Episode 277
One year into Trump 2.0: what we face in the Trump regime is fascism. Sam talks to human rights lawyer and writer Qasim Rashid (follow his work on Substack at qasimrashid.com), and we share analysis and orientation for activists and everyone newly inspired to act for humanity from Coco Das, member of the Refuse Fascism leadership group.
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Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown
Episode 277 One Year of Trump Lawless Murder and Boundless Terror
Sun, Jan 18, 2026 4:06PM • 1:02:10
Qasim Rashid 00:00
What distinguishes a functioning democratic republic from a fascist state is due process of law. Where an innocent woman can be sitting in her car, their dog in the backseat, and be smiling and waving ICE agents by and then casually driving and getting shot in the face at point blank range, this is a fundamental denial of due process, and it’s violent and offensive. In addition to Renee’s horrific murder that she suffered, we also have to remember that last year was the deadliest year in the last two decades of the number of people killed by ICE. It’s correct to call out Trump’s fascism. It’s absolutely correct, and the conversation can’t stop there. We need to understand that he did not happen in a vacuum. He’s a result of decades of systemic injustice. We can talk about the solutions, but we can’t really have a meaningful understanding of the solutions, unless we understand what got us here in the first place.
Sam Goldman 01:04
Welcome to episode 277 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 works to unite all who can be united in mass, relentless, nonviolent resistance to drive the Trump fascist regime from power. This week, we’re sharing an excerpt of my Substack live interview with human rights attorney Qasim Rashid and a presentation that Coco Das, a member of the Refuse Fascism leadership group, gave to organizers earlier this week.
Before we get started, a quick thank you to everyone who rates and reviews the podcast, picks up merch, supports us on Patreon and subscribes on Substack. That support really does make this work possible. If you’re listening and you don’t do those things yet, now’s a good time after listening, rate the show, grab some merch, become a patron or subscribe. It all helps us keep building this platform, getting the demand: Trump Must Go Now! — out there, along with the organization that is pivotal to realizing that demand, Refuse Fascism, getting it out exactly where it needs to go. All right, let’s get into it.
Sam Goldman 02:20
This week will mark one full year since Donald Trump returned to power — 365 days of fascism, advancing, raids, threats, purges, pardons, terror — testing how far this regime can go, and then going further. Right now in this country, things are being decided fast. Not in Congress, and not at some future election. They’re being decided in the streets, in how much people are willing to accept before they say: Enough!
This week, in Minnesota, Trump’s ICE Gestapo continued to unleash outright fascist terror. ICE agents shot a person point blank in the face with so called, “less lethal ammunition,” fracturing their skull and blinding them in one eye. They fired into a home with children inside, shot a man in the leg, gassed a six month old baby, and went door to door, demanding people present their papers. They did this while squashing any investigation into Renee Nicole Good’s murder, and launching an investigation into Renee’s widow, along with the DOJ investigating Governor Waltz and Mayor Frey. In Minneapolis, career lawyers inside Trump’s own Justice Department resigned because of the DOJ ‘s refusal to even investigate the ICE officer who killed Renee Good — something that normally happens automatically after a fatal law enforcement shooting.
At the same time, Trump is ripping away protections, ending Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants, threatening to cut off all federal funding to states that have sanctuary cities starting February 1, and even floating revoking citizenship from naturalized immigrants. Then, Trump goes on Truth Social ranting about Minnesota, warning that, “a day of reckoning and retribution is coming.” But all this has failed to break people’s resistance. People continue to courageously protest anyway in the streets of Minnesota.
So now, Trump is threatening to invoke the insurrection act and send in the military. Fascism: raw power, brute force, used openly by decree. At the same time, Trump is openly attacking the very idea of elections. In a closed door interview with Reuters, Trump said the United States, “shouldn’t even have an election in 2026,” because he expects his party to lose. This is at least the second time this month he has floated canceling the midterms. So let’s be clear: Fascism, it’s here. It is in the streets of Minneapolis. It is in the White House. It is threatening people across the country and people around the world.
I’ve just got to stop for a minute and give cheers to the people of Denmark, to the people of Greenland, to the people throughout that region that have taken to the streets in protest of Trump’s threats. We are far past the point of relying on politicians, on courts, or future elections to stop this. The Trump regime must be driven from power, and nothing short of massive, relentless, nonviolent protest by the people can do this. As long as Trump stays in power, this only goes one way: harder, faster, more violent, more repressive.
That’s why it’s not enough to say “No Hate, No Fear, Immigrants are Welcome Here,” as necessary and righteous as that is. It’s why it’s not enough, even though it is so inspiring to see people demanding ICE Out! You cannot stop ICE Gestapo terror without stopping the fascist who unleashes it. Let’s be clear: Waiting for the midterms is not a plan. The crimes of this regime, they’re happening now. Look at how far and how quickly they have gone. Look at all the lives already stolen, all the rights already ripped away, all the norms that have been shredded, the rule of law that has already been trampled, the courts that have already become bludgeons, and the mass terror and cruelty that has been unleashed nationwide.
