The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason

by Chapo Trap House

Hovering above everything like a black, odious cloud of shit is the sour and berating matriarch Livia, who represents the crushing weight of olds on the American psyche, sapping us of joy, independence, and any chance to escape our history. As a corollary to all our collective efforts to overcome the psychological damage done to us by Livia (i.e., all previous generations), there is Dr. Melfi, Tony’s therapist, who represents the ultimate and final failure of educated, cosmopolitan liberals to meaningfully confront—let alone reform—evil. Throughout the run of the series, Melfi’s attempts to treat Tony serve only to help him manage his criminal empire more efficiently, making her at best an enabler and at worst an accomplice. Finally, in the Soprano children, we see the two paths laid out for the millennial generation. In Meadow we have the “success daughter,” a high-functioning and ambitious striver with a superficial interest in social justice who is well adapted to the world of neoliberal hegemony. In AJ, we have the great American failson, a figure uniquely ill suited to the times. AJ is lazy, petulant, insouciant, and one Howard Zinn book away from realizing how fucked-up shit really is. He is the ur-figure for what would eventually become the podcast listener and host.