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Sam interviews independent journalist and researcher Teddy Wilson about the base for fascism in the US and how they are responding to recent events. Subscribe to Teddy’s regularly updated Substack at radicalreports.substack.com and follow him on Twitter at @reportbywilson.

Mentioned in this episode: The Oath Keepers Data Leak: Unmasking Extremism in Public Life from the ADL 

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Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Sun, 9/11 6:19PM • 47:20

Teddy Wilson 00:00

January 6 could be viewed as essentially a kind of a dry run. When a lot of people talk about that they think of something like that happening again at the Capitol, but I think what is more likely and probably even probable at this point is that that kind of activity will happen at the state level. If there are people in power and positions in power within the government that have connections to far-right extremist groups that, presents a real threat.

Sam Goldman 00:45

Welcome to Episode 126 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and a host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States.

After listening to today’s episode, we hope you will go and help us find more people who want to refuse fascism by rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, and encouraging your friends and family who listen to do the same. Subscribe on YouTube, follow wherever you get your pot on so you never miss an episode, and of course, continue all that beautiful sharing and commenting on social media. In today’s episode, we’re sharing an interview with journalist and researcher Teddy Wilson. Teddy’s Radical Reports is a Substack newsletter that provides research analysis and intelligence on the radical right.

But first, a few updates on the fascist threat. The Department of Justice appealed the special master’s review of classified documents seized by the FBI. On Friday, both sides put forward their proposals for the special master. It is a very fraught moment, with danger only heightened as Trump continues to reign free with the investigation paused, let alone any accountability. Once in power fascism’s defining feature is the essential elimination of the rule of law and democratic and civil rights. This past week, #TrumpIsGoingToJail trended again, and, to be honest, that is a pipe dream if we don’t form a true mass movement against fascism.

As Paul Street noted in his September 7 CounterPunch article: “The absurd lack of prosecution is dangerous. The frothing tangerine tinted maniac Trump recently handed yet more proof that he will die before the rule of law ever catches up with him, absurdly walks free to specify six drastic plans he’ll implement if he can steal the White House back with his fascist friends in state legislatures and the state and federal courts: execution of drug dealers, moving homeless people to tent cities, deploying the US military to crush crime, social unrest and protest, stripping job protections from federal workers and staffing thousands of federal positions with fascist appointees, eliminating the education department, restricting voting to one day.”

I do have to note on this, that he might not have to steal the White House back, as this country is full of fascists, and like Hitler, Trump came to power in 2016 through the workings of this country’s electoral system. Trump’s endorsements speak volumes on his plans for the future. As historian Federico Finkelstein wrote on Twitter earlier this week: “Trump endorses Bolsonaro his mini-me or as he calls Bolsonaro the ‘Tropical Trump.’ Bolsonaro not only shares Trump’s fascist desires but also follows the Trumpist playbook to destroy democracy from within.” He went on to say this: “This kind of rapport is not uncommon among fascists and wannabe fascists…In 1923, Hitler said: ‘If a German Mussolini is given to Germany people would fall down on their knees and worship him more than Mussolini has ever been.'” We’ll be continuing to follow the situation in Brazil regarding their election which takes place next month.

Before I share the interview with Teddy, I wanted to touch on one aspect of the conversation you’re about to hear. In the interview Teddy comments on Tim McVeigh, and the right wing social media spaces today, reflecting the rhetoric in the moment before the Oklahoma City bombing. This all really got me thinking. Right now, we see fascist organizations spreading far beyond McVeigh’s day. We see explicit fascist violence overlapping with the epidemic of mass shootings; arguably, a wave of implicit fascist violence. We see a central figure in Trump — not necessarily tied into the logistics, though he seems to be to a greater extent than most give him credit for, but — as a lightning rod and leader for this vast, battle-hardened, revanchist movement on the verge of re-seizing power nationwide.

