Commentary by Sam Goldman on Episode 33 of Inside Without Now, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST EPISODE and subscribe on Spotify, Apple, Google or other podcast channels.
“We retain our decency as a people by standing up and stopping what’s going on, by raising our voices to say Trump IS attempting a fascist coup and to do everything in our power to not let this stand. Whether they succeed in overturning this particular election, they are succeeding in normalizing what no one can deny is fascist behavior toward public officials, dissenters and elections with ominous implications for not just the future but right now.”
Welcome to Episode 33 of Inside Without Now. A podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Yesterday I traveled with others from Philadelphia down to D.C. to join Refuse Fascism in speaking out and rallying in Black Lives Matter Plaza. We carried standards that an artist local to Philadelphia beautifully made that read: Stop trying to overturn the election! Stop your murderous Covid program! Stop your dangerous war moves! Stop whipping up MAGA Fascist mobs! We held these in front of the White House. Our banner read “In the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a Fascist America.”
We chanted and held signs that said, “Trump: you lost, Get the hell out now!” along with signs that read, “Trump/Pence Out Now!” and in Spanish, “Trump/Pence Fuera Ya!” We chanted with joy and defiance “L-O-S-E-R, You’re a fascist, yes you are! You lost yeah, yeah, you lost.” You can see sights and sounds from the protest at RefuseFascism.org and on our social media @RefuseFascism.
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I’m recording this Sunday (12/13). Tomorrow, the Electoral College will meet, and the vote will make Biden’s victory official. Yet these next 36 days will be incredibly dangerous. As the legal avenues restrict Trump’s coup, we will see more violence from Trump’s rabid, vicious base and the regime doing as much damage as they can in their remaining hours in the White House, including their killing spree of Black Death Row inmates: two murdered by the state this week and two more set before inauguration. And this fascist movement that has been tempered through false victimhood is hardening, strengthening and is a hazard to humanity that won’t just disappear on January 21st.
Two days before electors vote to make Biden’s win official, thousands of Trump’s mindless followers rallied in D.C. behind the fiction of a stolen election. Former national security adviser, who was pardoned by Trump, Michael Flynn, spoke for the first time publicly since November to a crowd of cheering supporters. He said, “People ask me this all the time now in the last couple of days: certainly on a scale of 1 to 10 who’s going to be the next president of the United States? And I say 10: Donald J. Trump. Ten!” and the crowd went wild. “Don’t get bent out of shape, There are still avenues,” Flynn said. He coupled this with “We’re fighting with faith and we’re fighting with courage.”
This message of “fight” was the motif of the day. “Fight for Trump” was a frequent chant and sign. It was tweeted by their leader that morning in an ALL CAPS message “THE FIGHT HAS JUST BEGUN.” It was what former Foreign Policy Adviser and esteemed anti-Semite Sebastian Gorka said: “The fight isn’t over. Thanks to our lord and savior, we have already won.” As the cheering crowd chanted back their heroes’ tagline “Hold the line.” An evangelical pastor at the Trump March heinously invoked the second day of Hanukkah as giving these Christian fascists a “warrior mandate,” he said. “We are now designated as the secret weapon of the Kingdom of God” and “men born for war,” The pastor told the marchers, calling for the overthrow of a legitimate election as a means of “bringing heaven into collision with democracy.” The message of ‘fight, fight for Trump, fight for fascism,’ was echoed by the majority of speakers and acted on later that night by participants. Another thing that Flynn had said that stood out to me was “every time they attack Trump, they’re attacking you.” And rightly, many were reminded of Rudolf Hess and what he said at the 1934 Nuremberg party rally: “The party is Hitler, but Hitler is Germany, as Germany is Hitler.”
Trump broadcasted his approval of Saturday’s demonstration with a thumbs up tweet reading: “Wow! Thousands of people forming in Washington, D.C for Stop the Steal didn’t know about this, but I’ll be seeing them. #Maga” and his helicopter flew over the protest as his loyalists saluted him. Sandy Hook denier and conspiracy peddler Alex Jones said from the stage, “We will never back down to the satanic pedophile globalist New World Order and their walking dead reanimated corpse Joe Biden and we will never recognize him.” He followed this by saying that Joe Biden “will be removed one way or another,” directly threatening the life of the president elect.
White supremacist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes led people to chant, “Destroy the GOP,” and while “Left Twitter” laughed and said, that’s a chant they could get behind, they missed the point of the message and the danger it poses: what it means when the GOP is destroyed for the perception that they didn’t protect Trump, that they didn’t deliver him the second term he deserved. Lest you think they’d ignore a pandemic that that day alone killed 2,259 people in the United States. Congressman-elect Bob Good of Virginia, as soon as he started speaking declared, “This looks like a group of people that gets it. This is a phony pandemic” as fans screamed maskless. “Stop the steal,” they chanted. “Fight for Trump!” they chanted. Proud boys decked out in their “stand back and stand by,” no longer standing by waiting but standing by, ready to fight. They marauded through the streets, seeking to terrorize people. They continued into the night, dressed for battle with tasers and pepper spray, seeking people out to beat, to maim, Black men alone at night, Black property to destroy. They went to Asbury United Methodist Church, the oldest Black church in the city that is still on its original site.
