The Fascist Fringe + Fascist Mainstream

The Fascist Fringe + Fascist Mainstream

Refuse Fascism Episode 190

Sun, Feb 18, 2024 3:12PM • 47:45

Jared Holt 00:00

It seems like people hardly talk about the evangelical vote anymore in the mainstream. I think it’s just become so ubiquitous with GOP politics. They have been massively successful. A lot of these movements are repeating the model of this and hoping to achieve a similar success where the assertions of a far right fascist movement on the right becomes plain, that people become desensitized to it and that they’re able to actually obtain some real power. And some of this crazier rhetoric could turn into policy and actually shape and change the course of the lives of Americans and with reverberating effects around the globe.

Sam Goldman 00:59

Welcome to Episode 190 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 an interview with Jared Holt, Senior Researcher of U.S. Hate and Extremist Movements at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

First, I want to take a sec to thank the patrons and sustainers who make this show possible. If you’re not one yet and want to help us increase the reach of this resource, join our Patreon community today for as little as $2 a month. I mean, you can’t even get a cup of coffee for that much. Learn about the perks over at Patreon.com/RefuseFascism. Or if you can’t make the commitment right now, we get it, make a one time gift at RefuseFascism..org — hit the donate button.

Before we get to today’s interview, I wanted to touch on some developments from this week as they relate to the escalating fascist threat. In Israel the military is devastating the last “safe zone” in Gaza; Fascist Israeli civilians are gathering at the borders to stop aid shipments from getting through to starving Palestinians; Israeli violence continues to ratchet up in the West Bank and at the border with Lebanon; protests are breaking out in the cities, demanding Netanyahu’s removal. In the face of Biden and the U.S. government’s absolute, unwavering support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza, many are asking: What does this mean for Biden’s prospects in November with “election season” going into full speed? We should expect this question to be brought up again and again.

As anyone watching the current season of True Detective should recognize, asking how this will affect the election is the wrong question. First, we should ask what that remotely has to do with stopping the current genocide, where Palestinians are forced to record themselves as their children die in their arms? But then, we need to ask: What do Biden’s actions tell us about why he’s in the position he’s in? What does this tell us about the U.S. and Israel and imperialism? What is the relationship between U.S. empire and fascism abroad? And what is the relationship between the Democratic Party and the fascist movement in this country?

We need to be asking: What must we learn from this in order to take meaningful action to change this situation, to change the world? And why are American minds, dreams and political action so viciously bound to and dominated by the electoral process? This week, the New York civil fraud case against Trump culminated in Mango Mussolini being ordered to pay $454 million and prevented from doing business in New York for three years. He will appeal. He may declare bankruptcy. He is using campaign funds for his court cases, and he seems to be trying to get the RNC itself to help bail him out.

Along with the $83 million he has to pay in the E. Jean Carroll ruling from earlier this month, this may prove to be a major financial hit for Trump and his campaign, right as campaign season kicks into high gear. That’s not nothing. And yet, he is still beating Biden in mainstream national polls. Because Trump isn’t just running to become president. This is one small part of a society-wide campaign that’s been growing since 2015, and before, to overthrow bourgeois democracy and install Trump as the head of a fascist regime. This is not bound by the normal workings of the four-year election cycle.

Even as elections have turned into multi billion dollar affairs, court cases and financial penalties cannot defeat fascism. When Trump spews racist rhetoric, ripped from the pages of Mein Kampf, many are quick to bemoan that everything old is new again. As much as that applies to outmoded hatred, it also applies to false solutions. Today we’re hearing how Trump’s money or lack thereof, his absolute vileness, his lies, his age, all mean he can’t win. But we’ve heard all that before. It wasn’t true in 2016 and 2020, and if we believe it now, we’re fooling ourselves.

Meanwhile, in Georgia, one of the only criminal prosecutions aimed to hold Trump accountable for his attempt to subvert the results of the election, is now focused on determining the guilt of… the prosecutor. Irrespective of Fani Willis’s love life, the Trump team’s allegations against her are not simply some shrewd legal technique. They are part and parcel of the fascist strategy to transform the law into a weapon in their hands only capable of being used against their enemies. The original complaint against Willis lacked any evidence of its claim, and therefore technically could have landed the complaining lawyers in contempt of court.

