Q&A With The Refuse Fascism Editorial Board

Q&A With The Refuse Fascism Editorial Board

Refuse Fascism Episode 182 Sun, Dec 17, 2023 3:41PM • 43:04

Sam Goldman 00:00

We face a fascist threat that is indescribable in terms of the harm that it could do if it is able to consolidate power.

Paul Street 00:09

We are looking at an overall system failure now. The defensive, the last dying mechanisms of popular defense under the rubric of bourgeois democracy seem to be fading.

Coco Das 00:10

You cannot just simply vote fascism out. You’re not going to defeat it just through an electoral strategy, and especially not through the Democrats because they are actually, as Paul pointed out from the mission statement, that the Democrats are constantly going to reach across the aisle.

Sam Goldman 00:56

Welcome to Episode 182 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers, and 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. In today’s episode, we’re sharing excerpts from our recent Sustainer patron only ask us anything episode with Coco Das, Refuse Fascism editorial board member and frequent guest, guest host of this show, and Paul Street, author, historian, frequent guest of the pod and Refuse Fascism Editorial Board member, along with myself.

But first, thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews the show on Apple podcast, shares and comments on social media or the YouTubes. It helps us reach more listeners. And of course, we read every one. After listening to today’s show, take a sec, help grow this community, write a review, drop five stars wherever you listen. Subscribe/follow, so you never miss an episode. And of course, continue all that sharing and commenting on social media. Thanks to all who support the show over at Patreon. Become a patron for as little as $2 a month over at Patreon.com/RefuseFascism. Before we get to our Q&A, we have to talk about some developments as they relate to the rising fascist threat.

We’re going to dig into the Supreme Court case that could shut down Trump prosecution for attempting to steal the election in our first episode in the new year. That’s a few weeks away in January, but we do have a couple of things to say right now. The Supreme Court agreed this past week to hear January 6th coup participants’ appeal of a charge for “Obstruction of an Official Proceeding,” which the DOJ has used to prosecute over 300 insurrectionists. The Supreme Court will consider the scope of a federal statute that makes it a crime for anyone who “Corruptly obstructs, influences or impedes an official proceeding.”

This is important because it has implications for key parts of Trump’s federal 2020 election indictment, which charged Trump with obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to obstruct. It’s a novel legal strategy to get Trump off, following the overall MAGA strategy of eviscerating the law itself, to serve fascist ends. Proceedings in Trump’s 2020 election subversion case that had been scheduled for March are paused as he appeals a decision rejecting his claims of immunity, making it more and more likely that Trump will get his wish of skating any accountability prior to elections. The Supreme Court was asked by Special Counsel Jack Smith to weigh one of Trumps main defenses in his 2020 election subversion cases, whether he is “absolutely immune” from prosecution for crimes he committed in office. The Supreme Court is expected to hear oral arguments in the spring, with a ruling likely by the end of June.

In abortion news, we have the same Supreme Court that overturned Roe v Wade, taking on the case of Mifepristone, one of two medications used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, a method becoming even more vital as state laws ban and restrict abortion access, shuttering clinics and threatening doctors. This is a case stemming from the most unhinged corners of the federal judiciary where anti abortion activists have been given judgeships and have used those positions to create cases almost out of thin air. This could restrict or even up-end FDA approval of a medication proven safer than Tylenol over the course of 20 years on the market. And this restriction would be whether abortion is legal in the state or not. So it affects these “safe states.”

As it stands now, the Fifth Circuit’s ruling to severely restrict the availability of the pill has been prevented from going into effect. But there’s every reason to believe that the same fascist stacked Supreme Court, which enabled states to criminalize abortion is ready to take this next step in dismantling women’s rights. Despite the toxic, desperately rose tinted gaslighting that dominates the so called reproductive rights movement, the Supreme Court taking this case is not a positive step. A positive step would be millions of people pouring into the streets to demand legal abortion nationwide now!

The problem is not as some in the movement contend, legal confusion. And the solution is not circumventing unjust laws — a strategy that even many women of wealth and privilege probably won’t be able to get away with in a fascist country with 21st century surveillance apparatus, let alone everyone else. The problem is criminalization, restrictions, the gutting of legal rights and protections and a fascist movement hell bent on permanent second class status for women and LGBTQ people. The problem is forced motherhood.

