Ive been listening to chapo since circa 2019, on and off as of late, and cant really shake the feeling theyre getting close to ending. Maybe in the next year or so as theyve been focusing on movies as of late.
If they do, great and if they dont also great. Its their project and I support whatever choice they make.But it is a vibe Im getting.
I like that they still laugh at all this horrible shit which helps keep the doom at bay just slightly. But i was always in it for Matt. Back when chapo was considered “dangerous” and had a naughty reddit community I checked the show out and was like “really? this seems tame” Then Matt starts a rant and it resonated so hard with me and I sort of understood the “danger”.
Matt pushed me from socdem/demsoc to Marxist with those rants, perfectly timed with the Bernie collapse. Also his Reformation series was amazing, up there with Blowback in quality. I was looking forward to him just doing history podcasting forever but shit happened of course.
Post-stroke, I used to worry when he’s on now that he’s just being puppetted by Chris or something. Then realized it was just Chris helping him find the right words, like a language coach. He did start a rant a few eps ago but got too worked up and sort of trailed off, struggling to find the right words. It hit me in the heart a bit, but also it was good to see that Matt is still there, he hasn’t been Fettermaned. But I’d rather him rest, recover the best he can, then be dragged onto the show to stress out.
I definitely share your concerns about Matt. As long as his doctor and him think his brief appearances on the pod on occasion are good for him, then I’m not gonna make a big deal of out it. But I do notice what you’re talking about where he definitely has a heater in him and it sort of fizzles when it hits his tongue and it just makes me feel bad. Maybe that’s my own mortality staring at me as well and it’s a me thing more than anything else. As someone that has felt the struggle of raising a child myself, doing it while my brain was recovering just sounds impossibly difficult.
Like you, I felt like Matt expanded my horizons a bit. I’ve been a socialist for most of my adult life, but Matt’s historical knowledge really widened my views on that. I’ve read basically every history book he’s mentioned. So, I feel indebted to him in a similar way.