But that’s for lesser beings. As former Judge, Thomas G. Moukawsher explains: “Parties can be ordered to make all their legal challenges to a case at the same time to keep them from dribbling out and causing long delays. Judge McAfee should have ruled on whether a hypothetical relationship between prosecutors would have anything to do with Donald Trump before allowing a circus about it. The upper courts should see Donald Trump coming and rule fairly and quickly on his claims in New York.”

That’s not how this works in a world where Trump has installed an ungodly proportion of the federal judiciary up to its highest levels; where his team does not care about the legal, let alone moral constraints that the Constitution imposes on them; where Trump has decades of experience using and abusing civil courts to do his bidding in business transactions. Instead, we see the prosecutors and judges who aren’t loyal to the fascist project take Merrick Garland’s cue to exhaust all the minutia of legal procedure to prevent any thought of political bias against an enemy using slash and burn methods to get exactly what they want. This is their strategy as private citizens, and they are promising the same ruthlessness in prosecuting their enemies if they re-seize power.

I wanted to quickly recommend reading two pieces that touch on some of the themes that come up during the interview. One is an article by Peter Montgomery published in The Public Eye magazine titled Project 2025: How Trump Loyalists and Right Wing Leaders are Paving a Fast Road to Fascism. It elucidates the danger posed by a Trump return to the White House, and Brynn Tannehill’s latest article up on the New Republic, titled Earth to Media: Try to get it: Nice, Ordinary People Can be Fascists, exploring that just because someone is perfectly nice to people within their in-group, doesn’t mean they’re not fascists. Links to both are in the show notes.

In relation to today’s interview, the roots of this fascist threat are as American as apple pie. And yet, what we face in this fascist threat is not a pendulum swing, or just part of a cyclic process. MAGAts are the political, if not actual, descendants of the Confederacy. This is a country founded in genocide and slavery — white supremacy and patriarchy woven into the very fabric of this nation, into the fabric of capitalism, imperialism, and it should surprise no one that there is a tremendous appetite for white supremacy, American chauvinism, or rabid misogyny that Trump so exemplifies.

However, the moment we’re living in is not one of a cycle or a pendulum swing. How so? Well, first off, look at how much a perceived “arc” of this supposed pendulum has moved since the Bush era, from Christian fascists fighting to be the main players under Trump, to even now being in positions of power across the country, including being second in line to the presidency; filling the judiciary and enshrining theocratic elements, such as bans on abortion. Christian Fascism is the heart and center of the modern GOP, not just propelling them to power, but setting the pace and scope of policy. Not marginalized, but having deep connections with and often holding the center of political power.

There is no swinging back to something that would be remotely acceptable. And we are faced with one of the two major parties, the Republican Party, who will not accept any electoral defeat. This is not something that is just talk, this has real consequences, and this goes beyond individual harassment or even acts of violence, as awful as they are. The country is divided in a way that it hasn’t been since the Civil War. The Republicans are a party fighting for outright fascist rule, with the Democrats acting as guardians to a status quo that enables this rise.

In Nashville, Nazis marched swastikas through the street. In Alabama, their Supreme Court qualifies frozen un-implanted embryos as human children. Election officials quit in places like Maricopa County in Arizona after endless harassment. Trump, who brought you the end of federal protection for the right to abortion, [now] supposedly favoring a 16 week abortion ban, gets painted as moderate. Polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst demonstrates that only 37% of Republicans object to the notion that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of this country.”

At a Michigan rally, Trump promises to indemnify all police officers and law enforcement officials throughout the U.S., to protect them from being “destroyed by the radical left.” As Paul Street recently wrote: “Again and again and again some more, the wannabe fascist strongman and his backers and the media have pushed the envelope of ‘normal’ further to the revanchist edge of finally collapsing previously normative U.S. bourgeois democracy, civility, parliamentarianism and rule of law.” There is no returning to normal, and personally, seriously, that normal was truly horrific for people here and across the globe.

