The Fascist Spectacle at the RNC + Resistance We Need

Refuse Fascism Episode 211

Sun, Jul 21, 2024 5:00PM • 1:05:22

Karl Folk  00:00

Trump is a figurehead and an avatar for a movement that is massive. It’s 50 plus years old. It has had one goal for that entire time. These people want to project inevitability. They know they’re not inevitable. That’s what all of this really illuminates to me, as much as the violent potential, is that they’re scared that they don’t have this thing in the bag. Most of the people coming to try and end democracy aren’t villains in the way that we understand villains, they’re guys in suits and polos who are just talking it over and firing off some emails. And that’s a lot harder for us as a society to conceptualize when we have been inundated for our entire lives with a view of evil and fascism as a cartoonishly over the top version of what it actually is.

Sam Goldman  01:08

Welcome to episode 211, 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 Carl Folk, a researcher of authoritarianism and radicalization and the founder of the Institute of Unreality. But first, a big thank you to the patrons and sustainers that make this show possible. They pay $2 or more a month to support this show, and if you’ve seen some ads showing up in your IG feed, know that they’re the folks that made that possible. You can also support Refuse Fascism by getting a t-shirt or tank top — see the show notes. Patrons have a discount code, so if you want to be a patron, you can do that at patreon.com/refusefascism, or see the show notes. 

Or for zero monies, you can tell a friend about the show, share it on social media, rate the show on your listening platform, of choice, or be bold and write a review — they boost the show so much, and don’t you think refusing fascism needs some boosting right now? And they mean a lot to us, like this one from TW03, who titled the review Just Say No to Fascism, gave us five stars — thank you very much — and wrote: “Critical information for thinking people. Continue speaking truth to power!” So, hopefully you can be like TW03 and review the show after listening to today’s episode. 

Hi, it’s me with a last minute pre upload update for the second week in a row. We recorded this episode Sunday morning, before Biden announced that he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, and endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic Party nominee. These are unprecedented times, and they are not getting any more precedented. While we recorded this episode prior to this announcement, the content of this episode, I think you’ll find, remains true and very relevant — some of it possibly even more so. We’ll be talking about this as things develop, so you know where to stay tuned.

Before the interview, some developments as they relate to the Republi-fascist threat from just this past week, and oh, boy, was this a week. I feel like I’m saying that every week now. Anyway, big political spectacles like inaugurations, rallies and the major party conventions before each presidential election, are widely viewed as fluff and maybe celebrations for those most involved. That covers over their political function, largely as tools for legitimization and pacification — to legitimize the winners, the contenders and the system itself, and to pacify any disgruntled elements of society. 

But no one does spectacle like fascists. For fascists, spectacle moves society. Every element of the event solidifies the deification of the leader, moving people to follow their example of dedicating their life to this cause. The fire breathing vitriol gears up their base. The spectacle not only perpetuates their disinformation and delusions, undermining facts and reasons society-wide, but puts on display the power that comes from people unified by their hate fueled delusions. Possibly even more than legitimizing the Party, it legitimizes the racist, misogynist and xenophobic violence at the core of their program — the WrestleMania quality of it puts any concerns of their base at ease. 

After all, we may be talking about destroying or even ending millions of lives, but this is fun, and nobody really gets hurt in the WWE — while that same cartoonish element serves to put their opposition at ease with the notion that the fascists aren’t serious and could never really win, and even if they do win, it couldn’t really be that bad. This past week’s Republican National Convention was a spectacle unlike any the U.S. has seen in a long time. The staging, the speeches, the speakers themselves, the tribute montages and the media covering this all played key roles in advancing the fascist program, with deadly consequence. 

And this wasn’t the only spectacle on offer as the failed attempt to assassinate Trump by a registered Republican, lest we forget, was turned from real world violence into a key part of Trump’s mythology. In the week since the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, we have been told: Now is the time for unity; Now is the time to turn down the temperature. However, there is simply no bringing the country together, and the Republi-fascist response to the shooting has only reinforced this. The fascists move to define any exposure of their program for what it is as incitement, as they promise a bloodless revolution, if the left allows — best you bend the knee. 

The Democratic Party, more concerned with order for their empire than justice, even if that means the order of fascism, even if that means they never hold power again, even if it literally imperils their lives, ask: How low? The media acts as megaphone and conduit, both gaslighting once again, lionizing Trumpism, paving the road for the fascists to accelerate down — hoping perhaps this will bode well for them in the future, learning nothing from what Trump and MAGA have done and all the retribution they promised. And we have seen way too much compliance in advance. 

So what does compliance in advance look like? Well, it looks like Biden suspending ads and campaigning, MSNBC suspending their regular program as each host offers condemnations of political violence, mainstream media running op eds with titles like “We are All MAGA Now.” When you hear the calls for unity, remember this: They are calling for your submission. There can be no reconciliation with fascism except on the terms of the fascists. Fascism must be resolutely opposed. Trump is a totem of fascist violence/brutality, and this has not changed — unity under the fist of their Christ like King, foaming at the mouth, hungry to taste the blood of their enemy as they chant: [Audio recording from the convention] “Fight, Fight, Fight!” 

I encourage you to be relentless in reminding folks that Trump is a fascist, one who fosters and relishes in the most depraved and reactionary political violence. He hailed Kyle Rittenhouse and others who killed or attempted to murder protesters during the 2020 uprising for black lives. He repeatedly, for nine years now, has threatened his political opponents with jail and even execution. He joked about the assault on Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband. He longs for the day when protesters were beaten so badly by the police they would be removed on stretchers. He waxes poetic about executing shoplifters on the spot. He called forth and defends those who threatened to hang, then Vice President, Mike Pence. 