They took down the church’s Black Lives Matter flag, and they set it on fire while they chanted “Fuck Antifa!” They went to Metropolitan AME Church and ripped their Black Lives Matter sign – another Black church. Reverend Mills of Asbury Methodist Church said “It pained me, especially to see our name Asbury in flames. For me, it was reminiscent of cross burnings.” Reverend Mills added that the church would “move forward, undaunted in our assurance that black lives matter and we are obligated to shout the truth without ceasing.” We stand with these churches. Black Lives Matter. We stand with the people of D. C. Black Lives Matter. We must not cease to shout the truth and to stand and refuse to accept a fascist America. The pastor of the church rightly said it was reminiscent of cross burnings. Except last night, without the hoods, you could see the positive glee on the faces of these men and the danger posed by allowing them to stay in power.
Let’s pull back the lens. We won. 81 million people voted against Trump, against fascism, and this matters. Imagine, had it been closer. Court after court has rejected Trump’s legal challenges to the election, pointing to a total lack of any evidence at all. But Trump is still not conceding. He’s escalating his illegal, illegitimate and fascist attempts to overturn it whipping up violent mobs, threatening election officials and legislators, attempting to throw out millions of votes. His fascist Republican Party and his rabid and violent, conspiracy addled followers have gained ground and advanced fascism. And if this were happening in any other country, we’d be screaming coup at the top of our lungs. 18 state Attorneys General asked the Supreme Court to overturn the election. 126 members of Congress, 65% of the House Republican Caucus signed on to the Texas lawsuit through amicus briefs to throw out the votes of millions of people. To throw away millions of votes, disproportionately the votes of black people. When SCOTUS didn’t take the case, Texas GOP leaders started talking about secession.
Thugs on the street gunned up and puffed up, chanting “Stop the Steal!” gathered outside of the home of the Secretary of State in Michigan while she set up for Christmas with her child. Nooses and death threats towards Black elected officials and poll workers have been taking place nationwide. Senate majority leader from Pennsylvania Kim Ward told The New York Times that she had to sign the amicus brief, the friend of the court letter in support of the Texas lawsuit. She said, “If I didn’t want to sign the letter, my house would be bombed.” Republicans nationwide are fighting to throw out millions of votes while Trump’s fascist mobs terrorizes elective officials and poll workers.
There is nobody but us, the masses of people that are going to stop it. A couple of Senate seats in Georgia is not. This is a movement that has strengthened, that is escalating, that is being normalized fast and furiously. A movement that declares ‘No election is legitimate unless they win. No elected official is legitimate unless they fall in line with fascism, and if they don’t they should probably be locked up and strung up.’ This is a major change. The Democratic Party cannot and will not fight this the way it must be fought and instead are advocating reconciliation. Representative Adam Schiff, when asked by Chris Hayes whether he agreed with excluding GOP members who went along with the Trump plot to overturn the election, responded “I don’t think when the president of the United States and some of my Republican colleagues are trying to burn the house down around us that we want to set a new fire.” Instead, their strategy is to sit back and to allow the fire to burn, to provide it with the oxygen it needs to grow in the absence of opposition. Revolutionary leader Bob Avakian wrote on reconciliation, “there can be no reconciliation with these fascists whose grievances are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia, hatred of foreigners, rabbid American chauvinism and the unrestrained plundering of the environment and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no reconciliation with this other than on the terms of these fascists.With all the terrible implications and consequences of that.”
Now is the time for us not to be mute. We can’t allow this fascism to fester. Our electoral victory bought us time. Let’s use that time to rally the 81 million to make sure that these fascists don’t get the future. We retain our decency as a people by standing up and stopping what’s going on, by raising our voices to say Trump IS attempting a fascist coup and to do everything in our power to not let this stand. Whether they succeed in overturning this particular election, they are succeeding in normalizing what no one can deny is fascist behavior toward public officials, dissenters and elections with ominous implications for not just the future but right now. Refuse Fascism is committed to not ceding the public square to fascist lies and fascist mobs. We know that if we fail to stand against this, it’s the fascist movement that will become stronger to obstruct and return to power with a vengeance. We know that any of the positive changes so many millions here fought for will be far, far more difficult, if not impossible to achieve.
So with that, I hope that you’ll join in signing the “Pledge to the People of the World: In the Name of Humanity We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.” You can read and sign it at RefuseFascism.org. If you have already signed it, spread it, share it with others. This is a pledge that must be seen right now by millions, resonating far and wide. It needs to become not only a political and moral compass, but the organized expression of a network ready to act with nonviolent determination to not allow fascism to grow and dominate and terrorize society. The critical days until Trump and Pence are gone from power present real and present danger. By signing by spreading, by donating to get this out in the world, we remain vigilant. You can donate by clicking the donate button at RefuseFascism.org or by giving via Venmo Refuse-Fascism or CashApp RefuseFascism. Thanks for listening to inside with Out Now. Subscribe for the latest and please rate and review to help us reach more listeners.
In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!Trump/Pence Out Now!
Stay safe, not silent.