All of this, not simply through force of will on the part of the fascists, but through a qualitative deepening of the crisis of this system, increasingly unable to hold together civil society and empire through the status quo for much longer. I think that it’s prescient to think back to a time like the early to mid-90s, and see just how far McVeigh and others could go back then, with what in retrospect looks like Fisher Price fascism, and what people with the same inclinations and intellect might be able to do today. Now, here’s my conversation with Teddy.

Today, I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak to and to introduce to you, if you don’t already know his work, Teddy Wilson. Teddy is a journalist with a decade of experience covering the Christian right and the conservative movement. He was the U.S. investigations editor at Open Democracy, a research analyst at Political Research Associates, is also a staff reporter at Rewire News Group, which we love, and we are so glad to have them on the show. Welcome, Teddy.

Teddy Wilson 07:08

Thank you so much for that.

Sam Goldman 07:09

Oh, and I missed the most important, that Teddy has a beautiful Substack called Radical Reports. It is updated daily; sometimes it seems like more than once a day if there’s something really crazy going on. It basically covers the right wing extremist threat in depth, shares highlights that Teddy’s found along with his own writing. So that’s very important. Now I’ll welcome you again. And this time, I won’t interrupt you. Hey, Teddy, how’s it going?

Teddy Wilson 07:44

It’s going great. Thank you so much for the invite. It’s a real pleasure to be on. I’m really looking forward to our discussion and you know, seeing where the conversation takes us.

Sam Goldman 07:55

Likewise. I thought we could start by talking a little bit about this Mar-a-Lago case and recent developments surrounding it. For our sake — us listening — can you remind listeners where things stand as of now, when we’re recording this on September 8, in this saga, post the warranted search at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Where are things at?

Teddy Wilson 08:22

As far as I know, this is a story that has updated on a daily if not hourly basis. Things may have changed by the time you hear this podcast, but as of right now, a federal judge has granted the former president’s legal request for a so called special master. What this is, is a procedure that is typically done when prosecutors and the government’s attorneys are looking through various types of evidence, and if there is privileged information within documents or electronic devices, or what have you, courts will appoint a special master. That’s a person that will come in and look at all the documents and information and basically sort through it and pick out any evidence or pieces of information that are privileged, for example, of course, as attorney client privilege.

Generally, this is something that, from what I understand from the legal community, people really weren’t expecting the judge to grant this request. But the judge did grant that request, so right now we’re in the process of having a special master being appointed and the documents that law enforcement took from Mar-a-Lago are going to have to be looked through and examined. There’s no real legal reasoning for why the judge granted this request, since there doesn’t seem to be any kind of indication that there would actually be privileged material within these documents, so that’s essentially where the legal case stands at the moment. Like I said, that could change depending on when your listeners are listening to this. That’s kind of the basics of where the case currently stands, as far as I understand it.

Sam Goldman 10:14

One of the things that strikes me — again, I’m not a lawyer — about this special master thing is that people were so surprised. When you look at who this judge was, and that it was a Trump appointee, it’s not so surprising. I think it speaks volumes to the role Trump played in remaking the whole judiciary in his image. Some of the things that people much smarter than myself have pointed out, that I found helpful, was that there was a lot of talk from this particular judge on these things being protected by executive privilege, but it was very clear consistently, that it wasn’t; that there’s nothing in presidential privilege that allows you to hoard documents in your private home, after being specifically asked to return them. The archivists were like: No, this is not executive privilege.

The other comment from her was about reputational harm that, you know, we needed a special master because there’s reputational harm. But all criminal investigations have an ability to harm one’s reputation, and so that communicates: Wait, are we saying that we have to put special, like, kidd gloves on anytime we investigate someone who’s held presidential office? No. So those are just some of the things that should make you think, right, what’s going on here? Folks should also know that they’re still missing top secret files; that some of them apparently included nuclear secrets about other countries; that stealing documents like this is a felony. Edward Snowden, who informed the public about widespread warrantless mass surveillance, literally cannot return to the US because of that. That a Trump appointed judge just ruled that a special master is going to be appointed to review the documents and decide whether this was a crime or not, is nuts — and also what the fuck is a master? This could, as Teddy alluded to, drag on this case for months, or maybe even years. So that’s where we’re at. While the Mar-a-Lago case has dragged on, and we’ve gotten plenty of signals that the GOP is learning how to coup better from the past couple of years, it appears to me at least — and Teddy, I’d love your observations — that the mainstream news networks are doubling down on featuring reactionary voices, and limiting those who seek to speak out against the right wing threat — if you want to frame it in that or right wing extremism, or the Trumpist danger. In particular, I’m thinking about the shifts at CNN. I am wondering, as a journalist, if there’s particular things that you’ve observed around this, you think are significant? Or maybe you’re like: No, Sam, this is just always how it is, and where you see things going?