We have seen time and time again for nine years now, including, but not at all limited to, the January 6th coup attempt, that Trump and the party he commands are willing and ready to use this violence to institute fascist rule, to enforce an agenda of unrestrained xenophobic nationalism, racism, misogyny and the aggressive reinstitution of oppressive, “traditional values.” Hear that as “Christian theocracy,” don’t normalize, don’t accommodate, don’t conciliate, don’t collaborate — refuse to accept a fascist USA. As for the unity we need, uniting with people from diverse perspectives to sound the alarm on the Republi-fascist threat, because it’s truly what it is, and prevent the consolidation of this American fascism.

So what happened in Milwaukee this week? In short, this was Trumpcon, the first convention since the GOP completed its purge of dissenters and fully harnessed the party apparatus to Trump’s goals and methods. Particularly in relation to the assassination attempt, we saw much of the Messianic messaging around Trump that has been simmering under the surface of American fundamentalism and evangelism come up to a full boil, displayed for the world to see. Just listen to this:

Donald Trump  10:23

I’m not supposed to be here tonight. Not supposed to be here. [crowd responds energetically] I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of Almighty God. Many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was. When I rose, surrounded by Secret Service, the crowd was confused, because they thought I was dead… Just a few short days` ago, my journey with you nearly ended, we know that, and yet here we are, tonight, all gathered together. We live in a world of miracles.

Lara Trump  11:08

Proverbs 28 reads: “The wicked flee, though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion,” [crowd cheers] and that truly epitomizes Donald Trump. He is a lion.

Marjorie Taylor Greene  11:30

Two days ago, evil came for the man we admire and love so much. I thank God that His hand was on President Trump.

Ben Carson 11:40

You know, I have no doubt that God lowered a shield of protection over President Trump.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders  11:48

God Almighty intervened, because America is one nation under God, and He is certainly not finished with President Trump.

Senator Tim Scott  11:56

If you didn’t believe in miracles before Saturday, you better be believing right now. Thank God almighty that we live in a country that still believes in the King of kings and the Lord of lords, the Alpha and the Omega. And our God, our God still saves, he still delivers, and he still sets free, because on Saturday, the devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle, but an American lion got back up on his feet and he roared. [cheers] Oh yeah, he roared.

Sam Goldman  12:52

This was not simply any fawning notion of a leader protected by God, but more like a Messiah who had looked death straight in the eye and been resurrected. His speech on the last night was long. It was at time, tedious, even for the in house audience, but he repeatedly brought them to a fever pitch. After promising a call for unity, he came out swinging at his enemies, both real and perceived, because to fascists, again I repeat this, unity means one thing: submission. He vowed to carry out the largest mass deportation in history, claimed Latin American countries are emptying out their prisons and “insane asylums,” sending those people to the United States. 

He claimed he left office a hero, giving Biden a world at peace, and that since then, the current administration has been ten times worse than any other. He used his long standing mythology of the 2020 election being stolen from him to delegitimize in advance the coming election. He decried the supposed witch hunt against him, deeming any criticism or accountability as a devious plot, and used this concocted grievance to justify in advance the prosecution of his political opponents. Perhaps, most ominously, he compared America today to pre Nazi Germany, and vowed to stop inflation through nationalist policies, which, in his analogy, would make him, yeah, Hitler. Democratic Party strategists were ecstatic on X, saying that Trump shat the bed, that his speech lost him the groundswell of goodwill and deference that came from the shooting, and that he could have united the country if he just denounced political violence.

 It’s getting harder every day to understand the cascading delusions of this loyal opposition. There was no groundswell of goodwill, except from these politicians, strategists and pundits. Trump is nothing if not an avatar of political violence. His campaign is built on weaponized grievance, and it would be difficult to script a better story of grievance than almost getting shot at a key moment on the campaign trail, a key moment of his rise, leaving out once more, that there is zero evidence that this shooting was done by the left. But, his speech was just one piece of the fascist spectacle. We saw the circus, the bloodlust, the grift, all come together in service of total loyalty to the disturbed vision of this one man, a conduit through which the dreams of arch reactionary billionaires, pious theocrats, and wife beating scumbags all meet and mix. One of the most ominous set pieces of the convention were ubiquitous placards saturating the crowd, reading in all caps, MASS DEPORTATIONS NOW, waving over chants of Fight, fight, fight. Greg Abbott led the crowd in this:

Senator Tim Scott  15:38

Send them back! [Crowd cheers and then begins to chant: Send them back.]

Sam Goldman  15:47

Trump promised this in his speech:

Donald Trump  15:49

The Republican platform promises to launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country [cheers], even larger than that of President Dwight D Eisenhower.

Sam Goldman  16:03

Tom Harmon, one of the architects involved in Project 2025 had this to say:

Tom Harmon  16:09

As a guy who spent 34 years deporting illegal aliens, I got a message to the millions of illegal aliens that Joe Biden has released in our country in violation of federal law: “You better start packing now. [cheers] You’re damn right, because you’re going home.”

Sam Goldman  16:29

And just listen to Ted Cruz:

Ted Cruz  16:30

We are facing an invasion on our southern border, not figuratively, a literal invasion.