Fascism is not just the worst of a pendulum swing. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed. Dissent is piece by piece criminalized. The truth is bludgeoned. Once consolidated, fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights. Group after group is demonized and targeted along a trajectory that leads to true atrocity. All of this took huge leaps under Trump: concentration camps at the border, Muslim bans, first amendment rights criminalized, a rolling coup that hasn’t stopped, and now a coherent and crystal clear blueprint for fascist consolidation. Yes, as it sits now, if you are paying attention at all, you can’t escape from the very real possibility of Trump re-seizing and cementing its power. Retribution, oppression and brutality, annihilation, he pledges.

But this is not a reason for giving up in despair. No, we can’t beat this by playing the same old game. Instead, it illuminates that the solution must come from outside the normal processes; outside the political straitjacket of politics as usual. It must come from the actions of people like us, together. Now, here is my conversation with Jared. To discuss the dynamic interplay between the various factions of the fascist movement, the governors and state legislatures of red states, the crazy theocrats, the do nothing federal government,

I am so glad to be speaking with Jared Holt. Jared is a Senior Researcher of U.S. Hate and Extremist Movements at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. You can also find his writing on his Substack, Posting Through It, and op-eds in places like The Daily Beast and The Hill. Welcome, Jared, thanks for coming on.

Jared Holt 13:36

Hey, thanks for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Sam Goldman 13:38

Totally feel free to not say anything on this one. But I did want to give you space if you had any first thoughts, reactions to the news in the New York Civil Case, Trump’s $380 million something…

Jared Holt 13:52

Some of these cases against Trump are like technicalities. Whenever I’ve seen those cases, I think maybe it’s the cynic inside me is like: Okay, well, they’re gonna get him on the paperwork, you know, Al Capone style; they got Al Capone for tax fraud. So I was kind of surprised that this actually worked. I will be interested to see if they are successful in getting this money from them, given that they’re the government they have a better shot than, you know, your standard person. Like Jean Carroll, for example, in the defamation suits, I think is going to have a whole lot of a harder time actually getting paid out. That will go to appeal after appeal and who knows when payday may come, and she may be recuperated for the damages that the court found were done against her.

Ultimately, I think anything that offers a bit of accountability here is refreshing in a landscape that often seems to be void of meaningful accountability. And although the cogs of the justice system turn excruciatingly slow, this seems to be at least like one instance where they hit Trump where it seems to hurt him most, which is his pocket book and his image of this over the top, lavishly rich businessman. I think this damages that image and attaches a consequence to some of the fraud that was found to have been perpetuated. Ultimately, that’s probably a good thing. Will this dissuade any of his most fanatical supporters? Of course not. I don’t know what could at this point, but you don’t hate to see it.

Sam Goldman 15:34

“You don’t hate to see it” – a whole book of Trump’s trials. In your piece on The Hill, you compare January 6th to a heart attack on the one hand and the widespread fascist violence and threats we’ve seen, to “a cancer spreading through the body politic.” I thought that this was a really vivid way to put it. And I’m wondering what is it that people should understand about the ways that the fascist movement has really metastasized over the last three years?

Jared Holt 16:07

Yeah, so this piece was written out of frustration that me and Rachel Kleinfeld over at CEIP [Carnegie Endowment for International Peace] put together after seeing round after round of punditry saying: Oh, well, if he’s found guilty in this fraud case, are we gonna see another January 6th? Oh, if he’s convicted in Georgia, or if court doesn’t go the way he wants to in the Mar-a-Lago documents case, are we gonna see another January 6th? It seems like, at least on the MSNBCs of the world, there’s this fixation on whether there will be another sort of mass violent protest event like January 6th.

What we argue in the piece is that the folks that are sort of sitting around waiting for the next version of that to come along are missing the forest through the trees. Really, we should think of January 6th as this major inflection point on these trends that have been developing in the U.S. over the course of decades, and along the lines of a problem that is as American as apple pie. What I worry, in what Rachel and I were talking about when we were writing this piece, is that if we focus too much on trying to predict or get ahead of the next big, crazy protest in D.C., we’re missing the picture of what has happened the last few years, which I think is a lot more grim.