Teddy Wilson 12:58

Right? Well, that’s an interesting point you bring up. I’m not sure that I would say that this is just kind of business as usual within the media environment. I would say that over the last few decades, I think we’ve seen many, many examples of this kind of corporatization of the media in which we’ve seen this kind of stuff happen. So I would say that the media, especially the legacy mainstream media, has, for a very long time, really focused in on the idea of objectivity and being unbiased, and that has tended to lead journalists and reporters to do the so called both sides-ism, right? Where if there is an issue or a policy debate, they tend to have one person from one side, one person from the other, both sides are given their opinions or views, analysis on whatever they’re talking about is given kind of equal weight.

I think that has often presented a distorted view to the public of what the issues are, what both sides think about the issues. In the abortion debate, for example, there tends to be this both sides-ism there, where they’ll have: “Well, the pro- choice side said this, the pro-life side says that,” and there was very rarely a kind of fact checking or challenging the assertions of the anti-abortion movement. You’ve seen the same thing within the immigration debate. You’ll see immigration advocates and an anti- immigrant activists given the same weight without reporters generally providing any additional context or challenging the assertions of the anti-immigrant movement. I think that this is something that’s been going on for a long time.

What might be relatively new, is the media environment has gotten more and more sectioned off, where you have more and more media outlets that are reporting for very specific audiences, as the media has essentially gotten balkanized, to an effect. We’ve seen more extreme voices get larger and larger platforms, which is something that hasn’t typically happened in the past. When people think of conservative media, when they think of right-wing media, the first thing they think of is Fox News, maybe AM radio, right. But the right wing media environment is so much larger than that. It’s an entire ecosystem. That’s why you see so many fringe, right-wing figures continue to get notoriety and be platformed. You have television stations like One America News Network or Newsmax that are reaching large audiences, or you have large online platforms, like the Daily Wire, or the Federalist.

That has led to more and more extreme voices getting larger platforms, and then the byproduct of that is when people get very influential within that right-wing media sphere, they tend to get more appearances on mainstream media and mainstream shows. It’s a kind of complicated cascading effect, and we’ve seen that bleed over. And you mentioned CNN, and the idea that has been reported that CNN is trying to present themselves as a more moderate, unbiased, middle of the road network, that doesn’t lean left or right. So, they are pushing out people, not for their ideological views, necessarily, but because of their propensity to speak truth to power or to challenge the mainstream narrative about things.

I think that is where this is most distressing, when you see journalists and and reporters not necessarily espousing an ideological viewpoint, but simply trying to explain to the audience what are the kind of facts and current situation and provide context, and I think that’s really problematic. But like I said, at the beginning, I’m not necessarily sure this is all completely new. There’s new aspects to it, but as someone that served in the military in the early 2000s, I remember the media coverage of the run up to the Iraq War, and what was happening in the media during the Iraq War. So all of this that is going on right now has a familiar kind of flavor to it, as someone that has remembers really well how the media covered the lead up and the war itself. That’s my view on the current kind of media environment.

Sam Goldman 17:25

I really appreciate your full perspective, both as a journalist who has been covering these issues for a long time, and as someone reflecting on the media’s coverage of war over now, what is it 20 years ago, is very helpful. Shifting gears a little bit, I know that you follow on Radical Reports, both the insider fascist movement, as well as the base, or outside fascist movement. I was wondering, what are your thoughts in this moment, regarding the potential for violence from the Trump base?

