On this week’s episode of the Signal we welcome back Bucks County’s Steve Nolan. Steve spent 30 years in the military and 25 years as a mental health professional. He is the author of the 2020 book American Carnage, An Officer’s Duty to Warn, and today Steve is here to warn us again about the MAGA-fication of the military and How Pete Hegseth is running Trump’s Department of War.

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READ:

• Trump’s Pardon of Honduran Ex-President Who Conspired to Traffic Over 400 Tons of Cocaine Into US Exposes ‘War on Drugs’ Myth
• Leaked DHS Memo Shows Trump Administration Wants to Deploy Military on City Streets to Hunt Down Immigrants
• ‘Bro Culture’ on Top at the Pentagon
• Here’s What Project 2025 Has Planned for the Military
• Trump Tells Military Brass ‘We’re Under Invasion From Within’ and US Cities Should Be ‘Training Grounds for Our Military’
• Using Black Hawk Helicopters and Chemical Agents, ICE Agents Turn Chicago Into a ‘War Zone’
• How the Trump Administration Turned Immigration Courts Into Deportation Traps for ICE

ALSO LISTEN TO:

• Is Donald Trump Mentally Unfit to Be Commander in Chief? An Interview with Military Veteran and Mental Health Professional Steve Nolan
• American Carnage: An Officer’s Duty to Warn, with Steve Nolan
• Former FBI Agent Who Once Infiltrated Neo-Nazi Groups and Militias Explains Why Law Enforcement Fails to Take Far-Right Extremism Seriously
• How Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement Will Legalize and Deploy Vigilantes to Push Their Agenda, with David Noll

Music by Maf é Tulà and Cartas a Felice, "La Loca." Panela Music.

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• @buckscountybeacon.bsky.social
• @cmychalejko.bsky.social
• @rcpress.bsky.social

Malcolm Burnley is a staff writer for The Philadelphia Citizen. He has been a journalist in Philadelphia since 2013, contributing to outlets such as Philly Mag, WHYY, and Politico Magazine. Five days before the election he published, “What a Bucks County Sheriff's Race Can Tell Us about U.S. Politics.” He joins us today to talk about that race which Democratic challenger Danny Ceisler won handily, the Blue Wave that washed away so many other Republican officeholders in Bucks County on Election Day, and what this may signal for the midterms in 2026.

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ALSO LISTEN TO:

• From Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Bucks County’s Fred Harran: Why ICE 287(g) Partnerships Are So Dangerous, with Jessica Pishko
• ‘A Fight Fails Without A Dream’: DNC Vice Chair Malcolm Kenyatta on How The Democratic Party Will Meet This Dangerous Trumpian Moment
• Fighting to Finally Raise the Minimum Wage in Pennsylvania: A Conversation With State Rep. Roni Green
• Kadida Kenner on Defending Democracy and Voting Rights in Pennsylvania

Music by Maf é Tulà and Cartas a Felice, "La Loca." Panela Music.

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• @buckscountybeacon.bsky.social
• @cmychalejko.bsky.social
• @rcpress.bsky.social

Megan Goodwin is senior editor for Religion Dispatches, nerd-in-chief at Feral Nerd Consulting, and media & tech consultant for The Crossroads Project. Goodwin is the author of Abusing Religion: Literary Persecution, Sex Scandals, and American Minority Religions (Rutgers 2020). With Ilyse Morgenstein Fuerst, she cohosted Keeping It 101: A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion Podcast; and their first co-authored book, Religion Is Not Done With You, is now available through Beacon Press. Her next project is tentatively entitled Cults Incorporated: The Business of Bad Religion.

Megan, who grew up in Yardley where she attended St. John the Evangelist Grade School and later graduated from Archbishop Egan High School, joins The Signal to talk about her scholarly and journalistic work covering religion. She explains why religion – and specifically white Christian Nationalism – are topics each of you should care about, whether you are religious or not.

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ALSO LISTEN TO:

• The History of Fascism and Anti-Fascism in America, with Bill Mullen and Christopher Vials
• Katherine Stewart Discusses Her New Book ‘Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy’
• Kristin Kobes Du Mez on Evangelical Support for Trump and Project 2025’s Christian Nationalist and Authoritarian Designs for the Nation
• A Conversation with André Gagné About His Book ‘American Evangelicals for Trump: Dominion, Spiritual Warfare, and the End Times’
• The New Apostolic Reformation: A Revolutionary Theocratic Movement Coming For Pennsylvania, The Nation, And The World

Music by Maf é Tulà and Cartas a Felice, "La Loca." Panela Music.

Follow us on BlueSky:

• @buckscountybeacon.bsky.social
• @cmychalejko.bsky.social
• @rcpress.bsky.social