The problem is female enslavement. Why should we prepare for and accommodate the further restricting of abortion access? Why should we prepare for and accept lesser quality care, stockpiling pills and the forcing of abortion underground? The solution is to disrupt the very foundation of this country until Abortion on Demand and Without Apology is the law of the land. As it stands right now, the hearing will likely happen early next year (that’s next month, January) with a decision expected in June of 2024.

Mark Joseph Stern and Dahlia Lithwick wrote incisively over at Slate saying: “If a decision against the plaintiffs on standing happens, it may be only a stay of execution for mifepristone, because the plaintiffs here don’t just want to criminalize medication abortion, they want to ban all abortion throughout the country.” Mark and Dahlia go on to say: “For those drawing comfort in the fact that not losing at the court constitutes the new winning, there are three important cautions to keep in mind. The first is the standard warning that not losing on a baseless and indefensible lawsuit never moves the goalposts, but invariably moves the Overton window. The second is that not losing on standing, while opening up the prospect of someday losing on Comstock in a case where plaintiffs can make a credible case for standing, is a loss for abortion access nationwide. The final caution is that Dobbs itself is a disastrous loss for reproductive freedom.” They end with this essential warning: “Don’t make the mistake of being lulled into snooze in the same year Dobbs’ full viciousness is laid bare nationwide.”

And I want to add: Don’t wait for SCOTUS to decide. Raise the green bandana for abortion rights and raise hell now to demand fascist judges, hands off abortion medication! , Legal Abortion On Demand and Without Apology! For more background on mifepristone, see the April 16 episode of this podcast featuring Mark Joseph Stern and Dr. Elizabeth Newhall. Meanwhile, we are seeing a number of cases getting some level of national attention where state courts, empowered by the overturning of the right to abortion are actively attempting to ruin individual women’s lives.

In Texas, Kate Cox was forced to flee her home state to receive a termination of a non viable pregnancy that threatened her health after Christian fascist Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, personally intervened. While this should never have been a legal question in the first place, a court had granted her access due to the medical exemptions in the law. But Paxton brought the case to the Texas Supreme Court, which chose to prevent her from getting the time sensitive procedure pending their hearing of the case. He threatened her doctor and even contacted area hospitals to threaten them under Texas law that can imprison doctors for life for providing abortion care. After Cox acquired an abortion out of state, the Texas Supreme Court still decided the case in favor of state-enforced patriarchy.

Over in Ohio, Brittany Watts is being charged over her traumatic miscarriage, which itself was made much more dangerous and painful by the restrictions placed on abortion by her state. Black women in the U.S. like Brittany are nearly three times more likely to die during pregnancy or delivery than any other race. After being postponed and refused a medically necessary abortion to salvage her health and potentially save her life, she tortuously miscarried at home and then flushed the remains, which fascists have seized on to open an investigation and charge Watts with “Abusing a Corpse.”

Professor Grace Howard was quoted by the Associated Press saying, “Her miscarriage was entirely ordinary. So I just want to know what the prosecutor thinks she should have done? If we are going to require people to collect and bring used menstrual products to hospitals so that they can make sure it is indeed a miscarriage? This is ridiculous and invasive as it is cruel and cold.” These two cases represent the tip of the iceberg of the terror and violence being perpetrated on women, girls and others seeking abortions. With the cruel denial of care at the heart of these stories affecting tens of millions across the country, and the denial of women’s humanity affecting us all.

In not-so-unrelated news, fascism expert and previous guest of our pod Professor Jason Stanley is now giving advice about who should flee the country when the fascists sweep into power. In a conversation with Salon’s Chauncey DeVega, the pair paint a stark picture of the cruel future Trump is promising, the ever increasing likelihood of it coming to pass, and bemoan many in the media who have refused to recognize the threat of fascism until possibly, it’s too late. Stanley makes the point that “if you are just now realizing that Trump is a fascist, you’re going to look for signs to assuage yourself that you are just being hysterical because you spent so many years calling those of us who have been correctly describing reality, hysterical.”