A lot of people have been talking about the potential for violence from the Trumpist base in response to something like Trump actually being arrested or indicted, but I’m thinking broader, maybe in terms of election results or things like that, because I don’t think that we’ll see an arrest or indictment anytime soon. So I’m just wondering as someone who’s really had their ear to the ground, and we’re definitely hearing a lot of talk about civil war, what do you see going on? What is the danger? What should we be understanding about the threat that’s posed?

Teddy Wilson 18:32

When you look at the rhetoric on the far right, particularly the far-right extremist movements, within their online spaces, and in their discussions in public, a lot of that rhetoric is similar to rhetoric that was seen in the early 1990s. That rhetoric was used and inflamed the extremist movement to a point where in 1995, Timothy McVeigh, and his partner, Nichols, bombed the Oklahoma City Federal Building. I think it’s important to remember that when you look at all this rhetoric, yes, I think that there is a possibility that we could see extremist violence in response to various events; whether it is Trump being indicted or election results being disputed in a particular state.

I think there’s a very real possibility of far-right extremist violence happening in response to events, but I think it’s also important to remember that presently, we’re already continually seeing far right extremist violence happening around the country in different places — not necessarily in response to events, but these are aggressive offensive actions basically, from the far right. So that’s whether you’re talking about threats to trans folks in the LGBTIQ community, whether you’re talking about threats to abortion providers at abortion clinics, or threats to even the federal government. We’ve seen an uptick in the amount of threats to the FBI in the wake of their search of Mar-a-Lago.

So, yes, there is a real possibility of far right extremist violence in response to various types of events, but what I think is the more kind of concerning element of all this is this is continually inflaming various extremist elements within the far right. I think that we are getting closer and closer to a probable event like Oklahoma City; a mass casualty far-right extremist terrorist attack. I think that’s a real possibility in the medium to near future. Also, one of the elements of that is the fact that in the wake of January 6th, and the Capitol riot, there was so many members of various extremist organizations that were getting arrested and charged with crimes; everything from attacking law enforcement officers of the Capitol to seditious conspiracy. A lot of folks that monitor the far right extremist movements in the months after January 6th thought that this would have a really damaging effect on the far right, and their ability to organize.

Unfortunately, what we saw in the last couple years is the opposite has actually happened. There has been even more organizing within far right extremist circles. There’s actually been an increase in the number of private chapters around the country. When I think about the real world threat of far right, extremist violence, I think, yes, there is that kind of immediate threat on a day to day basis, which is almost exclusively targeted at marginalized communities, but there’s also kind of a larger long-term threat of real world domestic terrorism that I think we should be very concerned with right now.

Sam Goldman 21:49

One of the things that what you were saying made me think about is that the normalization of acts of political violence, in particular towards public officials, whether it be like the hounding of school board members, the threats of attacking judges, the physical violence towards poll workers, the whole range is kind of like: Oh, yeah, people do that now. And then, not just public officials, right, you think about drag story hour now being a place of danger for performers, for kids, for families; drag brunches being a potential site. I have serious concerns that that becomes just: “Yeah, people do that now.” And that’s just part of the ecosystem where you stop being appalled by it — not you listeners, but as a broader people that — we may not like it, but we kind of tolerate it. I do have concerns about that, and I am curious.

I definitely agree and think that this is ‘trust your data’, but you said something, and this kind of come up around January 6th. At that time, those who were monitoring the reality that instead of this damaging organizations, that extremist, violent fascist groups were actually becoming stronger, becoming more organized, battle tested, if you will. I’m wondering, what is that about? Why is that the case? Is it the case of martyrdom, and there’s a lot of religious fanaticism amongst a lot of these groups? Not all of them, but many of them, and is that the martyr culture, part of what is the recruitment tool? Or is there something else that you see?