Which is that you have public officials, not especially divisive ones — we’re talking City Councils, boards of libraries, schools, hospitals in some cases — facing just these onslaughts of threats, rhetoric, harassment, that has prompted some — like in the election official space, there’s actually numbers on this — to leave their posts. And in those vacancies, the same groups leading these charges are trying to appoint their own people, hoping to sort of grease the gears a little bit. I think ultimately, what that all amounts to is pretty alarming, because any effective grassroots political organizing starts at the bottom. That’s something the evangelical right has known for decades, and that’s why it seems like people hardly talk about the evangelical right anymore.

There’s podcasts like these where, you know, it’s getting plenty of airtime. But in the mainstream, I think it’s just become so ubiquitous, with GOP politics and even some left wing politics that they have been massively successful. So a lot of these movements are repeating the model of this and hoping to achieve a similar success where the assertions of a far right quasi-, proto-, however you want to call a fascist movement on the right, becomes plain, that people become desensitized to it, and that they’re able to actually obtain some real power. And some of this, the crazier rhetoric, or conspiracy theories, or whatever we might observe at a place like ISD in our online tracking and some of our analysis, could actually turn into policy and actually shape and change the course of the lives of Americans and with reverberating effects around the globe.

Sam Goldman 19:26

I really appreciate that. I was thinking about, in the piece, I think on your website, you get into some more about the mainstreaming of what was once fringe. Look no further (than) something like Project 2025 — some of the actual policy plans are originated on 4chan. It was at one time somebody’s wet dream and is now real. This is what multiple “conservative” think tanks are directing whole programs around. So I think it should be deeply concerning how mainstreamed some of these things have become. I was wondering, did you watch the recent Frontline episode about the Trump coup?

Jared Holt 20:08

I did not, no.

Sam Goldman 20:09

I was just curious about what your thoughts on it were because there is this difference between the “conservatives” that testified against Trump — refused to cooperate in various ways with the coup — verse the Party as it’s constituted now. In the direct aftermath of January 6th, a lot of folks thought that the insurrection and its failure sealed Trump’s fate — that this was some kind of dramatic end of Trump and Trumpism. But not only did MAGA persist, January 6th proved to be a powerful springboard for the next phase of that movement, and continues to be a rallying cry. I was hoping you could share some of how you see this and how the events of January 6th have fueled this reelection campaign and the wider movement that it’s part of since

Jared Holt 21:01

Yeah. If I can go back to a point on mainstreaming, I’ve unfortunately had the displeasure of reading quite a bit of old National Review articles and [sarcastically] great written works by luminaries like William Buckley and Charles Buchanan. I think it’s both true that some of the raunchier fringe is gaining access to mainstream audiences, and levers of power it didn’t have access to beforehand, but the ideologies are not necessarily new.

In terms of actual policies, there have been people in the conservative movement, quite powerful people, in fact, that have pushed for these for a long time, but what had kind of happened, especially in the 2000s, through the Obama years, is that the conservative party as a whole seemed to try to almost re-posture or reinvent itself. The Tea Party was, like, getting weird. There was this sort of emphasis on respectability politics. They’re still an opposition party, and they’re still as nuts as they’ve ever been, but there’s sort of an effort to be like: No, we’re the smart ones, you know, these are the crazy people, and we appeal to them during primary elections or whatever — because they’re the only ones that vote in huge numbers or whatever it may be. But then [continuing as conservative voice]: We’re the adults in the room, so once we get into power, we’ll be a moderated version of this.

I think that ended up being, sort of, accepted as conventional wisdom among a lot of political reporters, which was: People say all kinds of crazy stuff on the campaign trail, but once they’re actually in office, and they have to try to get something done, that process will necessarily moderate itself out. What I think the Trump movement did was sort of blow that illusion out of the water. It was the splash of cold water on the face, I think for a lot of people that was like: Oh, no, the conservative base wants this stuff, and they like it when their politicians just say that.