This is apt, and in it, I see a challenge, an invitation to all of us, to all our listeners, to to take Refuse Fascism — that has consistently been raising the alarm and mobilizing to stop this nightmare since December 2016, calling on people to stop the regime before they started, and then waged essential struggle, calling on people to drive out the Trump/Pence regime through sustain mass nonviolent protests — to bring Refuse Fascism to every outlet that ignored us and sidelined us for all that time, and make the case for bringing us on and spreading the reach of this pod and this movement. And I think it’s also a reminder for us to heed this warning and to act now. With that, some of your burning questions and some of our answers.

Coco Das 12:43

Thank you for being a sustainer and patron. Because of you, we can have this podcast that’s going into its 182nd episode. I remember when we started, we were calling it “Inside With Out Now!” and it was during the first days of the pandemic. A lot has changed, but the essence of our original analysis that Trump is a fascist, and what brought a fascist regime into the White House has remained true, even more so, and we’re on a very dangerous path. These essential conversations that Sam is having with people who are thinking about these questions and actually doing important research and able to inform the public in really important ways on things like Project 2025, or Mike Johnson, the new Speaker is a part of the work that we have to do and spread of building up these networks of support, resistance information.

Because things are coming to a head, and we have to be prepared to act. What’s called for right now is not gonna be the same thing that maybe we will have to do in a few months, but it’s really, really critical that this organization was allowed to continue its work through the support of people like you, and that this podcast has become an established part of talking about what’s going on in this country. One thing I know for sure, and I’m looking forward to hearing Paul’s opening comments, is we need to continue having these conversations and getting the tools to be able to talk to everybody we know about this fascist threat and getting people to wake up to the reality of it. With that. I’ll say thank you again, and I’m looking forward to the conversation.

Sam Goldman 14:40

Thanks, Coco. For those who don’t know Paul — I’m sure you do if you listen to the show, but — Paul is another wonderful member of the Refuse Fascism editorial board. He is a historian and author and frequent guest on the pod and I’m so glad to hear what you’ve got to say Paul.

Paul Street 14:59

You know, I really want to thank folks for supporting this remarkable podcast. I have been reviewing this podcast recently. Going back, I’ve been finding some of the transcripts of it. This may sound sort of self congratulatory, since I’m on the Editorial Board, but just looking at it from outside as within sort of an academic perspective, it strikes me, some of these interviews are just absolutely extraordinary. Plus, they’re apparently transcribed. I wonder, Sam, if anyone’s ever thought about collecting some of these, picking out some of the better interviews, and putting them together as a book, because most of it really is at that level of caliber.

I want to just refresh people very quickly on the Refuse Fascism definition, which I have open on my phone right now, and I just think that’s worth doing. “Fascism is not just a gross combination of horrific reactionary policies. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Once in power, fascism’s defining feature is the essential elimination of the rule of law and democratic and civil rights. Fascism foments, relies on, xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny, and the aggressive reinstitution of traditional values. Truth is obliterated. Fascist mobs and threats of violence are unleashed to build their movement, consolidate power. The Democratic Party will not stop this nightmare. The Democratic Party will consistently pull to try to work with, conciliate and collaborate with fascists. There can be no reconciliation with fascism except on the terms of the fascists. Fascism must be resolutely opposed.”

I think it’s very important to go back to that. On a purely academic level, I might add a few things to that definition. For example, palingenetic ultranationalism; this sense that recurs across every form of fascism that a great nation has been stabbed in the back and has been brought down and needs to be restored. This othering and demonizing of typically racialized others. This stabbed in the back narrative, which Trump has really been running with strong lately, that there’s this nefarious international globalist, typically Jewish, conspiracy that’s worked its way insidiously into the inner sinews of the once great nation and is destroying it from behind.

Anti socialism and militant, violent threats against a Marxists and socialists and leftists and anarchists is a recurrent theme in fascism. I’m sure many here, notice that Trump recently said that when he gets back in power — even though I think we all know his main target will be the other establishment party, people with actual power, but nonetheless, this remarkable stabbed in the back language, and also this incredibly chilling statement — that we are going to root out the vermin, the Marxists and socialists and radical vermin from the country.