Sam Goldman  16:41

Kid Rock and Hulk Hogan, both living embodiments of bygone misogynist backlashes, both who’ve been heard using the ‘N’ word, primed the audience for a new reign of women hating terror. Amber Rose, who, it should be noted, makes explicitly clear at almost any opportunity that she’s not Black, koshered Trump for the Black masses, especially the Black men who the GOP have been targeting, attempting to sway the votes of the most misogynist. On the RNC stage, she praised Trump as the epitome of an alpha male, and expanded on this in a widely publicized interview with Lara Trump. At the convention, she also debuted a music video collaboration with the white rapper Forgacia Blow, real name Kurt Jantz, whose whole bit has been rapping about Trump for years. She dances in the background as Kurt talks about being red-pilled, calls the media “the enemy of the people,” and talks about a two tiered justice system claiming, “we the victims,” referring to Trump and his mainly white sycophants.

A number of commentators, and even journalists, remarked that there was surprisingly little “politics” here. Oh, there was politics. You may have been looking for a post-Dobbs party, but did you miss the endless speeches dripping with misogyny? calling for the subordination of women to alpha males? That’s their political program, the bloodthirsty xenophobia and anti immigrant racism that was on display. That was a political program. The glorification of violence, that’s a political program. The hooting, the hollering, the loudest applause as trans folks — in particular, trans youth — were demonized, laughed at. You may not want to report that. You may want to act like this was normal, but it sounds to me like you’re at the bottom of the deepest, darkest sea, telling us you don’t see any water.

So let’s talk about Trump’s VP. Trump announced J.D. Vance as his running mate this week. First, I do want to mention J.D.’s post assassination attempt tweet. An hour after the shots were fired, before finding out that the shooter was a member of his own party, he tweeted: “The central premise of the Biden campaign is that President Donald Trump is an authoritarian fascist who must be stopped at all costs. That rhetoric led directly to President Trump’s attempted assassination.” 

I just want to recognize the threat there, saying that any mention of Trump’s fascism is incitement, while Biden’s campaign has resolutely avoided saying that Trump is a fascist, we clearly are. It’s not incitement, it’s a fact, and we’re not going to stop talking about it. But let’s get to the point: J.D. Vance is a venture capitalist who grew up in Ohio. He and way too many people who should have known better, thought that one fact was a good enough premise for a book and major motion picture glorifying his life, reveling in reactionary American mythology and defaming the people of Appalachia. He is currently the junior senator from Ohio, initially getting into electoral politics in 2021 with the backing of Silicon Valley billionaire Peter Thiel. 

Early in the Trumpacene, J.D. portrayed himself as an anti Trump Republican, and even texted an associate saying that Trump seemed likely to become America’s Hitler. But that was short lived, and he’s since demonstrated his loyalty to Trump. He’s vowed that if he had been Pence, he would have overturned the results in 2020. He publicly fundraised for January 6th participants demanding the DOJ investigate a columnist for criticism of Trump. Vance has a number of qualities that seem to appeal to Trump and which make him a fruitful, strategic junior partner. 

For one thing, it seems that the only principle he has demonstrated consistent loyalty to is private wealth. Trump has no need for a true believing evangelical anymore anyway, Trump has the Christian fascist voting block down. He is a key component of the new American evangelical theology. Instead, Vance brings other things to the table. He brings the backing of sections of the billionaire class which have historically adopted supposedly non political, libertarian or even liberal stances. In addition to Thiel’s direct support, he has brought in support from an array of tech billionaires. 

As reported by NPR “Shortly after Vance was announced as Trump’s VP pick, a new tech aligned super political action committee was unveiled, called America PAC, with the backing of crypto billionaire Winklevoss Twins, the co founder of data analytics firm Palintir, Joe Lonsdale, Doug Leone of powerful VC, Sequoia Capital, and others,. The group has raised more than $8 million according to a recent Federal Election Commission filing.” The choice of Vance may also have sweetened the deal with the pathetic void known as Elon Musk, who has gone beyond turning Twitter into a fascist hellscape and announced the donation of $45 million a month directly to pro Trump PACs. 

The goal of the men in this milieu is clear, to sharpen capitalism to its fascist edge. It’s also worth noting, Vance converted to Catholicism in 2019 and has sidled up to a particularly reactionary and zealous element within that church, opposing liberalization of church doctrine and practice, and endorsing straight up theocracy, a counterbalance to Biden’s mainstream Catholicism and even to the current Pope’s reticence to get behind global fascism. Vance participates in and draws forward the “alpha male, hyper misogynist” element of the fascist ecosystem, and embodies their disgusting view of virility in a way that no 80 year old man could, not even Trump. 

Between his embrace of the manosphere and his religious fervor, he has become a crusader against trans youth, abortion, and so called wokeism. He is for a national abortion ban, he is for reviving the Comstock Act. He has introduced legislation attacking the rights of trans youth to access healthcare. He said that universal daycare is “class war against normal people.” He says that Kyle Rittenhouse is the model of values. While his book, persona and policies have wrangled many across Appalachia, they score big points among the reactionaries from coast to coast who glorify patronizing notions of the heartland and of “Real America,” northerners who fly the Confederate flag and every white collar schmuck driving a mega sized pickup truck. It’s also worth noting, unlike a number of others who were vetted for the VP slot, he’s a white dude — he’s a white dude who needs you to know he’s a white dude — a white American man with generations of ancestors buried in American soil. Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio, Byron Donalds, may talk the talk of hating DEI and affirmative action, but J.D. Vance walks the walk of entitled white male mediocrity. 