Teddy Wilson 23:30

Well, it’s complicated because when you look at how the various sectors of the far right in the various types of far right extremist movements organize, how they recruit, their strategies and tactics, there’s different variances, but there are common threads. There’s evolving kind of threads between these various groups. You mentioned the religious aspect of it. Speaking of January 6th, I think the role of Christian nationalism and this expression of Christian nationalism that happened at January 6th is a relatively underplayed part of the Capitol riot. There has been an increasing amount of religiosity within the far right. It’s been mixed with various elements.

When you look at, for example, the conspiracy movements part of the far right — when you look at QAnon and Q- adjacent conspiracy theories — there’s a lot of religious elements within those conspiracy theory movements. Not necessarily all of it is Christian explicitly, either. There’s kind of a borrowed nature. There was a recent report that came out of Canada that talked about this this past week, that talked about kind of “cafeteria extremism;” similar to like cafeteria Catholics, that kind of Idiom, where these extremist groups will pick and choose various elements from far right, or even neo-fascist movements and kind of form their own kind of identities. You’re seeing that in many different places within the far right.

But, as far as why these groups are appearing to grow and expand, and, you mentioned the idea of martyrdom, and I would say that one of the really central elements — it’s the three line of within these far right extremist movements — is apocalyptic narratives and the idea that they are constantly under threat, that they are moments away from an apocalyptic event, from the government trying to seize authoritarian power, take their guns away, take their property away. Martyrdom is a big part of it, too. When you look at how Ashley Babbitt is viewed, you know, she’s this Air Force veteran that participated in the Capitol riot who was shot and killed that day. She is really held up as a martyr.

You don’t have to look very far in the past to see reflections of these ideas. I mentioned the rhetoric of the early 1990s, far right extremist movement, and it’s hard to understate how important events like Ruby Ridge and the siege of Waco and the Branch Davidians were in forming those apocalyptic narratives. There’s many different elements that have led to this increasing amount of organizing and recruiting, and there are so many different kinds of far-right extremism right now that I think there’s essentially a flavor for everyone.

So the kind of neo-fascist neo-Nazi white supremacist groups like Patriot Front, they appeal to a very specific demographic and they target that demographic explicitly. The far-right militia extremist groups groups like the Oathkeepers and the Three Percenters, they also have a particular demographic that they know that they appeal to. And so they target those groups. That kind of explains a little bit of why we’ve seen an increase in organizing activities from these groups, because they are diverse within themselves, I guess. There’s so many different kinds of flavors and there’s not kind of a central figure either within these groups. It’s very decentralized and so that complicates things a bit.

Sam Goldman 24:59

I appreciate you walking that through. I feel like it is complicated. Another important story that we have to touch on is what recently emerged with the ADL report about the Oathkeepers. I was wondering if you had a chance to look at it. Could you recap for listeners what you see as significant that was revealed there, and what we should understand from it?

Teddy Wilson 27:22

To give a little bit of context, the Anti Defamation League took a deep dive into these emails from a leak that happened a while back. I can’t remember if it was a year ago, or nine months ago, there was a leak of this website host, various kind of far-right groups and terabytes of information was leaked onto the internet. Part of these leaks was membership lists for the Oathkeepers, and there was something like 38,000 emails. The ADL did a deep dive into that.

To also give your listeners some context about Oathkeepers and who they are, they were founded as essentially kind of a militia group, but also a group that would appeal specifically to military veterans, current military members, current law enforcement, former law enforcement. The idea behind that name is that you take an oath to the Constitution, and that if anyone gives you orders or directives that you think violate the Constitution, that means you have a duty and responsibility to not follow those orders. Essentially, it comes out of this idea of nullification; this idea that the states can nullify federal laws, this idea of the 10th Amendment. It also comes out of the ideas of so-called Constitutional sheriffs being able to ignore federal laws and enforce the law the way they see fit. The Oathkeepers have connections to various militia groups, and far-right extremists.