One thing that I think is very interesting in the Refuse Fascism definition, from the Refuse Fascism website, we don’t say in our definition, complete denial or no acknowledgement of the existence of fascism. We just say: the Democrats will conciliate with and collaborate with and try and make deals with fascism. And I think that’s important. There’s a warning there, and I think it’s an interesting sort of reminder — don’t get too excited about the fact that you’re hearing the ‘F’ word now more than you’ve ever heard it before in mainstream media. I’ve never heard it said on MSNBC so much in my life as I have in the last few months. It’s commonplace. And it’s not just Mehdi Hasan. You hear it from Chris Hayes. Rachel Maddow says it.

Of course, how Rachel Maddow says fascism, and what she means by it, and what is to be done about it, is interesting from how Refuse Fascism says fascism and what we mean by it, and what we think needs to be done about it. That might be an interesting thing to tease out. One whole wing of the ruling class, one whole entirety of the only two viable capitalist political parties in this country that has been overtaken by a political philosophy that fits our definition of fascism. It’s absolutely extraordinary, and it’s become normalized. There’s a Speaker of the House now who is openly opposed to the separation of church and state — of course, that’s one of the American characteristics of fascism, is the strong emphasis on the cross and evangelical Christianity and all that.

Sam Goldman 19:21

I’m so glad to not only have so many sustainers and patrons on, but also to have so many great people from my podcast team. So I just wanted to make sure to shout out Lina and Richie and Mort, and Deborah and Mark who all help with the pod in some way, and Janet who also supports is a volunteer who helps with some of the transcripts and could not be on, but sent some questions, and I do want to pose one of them that connects with something that Paul was just saying about MSNBC. So I’m just gonna read her question and then open it up to all of you.

Janet wrote: “Even Rachel Maddow and Chris Hayes are using the ‘F’ word now to describe Trump — and Stephen Miller — but they are getting more militant about voting. If you vote third party, you’re voting for Trump, even retroactively. If you voted for Jill Stein, you voted for Trump. Is there any way to shut them up? Or better than that, to get them to listen and think?” I have some thoughts on it, but I’d love to hear what your response would be.

Coco Das 20:20

We really cannot predict how quickly things can change, and in terms of what might happen in the next few months or the next year, who would have thought that there would be all this turmoil over what’s going on in Israel and Palestine? Here’s the problem: Today, I was listening to the podcast, the guest, she was really interesting, and she was saying how these fascists keep their eye on the ball, and they don’t take their eye off that ball.

I think the problem with the Democrats and in thinking that there is an electoral solution to this is that the ball that the Democrats actually have their eye on is not the ball that most the masses of people think that they have their eye on. It is not to stop fascism. It’s not to even speak up for the rights of people, it’s to protect the empire. I think there’s a lot that’s sort of being ripped apart right now, that is sort of exposing what the Democrats are about.

We don’t make a assessment on whether people should vote or not, but I think that it’s very clear what the last three years has shown us is that you cannot just simply vote fascism out. You’re not going to defeat it just through an electoral strategy, and especially not through the Democrats, because they are actually, as Paul pointed out from the mission statement, that the Democrats are constantly going to reach across the aisle. Here’s a perfect example, and I think this is part of what needs to be brought out to people, everything that happened with the House Speaker fiasco — like it seemed like a fiasco, right?

People were saying, you know, look at this Republican Party, they can’t even agree on a House Speaker — but what actually happened was that the more lunatic wing of the party made a gamble and it paid off. They got a House Speaker that is a rabid, frightening, Christian fascist, but he’s also got a respectable veneer, and you have Chuck Schumer and Biden saying they can’t wait to work with him. This is the dynamic, and it’s so deadly. Rachel Maddow, and them, are they going to change their tune just because we say they should? No. But there’s a combination of what we add to the discourse, what people do in the streets, and what the objective situations are, what unfolds. We have to be ready, I think, to seize on the things that are happening that are ripping the mask off, and really be able to bring out the reality of what’s happening to people.

Sam Goldman 22:54

I just wanted to add something from a lot of unity with what you’re saying, and then something that I’m hoping Janet will feel like it’s a direct answer. I think that we’ve gotta be clear on who our audience is and the minds that we want to shift and the role that certain media plays. Look, Stephanie Miller and Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow and many others on MSNBC who are using the ‘F’ word, welcome aboard. I’m glad that they’re using the ‘F’ word, and I’m glad that they’re providing some exposure of what that is.

