victory? My guess is that if you give Daryl time to do his work, you will find that he asks similar questions leading back to that central question that runs through all of his work, why do we believe what we believe?
Given that the podcast series will most likely be well in excess of 30 hours delivered over several years, what you heard in this interview does not even qualify as scratching the surface. So may I counsel everyone to sheath your swords, let the man do his work, make his arguments and after you have heard him out, come to your own conclusion and then challenge his arguments where you find them in error. The only weapons he is using his brain, his work ethic and his ability to make an argument. If that frightens you, it says more about you than him
Last I looked, five of the most recent six stories at The Free Press were about the Tucker interview. I decided tonight that my subscription money which once proudly supported TFP would be better spent here.
Good on you
That's a lot of wrongthink squawking for sites calling themselves Free Thought and Free Press.
Personally, I loved the irony.
It’s the “I believe in free thought, but....” crowd. Cooper has not even dropped the WW2 episodes and people are already running interference.
100%. The jokes write themselves.
The far left gets a free pass that the fascist right never would. I think it has to do with the fact that academia and the intelligencia is almost exclusively left of center and gives the extremes on their side a free pass. We saw this up front and center during 2020.
The intellectual and spiritual grandparents of the current left -- the faculty advisors, board chairs, editors, etc. -- were ACTUAL Stalinists with some regularity.
This is what explains it. Being a Stalinist means never having to say you're sorry.
That’s true and they had a hard time reconciling their worldview when Khrushchev denounced Stalin.
The Hitler Cafe! There's a great idea! Entrepreneurs take note.
I’m glad you’re doing so well. I’m very proud for you. You work hard and deserve it. Many thanks.
Darryl, thanks so much for your perspective. I will say there were a couple of instances in your conversation with Tucker Carlson that made me think "whoa, those are strong words." However, I do remember you saying, to the effect, that you can't fit everything about WWII into an hour. Thus, I knew not to read too much into anything in which you were essentially summing things up.
I do think Dave Smith said it best on Part of the Problem, in which he believes that what really caused all this pushback is that WWII was the start of the American empire, and to question is to question the American mythos. (Of course, one may argue that's not the only reason.)
Anyway, I have plenty of thoughts about the issues the United States has dealt with in the post-WWII era (domestic and foreign alike, including a few some may not think about) but that's for another day. Thank you for your continued work, Darryl. It's why I'm happy to be a paid subscriber.
Dave Smith had the perfect recap of the interview. As usual.
Listened to the podcast. Nothing alarming or incendiary. As far as the commentators are concerned , “cui bono?” Why the outrage?
I don't think there would have been as much without the two edgy tweets to cement their perception of it.
Darryl, fortunately I’m disconnected enough to have google (Duck Duck Go just doesn’t roll off the keyboard as easily) it to find out what the newest internet drama was.
As you’re well aware, any alternative, or even deeper view, on the chosen narrative tends to bring the machine down on individuals.
I have yet to listened to your interview with Tucker Carlson, but now I’m moving it to the top of the next list.
As someone who has listened to (almost) your entire library along with multiple interviews I want to thank you for your work.
Seriously, Thank You.
Please keep doing your good work, we need it.
✌️❤️🤙
Great work DC. We're glad your perspective is reaching a wider audience. It feels like almost all the American foundational myths are getting torn down, on both sides of the political divide. While it's both healthy and painful to see our personal blind spots be exposed, we better be ready to do the hard work that comes with building whatever has to come next to replace whats been torn down.
I love that this is your response.
We love you.
I cannot believe the blowback on The Free Press. You struck a nerve. The Armstice was signed in November of 1918. The Treaty of Versailles was signed in June 1919. During that interim Churchill was the architect of the naval blockade of Germany that led to the starvation of over 300,000 German citizens. It is mind boggling how "Great Men" engage in the slaughter of innocent's for the better cause. The Tucker interview was first rate. Keep working towards the truth.
In a group text with friends and someone sent the interview with Tucker (who I personally am not a fan of) or a clip of the interview. Take was Darryl is a nazi apologist and “Tl;dr from this guy: Churchill was the real villain of WWII, Hitler wanted peace, the Holocaust was an unintended consequence.” No one was aware I was very familiar with Darryl and have listened to most of his stuff. I responded back saying I haven’t seen the interview but I have listened to his 30 hour podcast on the Israel Palestine conflict and it’s a nuanced middle of the road take, and moreover, he starts the podcast with getting you to imagine what being in a pogrom was like. Said a lot of other stuff as well and that sometimes Darryl comes across as leftist (the coal mining labor union series or the Jim jones civil rights era). Unfortunately they sent darryls twitter (such as saying nazis in Paris were better than the Olympic ceremonies, the trump assassin in hell suggesting hitler was in heaven, and about hitler calling for peace and would work for a solution to the Jewish problem) which I couldn’t really speak to because some of that stuff is tough to swallow.
Really not sure what to make of any of this.
Part of me wonders if Darryl is acting out the intro to Dan Carlin’s Wrath of the Khans