Chapo Trap House

Chapo Trap House (also referred to as Chapo) is an American socialist political comedy podcast launched in March 2016 and hosted by Will Menaker, Felix Biederman, Matt Christman, and Amber A'Lee Frost. It is produced by Chris Wade.

The show provides commentary from a democratic-socialist perspective, and its co-hosts are affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). The hosts are critical of both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, particularly its centrist wing. Chapo supported Bernie Sanders in his first presidential campaign in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries and his second campaign in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries. The show's contentious style of left-wing political discourse that eschews civility in favor of casual, blunt, often vulgar expression has given rise to a broader movement called the "dirtbag left", a term coined by later co-host Frost.

The series was originally founded by Menaker, Biederman, and Christman in March 2016, with Brendan James as producer. Frost and Virgil Texas joined in November of that year. James was replaced as producer with Wade in November 2017. In 2018, an imprint of Simon & Schuster published The Chapo Guide to Revolution, co-written by four of the original hosts along with James. The book debuted at number six on The New York Times Best Seller list. Texas left the show in May 2021. Frost took a hiatus for most of 2023 to publish her memoir and audiobook, Dirtbag: Essays. Christman took a hiatus in September 2023 due to complications from a stroke, but rejoined in December 2024.

The Chapo hosts and producers identify with radical left-wing politics and frequently deride conservative, neoliberal, moderate, and liberal pundits. Writing for The New York Times, Nikil Saval called Chapo Trap House and its hosts "prime originators of the far left's liberal-bashing." The Pacific Standard wrote:

Contemporary conservatism is the butt of many jokes on Chapo, but the harshest critiques are often saved for the Democratic Party (and for contemporary liberalism more generally). Chapo has managed to strip away the layers standard of political discourse to highlight the brutality behind policies such as "double-tap" airstrikes and for-profit health care.

Biederman said the show's audience is seeking alternatives to liberal media, which he calls "the dominion of either upper-middle-class smugness when it's even the least bit funny and insufferable self-righteousness when it's even the least bit conscious." Similarly, Christman said that leftist perspectives in media tend toward either the "smug above-it-all snark of The Daily Show or the quaver-voiced earnestness of, like, Chris Hedges or something. Neither of those models offer the visceral thrill of listening to people who actually give a shit (as opposed to the wan liberalism of people who are mostly interested in showing how much smarter they are than Republicans)." James said "[it] is not just that people suck, and that the media and politics is gross, but that it doesn’t have to be this way. If it was just, 'Well, this is how it is, let’s just go down laughing,' then they would just be The Daily Show." Menaker has said that Chapo is meant to be in "marked contrast to the utterly humorless and bloodless path that leads many people with liberal or leftist proclivities into the trap of living in constant fear of offending some group that you're not a part of, up to and including the ruling class."

Chapo Trap House is dense with inside jokes and hyper-specific references to ongoing political discussion on Twitter. The hosts are associated with Twitter communities called "Left Twitter" and "Weird Twitter," a name used to describe a loose group of Twitter users known for absurdist humor.

An episode of Chapo Trap House usually lasts between 60 and 80 minutes. Episodes are typically structured with a prepared "cold open," an interview with a guest, and commentary on current events. In post-production, relevant audio samples are interspersed into the episode's discussion. The theme song—and inspiration for the show's title—is "SALUTE 2 EL CHAPO PART 1" by DJ Smokey. The show frequently features a reading series which usually features texts by conservative and neoliberal writers, such as Ross Douthat, Ben Shapiro, Dennis Prager, Megan McArdle and Rod Dreher. Dreher in particular has become a regular staple on the podcast, being featured nearly 30 times. The hosts jokingly offered him a position as co-host, after Dreher lost his position at The American Conservative. A number of these pundits are also featured and critiqued in The Chapo Guide to Revolution.