But ultimately, in my opinion, what they’re doing is playing a role in getting people all warm and cuddly, under the wing of the Democratic Party, and bringing people back in. That’s the role that they serve. I do believe, as individuals, I’m sure they care very much about this fascist threat, but at best all they are leaving people to do is to cheerlead — to cheerlead for an opposition party that is ultimately enabling this fascism. It has not, in any way, tempered this fascist menace back. And in fact, it can’t. My big thing is to all the people that look to and hang on every word of their favorite MSNBC host, when they are holding these two thoughts that are completely contradictory in their minds.

The thought, on the one hand, the correct recognition, that we face a fascist threat that is indescribable in terms of the harm that it could do if it is able to consolidate power, and that recognition of that world. And at the same time that they are saying this is the biggest threat to democracy we face, telling people to rely on the institutions and mechanisms and norms that these fascists don’t give a fuck about — in fact, that are hell bent on eviscerating. They are holding those two thoughts in their mind, and it is not on us to be out there arguing why our method is the right method, they should be able to walk us through how exactly this is going to work.

When they’re saying: It’s fascism. They’re threatening democracy. They’re gonna overturn everything that we hold dear. And then they’re saying: And that’s why we have to vote like we’ve never voted before. Right after saying that this is a fascist who doesn’t care about your votes, we got to be saying, Okay. Can you walk me through how that’s gonna work out? How does this work? And that’s got to be put back on them. So that’s just my thoughts on that, that I think we should do like a whole episode on — I’m putting a note there on that. It’s really hard for people to think of anything but this small window of time that happens several months from now, this day in November.

We’ve talked about it before, about this coup being ongoing, about this being a slow Civil War that’s speeding up, with really genocidal implications. If that’s the reality, then honestly, what matters is what we do right now, while we’re recognizing all the potentiality that exists in the future. And I don’t want to be predictive — I don’t want to have a conversation that is dictated by some poll results about voting, or about who’s winning today. Not that anyone’s suggesting that we do that. But I think that in the larger sphere, they are, and we’re told to view it that way. When really, what we know right now is that fascism is winning. It’s winning in state houses across the country. It’s winning in dictating the law of the land by a SCOTUS that’s packed with fascists. What we do now matters.

If we want people to resist later, when there is the potential of a fascist being in power, who’s threatening to, like, eliminate all of his enemies, I don’t think that’s a winning game. Right now, sounding the alarm isn’t just sounding the alarm, it’s also pulling people away from dead ends that aren’t going to stop this. It’s not just a: shit is bad, and we’re going to tell you each week how bad it is, but: shit is bad, and we have a role to play in fighting for this future and deciding its outcome. We have a role to play in that. Here’s what’s not going to work — and we know what’s not going to work, because we tried it — because if we just sound the alarm and are talking about fascism, you know, exposing what’s happening, people walk directly to, one, they stay in this very narrow view of how we make change, and they don’t see the big picture. And so I think that there’s a need to do, honestly, a lot of struggle with people right now.

Paul Street 27:51

Can I add just one thing, Sam? [Sam: Yeah, do it!] Listening to you, I thought that was great. And I want to also say: Our role in exposing the social forces that have astonishingly, or sickeningly enough, made fascism a major force in American political and social life, regardless of the outcome of elections. Let’s say Biden comes back and somehow ekes it out and gets through the Electoral College, all that base doesn’t just disappear overnight, and it’s come from somewhere. It’s been grown. It’s been seed bedded. And it isn’t just fundamentalist Christianity, either, it’s a whole bunch of shit, including all the violence that is constantly broadcast across horrific telescreens by media companies that are owned by liberals. There are many forces that come together to create that. Anyway, I’m done. I just wanted to say that.

Sam Goldman 28:38

I wanted to just read, I thought that this was a really important question CeCe wrote: “What about the impact of the thousands who are standing against the genocide against the Palestinians being brought into this struggle against fascist consolidation in the U.S.?