So the ADL did this deep dive into this list with all these emails and names of individuals and they found that there were I think, over 300 individuals that are currently members of local law enforcement at various local and state agencies around the country. They also found that there were about 80 or 90 people that were on these lists that are currently elected officials in places around the country, and what we’re finding out is the number of people that are associated with the Oathkeepers. It’s revealed a much larger number than we’ve known before, as far as individuals affiliated with this group that are also people that are directly involved with law enforcement or elected officials. So that was kind of the revelations that ADL put forward.

I would say, just from my point of view, I wasn’t necessarily that surprised that there was so many people that are affiliated with the Oathkeepers that are members of law enforcement, particularly. One thing that we’ve seen over the past couple of years is there’s been a lot of really in-depth reporting and investigations into the ties of law enforcement officers to far-right extremists; whether that is direct ties to extremist groups like the Oathkeepers and others, whether that’s kind of indirect cooperation between law enforcement and groups like the Proud Boys, or whether that’s kind of informal networks of law enforcement officers, say in Facebook groups, or what have you.

There’s been so many examples of local law enforcement, whether it’s municipal police departments or county sheriff’s offices. There’s been a big problem with their connections to far-right extremism, and also overt racism within these departments. There’s been some really specific examples, like in Portland. There’s been a lot of exposure of police there. So that’s not that surprising. What is concerning is the number of elected officials that are associated with the Oathkeepers. Although, I would also say that many sheriffs across the country are typically elected too, so they’re kind of both those categories; they’re both law enforcement and elected officials.

But when you see elected officials when they’re a county commissioner or state legislator, it’s really concerning to see those connections to far-right extremism, particularly as you were kind of alluding to earlier about the threat of far-right extremism in response to events, like, say, a disputed election within the states. When I look at that, I think, looking forward, okay, if there is a disputed election someplace, if there are people in power and positions in power within the government that have connections to far-right extremist groups, that presents a real threat to the democratic institutions within that state.

I think a lot of people have talked about how January 6th could be viewed as essentially a kind of a dry run; this first attempt at overturning democracy. When a lot of people talk about that, they typically kind of think of something like that happening again, at the Capitol, right, or a threat to the seat of government in Washington. But I think what is more likely, and probably even probable at this point, is that that kind of activity will happen at the state level in a state legislature, or even at the county level, someone taking over a county courthouse. I can imagine that happening. And we’ve already seen precedent for that. We’ve seen state lawmakers in places like Oregon, and Idaho and Michigan basically cooperate with far- right extremists in allowing these far right extremists to get into the Capitol and try to take over things. When I look at that report, that’s kind of where my my thinking goes, is what these connections mean for the future?

Sam Goldman 32:40

Yeah, that is extremely concerning, and, right now, totally in line with the trajectory we’re on, without any exaggeration. For our listeners, just to have some extra details, here is the report: The Oath Keepers Data Leak: Unmasking Extremism in Public Life. It was leaked September 2021. It is worth looking, in my opinion, at the map that accompanies it, and looking at states in which those affiliated in some way — you know, on the roster, if you will, of the Oathkeepers — which of course does not mean that everyone is engaged in fascist activities, but people don’t just sign up either. So people can be confused, sure, I’ll give it, but I think that it’s a little overstated in their description of caveats. Anyway, if you look at the map, you can get a sense of states where there’s higher concentrations of people affiliated with the Oathkeepers, I do think it’s worth looking at, and unmistakably, without even needing to look at anything you see Florida, Texas, California, pop out what you.

What you may not notice is how many people are in New York, and I think that that is worth looking at. So those are just some some observations from me on that. Also, when I’m listening to you, Teddy, and you’re talking about that we’ve seen indicators before of law enforcement involvement — I’d also say military involvement — and that was clear in January 6th itself, when we started looking at who was involved, in addition to the — I’d say Christian fascism, if people want to say Christian nationalism, whatever — that was kind of at the helm of this.

There’s also the unmistakable key involvement of former members of the military or folks involved in law enforcement in some capacity. So, again, it’s not surprising to see that trend also be in the books of members or those affiliated. I’d agree that this elected official thing is deeply concerning, especially when you look at how proponents of the big liar winning and winning and winning in these primaries. I have not cross-checked all of those people for affiliation, but I’m sure someone has and that would be worth looking at.