The more vulnerable Trump is, the more he pushes, the more he escalates. Trump has already shown us who he is, if you somehow did not know after the previous four years he was in power, this is who he is. He shows us every day. He screams it at us as he pardons insurrectionists, as he green lights lawless violence, as he says the only limit on his power is his own morality, as he floats canceling elections. January 6th wasn’t a one off. It was a rehearsal.
Even in the best case electoral scenario, without millions of people in the streets, institutional power would be hollow. Trump would bulldoze the opposition, rule by fiat, backed by force. Elections that may never happen, or happen under grave repression, cannot be the horizon of our strategy. So we have to talk about where our power actually is. Tyrants only fall when millions of people refuse to go along, when they shut down business as usual, withdraw their consent, when they create a political crisis so deep that the despot cannot govern. That’s why removal of the Trump fascist regime has to be the aim, has to be our goal. The decent people in this country, the people who do not want to live in a fascist America, are more than half the country. The problem is not our numbers. It’s making our numbers visible in the streets relentlessly.
There is a way to defeat this together, but we have to act, and we have to act now, people who’ve dedicated their lives to serving others — teachers, nurses, doctors, researchers — refusing to comply with fascist decrees backed up by millions who have their backs. Students and young people whose entire future is on the line, turning schools and campuses into the centers of resistance, filling the streets. Women and LGBTQ people furious at being erased and controlled bringing that defiance into the public square. People of color and everyone sick to death of white supremacy, refusing to go back, bringing generations of resistance into this fight. Artists, writers, clergy, scholars, lawyers, speaking in many voices to say, No, enough! Trump Must Go Now! — and bringing those voices into the struggle.
Millions and millions of us flooding the town squares, the streets of the big cities, not allowing business as usual, when that business is cementing fascist rule and forcing a degrading morality down our throats. Many voices, many bodies, one clear, unwavering demand: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now! It’s how we can create a political crisis, one so deep that this regime cannot govern, cannot impose its fascist program, and cannot even hold on to power. Once more: Waiting for the next election will be too late, and we cannot rely on a Democratic Party that clings to norms and processes this regime shreds by the hour.
So, No! No to waiting, and yes to organizing and struggling as we never have before. Yes to uniting all who can be united across differences, drawing on courage, righteous fury and a willingness to sacrifice comfort for the greater good of all of humanity, because we — we are a force powerful enough to defeat Trump/MAGA fascism, and we need to manifest that strength this week. Tuesday, January 20 marks one full year since the Trump regime took power, one year of accelerating fascist rule, terror against immigrants, contempt for the rule of law, and open threats against humanity itself.
A year is long enough to know what this is, long enough to see the direction, to feel the momentum, long enough to stop pretending it will somehow correct itself. There are only two paths forward. There will either be a fascist America or we will defeat fascism. It’s not rhetoric, just reality, and that makes this our responsibility and our moment to act in a way that actually changes history for the better, which is why Tuesday, January 20, has to be met with mass collective action. The streets must be flooded nationwide, demanding: The Trump fascist regime Must Go Now! The Women’s March and others have called for 2:00 p.m. walkouts nationwide. Find a protest near you. Bring others with you. Protest, walk out, shut it down.
Because above all else, fascists fear people acting together in the streets. Now really is the time we have to defeat this before it becomes too late, not once they consolidate and all the space, all the room for resistance, for dissent, is gone. Now, not when the damage is irreversible. So let’s be done with normalization, done with hoping someone else handles it, and take to the streets this Tuesday. And, on Friday, January 23, community labor and faith leaders in Minneapolis are organizing a day of truth and freedom, the statewide general strike with no work, no school, no shopping, and a mass march and rally to demand ICE be driven out and human rights be restored. Encourage folks to join that action and raise the demand: Trump Must Go Now! — to declare: In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America! Because we have to grapple with this honestly.
Right now, tens of thousands of people are in motion. They’re outraged, they’re brave, they’re willing to take risks, but what we demand when we’re in the streets matters. If tens of thousands are in the streets saying, ICE Out Now!, that’s righteous, as I said before, and it should happen, but it leaves the center of gravity untouched. It leaves the regime intact, even if it were a realizable demand with Trump in power. Imagine what it would mean if those same tens of thousands in city after city and town after town were united around one clear demand: The whole Trump fascist regime Must Go Now! That could change everything. It would move from challenging atrocity to challenging power.
It doesn’t ask the regime to stop. It says you have no right to rule. That kind of demand concentrates outrage. It clarifies sides. It forces everyone, institutions, media, political actors, to respond to that question. What’s missing right now is alignment around the demand that meets the moment, that has the power to end this. Here’s the truth we need to sit with: Nothing else will stop this regime while it remains in power; not elections down the road, not court rulings they ignore, not reforms they can reverse. Only mass, sustained, nonviolent resistance aimed at removing the regime itself can change the trajectory we’re on. It means something very concrete for all of us.
It means stepping out of comfort. It means refusing to fragment into a hundred separate fights. It means tens of thousands becoming hundreds of thousands, very quickly, becoming millions, not only protesting, but returning again and again, escalating our non violent resistance. So the question isn’t whether people care enough. The question is whether we’re willing to demand what could actually change things and put some skin in the game. Get the demand, Trump Must Go Now! everywhere this week: flyers, posters, stickers, banners. Find them at RefuseFascism.org. Get the People’s Indictment of Donald Trump, a Unified Declaration of Illegitimacy, out everywhere, through your community and on your campus. And if you can donate to fuel organizing protests and the infrastructure this takes with that.