I think what’s happened in terms of the mainstreaming, and this also relates to sort of these broader shifts in how power is thought of, is that the weirder fringes of the American right wing movement that were, for a time, sort of put in the corner, they were the weird friend at the party that you’re friends with, but they’re like, kind of weird, and like: Oh, yeah, I know that person — and then like, on the weekends, you hang out with them and have a good time, whatever. Those people suddenly had a candidate that was speaking to them directly, and also regurgitating some of the things they would say back.

Even after January 6th, when there was sort of that: Will they or won’t they? Is Trump’s fate sealed? Is it not? I think what they showed was that during the Trump years, this sort of faction of the right, this sort of new-old, (old-new?) way of thinking had captured enough political capital to essentially rewrite the playing field so that Trump could come back. January 6th, you talk about it as a springboard — in the first month after the riot Republicans were pretty universal in coming out and saying like: Well, that that wasn’t good, probably shouldn’t do that again.

And now those same figures, either they say nothing, and they equivocate when asked about the riot, or they’re actively promoting conspiracy theories that seek to portray the riot in a different light. It’s like: Okay, well, maybe the riot was less than ideal, but maybe it was an FBI plot. Or like: What’s happened since the riot is proof of this tyrannical authoritarian left wing government. And have kind of morphed that into a persecution narrative that sort of laid the base for Trump to reemerge on the scene as not the big bad guy that screwed everything up for them, but as somebody who’s kind of coming back as a vigilante out for revenge; this wronged figure.

Although there are still Republicans in office, of course, and certainly Republicans in the conservative movement that are not down with this, that are not on board and supportive of those kinds of developments or Trump’s candidacy, they really make up a minority of the Party at this point. There’s a hyperactive faction of far right ideologues who are willing to do a smash and grab to get power, and then an even larger group of politicians that are too cowardly to say anything, or to put their foot down or stand up to it — which in my book counts as being complicit.

It’s the old line about, if there’s nine Nazis and one non-Nazi enjoying branch, then you’re actually looking at a table of ten Nazis. That is kind of where things sit now. You have what used to be this really sort of raunchy, unsavory, impolite faction of GOP politics that are now the ones steering the ship, either immediately and directly with access to power, or through intimidating and deterring people who would otherwise provide friction to them, and causing them to sort of get out of the way.

Sam Goldman 21:01

Yeah, I think that resonates a lot with what we’re seeing. I think there is a certain section of the GOP that may not care for some of his wording or some of the style, but ultimately, they’re down for the whole thing if that gets them power.

Jared Holt 26:08

Well, they like the polices. The critique is usually aesthetic.

Sam Goldman 26:30

Yeah, it’s the way that people, for instance, were so over the moon, by a Liz Cheney — so awe struck that someone could go against the grain on a — yes, a key pillar of the peaceful transfer of power in this country. And yet, you know, if you look policy wise, she signed on to the overwhelming bulk of Trump’s platform. So I think that there’s that, as you put it, the aesthetic verse policy, or even the ideological unity that is there, that underneath the surface should deeply concern those who care about people and the planet.

Jared Holt 27:09

Yeah, I mean, I kind of feel that some of the punditry here, like columnists that you see out in major publications that yearn for the reasonable Republicans in the room to stand up. What you’re asking for is the same thing, but nicer, but somebody I could get dinner with [SG: mmhmm], taking away women’s healthcare and LGBTQ rights and stuff. Because the platform is this — it’s always been a version of this — and some of the crazier stuff in Project 2025 — that opening screed is like, a 4chan rant, but then — once you get into like policies, some of its pretty weird and unusual, but a lot of it has just been the pipe dreams of the think tanks that have signed on to this for decades.

Now presented with an opportunity to make all of that and more real — the prospect of that. All these folks thought they were gonna get this stuff during the Bush administration, and then we’re like [SG: totally]: Aww, man. And they thought they were gonna get it in the Trump administration, but Trump proved to be pretty incompetent at navigating bureaucracy. So now the plan is like: Well, what if we just got rid of the bureaucracy for him, and then he like, put all this in effect, and then it’s like Trump’s thing; people won’t like Trump, but they’ll still think we’re okay. That is sort of the vibe that I’m getting from Project 2025.

