The Cataclysm of a Second Trump Term

Refuse Fascism Episode 192

Sun, Mar 03, 2024 5:16PM • 58:05

Dr. Clarence Lusane 00:00

A lot of attention is focused on Trump’s behavior and the kind of bigotry that he speaks, but it’s really the policies that are the danger and what will be the political agenda. They are very conscious of their ability to exploit weaknesses on the Democratic side, so it will not just be Trump coming into power if he comes back in, but all that he brings with him.

Amanda Moore 00:24

The implicit endorsement is that CPAC and ACU are okay with literal Neo-Nazis being at their event. All of those things that are supposed to be mainstream were absolutely converging with the Nazis.

Sam Goldman 00:57

Welcome to Episode 192 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 real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States.

Right up front: What do we mean when we talk about fascism? We’re talking about the danger posed by the Republican Party as a fascist party; fomenting and relying on over ambitious white supremacy, xenophobia, male supremacy, oppressive “traditional values” for rule through brute force — refusing to accept any outcome of elections that do not declare them the victors, gutting the rule of law, or turning it into a bludgeon to further shred the rights of the people — dictatorship rule by open violence, readying, and in many places where they hold power, already inflicting violence on immigrants, people of color, women, LGBTQ people and their political enemies.

What is crucial to understand is that once in power, fascism essentially eliminates traditional democratic rights. In today’s episode, we’re sharing an interview with Dr. Clarence Lusane on the catastrophe posed by Trump 2.0. Plus, you’ll hear from journalist Amanda Moore who helped uncover the presence of open Nazis at CPAC this year.

Thanks to everyone who rates and reviews the show, like Richard Socal, who wrote on Apple podcasts: “Great news, updates, and substantive interviews. Vitally important discussion in good hands.” Glad to hear you think so, Richard. And to everyone else: Help this show get into more ears during a year old and refusing fascism is most crucial. Review our show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen, after listening of course. Click the share button in your app to send this episode to a friend.

We couldn’t run today’s episode without saluting those who poured into the streets — in many places, in pouring rain — to call for an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza made possible by the U.S. government. Before we get to the interview, I wanted to touch on some developments from the week as they relate to the now undeniable, but widely-denied and discounted fascist threat, even as the threat of Trump walking right back into the White House is terrifyingly likely. It would rock the world if the highest court in any other country were to consider presidential immunity — the ability for the President to openly commit crimes — and there weren’t people flooding the streets with cries of illegitimate, refusing to back down until the fascist wannabe president was held to account.

But here we are, in 2024, and the U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear the immunity case. Absent mass international condemnation: silence. One could easily imagine civic organizations and threatened political parties calling people into the streets, the President going on TV with a plan, assuring people that there will be accountability. Here, however, the highest court has the ability to hand Trump the keys to power without explicitly doing so, and meet no resistance. It is a story of a never ending coup — of an opposition party, unwilling and perhaps incapable of stopping them, beholden to the stability of the system over justice, and to people so eager to be placated and to be told fairy tales.

This past week, the Supreme Court of the United States granted Trump’s cert, and will consider presidential immunity, setting oral arguments for April 22. Consequentially, through this ruling, on Wednesday, Trump’s D.C. criminal trial, the one concerning his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election, must be delayed for at least another two months. The Court has already effectively delayed his trial for two and a half months in an order handed down last December.

This is nothing short of a victory for fascism. And the possibility he’ll even have a trial for attempting to overthrow an election is quickly evaporating, just in time for him to possibly do it again. Let’s just sit for a sec with the fact that they’re even pausing to think for months about Trump’s claim that the Constitution forbids any prosecution of a former president for any official acts he engaged in while in office. Remember Trump’s lawyer saying: Yeah, Trump could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival and not be prosecuted unless the President was first successfully impeached and convicted by the Senate — impeached and convicted by lawmakers who, under Trump’s argument, the President could order to be killed if they attempted to impeach him.

As Mike Rothschild, previous guest on the show, so aptly tweeted: “The Supreme Court needs more time to decide if being the President makes you a God King who can have your enemies murdered.” We’re talking about the same Supreme Court that has turned fascist Congress member’s pipe dreams into law without those mettlesome legislative things like hearings or votes.

This week, both Donald Trump and Joe Biden visited the Texas-Mexico border. Let’s set the scene: Deadly razor wire strung along the Rio Grande around Eagle Pass. Numerous people, including small children, have drowned as a result. Texas has occupied the city park of Eagle Pass with National Guard troops, and Abbott recently ordered construction of a military base just south of town. Texas’ onslaught has the full support of Donald Trump and 24 Republican governors. Abbott and his fellow fascists are aiming to undermine and delegitimize the authority of the federal government in service of a genocidal, Trump fueled, MAGA fascism.

So of course, Trump headed to Eagle Pass, a symbol of state defiance of the federal government to more cruelly dehumanize and harm migrants. He met with Abbot and Texas National Guard soldiers who have commandeered the park and put up the razor wire to slice the skin of migrants as they struggle to get to land for safety. Trump amped up his 2016 anti-immigrant toxic garbage calling migrants criminals, terrorists, “poisoning the blood of the country.” His promise if he returns to power, as you’ll hear more from Dr. Lusane, is mass detentions and deportations unlike anything seen before.

