Happy belated Mid-Autumn Festival! 

We pried Andy away from doomscrolling 45 to bring you this late-night episode of semi-coherent thoughts on the American regime, post-wet market theories of Covid-19, and listener queries on class.

0:00 – What is, even, anything? The big, maskless T has Covid, as does everyone around him. We talk conspiracies and sad, middling fantasies of functioning government. Is it time to give up on electoral politics? Will there ever be another Bernie?

28:30 – Twitter warrior and coronavirus prophet Zeynep Tufekci is out with a provocative new piece at The Atlantic. We reminisce about the bad old days at the start of this podcast, which we nearly christened “Pangolin Power Hour.” What does it mean for Covid-19 to be an “overdispersed pathogen”? Who is Pareto, and why does nationalized health care matter?

55:40 – We address a composite (brilliant! erudite!) listener question about class and class cosplay. Why do upper-class wokesters downplay their families’ money? Do upper- vs. upper-middle-class distinctions even matter in elite spaces? Should our class backgrounds influence our career choices or social politics? And why do we tell and retell Asian American immigrant tales of overcoming? Thanks to Janis Jin, @Soledad_Kyrie, and Lisa.

And thanks to all of you for supporting TTSG (https://goodbye.substack.com). Please stay in touch via Twitter (@ttsgpod) and email (timetosaygoodbyepod@gmail.com), and tell all your friends and enemies to subscribe.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit goodbye.substack.com/subscribe