Badlands Story Hour Ep. 188: The Death of Stalin

Chris Paul and Burning Bright take on The Death of Stalin, Armando Iannucci's 2017 satire of the power struggle that followed Stalin's death, with Steve Buscemi as Khrushchev, Simon Russell Beale as Beria and Jeffrey Tambor as Malenkov. Chris admits he turned it off years ago without getting what it was doing, and now calls it a brilliant takedown of the collectivist administrative state. The two dig into why the English and American accents work, letting the film glide past grim material for laughs while landing as a commentary on any regime. From there the conversation widens into what the movie says about systems: the false decorum of a party where everyone performs loyalty, compelled compliance, and how the men around Stalin protected themselves by taking part. Burning Bright, a self-described Trump supporter, connects that to modern politics, from consensus formation and social media "struggle sessions" to the idea that Trump may be building a trustless society, while Chris argues that refusing to choose between two evils is a responsibility. They also touch on Ben Franklin and Jefferson's view that laws should expire, and close on Khrushchev's asymmetric advantage over Beria.