We see previews of the violent horror show that would face migrant and brown communities and recent legislation in Arizona, where the GOP is advancing a bill that would allow people to murder someone for attempting to trespass or trespassing on their property, which would legalize the murder of undocumented immigrants who often have to cross ranches that sit on the state’s border with Mexico. We see it in Georgia, where House Republicans are backing a bill that would require every eligible police and sheriff’s department to help identify undocumented immigrants, arrest them and detain them for deportation.

So when Biden visited, he proceeded to remove the wire, federalizing control of the Texas National Guard, bringing in federal agents to ensure the wire stay removed. Umm… no. Instead, Biden, which we do have to note has deported more immigrants than any previous president, vowed to shut down the border and essentially eliminate asylum, said this in Texas: “Here’s what I would say to Mr. Trump: Instead of playing politics with the issue, instead of telling members of Congress to block this legislation, join me, or I’ll join you in telling the Congress to pass this bipartisan border security bill. We can do it together. You know and I know it’s the toughest, most efficient, most effective border security bill this country has ever seen. So instead of playing politics with the issue, why don’t we just get together and get it done.”

What we see in Texas is an escalation of the open conflict between the Republifascists, spearheaded by Abbott, embraced by Trump, versus Democrats led by Biden. This conflict is over how intensely and viciously anti immigrant policy will be enforced, and yet this conflict concentrates deeper differences over the fascist remaking of society and exemplifies the Democrats’ approach of still trying to reconcile and collaborate with these Republifascists. We urge our listeners to act now to call out the demonization of our immigrant siblings, to support and defend migrants under attack as part of refusing fascism.

The election in November is fast approaching, and with each passing week, it seems fantasies of election season reach maddening new heights. Three years and two months after the January 6th coup attempt and Trump leaving office, he has not been held accountable for any of his crimes committed as president. It’s been almost seven years since the start of Mueller investigation, the first of many major investigations into his political crimes, but it seems millions of people are convinced that in the next nine months, somehow, the legal system or the Attorney General’s office, or the Biden administration will suddenly unearth some super secret leak proof cache of urgent, efficient action to stop fascism.

But no, the thing about this is no amount of voting can rectify it. They aren’t missing your vote to convict Trump. Right now, as it stands, the lack of accountability, he can just do it again, this time with a legal precedent perhaps. I don’t think we missed some separate referendum on whether they’re allowed to or capable of holding Trump accountable. This shows two things. One: There is no solution to fascism within the normal workings of the system, judicial or electoral or otherwise, and two: We, the people who refuse fascism need to be the ones leading the fight. Right now, we see instead of fighting fascism, the Biden administration fighting its own voter base, blaming their own base of support for Trump’s viability, scolding decent people who don’t want a fascist future for not being loyal enough to a genocidal Democratic vision of empire that, in my opinion, the Democrats exist to prop up.

In my opinion, it needs to become clear that the goal of defeating fascism this year cannot be defined by a day in November. Yes, things are shaping up — what happens in the election and the response to that election is something we need to prepare for. We need to be thinking of the possible scenarios and how we’ll respond, but for defeating fascism, right now, what we do over the next months is decisive. Decent people in this country must decide what horror we will accept, whose suffering we will dismiss, what monsters we will absolve, what demands we will obey, what of all this we will justify as the unstoppable will of history racing by. Or, if not, what will we actually do about it? Now, here is my conversation with Dr. Clarence Lusane.

Dr. Clarence Lusane is a political science professor and current Director of the International Affairs Program and majors at Howard University. He’s an author, activist, scholar, lecturer and journalist. He is an independent expert to the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance. His latest book is $20 and Change: Harriet Tubman and the ongoing fight for racial justice and democracy. Welcome, Dr. Lusane. Thanks for chatting with me.

Dr. Clarence Lusane 12:30

Thank you so much for having me.

Sam Goldman 12:32

What I wanted to start with is on a lot of people’s minds, and we’ve had guests that have spoken to various aspects of this, but right now, aided and abetted by the Supreme Court of the United States that he helped curate, the possibility of a Trump return to power is seeming great and grave in the likelihood increasing. I wanted to start by getting into what a second Trump term would mean. In some of your writing, you describe it as a catastrophe, and I just was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about what you think we need to be paying most attention to in terms of the threat that is posed?

Dr. Clarence Lusane 13:14

That’s a really important question, because a lot of attention is focused on Trump’s behavior, and the kind of bigotry that he speaks. But it’s really the policies that are the danger, and what will be the political agenda. It will not just be Trump coming into power if he comes back in, but all that he brings with him and who he brings with him. This is really terrifying, because as bad as the first Trump tenure was, this was really just sort of wetting his feet. There are a lot of weak, but some obstacles to an agenda he was trying to carry out; from there being establishment kind of Republicans who did not feel any kind of love for Donald Trump, to hiring people — bringing people into administration — who were law, but incompetent, and they are not planning to make those mistakes again. Trump has reconstructed the Republican Party from top to bottom, so it really is the Trump party. We see it already in the House of Representatives, very likely in the U.S. Senate, states across the country, they have all been Trump-ified over the last four years and much more so than in 2016.