Coco Das 28:54

I think this is actually a huge deal, and it’s having a huge impact. Maybe not in terms of the numbers — it’s not millions of people, but — the way that they are really disrupting major parts of society. How much of, I guess, a debate that it’s breaking open, and it also has huge implications for what’s shaping up in the electoral realm and how people are seeing the Democratic Party. I wanted to relate this back to a comment I saw about Biden being a firewall. I just want to sort of toss that question back to everybody and in thinking about what has changed since the 2020 election; that there was a very important need to stop Trump from winning that election, to stop that consolidation, to buy us more time.

I actually think that’s a good metaphor, Biden is a firewall. But is that the reality now? This situation in Israel/Palestine is actually exposing how, if we like keep up the metaphor, the holes, the gaps and things, in this firewall? For one thing, Biden and the Democrats are — two parts of the ruling class — are united about support for Israel and what they’re doing in Gaza. And two, Biden is the one who has said that if there weren’t an Israel, then we would have to invent it. It shows what is his primary role, and that is to prop up this empire? How much longer are we gonna to be able to rely on this?

I think what’s happening is that relying on this as a firewall is really breaking down. It’s not sustainable. One, because of the determination of the fascists. And two, because there’s a disconnect with reality and what people are seeing on the screen happening and what message we’re getting from the Democratic Party. So I guess, it’s very significant, what’s happening. It’s very important that people are standing up, and I think we should learn a lot from how they’re doing it and how that is resetting terms. I think it’s something that we really need to keep our eye on, but mainly, I think it’s really important for us to really think about these things that we’re holding on to even while logically, we might be thinking: Okay, the Democrats are not an answer. The elections alone are not the answer. But how are we holding on to these ideas and hopes that the Democratic Party is gonna save us? I think the sooner that we kind of dispense with those illusions, the more we will be able to help equip people to do what they really do need to do.

Paul Street 31:46

I was really struck by this question from Jeremy: What held people back from mobilization on a greater scale against fascism during the Trump administration? Faith in elections, excessive faith in elections, excessive attachment to elections. Identity politics — the stories I could tell where I was shut down trying to sustain and expand actions in the streets because of the color of my skin and my gender, it’s just horrifying. Localism — I saw this in Iowa City like crazy, and I also saw in Chicago, this obsession with just sort of your nose in the ground of your immediate local, only issues. Rampant individualism — nothing new. Depression, sickness, and all those kinds of things.

But Jeremy asks: How does that relate to the ways we need to unleash people when the rise of fascism takes a leap in the coming years? I really agree with Deborah and with what Coco was saying. We are looking at an overall system failure now. The defensive, the last dying mechanisms of popular defense under the rubric of bourgeois democracy seem to be fading. If this happens the next time, when we get the next Trump administration, it’s going to be a great illustration of the failure — of the last failure of those institutions and the need to understand the struggle against fascism as a struggle against the society and the social formation and the capitalism and imperialism that gave rise to fascism in the first place.

To understand that Fascism, there’s the context it’s also part of the same system that is giving rise to ecocide as a product and expression of the same exact system that gives rise to imperial war, that combined with ecocide has brought the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ Midnight clack closer to doom than it’s ever been. To see how all of these things — and to oppose fascism as a symptom of a deeper and wider system that is literally cancelling all prospects for a decent future on this planet. I think, this next time, we’re gonna have to more explicitly link the struggle against fascism to the demand for the radical reconstruction of society itself that Dr. Martin Luther King, near the end of his life, said was the real issue to be faced.

He said, if we don’t do that, we’re looking at a fascist police state. Believe it or not, King said that. King comes in for some excessive criticism sometimes from some of my comrades, and who I’d like to sometimes want to look deeper at some of his late life stuff that he said from ’67-68. And before he died. And I think we’re gonna have to unleash people against the whole system. I mean, what kind of god damn society brings this stuff to the fore in the first place, that pushes livable ecology to its very last limits and raises the question of extinction? That’s my thought, we’re gonna really have to go bigger this time.

Sam Goldman 34:32

As we start to wrap up tonight, there was one question that I wanted to give as the last question. Some in the chat have already responded to this question, and I loved reading people’s responses so far to it, but I wanted to pose it to you, Coco and Paul as well. Lina who had to put her little one to bed had written: Are there any other books, tv shows or films that people would recommend checking out now? So some folks already responded, keep responding, but I want to hear, Coco, Paul, is there anything that you’ve read recently, or watched recently? I agree with Mort, Eldorado really worth the watch, it’s on Netflix. I encouraged people to watch it when it came out on the pod. So I’d love to hear from you guys.