This choice of Vance is by no means a reach towards the center, or a softening of the fascist, protracted shock and awe campaign. Instead, Vance’s broad cultural appeal and deep ties into Silicon Valley are bringing even more of the worst people into the MAGA-verse. For more insight on Vance, it’s worth checking out Bradley Onishi’s latest episode of Straight White American Jesus and his Twitter thread of highlights, John Ganz’s article titled: This Land is My Land on Unpopular Front, regarding Vance’s extreme nationalism, Jessica Valenti is reporting on Abortion Every Day on J.D. Vance, as well as the takedown of Vance’s book Hillbilly Elegy on If Books Could Kill — links to all those are in the show notes.

If you listen to the show, you weren’t surprised to see Aileen Cannon drop the charges in Trump’s stolen documents case. Cannon, in what has been regarded as her audition for SCOTUS appointment, should Trump return to power, went all in on the most fascist reading of the new presidential immunity claim established by SCOTUS, detailed in Clarence Thomas’s concurrence. It is not mainly that there will be zero accountability for any of Trump’s crimes — which there never will be under the system — the bigger point, I think, that this move underscores, is that there is now an openly compliant judiciary, something that was not fully consolidated during Trump’s first term. They are an instrument now, for fascist atrocity. Call it what it is: illegitimate — and realize that they are not to be relied on one bit. Anyone telling you otherwise is telling fairy tales.

I’ve said a lot. What are the takeaways from this past week? Is it that these ridiculous people unmoored from reality, decency, empathy and even normal social expectations could never consolidate power? No. Or is it that fascism’s rise is inevitable? Also, no. We’re not going to sugarcoat it. We face a fascist threat. They are promising massive reactionary violence. They’ve shown that they’re more than capable of it, and the loyal ruling class opposition is not gonna do what’s needed to stop it.  

Major institutions of American life, from the federal judiciary to Silicon Valley have shown that not only will they not stand in the way of fascist transformation, but they’re willing handmaids to it. Again, this doesn’t mean this is inevitable, but telling people just to chill out or just change the tint on their glasses — to lie to themselves — doesn’t do anyone any favors. The Fascists aim to project both that their ascent is inevitable and irresistible, and simultaneously that they are the underdog, that it’s all a show, that they can’t be taken seriously, that there’s no need to fight them. This messaging works in different ways for their base and their opposition. 

As Jeff Sharlet correctly noted: “For Trumpism’s myth to work, it needs liberals to believe he can’t win, not so much to deactivate them, rather, to enrage Trumpers.“  An objective assessment of this moment, I think, shows that the fascists have a lot of strengths on their side, but they have significant weaknesses. The majority of people in this country don’t want this. Fascism will objectively cause harm to millions, if not literally billions, including many amongst its base here in the United States. The fascist movement is rife with divisions, divisions that have effectively hindered their rise until this historic moment of crisis. People all around the world have found ways to exercise their collective power outside of and beyond the dead end channels of domesticated dissent. 

The fascists exist to serve a system in crisis after crisis — crises caused by its own vast and unpredictable contradictions. Their systemic and systematic lying, and their widespread and weaponized delusions, show that reality itself is their enemy. But none of these weaknesses will, on their own, derail this train to the death camps. These weaknesses only matter if we recognize them and act together to stop the juggernaut. It is past time to move from each one, teach one towards society wide struggle, for meaningful discourse over the trajectory that we’re on, about where our power lies, about what delusions and mental chains we ourselves need to shed — things like American mythology and American chauvinism, dehumanizing white supremacy, patriarchy and xenophobia, that is not confined to the fascist movement — the apolitical and ahistorical framework of totalitarianism — that’s just for starters. 

History has shown that lots of people are fine with fascism as long as they’re wearing the boot, not under it. Put that together with the fact that Americans are trained to think and act like they’re temporarily disgraced billionaires, and we have real obstacles. So when we say it’s on us, let’s get to work. With that, here is my interview with Carl Folk, recorded July 12.

Today I am really glad to be speaking with Carl Folk. Carl is a researcher of authoritarianism and radicalization and the founder of the Institute of Unreality. He is now writing for Splinter News on their authoritarianism and American politics team. His first piece just hit this past week, so be sure to check it out. Welcome Carl. Thanks for joining me.

Karl Folk  29:06

Thank you for having me. It’s great to be here.

Sam Goldman  29:08

I guess we’ve gotta start with what is consuming literally all of mainstream news coverage and dominating much of our social media feeds and our personal conversations, and that is, who should the Democratic nominee for president be? And there’s really, at this point, hostile fighting between those who are for Biden remaining the candidate, and those who are saying: It’s time to have a new candidate. In my opinion, a lot of this coverage has kind of masked what I think we should be talking about, which is that fascism is continuing to dominate, and as much as each of those respective sides says that their point is based in the stakes, I think that there’s a lack of what those stakes actually are. So I wanted to just get your take on all of that, the current debate that’s dominating, which is: Should Biden go or stay? Where’d this come from? What’s going on here? and what are the impacts of this discussion?

Karl Folk  30:18

I think we’re seeing kind of a few things at once. We’re definitely seeing a Democratic Party that is questioning itself, which, for someone in their mid 30s, is actually relatively interesting to see, and something that, for me personally, is actually somewhat invigorating, just in a purely, like democratic sense, not in the Party sense, but in a: This still somewhat kind of functions as a mechanism to try and give people power in some way. That conversation is one of them, and it’s getting drowned out as loudly as possible by I think what we could call a non conversation. 