We’ve been seeing the proposals that are being developed from the Heritage Foundation and their Project 2025, to other conservative and far right think tanks, they’re laying out an agenda. The Heritage document, it’s 900 pages, and it goes to every single government agency with an agenda of how to transform those agencies. This will not be — can’t underscore it — a normal Republican conservative administration. This will be an extreme authoritarianism, that will likely, if Trump comes back in, respond to rejection of that with force. We will likely see political violence coming from the federal government under Trump’s watch. So it is a very grave concern that a second Trump administration will be something we have not seen in most of our lifetimes in the United States.

Sam Goldman 15:29

What you were talking about in terms of transforming, or gutting the party of anyone that isn’t a loyalist, is something that we’ve seen happen with the example of changing RNC leadership, those types of things, but also in terms of sidelining anyone who remotely like criticizes an aspect of a program. Even if they went along with Trump’s policy agenda, if they criticized at one point, the coup attempt, then they were sidelined. But what we’re seeing now in the threat posed by Project 2025 is the purging of government officials that are not people that are partisan or anything like that, but have worked for the government for decades, but might be loyal to what they see as the Constitution or something like that, and not loyalty to Herr Trump.

That clarification that you are making is a really important one in terms of this isn’t going to be more of the same, as awful as that was the first time around. You talked about the threat of political violence. Is there anything historically that would help us understand both the combination of the America First pledge and this political violence that he’s threatening.

Dr. Clarence Lusane 16:58

There certainly is. I’ve focused a lot in my discussions and some writings on what I call racial authoritarianism. By that, I mean that authoritarianism in the United States will not be without its racial dimensions, that will be very critical to that. There’s a lot of rejection of how far the U.S. will go in those directions, that there are roadblocks, and there are fences, that the system is protected, but I remind people that for 100 years following the Civil War, Black people lived under authoritarianism. We called it Jim Crow segregation, but it’s what some scholars will call sub-authoritarianism, where a part of the country lives under more or less democratic norms, but other parts of the country do not; they are not subject to the same criminal justice system, they’re not subject to the same rights, they’re not subject to opportunities for political inclusion or holding political office.

That exactly was the situation for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, for decades. This was government driven. This wasn’t just a few racist segregationists, there was government policy that shaped housing, that shaped education, that shaped political access. So there is a history in this country. I spend a lot of time outside of the country for the work I do, and specifically, I’ve visited places where there were genocides; in Rwanda, in Cambodia, Germany, in Bosnia. In all of those places, there were normal societies at a point, where people had differences, but they kind of worked them out. But extremism grew, it was not checked, and then within a very short period, extremists came to power.

So we have to be really, really careful. There’s no such thing as sort of a little authoritarianism. It manifests and it grows and then it metastasizes. Already, what we’re hearing from what the Trump second term would look like should have people shaking in their boots. They really want to build a gulag for immigrants. They’re talking about building camps around the country, similar to the camps that were used against the Japanese and Japanese Americans, and people of Japanese ancestry during World War Two. These are not camps, these are prisons. They can label them whatever they want, these are prisons. They want to send a message, and I believe they will, first day in office, institute this through an executive order, and they want to send a message that, they’re gonna be tough, they’re going to be very different, and anybody they deem to not belong in the country, they’re going to round up. And that will just be the beginning.

Trump, of course, when he first came in, tried to ban Muslims from coming from certain countries. There was a check back on that by Congress and by the Supreme Court. Trump has had, as you noted earlier, three individuals that he put on the court since then, and we’ve seen some of their rulings already, and how those have already eroded the rights of people in this country. We can expect much more of that in a second term.

Sam Goldman 20:18

I really appreciated the warning that you make around what I see as this American exceptionalism that allows us to think that it can’t, it couldn’t, even though it has, it is, and it will, unless we change the tide. I think that there’s this constant clinging to these guardrails and the belief that there’s these un-penetrable institutions that are so America, that they’re so strong, they’re so good for everyone that this can’t come to pass.

There’s this continued surprise and shock, and paralyzation because of that each time, he is able to push through what that perceived crisis is — whether it be the trials, you know, it’s: Oh, he can’t… With the Mueller report, the this, the that, it’s always something, and then he’s able to do it anyway. There’s that shock, and I think that it’s really important, this time, when, as you said, there’s a whole huge document that anyone could pick up and read, that shows so clearly, what the threat is. There cannot be — we cannot afford to be surprised. Now is the time to act, not after… What happened? You were aluding to the comparisons to the internment camps. It made me think about one of the pieces that you recently written in relation to the prospect of Trump’s second term.

You wrote about America’s Japanese internment camps and the Reconstruction Amendments, and on top of what I would classify as fascist, utter dehumanization of non citizens, it seems that they have their sights set on destroying the modern idea of citizenship, and all the rights that come with that. I was hoping that you could talk a little bit about what does citizenship mean to them? Why is it such a threat to them? And what have those around Trump, the Republican Party, been saying and doing to undermine it?