Teddy Wilson 34:52

I would just want to add one thing about the involvement of the military in specific. So when you look at January 6th, and who was involved there, there were several dozen members of local law enforcement, right, people that were affiliated in some way, either with local law enforcement agencies and sheriff departments, and there were nearly a hundred, mostly military veterans, former military members. There were several active duty military members or reservists that were involved.

I think one of the things to understand about their involvement is that groups like the Oathkeepers, groups like the Three Percenters and other militia organizations, specifically target former military members, particularly military veterans that have had any kind of combat experience or overseas experience. The reason behind that is twofold: One, they have very specific types of training and experience, which can be helpful to these organizations if they really want to engage in far-right extremist violence, but also, and probably the more important reason that they do this, is because those individuals provide a certain amount of cachet for the organization.

If you look at who are the people that are kind of the prominent members who are able to like really recruit people. It’s often veterans, because they are looked up to, they’re an authority figure to these people, and so they add a lot of kind of cachet and weight to their presence in these organizations. So they really try to heavily recruit those individuals, because it’s so helpful for them in various ways. That’s why I think when you look at who was involved with January 6th, there’s a disproportionate number of veterans that participated. It’s not necessarily that veterans are predisposed to join these far-right extremist groups, but they are heavily recruited. But also with one caveat, they are within the military.

Until recently, there hasn’t been an effort from the federal government from within the military complex to root out and try to dismantle the kind of far right extremist elements within the military that have festered for a while. So that’s also been a problem too. And having unending illegal wars doesn’t really help either, when you create a population of people that have been wounded in physical and mental ways from unending wars, that creates a population of people that are susceptible to these kinds of things as well. So, that’s kind of important to acknowledge when you think about why military members and veterans have been involved in these far right extremist groups.

Sam Goldman 37:34

Important point. Thank you so much. Before we close out, I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about any other important recent stories that you’re thinking about, that you’re writing about, that you think people need to pay attention to, as we all try to track, understand and resist the American fascist movement.

Teddy Wilson 37:53

One thing that people need to understand about the various elements within the far-right is that they are often highly organized and sophisticated and dynamic in their thinking. I think it’s easy for folks that don’t study these movements, don’t pay attention to these movements to be dismissive of them; to kind of believe in caricatures of these movements, particularly, the kind of individuals within the movements. I think that it’s important to take these far right movements seriously and understand that they can gain serious amounts of power, both cultural power and political power in a short amount of time.

If you go back just ten years from today, I think most people would be surprised and terrified at the growth of the far-right, authoritarian kind of movement within the United States just within the last decade. That’s one of the most important things, that you really take these movements seriously, to understand that within these various kind of movements, there are people that are thinking out strategies, right and thinking out tactics that they can use in effective ways. I think it’s a mistake to assume that like when a far-right extremist group, say, stages a protest in front of a Planned Parenthood and engages in physical violence with counter-protesters and law enforcement, that wasn’t intended by that group.

In the same way, when a white supremacist neo-Nazi group stages a protest in the middle of like Boston or Chicago, you know, in these places that most people would think are relatively progressive areas, they are doing that in that location for a very specific reason. So it’s important not to dismiss the actions as just haphazard or ad hoc. So many of the leaders within these movements, when you spend any time in kind of the online spaces where they are and follow what they’re saying, they think about and discuss how to be more effective at organizing and how to recruit more people and what kind of tactics will work to engage with violent protest, and to achieve their various means — whether you’re talking about far-right groups that are trying to engage in a kind of terrorism to terrify the LGBTIQ community, or white supremacist, neo- fascist groups that are trying to engage in activities as propaganda to do more recruiting the actions of these groups, particularly the far-right extremist groups are done with a purpose. So I think it’s important to take them seriously and to not dismiss them.

