Folks, this was one of those shows that reminds me exactly why we built Blue Amp Media in the first place.
David Shuster had the day off — and trust me, the man earned it — so I was lucky enough to be joined by our COO and The Daily Whatever Show host, Lawrence Winnerman, stepping in as co-host. And let me say this plainly: the operation you see here every day doesn’t run without Lawrence. Period. The guy keeps the trains running, the lights on, and somehow still finds time to be sharp, funny, and relentlessly curious on air.
And then there was our guest: Carlyn Beccia.
If you don’t already know her work, fix that immediately.
Carlyn is one of those rare writers who manages to be deeply informed without ever being dull, fierce without being shrill, and genuinely funny while talking about some of the darkest chapters of human history. She’s a historian, an author of more than a dozen books, an illustrator, and the mind behind The Grim Historian and Conversations with Carlyn on Substack — and she brings all of that firepower to every conversation.
We started, as one does these days, with the breaking and frankly alarming news around Venezuela, authoritarian escalation, and what it looks like when regimes start to panic. Carlyn’s recent writing on “thirsty tyrants” — leaders in decline who thrash violently as power slips through their fingers — became a central anchor for the discussion. She laid out the historical parallels with clarity and precision, walking us through how authoritarians never go quietly, how cruelty escalates, and how the danger often peaks after the cracks start to show.
What makes Carlyn exceptional is that she doesn’t just cite history — she interprets it. From Roman emperors to modern strongmen, she connected the dots between psychological collapse, political paranoia, and the weaponization of fear. Lawrence jumped in with a citation from Carlyn’s sharp observation about Emperor Domitian — a comparison that landed uncomfortably close to home — and the three of us unpacked how “competitive authoritarianism” slides into something much darker if people stop paying attention.
But the show wasn’t just heavy — it was human.
Carlyn talked about the concept of the “dual state,” where everyday life appears normal for most people while targeted groups are slowly stripped of rights. It’s one of those ideas that, once you hear it, you can’t unsee it. And she said something that stuck with me: authoritarianism thrives on people deciding they “don’t do politics.” Indifference isn’t neutral — it’s fuel.
Then, because Carlyn is Carlyn, the conversation took a turn that somehow made perfect sense: goats, monkeys, history’s strangest medical cures, and why some animals are easier to love than others. We talked about her books — brilliant, weird, deeply smart books — like They Lost Their Heads and Monsters, which teach history and science through curiosity, humor, and just the right amount of “wait, what?!”
She writes the books she wished she’d had as a kid. Books that respect young readers’ intelligence. Books that don’t sanitize history or talk down to anyone. And maybe most importantly, books that offer boys — especially boys — better role models than the garbage being fed to them by algorithmic outrage machines.
By the end of the show, we’d covered authoritarianism, empathy, media consolidation, history’s missing body parts, sex education, and why kindness still matters — which, honestly, feels about right for an episode of Amped Up.
Carlyn Beccia is a force. Smart, fearless, funny as hell, and deeply humane. This won’t be her last time on the show — not if I have anything to say about it. And I do! It’s my show; it’s right there in the title.