Dr. Clarence Lusane 22:41

Great question. First, let me respond to one point you raiseed I thought was really important, about norms. There’s been a reliance on norms to protect democracy, and that’s not enough. That does not work, cause we’ve seen, Trump push through every norm possible, and there are basically no consequences. They didn’t have legal heft behind them. So that’s really, really kind of critical.

I think there’s a three-stage kind of approach that we’re gonna see relative to the issue of citizenship. One is going after people who do not have legal documents to be in the country. And that varies. A lot our students who overstay their visa. They didn’t try to come to the country illegally, they stayed. That happened to me. I was living in London, and I ended up overstaying my visa, primarily because the visa application was slowed down, and it went past the date, I was supposed to be in there. So, it’s not that people are all in the country because they illegally want to be here. So, it’s going after that community, which Trump labels “poisoning the blood of the country” on all of that.

Second, even during World War Two, with the Japanese, many of them were citizens. There were some visitors to the country, but many were citizens. So, they weren’t the right kind of citizens. You build up a hatred and bigotry against a certain community, then you can target them because you’ve set the stage for them to be dehumanized. Then the third stage will be going after, in similar ways, your ideological enemies who may be of any race or any color citizen or not, they become the target as well. This is who Trump called vermin. They’ve used the language, and everything that Trump has said, has been said by Steve Miller, Steve Bannon, all the people in and around Trump, and it echoes and echoes and echoes. So you create an atmosphere where you’re not going after people, you’re going after enemies, and anything is allowed.

That’s where there’s a real responsibility to call that out. The media has a real important role in doing that. I went to a book talk the other day for the new book by Barbara McQuade called ‘Attack from Within,’ and she discusses disinformation, how that will play such a critical role — has been, and will continue to — play such a critical role in how people view the country and, and citizenship and all those issues, and race and everything. One of the questions I raised is: What will the media do when after the election in November, Trump comes almost immediately and declares that he’s the winner? Do they broadcast that? Do they let that sit on social media?

This is just straight up disinformation, lies. They did it last time — Trump came on within hours after the election saying: We won. That set the seed for what would eventually happen January 6th, and till this day, like 60-70% of Republicans still think Trump won the election. So how do you shut that down? Can you shut it down? Should we shut it down? These are questions that we’re going to be confronted with. It’s not going to be theoretical. The election is not going to resolve the differences in the country. He’s absolutely not going to accept losing, so as a country, prepare for that. And then, are we prepared if Trump wins? How do we begin to deal with that?

Sam Goldman 26:16

These are essential questions and questions that I agree we need to be asking now, not November 6 — afterward is not gonna be tenable. Even as Trump’s vitriol against everyone who’s not white has escalated, I feel like so have his often unhinged attempts to win support from Black folks. Even with little evidence of an increase in support. I looked at data that was put out recently, and by no means growing numbers of Black folks saying yes to Trump — definitely nowhere near the majority. Yet, it seems Trump, much of the media, and his prominent supporters like Tim Scott, have no problem claiming much more widespread support of Trump in the Black community. You’ve studied black politics in the electoral arena for decades, and I was wondering if you had any insight to shed here on what’s happening there — what they might think they’re doing and what they’re actually doing.

Dr. Clarence Lusane 27:21

I’ve been working on this for a while, what I call Trumping while Black. While there may have not been some growth, in terms of Trump getting more Black votes, in terms of overall support, not at all. But, they are very conscious of their ability to exploit weaknesses on the Democratic side — one being Biden’s age. So even though he’s very much close to Trump in age, they have weaponized that. In some of the surveys of Black voters — we just did one from Howard University, there are others — when asked what do people see as their greatest concern about Biden, it’s age — not policies, not anything that really affects your life directly, it’s age. They do not say the same thing about Trump, because Biden is put foth as a 95 year old dottering dude, and Trump has put forth as basically, kind of seventy year old, running around with crazy energy. That really kind of has had an impact in the Black community.

But more specifically, they actually have targeted, trying to increase their Black vote, because in the places where Trump lost in 2020, in Michigan, and in Pennsylvania, and in Georgia, Wisconsin. They want to have impact on the Black vote in Detroit, in Atlanta in Philadelphia. Part of it is a big win some votes, but also they can convince people just not to vote — that: Okay, we’re both terrible, we’re both horrible, just don’t go out and vote, All which accrues to Trump.

There are a number of organizations that are trying to carry that wave. The Black conservative Federation, for example, where Trump spoke right before the South Carolina primary. I listened to the whole thing. He gave like an hour and a half of the most rambling crazy talk you ever heard in your life, but he kept hitting those popular buttons. He imitated Biden, called him, you know, slow Joe and sleepy Joe and dumb Joe. He attacked Nancy Pelosi attacked Obama, talked about immigrants, just hit all of those spots he knows — a completely nonsensical talk, but you can see for Black conservatives, at least those Black conservatives, they have swallowed the pill. They were reacting just as you see the white conservatives who support Trump.

So then, I think the other thing that’s very possible is that Trump will pick a Black running mate — Tim Scott, Byron Donalds, Ben Carson, any of those who have shown 1000% loyalty, who basically say we will do what Pence would not do. Again, trying to particularly win more Black male support. They may do that move, but again, we have to call it out for what it is: It’s a cynical, ridiculous gesture. It’s not gonna to mask what’s gonna be policies that will be harmful to the Black community, to other communities of color, to working people, LGBTQ communities. We’ve gotta call all of that out.