That goes for all of the groups on the far-right, whether you’re talking about you know, far-right extremist groups like militia movement, or you’re talking about far-right, anti-abortion movement and, and their actions. That’s the one message I would leave with your listeners; it’s important to take these movements seriously, and to really try to understand their methods and their tactics and strategies. Because if you want to counter these movements, and refuse fascism, to use a phrase, you can’t do it unless you understand why they’re doing certain things. You want to be able to tailor your strategies and tactics to be able to refuse and resist fascism.

Sam Goldman 41:22

Thank you so much, Teddy, for coming on, for sharing your expertise, your perspective and your time with us. Listeners can go to the Radical Reports Substack, and you can follow Teddy on Twitter @ReportByWilson, and you can find Radical Reports on Twitter @RadicalReports. Thanks again for joining us.

Teddy Wilson 41:51

Thank you so much for having me. It was real pleasure.

Sam Goldman 41:54

I couldn’t fail to mention something on this, the anniversary of September 11th, in reference to the part of the conversation where Teddy and I discuss how recruiting veterans of those forever wars has become a goal of elements of the fascist movement. Not only, as Teddy mentions. does participation in endless wars based on lies create a population of people wounded in physical and mental ways, but in my view, people who were indoctrinated in a lethal program of genocide, people who spent multiple years of their lives enforcing American interests in their most raw and vicious form, not simply saying America First, but enforcing it at the barrel of a gun, bombing whole villages and cities into oblivion and demonizing whole peoples are in fact predisposed to a fascist program that foments and relies upon xenophobia, white supremacy, and patriarchy.

In relation to our conversation about the media, I want to underscore that the media continues to platform and amplify those who spread conspiracy theories making the case that a critique of fascism is actually the real fascism. This is straight out of the third Reich’s playbook. The so-called neutrality creed of both sides-isms, not only is a lie, it enables those who rule to define what the both sides are, and exclude opposition to fascism. You know, like us, opposition that doesn’t serve the interests in preserving the smooth functioning of this system.

As we warned since before the 2020 election, this fascist threat won’t just slink off into the shadows. Radical change is coming, and it’s coming sooner rather than later. But whether this change is something liberating, or this fascist movement re-seizes full power and holds the future hostage, well, that’s up to us, and what we do now. As the mission of Refuse Fascism states: “The Democratic Party will not stop this nightmare. Trump, fascist Fox News and the Republi-fascist Party have branded them as enemies and traitors, yet the Democratic Party will consistently pull to try to work with conciliate with and collaborate with them. There can be no reconciliation with fascism, except on the terms of the fascists. Fascism must be resolutely opposed.

On the show, we unite with people from diverse perspectives to sound the alarm and prevent the consolidation of this American fascism. We engage dialogue and debate and promote acts of resistance. We do this involving a broad array of writers, scholars, legal experts, and people from different walks of life. And we do this to educate people on the roots nature trajectory of the real and present danger of fascism. It is through this community together engaging, working together on these questions that we are forging the understanding and relationships necessary, aimed at preventing the consolidation of fascism.”

Sam Goldman 45:15

So with that, I want to thank you, thank you for listening and thank you for being part of this community. We want to hear from you as always. So share your thoughts, questions, you got ideas for topics, we want to hear them ideas for guests, we want to hear them. Skills you want to land, we want to hear them too. Tweet me @SamBGoldman, or you can drop me a line at [email protected]. Leave a voicemail by visiting the Refuse Fascism podcast and hit that message. Want to support the show? It’s simple. Show us some love by reading and reviewing on Apple podcasts or your listening platform of choice.

Sam Goldman 46:00

And of course, follow the show so you never miss an episode. That includes subscribing on YouTube if you don’t already. Chip into support our pod and content creation to help people understand and yes act to stop the fascist threat. We have no sponsors we count on you. You can donate by visiting refuse fascism.org hitting that donate button. Thanks to Richie Marini, Lina Thorne and Mark Tinkleman for helping produce this episode. Thanks to incredible volunteers, we have transcripts available for each and every show. So be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org and sign up to get them each week. We’ll be back next Sunday until that in the name of humanity. We refuse to accept a fascist America