We’re all arguing about a candidate that is old. There are real questions about the age and some of that, but it is not a threat on the level of what the news is using this volume to drown out. That’s the part that we’re seeing the news truly used in a way that’s weaponized. It’s a unique view of what true information warfare style propaganda looks like, which is: It’s not trying to tell you which way to go on this, it’s trying to keep you focused on a shiny object over here, while, literally, the moment that we had this conversation is the same moment the Supreme Court ended one of America’s pillar foundational kind of traditions of maintaining a democratic presidency, as well as Project 2025 really hitting the mainstream for the first time in a way that was measurable. 

It also happened at the exact same time that the people who were putting together Project 2025, within Heritage Foundation, were coming out and saying things that aren’t just a hyperbolic statement of a reactionary movement, but a statement of intent and a threat of overt violence. I look at these conversations in that spectrum, so I see two conversations. I see a very healthy conversation that actually might rejuvenate democracy, and then I see a counter argument. 

The counter argument isn’t an argument at all, it’s just noise. We’re living right now in an environment that’s incredibly dense with information, and information that, for most Americans, is somewhat novel. This isn’t everyday stuff many of us are dealing with outside of the circles where we’ve lived in, in brain worm city for too long, in some cases. We’ve set up a system where the media has come out and said that their goal is deregulation and consolidation and monopolistic power. Zaslav came out and articulated that point very clearly, while at the same time saying: We’re not pro Trump. 

These are the same kind of thing — a kind of throwaway fluff argument that the news is going to eat, and then the actual conversation, which is the more important thing, much in the same way that we’ve lost part of the conversation about probably one of the most explicit plans to remake American government in modern history. I think we’re getting a little bit of fear, I think we’re getting a little bit of everything, but that within that media environment is incredibly toxic to the information system and how we understand what’s actual.

Sam Goldman  33:37

How do you think this will play out? What happens next here?

Karl Folk  33:41

You know that’s hard to tell, but I think what we’ve seen so far is the understanding of what Project 2025 is, in the limited amount of time that it’s made it out into the general public, it’s done real damage. Today, America First Legal, which is Stephen Miller’s fascist law office, they have their name removed from some of the Heritage Project 2025 Trump nexus of paperwork. Some of the heaviest backpedaling I’ve seen from Trump and the Republicans is because of Project 2025. I think there’s a chance that this thing becomes a lodestone around their neck in a very real way, but that is going to require that we continue to up the pressure by educating people. 

This is actually pretty simple, we can all go do it, and a lot of us are already, but most people can go out and say these things that are true from Project 2025 — and there are many things right now that have gone out that aren’t — the things that are true and are absolutely written down as policy choices they want to enact are horrifying, and most people aren’t on board with what this is trying to sell. That’s an easy win for most people. If you tell someone that, for example, Project 2025 does essentially criminalize pornography, now, most people aren’t for that, even if they’re not super porn friendly. 

There’s a level of real life that a lot of people inhabit, and that is actually an incredibly powerful space. But we have to take the initiative as individuals and as groups of individuals to decide to go tell people: Hey, this is terrible, and this is why, and these are the real reasons why. We don’t need to fear monger about what it could be, because it says what it is, and it’s horrifying.

Sam Goldman  33:45

If you were talking to someone in your regular everyday life, what might that sound like? Listeners might be able to use in their own lives. How do you go about it?

Karl Folk  35:42

Unfortunately, you have to be really kind of just even, when explaining essentially, why fascism is bad. I think that’s the thing that I’ve come to realize in the last few years, is we can all warn people all day what fascism is, that it’s a growing part of our day to day, within our politics, but ultimately our goal now has to be to explain that fascism is wrong, not that it’s here. I think that is an inroad with Project 2025, where you can literally just say, like: I, as a person, don’t always agree with the politics of the Democrats, and I don’t always agree — I pretty much never agree with Republican sentiments, ever. I don’t think I ever have. 

Traditional Republican politics, traditional Democratic politics, though there’s a conversation that can be had there, people don’t realize that the conversation now has to be between people in, let’s say, the Democratic camp, and people who aren’t necessarily MAGA, but it’s going to be people like us who say: Hey, you know, it’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to be really uncomfortable with the situation you’ve been presented. But also, these things aren’t us — as, a population in this moment, and they haven’t been for much of the country for a long time. History is very powerful when people hear it. When they realize that a lot of people don’t realize just how dangerous the Republican Party has become, but how radical elements within it that have been planning this for decades really are. 

Most people are deeply repelled by this, and that makes these conversations a lot easier. Sometimes the thing we do is just have a conversation. It may not be perfect — nothing’s perfect in this world — you’re never going to, like tell someone magic words in some way, they’re just: Oh, wow, my whole perspective has been changed — but sometimes it takes seeds and time and a little bit of effort just in kind of keeping going. But most people aren’t for this. That’s the conversation I have. That is an incredibly powerful thing to do, because suddenly you’re not alone. 

As we know, one of the main legs with fascism, both historic and present, is that alone, that loneliness, that fear of your neighbors, of the others that are around you, it is key to building the fascist movement, and it’s also key to handicapping, truly undermining it, in simple ways. And Project 2025, to me, talking about it, seems like a very interesting inroad to build communities of people who see it as democracy versus anti-democracy, fascism against anti-fascism. That’s an interesting place to be in, a very hopeful one, actually. That, for me, has made those conversations easier, even though it’s a scarier time to have them.