Sam Goldman 30:27

Some of it is just, if it weren’t so dangerous, it would be comical. Like him going to sneaker con in Philly with his ridiculous Trump shoe, or him trying to woo Black folks and talking about how he’s liked because he’s persecuted. Things that are just proving how overt his white supremacy is, and yet, he’s like: No, this is great, this is great. Again, I would love to be able to laugh it off, but it’s dangerous.

Dr. Clarence Lusane 31:04

It is very dangerous and it reflects Trump’s view of the Black community; that it’s a criminal community, it’s a poor community, it’s an ignorant community, there are no professionals, only live in, you know, hardcore ghetto places. This is his view, and it’s been his view. He hasn’t changed his view, and the few exceptions are the Black people who like him. They’re different. So, Ben Carson and Byron Donalds, these are not like regular other Black people who won’t vote for me, who are living in these horrible, horrible situations that only I can fix. So that’s the kind of the selling point he puts out there, and unfortunately, they carry the weight for that vantage point. But Trump’s policies and Trump’s views on race are as horrid as they ever were. They don’t bring up: Trump sits down to dinner with Nick Fuentes and Trump cavorts with, you know, all kinds of white supremacists. That is just kind of erased from the picture. But we’ve gotta call all of that out.

Sam Goldman 32:07

Absolutely. I wanted to ask you about the latest developments from the Supreme Court, where they have given Trump’s immunity argument, cert, entertaining the notion of the President as absolute ruler, and basically acting as his accomplice by delaying his prosecution once more. Trump is already claiming that he intends to be, as you said earlier, “dictator for a day.” What does it mean that he’s essentially making the legal argument for that, that SCOTUS is entertaining it, and that it’s being legitimized in the discourse?

Dr. Clarence Lusane 32:48

There are a couple of concerns. One is that, again, they even take up this issue, that the President has total immunity, and that pretty much he can commit murder and crime and anything he wants for four years with there being no consequences. That is just kind of nonsense. So why they would even take it up is problematic. The guess is, which I think is probably right, is that there are at least a couple of members on the Court who want to debate the issues. The consequence of that, though, is, it does probably mean that the trial, probably not only the January 6th trial out of D.C., but the documents trial out of Florida will probably be delayed. If they delay too much, then they will not happen before the election.

Trump will have whoever he puts in the Justice Department bury those cases so they never see the light of day again. There was a big concern that legitimate charges against Trump that were determined by grand juries — it wasn’t a single prosecutor who said I’m gonna charge Trump — it had to go through a process, it had to go through judges, so that needs to be emphasized. But there is a possibility that those two federal charges, federal trials, will not happen before the election. There’s a lot of reform that needs to happen, because Trump’s privileged kind of treatment should not exist in the legal system. He’s got all kinds of privileges and protections that you and I would never get for a second or none of his supporters.

Sam Goldman 34:22

I wanted to pivot to fascism rising around the world. Folks here like to think we’re the center of the universe, but we are not. Over the past few years. We’ve covered on the show that international rise of fascism, with episodes focusing on various different times and developments in Brazil, Hungary, the Philippines, Israel, Palestine, and conversations touching on many other parts of the globe. You’ve conducted field research on human rights and race relations in dozens of countries. I wanted to ask if there are developments happening that you think people in the United States are not as aware of in terms of the global rise that people should know about.

Dr. Clarence Lusane 35:06

I think for many people, when they think of fascism, they think historically, and they think these fascist leaders coming to power through violent means, through overthrowing governments. What we’re seeing, though, is that people are coming to power through electoral systems. Once in power, then they exploit, and then often disabuse their constitution or the laws that govern that country. The Spanish have a term for it, autogolpe, which means self coup, which is what Trump tried to do. They get to powers through systems they can exploit, and they never want to leave.

Now, if you were looking at Argentina, you’re looking at Italy, you’re looking at Hungary, you’re looking at Turkey, you’re looking at the Netherlands, in all of these countries, you’re seeing the far right, stepping into electoral politics as kind of their way to power. I sit on a commission, it’s called European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance, that’s part of the Council of Europe, and all of the member states, 46 member states have representatives — we’re all called independent experts. We spend all of our time reviewing every single country in Europe around issues of racism and intolerance, focused on homophobia, transphobia, Islamophobia, and other ways in which hate and intolerance manifest.

I go three or four times a year to the plenary sessions, and I’m bombarded with questions about what’s going on in the U.S., because people read the papers and they see the news, but they can’t even believe some of it. So I end up having many sessions discussing how the norms in the U.S. have been eroded, and how someone like Trump can come to power, can have a base, has almost single handedly taken over one of the major political parties. Then I point to: Well, you know, look at the U.K., look at France, you know, look at these countries where, they’ve had these traditional liberal parties, traditional conservative parties, but doors open up, and you saw these far right forces being able to come in and begin to have an impact. And look at Germany, with the AfD.

