With Trump on its mind, Slow Burn additionally serves as yet another entry into the ever-growing genre of Trump-themed podcasts. It occurs to me that the density of these parallels only poses a further challenge for the audience: to discern what is truly a historical echo and what is merely politically evergreen. And there are so many parallels to be made: the attacks on the press, the madness of the White House, the centrality of media platforms in litigating the conflict, the performative debates over whether the public actually gives a shit about any of this. The project was developed with a more timely concern in mind, which is to ask: How can the past help us understand the present? Examining parallels between the Nixon and Trump eras has been a well-trod journalistic enterprise since the dawn of the current presidential administration, but aside from one pretty forced evocation of Anthony Scaramucci early on, the podcast has been hands-off in making those connections, opting instead to focus on the storytelling and let the parallels do the work themselves. It should be noted that Slow Burn isn’t just a solid exercise in the history podcast genre. “Martha” remains the show’s standout entry - it made my Best Podcast Episodes list last year - not only because it’s the best example of that one-two punch, but also because it’s a startling reminder that living, breathing people who once directly experienced now-historical moments often fade in the long tail of cultural memory. Nowhere is this pleasure more present than in the first episode, “Martha,” which tells the story of Martha Mitchell, wife of Nixon attorney general John Mitchell, a tragic figure who was kidnapped, drugged, and locked up in a hotel room in an attempt to stop her from leaking the conspiracy to the public. Even more pleasant is the writing’s constant utilization of a one-two punch oscillating between vivid portraits of (often tragic) people and dispensing sumptuous details that effectively convey a sense of living in the era. The show is mostly built on the scaffolding of Neyfakh’s workmanlike narration, which does most of the heavy lifting, with the occasional inclusion of relevant archival recordings whose scratchy textures are instantly transporting. Slow Burn has a pleasantly simple and deliberate construction. Neyfakh and Parsons do a good job unearthing a sprawling cast of compelling characters that carry the historical narrative forward - from the socialite wife of a complicit attorney general to a segregationist senator to an unconventional couple involved in turning a Senate hearing into prime-time television. Every edition functions well as a stand-alone story, though, of course, the point is to situate them within the broader Watergate developments at play. The podcast unfolds somewhat chronologically, with each episode dropping listeners in various spots across the timeline. It’s addictive for the right kind of casual history nerd. Slow Burn goes down easy despite its hefty portent. Which is to say, Slow Burn is a dense listen, though it never really feels that way. Led by Slate staff writer Leon Neyfakh and producer Andrew Parsons, the podcast is a sturdy product of deep research, archival tape, and contemporary interview recordings. With the distance of time and vicarious experience, the whole thing just seemed like a giant shitstorm, one the country was barely lucky enough to survive.Īnyway, Weisberg was remarking upon Slow Burn, a new limited series podcast from Slate, which endeavors to convey a sense of just what it was like to live through Watergate. (Which includes, notably, the energetic utilization of -gate as a suffix for many a modern political brouhaha.) On the occasion that I have sifted through media and literature about the scandal, fun isn’t a thing that automatically jumps out at me. I barely existed as a concept when Watergate played itself out, and much of what I know about Watergate comes from a few movies, recollections passed down from older people, and the myriad references deployed in mainstream reporting. He may well be right, though I wouldn’t know. “It was a comedy that played out on a national stage.” Weisberg was talking about the Nixon-era Watergate scandal of the early 1970s, the notorious blemish on American history involving a crime, a presidential cover-up, a constitutional crisis, an unraveling society, and fiery, furious tension between president and press. “It was all so fun,” said Jacob Weisberg, the host of Slate’s Trumpcast, during a recent episode.
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