Sam Goldman  38:34

I think that’s really helpful. There’s been so much coverage, for example, on: Trump says that this is not his policy program. And to a certain extent, he’s right. Objectively, this is much bigger than Trump. You have Democratic Party strategists or pundits or whatnot being like: The main thing that needs to happen is this needs to be Trump’s Project 2025. It’s like: Well, actually, he has his own policy proposals, so does the RNC. Actually, if you look at them and you put them all down — there’s a lot — this Venn diagram starts looking a lot more like a circle. That’s the way to go at it, rather than be like we’re gonna show you all the people that are connected from Project 2025, who’s connected, and it starts looking like that, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Charlie’s map.

Karl Folk  39:26

I live with one of those walls, I totally understand.

Sam Goldman 39:30

Don’t get me wrong, yes, it is for Trump, and if it’s not for Trump, it’s for whoever the next Trump adjacent they can get. But it’s also much bigger, and it’s part of people not grasping the vastness, and for lack of better word, diversity [laughs] within this fascist enterprise.

Karl Folk  39:51

This is something — the piece that just came out on Splinter, touches on this — Trump is a figurehead and an avatar for a movement that is massive. It’s 50 plus years old, it has had one goal for that entire time. Project 2025, is very much just the logical extension of the Heritage plan, along with others within that network and a few others, to completely undo the 20th Century. They’ve said that publicly. They’re out there literally saying: Our plan is to repeal the 20th century. That’s, again, one of the hallmarks of authoritarianism and also a hallmark of a society that’s really in trouble. The news media has made this out much like the lone wolf argument, to be individual actors outside of a larger intellectual network and milieu. 

If we really want to understand this, Project 2025 is not an aberration. This is literally a governmental imperative that has arms in places that people still are starting to figure out. For many of us, kind of, in the research side or the journalism side or the activism side, understand that that is the real threat, in some ways, much in the same way that the air has been sucked onto a conversation by Biden’s age, we’ve always looked at individual actors from these larger, for lack of a better word, deep states, that have been built by conservatives since the ’70s. This is a parallel government really making a play to take the place of American democracy. [Project] 2025 is a huge hint on that front, but the reality is, you have other places. 

You have the Claremont Institute out here, advocating openly for a Franco style dictatorship. The Claremont Institute and others within that kind of constellation of the far right, is directly tied into the Heritage Group, is directly tied into the Trump group. It’s one large group. The sooner we understand and talk about that more correctly, and the, for lack of a better word, the intersectionality of the modern American new right, we really put ourselves in a space where we’re not having the full conversation.

Sam Goldman  42:18

Going off of that, I’ve been thinking a lot about how you were mentioning earlier, Project 2025 in some ways, is finally getting some attention — there’s a mainstream awareness — more awareness of the term, I’d say, than what it means. I think, in a lot of ways — and I’ve just been reflecting a little bit on when Democratic Party leadership talks about Project 2025, I think it is sounding like, really, a cryptic boogeyman to me. Project 2025 – they’ll take your firstborn child. Project 2025 – it’s coming for you next. I think it’s gotten better, not to toot whoever manages Biden’s social media platform or whatever, but they went from tweeting: “Google Project 2025,” to actually doing a graphic with some comments on what Project 2025 is. 

Meanwhile, Biden’s in power now, and he is preparing, in many ways, to just hand over the keys without really taking this opportunity, from the bully pulpit he has, to talk about the threat posed in Project 2025. I just wanted to hear, not what the Democratic Party should do or not do, but what are they doing and kind of where does that guide people in terms of their understanding of Project 2025, and then: What are people missing right now about it, that if it was exposed, it wouldn’t just be joining the horse race. It would be really, actually speaking to the stakes of the moment.

Karl Folk  43:57

I think about how we tend to, as a society and a culture, remove things from the historical timeline and the chronological timeline that is real and is present in our day-to-day lives. Our society tends to flatten things pretty immediately, and one of the things that I’ve been thinking more on right now and speaking to others about kind of more privately, is our tendency to remove a historic evil like the Nazis from history and turn them into a historic, cartoonish evil, and the damage that’s done To our perception now of both fascism in general, but what the actual social and cultural machinations are that go into creating fascism and the world that is, for lack of a better word, breeds fascism. 

One of the things that Democrats did initially that they have stepped back on, thankfully, like you said, is that they have stopped telling people to do their own research. In this environment, with that, you can’t, you just can’t, There’s no way to control any of the information those you’re telling to go get it, what information they’re getting. So it does turn into this boogeyman that exists outside of the reality the situation. In some cases, that’s very useful. In this case, it’s not, because cartoonish evil is outside of the realm of the norm for most people so far that it removes the threat from the front and center that it is. 

I think the thing that people are missing is the banality of the evil that it actually is. This isn’t a document that reads like a far right shooter’s manifesto, but it definitely has the same worldview, basis, and effect at the end of the day, which is that it will harm or kill innumerable people. If there’s something that people are missing, it’s that. It’s the banality of what it’s actually doing to the structure of our government, and the fundamental shift that actually is. The scariest part for me, personally, about Project 2025 isn’t necessarily what’s written in it — which is horrifying, and the implications are absolutely disgusting for every level of society, almost every individual, it would be bad, there’s no two ways about that,. but I think what scares me most is — its banality and the way that it is a corporate plan for a coup. 

For lack of a better word, it’s a corporate takeover plan for the United States. That I think is what people miss the most, is that this is not just a Republican Party issue, this is a wealth class issue against the rest of us. Ultimately, Heritage’s call in Project 2025 is a hodgepodge of the worst the far right’s had intellectually in its heads for a long time, cobbled together in such a way that it really cannot be understated how incredibly regressive and dark it is, and just how even it is, it reads like any other policy, like any other directorate, like any other thought process from normal, much more democratic, most focused think tanks. To me, that’s the thing that we have to really understand. 