There’s a lot of developments that are going on, that require looking at each other and drawing some conclusions about what are the ways to kind of prevent these rises. In the U.S., I think that there are a range of constitutional changes that need to be made, like the Electoral College, for example, needs to go, because it’s the door for someone becoming president who’s not popular. Donald Trump has never won — probably would not again win the popular vote, but he could become president for the second time. We need to reform the U.S. Senate. The way it runs and operates has been undemocratic. With Mitch McConnell stepping down, and probably some MAGA Senator taking his place, if they control the Senate, it will become even less democratic than it is already.

We need to reform how we put people on the Supreme Court. It can’t be the whim of literally one person deciding when someone will go up and when someone can’t go up. I’ve got 20 more changes I want to recommend, but these are areas that have functioned, kind of with norms, kind of with some policies and procedures, but when you really kind of peel back the onion, then you see these, really, problems in terms of how an autocratic anti-democratic force can exploit them.

Sam Goldman 38:55

I want to thank you so much, Dr. Lusane, for coming on, and sharing your expertise, your perspective and your time, with us.

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Last month, the Conservative Political Action Conference welcomed explicit Nazis to their annual convention outside of Washington D.C. Yes, that CPAC, ushered into prominence by Ronald Reagan; that CPAC where Trump made his more or less official entry into national politics in 2011; that CPAC which, during the Trump years, became instrumental in transforming the “conservative” movement into a fascist juggernaut; that CPAC where Trump made his first public appearance after the January 6th insurrection, a triumphant return to his heart and base of support.

This year, CPAC was a little different for a number of reasons, even as more seats sat empty. Even as the halls lacked some of the shine of past few years, the conference brought in and embraced fascists from around the world. From Bolsonaro Junior, Hungary’s ambassador to the U.S., and one of many prime ministers of Great Britain to the current leaders of Argentina and El Salvador alongside their keynote speaker, Donald Trump. We spoke with Amanda Moore, who was there, who got kicked out, who exposed the gleeful embrace between Neo-Nazis and the mainstream of Republi-fascist politics. Here is that conversation.

Last week, I shared a little bit about how CPAC kicked off with pizzagate conspiracist, Jack Posobiec, kicking it off with: Democracy, we’re here to overthrow it completely, and Trump promising to be the crowd’s retribution. But, I left out a lot of things. I did leave out Stephen Miller calling for the border to be sealed, to deport all illegals, to establish large scale staging grounds for removal flights, deputizing the National Guard, and deploying military to the Southern border. And, very importantly, that there were explicit Neo-Nazis that were welcomed at what some call the most mainstream establishment conservative conference.

It’s truly no surprise that a crowd who gives straight up Hitlerian speeches a standing ovation has open Nazis in the crowd, but there’s more to unpack there. So, to discuss that, I am so glad to be joined by Amanda Moore, whose critical journalism exposed the overt Nazi presence at CPAC this year. While the Nazis were welcomed, she was actually kicked out of the conference. I’m really glad to get to hear all about it from her. Amanda is a writer and researcher who focuses on the far right extremism. Welcome, Amanda, thanks for chatting with me.

Amanda Moore 42:22

Thank you for having me.

Sam Goldman 42:24

First, let’s talk about CPAC. Briefly, for those who don’t know what it is, what is it, and who generally participates in it?

Amanda Moore 42:34

It’s the annual conservative gathering. It used to be much smaller. It wasn’t as much of like a big show, always in a smaller venue, and I wouldn’t say it had more normal people, because CPAC was always a little bit of the weirdos, like Ron Paul would go to it. But it’s, over time, gotten more and more circus like, I would say. Maybe they’re trying to imitate Turning Point USA with a smaller budget. So, you’ll have Stephen Miller, you’ll have Steve Bannon now, who was previously banned, you’ll have Nazis now, all kind of hanging out in the same space. It’s usually four days, I think it was three this year, of speeches. There’s an exhibit hall where there’s various vendors, and that’s pretty much it. It’s dying, though. It used to be, in the heyday of Trump, it was very exciting. And especially during COVID, it was huge, because that was the only thing to do. But this year, it was a pretty sad, sad display.

Sam Goldman 43:32

Walk us through what happened this year at CPAC. I know that there had been some word that at the beginning. [Matt] Schlapp [CPAC chair] had said no journalists or something like that. Walk us through what happens there and what your experience was.

Amanda Moore 43:47

First, I want to say I was credentialed media in 2023, and it was not a problem. So, this year, I applied, and they’re so disorganized. They don’t send you a confirmation email when you apply for media. I applied in, like, early January — as soon as you could, I applied for press credentials. Then, four weeks later, I was like: Hmm, maybe I forgot to apply, so I’m gonna do it again. But then I realized I had definitely done it twice — that’s important in a minute. The week before CPAC, I get an email: You’re approved, no problems.

They start sending me the press emails over the next few days, and the Monday before CPAC, I get another email that says you were rejected. I thought, because I’m an idiot, I was like, maybe this is because I applied twice and they just have two different files for it. So I showed up Wednesday for the press check in, and they were like: No, your revoked. But just hours before I had gotten there, Matt Schlapp had gone on Steve Bannon’s show and said: We’re going to deny, or take away press credentials from the left wing propagandists, and if you want to come to the event, you can buy a ticket like everyone else.