Sam Goldman 28:29

Shifting from those in power to those who support the shock troops, if you wil. I was hoping you could talk about the transformations going on on that side of things amongst what you might call the paramilitary wing of this movement — most notably these border militias, but also all the heavily armed folks who are trying to intimidate people across the country, at drag story hours or whatever, or whatever it might be. What are you seeing there that you think people should be paying attention to or thinking about that they may not be, because it’s not being covered?

Jared Holt 29:07

The militia movement, specifically as it’s been traditionally thought of, is in sort of a lull period. A militia as we typically think of it as like kind of out of style at the moment. It will come back, it always comes back, ebbs and flows, but we’re kind of in a quiet period for that. What we’re seeing in its place is a lot of vigilante violence and vigilante extremism; individuals that are making threats to things like migrant facilities or making threats against events like drag brunches, sending threats to public officials, that sort of thing. And they’re doing this not as part of: I’m the Florida Three Percenter and we’re gonna overthrow the government, but just in terms of trying to induce that same sort of fear, but individually and not properly as part of a network.

The militias that do exist, still today, are kind of doing so under different branding. There are, of course, still some genuine Three Percenter groups. I think there might be like one or two Oathkeepers chapters surviving since Stewart Rhodes was found guilty for seditious conspiracy, but there’s a lot of groups that are presenting themselves as sort of tactical preparedness groups or firearm clubs that are engaging in similar activity, but are less openly advertising that activity, and to date so far are not showing up at events that would catch the attention of news media; they tend to be sort of keeping to themselves at this point.

In addition to that vigilante organizing, something else that we’ve seen happening over the last year is sort of a resurgence of what could be parallel to the racist skins movement of the ’90s. You have a lot of white supremacist, active clubs, is what they’re called, essentially, groups of white supremacist, mostly men, that get together, they exercise together, train together, and some of them are quite active in doing demonstrations or distributing propaganda, or seeking to intimidate people they perceive as their political enemies, including journalist, minority communities, and leftists. We’re seeing those crop up — dozens of them formed around the U.S. just last year. ISD has a report out about them.

It’s sort of the latest wave of the white supremacist movement, seems to be sort of the most active, and over the last year, and going forward into this year, I think we can expect those groups to continue efforts to network with each other, coordinate with each other, and try to present to the world the image of, like, a unified white supremacist movement that’s ready to do anything. Few of these groups have gotten into, like, really violent altercations, but I think the point is that they are building and possessing capacity to do that. It’s a loaded gun on a table — doesn’t hurt anybody, but if somebody grabs that and decides to aim in any direction people could get hurt. I think that’s kind of where my concerns are ranking in terms of, like, paramilitary activity.

Again, this kind of seems like something that, when you look at mainstream publications or even some other think tanks and organizations in the research space, some people are kind of lagging behind the ball here. Extremism is a very fluid problem and as society changes and forces it into a different container, it will always kind of morph to fit that container. I think since the capital riot, especially, the containers changed quite a bit. The problem is still here, it is still terrorizing people, but it’s different [SG: Yeah]; looking for repeats of the same thing, you could miss it.

Sam Goldman 32:55

Off of what you were saying, I was wondering what you see developing, or maybe not, in response to the escalating anti-immigrant rhetoric, and straight up policy, in Texas. It’s not just Trump talking about “poisoning the blood of the country”, It’s also literal, concertina wire and legislation that will basically allow anybody to be deported if they’re brown in Texas, under the auspices of being undocumented. I was wondering, is it one of those cases that, because there’s such forceful anti immigrant forces in power, that are taking, for lack of better word, action, is there less extremist group response, or is this galvanizing a vigilante force? I haven’t seen a lot of evidence this is galvanizing any sort of organized vigilantism.

But what we have seen are instances of violence against migrants or people perceived to be migrants, or assumed to be migrants by their attackers. This kind of rhetoric certainly does inspire violence, and, I can’t tell you how many white supremacist mass shootings have been inspired by anti migrant conspiracy theories — alleging that migrants are coming in and in some sort of sinister plot to change the racial makeup of the United States. That kind of rhetoric, almost ripped straight from the pages of those kinds of manifestos, has been appearing on things like Fox News. It’s been coming out of the mouths of people like Charlie Kirk, who leads one of the most well funded youth organizing groups in the conservative movement.