Most of the people coming to try and end democracy aren’t villains in the way that we understand villains. They’re guys in suits and polos who are just talking it over and having a chat here and a chat there, firing off some emails. That’s a lot harder for us as a society to conceptualize when we have been inundated for our entire lives with a view of evil and fascism as a cartoonishly over the top version of what it actually is. Those are the pieces that really do strike me as the things that are missed and the scariest things.

Sam Goldman  48:13

And I think that there’s a tension there, because people also have a lived experience of a cartoonish fascist in power, given that Trump was not driven out for the four years that he was in office. He was able to dominate. They saw a clown banning Muslims. They saw a clown stacking the courts to rip away abortion rights. They saw the clown ripping children away from their parents at the border. There was a clown doing that. He is a living cartoon.

Karl Folk  48:44

Well, I think that that’s the point of Trump in some ways.

Sam Goldman  48:47

Yeah, and I think that that goes well with your point about the avatar. This is a world where you have a Trump and you have a Stephen Miller. You have the mob that stormed the Capitol, you have the Josh Hawleys, you have both.

Karl Folk  49:02

That’s the internal tension of fascism, especially American fascism, is fascism has its “foot soldiers,” but it also has its foils built into itself, and it uses those really expertly. It is one of the things that is the most confusing, going back to what you asked: how do people see that? How do we do this in the way that people can see it for what it is? — that right there is really tough to explain to people. The internal contradiction of fascism and what that actually looks like to most people is a clown or is hypocrisy? It’s the argument I have with fact checking right now. It’s incredibly hard to fact check your way out of a hole. So what do we have to do? We have to figure out a different way to do this, and it’s the same thing with this. We can’t call them out. They don’t care. If you have hypocrites within your own party, and your goal is to use that, it works expertly to reinforce the inability to talk about it, because people want to laugh at it.

Sam Goldman  50:04

Yeah, absolutely. Immune to shame, fact free. The other part, talking about the American quality of it, I think that that’s another obstacle in a lot of people’s way, is this thinking. You see it all the time, and you hear it all the time, is this notion of this un-Americans, un-American. It’s un American ad nauseam. You hear it from the highest office, when Biden does occasionally speak about the threat that is posed by Trump, and you hear it from the people in your life, including people with a lot of concern, and often who are too smart to be saying this, that it’s un-American. This fascist danger is is un-American. If people were able to confront the Americanness of this project, that we would be in a different place, because people would stop othering the threat. That: This could happen here — Being: Well let’s look at what did happen, and what does happen, therefore, what can and is happening — I think would be a important breakthrough, but I think that it’s a real challenge to do without paralyzing people.

Karl Folk  51:19

The thing that we run into, any of us who are working to try and defeat fascism or authoritarianism, one of the hardest things in America is getting Americans to understand that it has happened here multiple times, in different iterations, in different forms, in different intensities, and that makes us all the more susceptible to its ultimate form, now. That’s a very hard conversation. Most Americans aren’t stupid by any means. We’re just not educated well in the reality of what we exist in and have come from. That epistemic problem, you know, I think a lot of people would love to argue that all of this fascism problem in America is based on that. It’s not, but it is a component that we willfully have forgotten our past because it’s so painful, and in doing so, we leave room to invent new pasts that are mythic and futures that look a lot worse than the one that we currently understand to be ours.

Sam Goldman  52:28

We’ve talked about Project 2025, and there was one question that’s adjacent that I wanted to talk about, which was relating to the Heritage Foundation. The Heritage Foundation, and a number of influential fascist enterprises are already declaring the 2024 election illegitimate. They are workshopping war games on that premise and formally accusing the current president of rigging the elections. I’m wondering how widely shared and deeply held are these delusions, and what power do they have, and what does that tell us?

Karl Folk  53:03

We’re definitely seeing it. There’s a lot of conversation, and it’s gone somewhat public in the last, what, two days, I think, when I’ve started to see a lot more kind of public-facing conversation about this, from Heritage specifically. That’s expanded from some of the stuff they’ve done prior. They have in the past, said things that definitely lay the groundwork for this. I think there are a couple explanations that might be within the realm of possibility. Part of me truly thinks that they believe this election is going to be so close it comes down to the Electoral College. By playing the game early and hard, they can sway electoral voters. 

That’s what part of me thinks, just looking at some of the polling data and some of the stuff coming out of states they really need. It can be two things at once, so maybe it’s not a different thought, but I think a component of that too is: It works to undermine our trust in both the election process but the outcome, both for the Republican Party, it does that, but then for everyone else, we understand that to be a threat against the electoral system. It’s working in a way that’s actually somewhat well thought out to do maximum damage — not just within their party, but outside of it. There are a lot of people who are true believers in the conspiracy that there’s the deep state rigging the United States against conservatism. I think a lot of those people are fully on board with this notion that even if Trump wins, he loses. It’s an incredibly dangerous narrative that we’ve seen already leads to violence, no question. 

But I think the better question now isn’t: Is it going to lead to violence? — but: What kind? unfortunately, as someone who’s studied this a long time and has had a deep academic interest in it, there are very few relief valves for the kind of pressure that that language specifically puts on people who are already incredibly primed to do both violence and believe that they are acting righteously as part of a super-faction that has God on their side. The real threat, I think, is who takes it seriously, where, and how well organized are they? There are a few states that have been identified that look to have the ability to be dangerous with election violence, regardless of the outcome. 

