Episode 516: Red, Red Whine

Episode 516: Red, Red Whine

From What the HELL Were You Thinking? by Dave Bledsoe

January 12, 2026 · 34 min

About this episode

Dave Bledsoe discusses the Red Scare and its impact on the Baby Boomer generation while reflecting on his New Year tradition.

Episode 516: Red, Red Whine This week Host Dave Bledsoe woke up brutally hungover behind a trash dumpster in the Tacony neighborhood of Philadelphia meaning a whole New Year has started. (It’s tradition) On the show this week, we end our hiatus without actually going on hiatus. (Turns out Dave was just sad) We start our generational pivot with the first leg of the tripod that holds up the Baby Boomers, the Red Scare! Along the way we discover that Dave isn’t a communist (Turns out their parties are not his kind of parties) then we dive right into the history of international Communism with its bearded Daddy, Karl Marx. We breeze past the first Red Scare and honestly most of the second one, focusing on the major players. (Oddly, mostly Republicans) We talked about why they were looking for a communist under their beds (because they didn’t like Jews) and why they had to persecute anyone who might be a communist. (Again, they don’t like the Jews). Then we take a quick look at the impact of the Red Scare on American society and how it formed the Boomer generation. (It is why so many of them don’t like the Jews) Our sponsor this week is Your Local Communist Party, there are six of us…

People in this episode

Host: Dave Bledsoe

Topics covered

  • Red Scare
  • Communism
  • Baby Boomers
  • American society
  • political history

Keywords

  • Red Scare
  • Communism
  • Karl Marx
  • Baby Boomers
  • American society
  • politics
  • history

Sponsors

Your Local Communist Party

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Philadelphia, Tacony

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