So I asked the women working: Can I buy a ticket? And they said: Oh, yeah. And I said: Will I get kicked out?: And they’re like: That’s never happened, so no, you won’t get kicked out. I bought a ticket. The next day, first day of CPAC, I go, and within hours, a security guard named Tim is taking the badge off my neck and saying I have to leave the premises. He means that I can stay at the hotel, the lobby, I can stay at the restaurants, anywhere I wanted, but I could not come back to CPAC.

Sam Goldman 45:14

What rationale was given? You had paid for it.

Amanda Moore 45:16

I was on a red flag list, and I was never to be admitted at all, and it was an error I was ever allowed in the door.

Sam Goldman 45:23

Did this happen to other journalists that you’re aware of?

Amanda Moore 45:25

No, it didn’t. And in fact, Mother Jones, in the middle of CPAC, wrote an article about how they had bought a ticket. Some outlets just chose to not attend. They just didn’t go. But other ones that bought tickets — there was another reporter for a different, far more left outlet, that did not get kicked out, sitting next to me watching me get kicked out.

Sam Goldman 45:45

I wanted to hear from you what happened after that. So you decided not to leave. What did you end up observing, experiencing, in your time kicked out of CPAC in the lobby, in the bar area, wherever else you were allowed to be?

Amanda Moore 46:01

Anywhere you go during CPAC is full of CPAC-ians. Most of the time, I stayed right in the hotel lobby. As soon as I got kicked out, I was sitting there, and I tweeted about it. I of course had to tell my editor: I think the direction for the story has changed, because I will not be talking about the panels. A Nazi that I know walked by. He was like: Hey, I heard you got kicked out. Man, if I get kicked out, I’ll come hang out with you here, and we can start a coalition — an anti-CPAC coalition. And I was like: Ryan, you’re not getting kicked out, you’re gonna be allowed in and he was like: Yeah, I know. And he was — allowed to walk right on in. That was how it has opened up for me [chuckles].

Sam Goldman 46:39

And can you tell listeners a little bit more about what you mean, there were Nazis at CPAC?

Amanda Moore 46:45

Ryan Sanchez, we’ll start with him. He’s the one who is offered to form a coalition with me. He used to be a member of Identity Europa, as you might remember from Unite the Right, and he was also a member of RAM, the racist street fighting gang. He was kicked out of the Marine Corps for being too much of a white nationalist. And this is extremely well known, extremely documented. Ryan has a channel on Cosy, which is Nick Fuentes’ streaming service. He’s friends with Nick Fuentes — streams on his service. That’s what we’re talking about here. And he’s allowed into CPAC.

Last year at CPAC, Ryan and some of his friends surrounded me and called me a slut for six minutes on a live stream. This year, they were a little bit more low key in their harassment than the slut circle. Another one of Ryan’s friends, his name is Colton Buss — he actually just got kicked out of the Young Republican club for being a Nazi — he was happy to show me the backgrounds on his phone were swastikas and other Hitler imagery. He asked me to recite the 14 words… [in the voice of Buss] I’m not a Groyper. I’m not a Nick Fuentes Acolyte, you know, I’m more extreme than that. And he also had a ticket to CPAC and was also allowed inside CPAC, no problems.

Sam Goldman 47:59

In the video that you posted, I believe that there’s at least four men in this video, and they are basically taunting you — I don’t know another way to describe that — by sieg heil-ing around you. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience.

Amanda Moore 48:19

So, in the video, Ryan’s the one saluting. Colton is the one taking the photo, and those are the two that have CPAC access. There were two other men. One is Greg Conte, who was Richard Spencer’s bodyguard at Unite the Right. I feel like that says enough about him right there. Then, the other was somebody else who was involved in the NPI circles and National Justice Party, [uncertain name], or I think about the I think the last name he goe by is Vandal. They did not have tickets to CPAC, but they were in the the physical hotel.

When Nick Fuentes was kicked out of CPAC, last year — I watched it happen — he had to leave the room he had in the hotel. He was removed off the premises, so I don’t know what the difference is there, but I know they could have just went after the “sieg heil.” It’s a lot of discussion: “culture wars” this. “Why don’t I have any white babies?” that. Hitler — that kind of stuff. The normal things you talk about with Nazis. And that was when Ryan was like: We should take a picture, and I was like: We should not take a picture. So I just had my head down, my middle finger up because I don’t want to be in a photo with a Nazi. So I did not know that he had done the salute at the time, because when you post the photo, that’s not what he was doing the photo. Their group had people coming and going, but those were like the four core ones that were standing there.

Sam Goldman 49:31

When this became known, what was the reaction at CPAC? They weren’t removed. Do you know their level of participation in the conference? The degree that other people were interacting with them? What response CPAC made towards having overt Nazis at the conference?