It’s hard for me to imagine that with an environment like that, that you wouldn’t see more violence. You’re playing a really dangerous numbers game at a point. There was an attempt last month to get a convoy; everyone getting your cars and drive down to the border and we’re going to support Texas while they stand up to the U.S. We saw with how small that convoy was. I don’t think there’s like a hard appetite for that kind of thing at this moment. But it’s all contributing to creating an environment that is more hostile to migrants who end up coming through the border one way or the other. It’s not like they have a great life waiting for them.

You listen to these people who think that they’re getting the keys to a Lexus and like a four bedroom house or something — it still really sucks for them when they get here, and they’re still in a really tough situation and need help. But creating these kinds of public sentiments, pressuring politicians to enact more draconian policies, trying to restrict immigration or roll back any assistance the government might offer to migrants just makes their lives that much harder. There’s risks to people that come from the government versus with the people that come from vigilantes, or people who are maybe having some sort of crisis one way or the other and they get driven to violence, and watch the news and pick out a target.

There’s also something that can be harder to quantify, or more difficult to talk about, which is the difficulties that just a more hostile social environment or media environment — what that can create for migrants as well. Trump has repeatedly, as you had mentioned earlier, marked his perceived enemies for his movement to threaten, harass, and even attack. His movement has shown its ability to unleash mass online pressure against individuals and institutions at really any minute, at a moment’s notice. T

here is seemingly no shortage of followers ready and willing to individually commit personal violence against their targets. I’m wondering, how has this come to be? And based on your research, what does this bode for the election season and whatever the outcome of that is?

Jared Holt 36:57

How it came to be could probably be its own podcast episode, series even. There’s a long tail on that one… talking just throughout the history of the internet, the history of the fart right, the psychology, the personal violence. The short answer, I think, is that the reason we’re seeing this pickup more is because there is, at least in some circles, the perception of social acceptance for it. That is what people get at when they talk about the normalization of political violence and violent rhetoric; that if people allow themselves to become desensitized, like I think a lot of people have — it’s exhausting. It would be surprising if people were still fully sensitive to it all the time.

To somebody who might be prone to doing something like this, or mate who may have motivations or have their heart filled with hate and want to act on it this way, there may be this belief that they could do so, and that it might be okay, or they might be helping something broader. That is one possible explanation. You could invite people from different backgrounds in, and they’d probably all have a different competing theory.

As far as what this bodes, what I fear is essentially this will further pave the way for a movement that. for all its griping about free speech or whatever, is motivated by vengeance and ultimately is going to act with the desire of quashing dissent in the country, and have picked out their favorite want to be authoritarian to do it. We talk about migration and we talk about minority communities and that sort of thing — obviously, they will be targeted first. They always are, they are the most vulnerable, they have the least resources to defend themselves, and they’re the subject of the hatred, of the propaganda, that these movements spread to get into power.

But beyond that, I fully expect the Trump administration, with the backing of this hyper aggressive bully pulpit that they built will target nonprofit groups, civil rights groups, voting groups, like “wrong churches.” What I worry is that if this bully pulpit, and like everything in this universe, gets into power and they get a taste of blood — historically, we’ve seen these movements don’t typically go like: Alright, well, we got rid of that thing, we wanted to get rid of that thing and you know what, I think we’re good. Let’s pack it up. I think our job is done. A lot of the times these movements just can’t stop. They can’t help themselves and they just end up becoming maniacal. It reshapes history — causes immense damage and suffering.

As far as where we’re headed, that is maybe the doom saying forecast, but I would hope that Americans could kind of wake up to it and understand that — be as conservative as you want, but maybe this isn’t the way. Maybe that is naive or whatever, to think that that kind of appeal is still possible. In the meantime, it’s worth thinking about if you’re at an institution or in a vulnerable group, what could happen, what kind of consequences could come down on you for existing, and to have at least a vague sense of what the plan might be if that came to happen. Otherwise, I fear that this country, if Trump wins, again this year, that we’re going to have a country that is sort of staring at itself in the mirror with its jaw dropped all over again. That didn’t go so great last time, so prefer not to do it again. But it seems like everything in this country is like running a cycle of ten years that we’re almost back at the start of.