I know that a lot of that is centered around that narrative right now. I don’t know if it matters who believes it is real and who is cynically deploying it, because I think the outcome is the same, but, with that being said, what we’ve seen, and I think what most of us who spend too much time online dealing with this, and then other places dealing with, is there’s a remarkable level of acquiescence with that worldview, regardless, again, if it’s real or not, I don’t know if that matters. They definitely use that to justify a lot. It builds a permission giving structure within the Republican Party and the far right to do real physical damage, if they are so inclined. 

The fact that they’re pre-bunking the election like this is concerning. It also, though, is a viewpoint of a party that is scared. I think that that’s really important too, to remember, these people want to project inevitability — they know they’re not inevitable. Right now, they are not. That’s what all of this really illuminates, to me, as much as the violent potential, is that they’re scared, that they don’t have this thing in the bag. That’s very good to know, because Project 2025, and their plans are preeminently undeterrminable, and are preeminently plans of people who don’t have a ton of strategic thinking. Coupled with a reactionary urge to do an end zone dance about four months too early, it’s given us room to do real work, to push it back effectively, and in really unique ways that actually do a lot more than just push back Project 2025.

Sam Goldman  57:06

As we close out our conversation, let’s go there. What right now would that look like? What does that mean? What does refusing fascism mean? We know that that things look really horrible and scary right now. We also know that last time, it was not the Democratic Party that called people in the streets and said: This coup can’t go down. In fact, we know that they actively kept people off the streets. There was a whole coordinated effort. So what do we do? What are the stories that need to be told? What needs to be hammered at? How do we move people from this place of passivity, whether it’s cowering and fear, whether it’s confusion, whether it’s just the age old reliance of the proxy and power to take care of it, you know, the product of good old American parasitism. But what do we do now?

Karl Folk  58:01

I think the first thing we do is we find each other. That sounds corny, but there’s a level of like: If you can find people who you can trust enough to talk to, and start to build those networks — even if they’re not in person sometimes, but in person digitally — start building those friendships and resiliency. The thing we need right now is resiliency, and we need people to understand all is not lost. By no way is this game over. We’re actually just getting to the game. For most of us, none of us as individuals have the power to do much against fascism at this level, but what we do have the power as individuals to do is come together, really, truly, work with one another. 

This is going to have to be a little bit more grassroots than I think a lot of people understand. But fascism and fighting fascism come from two or three places at once, and we have to be able to do that too. We’re starting to see what it looks like. It looks a lot like groups of people coming together to create online communities built to, for example, turn Project 2025, into memes that then can get disseminated to others to educate people on what this thing actually is and what it looks like, and what it actually means for you as a person who might not think that this plan really is going to affect. We’re starting to see that happen more. 

I’m pretty active on Bluesky, and I’ve seen a lot of that as of late. People are taking it upon themselves and really starting to build communities where the whole goal is countering a narrative that is being pushed, and to counter everything that’s being said to try and obscure what this is, in a way that is a two second read on Tiktok, and suddenly you now have a way to say something to someone else too. Because you don’t have to be some brilliant political mind to say: Hey, this is wrong. Ultimately, that’s what this is. It’s all of us coming together and saying: This is wrong. And we’re saying that together. We’re saying that together in a way that isn’t going to look like just voting. Voting is voting. It accomplishes what needs to be done in a society with a duopoly democracy. 

If we can educate others on the realities of this — not on the boogeyman aspect. I look at it, this is an education campaign, but it’s also kind of an education campaign that intends to pay it forward. That means we have to have good information, we have to get it to people who may or may not be willing to hear it, and just keep doing it. One of the things that we tend to forget is any of this takes time and just a concerted effort to stay on the message. And the message right now is democracy in peril, and Project 2025 lays out exactly why. These are preeminently human things to do anyways. 

We all like to have conversations. We all like to meet new people or meet people we know in a different way. That is a huge, huge thorn in the side of a movement that’s still trying to collect power, because the more people who are conversing in loose community that understand what’s being said to them is a lie, the stronger the resolve gets within that group, and the larger that group gets, and the more power it holds, because They know that the person talking to them is lying. Ultimately, that is one of the ways that we really can. 

The biggest thing we can do, though, is find each other. It sounds so simple, and the more we do that together and with a little bit of grace for one another, including ourselves in a moment that really is truly unprecedented in the United States, the better we’re going to do. Grace is a weapon that really hurts people who want you to be constantly feeling upended. If we afford each other and ourselves a little bit of grace and a little bit of room and talk and not at each other, but kind of with each other, we’re gonna do just fine. It’s going to be scary as hell, but we’re gonna do fine. It’s just we got to do it now.

Sam Goldman  1:02:03

I want to thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me, to share your expertise, to share your insights, your perspective, your time. I know that people are going to want to connect with you, read more of your work. Where should they go?

Karl Folk  1:02:20

That’s great. Looking forward to reading it.

Karl Folk  1:02:20

I want to say, thank you for having me. This has been great. On Twitter. @brainnotonyet. And on Bluesky, I’m the same thing. I make it very simple. Then you can find me at Splinter News. I have other things coming soon there. You can also check out my website, at InstituteOfUnreality.com. I tend to write a fair amount, and I’ve got some new stuff coming out here soon for the website as well that’s going to be much more focused on selling fascism as a lifestyle brand, so I think we’re going to touch on a little bit more of the weirdness.

Karl Folk  1:02:29

Thank you.

Sam Goldman  1:02:31

Take care.

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