Amanda Moore 49:51

The guy who took the video posted it Saturday night, and the conference ended Saturday — posted at 10:30pm. I was tagged in it and I sent it to a few people that I talked to throughout CPAC. One of them is the NBC journalist who posted it everywhere without having context or my name. So CPAC was done at this point, which is probably why he waited to post it until then. Matt Schlapp primarily was ignoring me — before I published my article, I sent a detailed list of questions, I think it was about 40, including things like — because he says there were no Nazis at CPAC — I said: Well, do you consider sieg heil-ing to be an expression of Neo-Nazi beliefs? Things like that. He never got back… never got back to me. Eventually, after the article I wrote was out, Matt Schlapp sub-tweeted me instead of addressing me — very cowardly. So I quote-tweeted him and I said: Why are you free to talk to me, Matt? And I asked him again about all the Nazis, and he said: I love Israel. So that’s where Matt is. He loves Israel and the Bible, and there were no Nazis.

Sam Goldman 49:59

And that was the only response from [him].

Amanda Moore 50:24

Yeah [laughing]. It’s crazy. There’s a video of it.

Sam Goldman 50:49

I wanted to get your take on how you would describe the relationship between these explicit Neo-Nazis and the more mainstream fascists running the show, and ostensibly filling the seats at CPAC.

Amanda Moore 51:13

I have written a lot about Groypers or generic Hitler fans within young Republican clubs or within state GOPs. This was fascinating because some of my young Republicans I write about were at this event. I don’t know what happens inside CPAC, I honestly can’t speak to people who are over 50. I have no idea how. I was removed right away, and even if I hadn’t been, I really wouldn’t know much about the average person who’s going to be there.

But what I do know is that I watched as the members of the Young Republican clubs that I write about that are known to be more extreme — New York, D.D., a lot of the ones in Texas — they’re there, and they’re going to parties with Ryan Sanchez, who, again, was kicked out of the Marines for being too much of a racist. In terms of what I cover, all of those things that are supposed to be mainstream, were absolutely converging with the Nazis. I mean, it was just happening everywhere. Every time I saw all these people, they were all getting to know one another, I guess.

Sam Goldman 52:19

Do you have any thoughts on why it is that overt Nazis mingling at CPAC has not been really a major story that keeps getting, not just hammered at, but further exposed?

Amanda Moore 52:32

I can tell you when I pitched stories to editors, not about this, but I say: Hey, this guy in the GOP, he’s friends with Nick Fuentes — he’s a Nazi and he’s getting billionaire money. They say: Everybody knows there’s Nazis in the GOP — no one cares. And I’m like: I don’t think that’s true. I think a lot of people don’t understand that. So I don’t know. You have to ask an editor, not me. My personal opinion, and I’m obviously biased because I’m in it, but I think it’s a powerful video if you especially understand the context.

The implicit endorsement is that Schlapp and CPAC and ACU are okay with literal Neo-Nazis not only being at their event, but harassing the journalists who would cover them — and honestly, covering it and not saying that it’s a journalist they’re harassing, that’s running cover for Nazis too, as far as I think. So, I have no idea. I wish I knew, because then I’d be able to sell my fucking stories. But I don’t know.

Sam Goldman 53:29

I really appreciate that, and then the context that you are providing on exactly why this should be a bigger story and more covered. As we close out our chat, I just wanted to find out if there’s anything related to what your research focuses on that you think, right now, people are totally missing, not paying attention to or getting all wrong, that you want to either clarify or get people to start paying attention to.

Amanda Moore 53:57

Well, I’ve got some stuff coming out about Texas and the border, and what Abbott is doing at Eagle Pass. I think that — everybody knew about the convoy, and it was a joke. I went with the convoy — it was a joke, it was awful. What is happening in Eagle Pass, Texas, it’s been a long term plan of the fringe far right in the Texas GOP, and they have been slowly taking over the Republican Party of Texas. I think it’s gonna be be jumping. I think what is happening at Eagle Pass, what Abbott is doin;, he’s not just doing it for fun.

I think it’s more serious than that, and I think that this coalition of states that are trying to buck the federal government in an election year is probably something we should all be keeping an eye on, especially considering the kinds of people that have been pushing for this very conflict between the state of Texas and the federal government at Eagle Pass. It’s been a long time coming.

Sam Goldman 54:51

Thanks so much for that reminder, and it’s something that we’re gonna keep talking about on the show for sure. I want to thank you you, Amanda, for talking with me, for sharing your experience, your perspective and your time. Where do you want to direct people who want to read more from you, hear more from you?

Amanda Moore 55:12

I’m on all social media — Twitter, mostly, but also Threads, Bluesky, Mastodon, Facebook, Tumblr, I think, as @noturtlesoup17, and then I have a Substack at TurtleDiaries.net

Sam Goldman 55:26

Thanks so much. We’ll be sure to link to those.

Amanda Moore 55:28

Thank you.

Sam Goldman 55:30

Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism. Yeah, Trump can win. Fascism can seize and consolidate power. But the operative word here is ‘can’. That doesn’t mean that it is inevitable. It doesn’t mean it will. The future is unwritten. Which one we get is up to us — right now. Share this podcast with one, five or 5,000 people you know, because we can do every little thing in our power to escape reality, or we can take action to wake people up to this reality. We can keep the peace with fascists and their enablers and people can’t find it in themselves to give a damn, or we can build up strong communities among people who share our values, who together recognize the threat of 21st century fascism, who encourage each other to take action to change the course of history. It’s up to all of us.

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