Sam Goldman 40:42

I share a lot of your worry. I also share a slightly different worry that should Trump when in a way that’s seen as legal, and not an outright attempt to overturn the election results, but just through how the Electoral College works, or gerrymandering that already exists. He — and the fact that there’s plenty of people in this country that see fascism and go thumbs up — I worry that if it’s [not] seen as a legal challenge, it’s like: Oh, well, that’s what the people want — and there’s a whole group of people that are paralyzed into just accepting and not understanding the consequences. [JH: Yeah, yeah, totally], and ill prepared to be there for other people. There’s oppressed people preparing themselves, but there’s also the need for people who, by virtue of being a human being living in this country, should be prepared as well to be there for others — before the election, regardless of the outcome — to defend the rights of immigrants or LGBTQ people, or just the very right of Black people to be able to vote — I think is something that is unfortunately going to be threatened this time around.

Jared Holt 41:14

And politicians should be showing some spine here, and unfortunately a lot of them aren’t. Maybe it [a strategy to counter their cowardice] is just flooding calls to these offices saying: Shame on you. How dare you. Until they’re scared not to stand up. I’m an extremism guy, not an elections guy or like a political strategist guy. In the hospital, I’m the one that diagnosis the problem.

Sam Goldman 42:15

If we don’t have a correct diagnosis, we actually can’t deliver the correct treatment. You often use dark humor, and I was wondering how — this has nothing to do with extremism, it’s just a question of curiosity — how you feel such a sense of humor can help keep people learning about this dark shit of extremism without turning away, but maybe also some of the pitfalls that we could fall into.

Jared Holt 42:39

I often use a lot of dark humor around this stuff as a way of keeping myself sane. If you don’t laugh, sometimes you’ll just cry. For me, it’s the way of expressing myself, getting my frustrations or the energy that gets pent up inside me from doing this work all day out in a way that is not just me in the corner of a restaurant with my friends, being like: Everything’s so messed up, and like losing my mind over dinner.

I think humor can be a good coping mechanism. I also have like a lot of creative hobbies. I have a lot of ways to get this energy out. I think it can be fun. Mockery, certainly is — I have heard people theorize that it’s good politics, this mocking the opposition. I don’t know if that’s true or not. In terms of pitfalls, though, I mean, there is sort of a line to tread between joking around and making a mockery out of people and then not paying attention and just parroting the same harmful rhetoric and hate that they’re doing. And even if you’re making a punch line out of it, that could have effects on other people that are still detrimental, or we trivialize issues that other people might take very seriously. They could be hurt by that, and you could isolate people by that. I enjoy dark humor around this stuff sometimes and I’m certainly not a pro. I’ve certainly had to like apologize to people before, and be like: Oh, I’m sorry, I was making a joke, and then: I understand why you’re upset. I think it can be helpful. Mostly it’s, it’s a coping mechanism.

Sam Goldman 44:14

I want to thank you so much, Jared, for coming on and sharing your expertise, your research, your perspective, your time with us. We’re gonna link to your Substack. I think you have an author page on ISD. Is there any other place you want people to go to learn more from you or that you want to direct people to?

Jared Holt 44:39

The ISD website is a good one and I’m on Twitter or X, or whatever we’re calling it. I use Bluesky too, But barely. That’s pretty much it.

Sam Goldman 44:50

Thank you so much.

Jared Holt 44:51

Yeah, sure thing.

Sam Goldman 44:53

While there’s a clear moral imperative to refuse fascism, why you haven’t put your head in the sand, ignored the suffering, damn the consequences, it’s not happening to me yet; why you listen each week to this pod. It is also true that none of this is inevitable. A fascist outcome isn’t destined by the gods. We have efficacy, but only if we pay attention, sound the alarm, pull others out of this burning building, shake the slumbering awake together. That is what we are doing each week. Build the network of people who share our values, who recognize the threat of this 21st century fascism, who refused to hand the future to these fascists, and support each other to take action to change the course of history.

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