Coco Das 35:17

I put something in the chat. I do recommend a very strongly reading this article, it’s called The Trials of Fascist Donald Trump and the Criminal Nature of this Whole System, Or Don’t Be Played for Suckers By Trump’s Posturing, Or the Democrats Posing as Defenders of Justice, We Need a Revolution and a Fundamentally Different and Far Better System, by Bob Avakian. I’m recommending this just you know, as myself not as a member of the editorial board of Refuse Fascism.

One thing that it’s talking about is, it’s not just that Trump is openly racist. He even goes into this twisted logic that some people have that: Oh, I’d rather vote for an open racist than a hidden racist. That’s actually missing the point that Trump is actually a genocidal racist. But, in the face of that, then what what are the choices that we have? What is gonna resolve this? I really do recommend digging into this article, I think it’s really important.

I just want to say, I think this is true, that this is something Bob Avakian has said, radical change is coming of one form or another. We see this, but is it going to be radically emancipating, or radically terrible? Right now, the trajectory we’re on is radically terrible. And that is what we, in all kinds of ways, even short of revolution, we have to change that trajectory. So I guess that’s my recommendation, but you know, I know there are a lot of other good things out there and I will definitely take all of these recommendations to heart.

Paul Street 36:54

Well, you shouldn’t ask an old history professor for reading recommendations. Recently, I was looking again at William Shirer’s personal memoir — William Shirer, the guy who wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. He was there, he was present, he documented, he wrote about the rise of fascism in Germany. He has a memoir called The Nightmare Years, that [is] based on that time in his life when he was watching Hitler rise to power.

One of the themes that keeps coming through again and again is the denial and the missed opportunities to have squelched this thing before it got so big that 50 million people died in World War Two. I’ve actually also been reading the January 6th report. And the reason — that’s what the House Select subcommittee put out — you don’t have to read the whole damn thing, you can read the executive summary, which is long enough, and just blows my mind. I mean, they completely understood that there was a fascist coup underway years ago. Years ago, and the notion that we’re still litigating this thing all these years later that they’ve dragged it out this long. It’s just extraordinary.

You can go online and see the Trump policy wonk document, Project 25, just google it up, you can read it as a PDF. It’s horrifying, but it’s important. You can see that this time through, there’s a full, ongoing, multi dimensional, right wing, Christian nationalist policy agenda. Now, on more friendly kind of stuff, that doesn’t go hundreds and hundreds of pages, Jeff Sharlet’s book The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War — and I know that Sam, you interviewed Jeff — it’s a reader friendly memoir of a road trip across the country, and Sharlet goes into these households of these really hardcore Trump backers, and you can have no mystery anymore about they’re really, fundamentally, not only fascist, but even sort of genocidal nature of a lot of the Trump base after you’ve read this book. It’s just very readable and very personable and very, just very well done and poetically done.

And the other, last book I’ll mention is the wonderful, wonderful writer, a best selling historian, Adam Hochschild’s book, American Midnight, which is the story of internal dissent and racial repression in the United States during and right after World War One — during the so called first Red Scare, which is really the country’s second or third Red Scare. It’s just a great antidote to those people who tell you it can’t happen here. There really was a kind of rough draft leap into what really looks very much like fascism in this country between 1917 and 1921. And by the way, the President of the United States during that time, was a so called Liberal Democrat named Woodrow Wilson. It’s just a very readable and very important to historical study about all of that. That was long winded, but I warned you.

Sam Goldman 39:37

No, it was great. I think people enjoyed it, and they love all these recommendations.

Coco Das 39:42

I want a second one: [SG: Yeah] Prophet Song [by Paul Lynch], it just won the Booker Prize, and it sounds really timely and interesting, so I’m definitely gonna read it.

Sam Goldman 39:55

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Thanks to Richie Marini, Lina Thorne and Mark Tinkelman for helping produce this episode. Thanks to incredible volunteers, we have transcripts available for each show, so be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox. We’ll be off next Sunday, but we will have a special Year In Review episode New Year’s Eve December 31st. Until then, in the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America!