Here’s an excerpt of my conversation with Qasim Rashid.
I’m Sam Goldman. I’m the host of the Refuse Fascism podcast, and I am really, really honored to talk today with Qasim Rashid. You know him, you love him from Let’s Address This. From Venezuela to the streets of Minneapolis, the Trump regime is acting without any pretense of law, using violence, overt terror to enforce a fascist program of white supremacy, xenophobia and patriarchy. Fascism is not a threat that’s in the future, it’s here, it’s unfolding. The last days illegal bombing, the kidnapping of a foreign president, threats against sovereign nations, the celebration of the January 6th insurrection, and the killing of a civilian Renee Nicole Good in the streets, should end any remaining complacency. Because of all this, I am so glad to be joined by Qasim Rashid to talk about what lines have already been crossed, what all of this means for rule based order, for the rule of law, and what we need to do now to confront this fascist regime we face in real time. So welcome, Qasim. Thanks so much for joining.
Qasim Rashid 14:51
Oh, great to be here, Sam. Thank you for having me. I think we need to have this conversation and start to take more meaningful action. So always a privilege to connect with folks who are actively fighting fascism right now.
Sam Goldman 15:01
Likewise. What I so appreciate in your work is that you’re consistently bridging that gap. There’s exposure and what’s happening and why it’s happening, and always lifting up and amplifying ways that people are resisting and need to be resisting. So I really appreciate that. Including — I’m going to give a plug for your latest piece — I think it’s 13 things to do to know when you’re going out and protesting. I highly recommend people check that out. It’s really important information.
Qasim Rashid 15:29
Thank you. I forget sometimes, that, because I do this stuff for a living, as a human rights lawyer, this stuff is second nature to me, but it’s always important to kind of revisit these basic things that seem basic, but actually you don’t know, unless you know. I try to break it down to really simple, bite sized actions you can take that can significantly improve your safety, the safety of your loved ones, and that if things do go south, improve your chances of emerging with minimal harm or no harm.
Sam Goldman 15:46
Really appreciate that. Here we are. It’s been five years since the January 6th coup attempt. Trump was impeached but not convicted. Garland never indicted him. The Supreme Court effectively cleared the way for his return, and Trump, as one of his first acts, pardons the participants and rewrote the history [QR: yeah] of that day from the White House. As a lawyer, as someone who’s been really studying this: How did January 6th shape everything that followed? How has that day shaped basically everything that’s happened since then, when it comes to Trump fascism?
Qasim Rashid 16:35
The important thing to remember here is that this Trump fascism that we’re seeing right now didn’t start on January 6th. I would argue it started way back at Nixon. If you really want to go way back, I would argue that it started when the South wasn’t adequately punished for the civil war. There was no real accountability there, no consequences. If anything, they were able to insert poison pills into the 13th Amendment to perpetuate slavery, insert poison pills into our civil rights laws that delayed them by over a century. That even to this day, inserted poison pills into our Voting Rights Act, where for Black Americans, voting rights need to be renewed every couple of decades, and if they’re not renewed, then Black people don’t get voting rights.
This is a part and parcel of what’s been a sustained system of injustice, of white supremacy, for much of American history, if not all of American history. Post 1965 civil rights, you saw like a ten, twelve year span of a left leaning Supreme Court, where you began to see some significant pieces of legislation pass and then be upheld by the Supreme Court. But once the Reagan era began, it’s been a vicious downward spiral, because Reagan — and I will argue with anybody about this and prove it with receipts — Reagan and Trump are basically carbon copies of one another. The difference is that Reagan was just more eloquent and well spoken than Trump.
You want to talk about how Trump is demonizing Somalis right now? Reagan came up with the Black welfare queen trope. You want to talk about how Trump is cutting taxes for billionaires? Reagan was the original trickle down scam where we’ve got to cut taxes for the super wealthy and took the marginal tax rate from 70% down to 27% — capital gains from 40% down to 20%. You want to talk about foreign interventionism and bombing other countries? We know Reagan and the Iran Contra. We know his arming of the Mujahideen.
So when people say: Well, Trump is just this new phenomenon — no. No, this is who Reagan was, and Trump is just taking it to its conclusion. What we saw on January 6th is the inevitable result of that. I brought up Nixon because Nixon was a president who committed a crime, faced no accountability, was pardoned for it, and then since then, you have Bush waging two illegal wars, committing actual war crimes, facing no accountability, Obama letting the CIA torturers go without any accountability. Trump and we saw the war crimes he committed. He killed U.S. citizens, as did Obama, with drone strikes when he was president, no accountability. Biden arming Netanyahu, contrary to the advice of his own State Department, saying that he is committing war crimes, no accountability.
So what I point out is that it’s correct to call out Trump’s fascism. It’s absolutely correct, and the conversation can’t stop there. We need to understand that he didn’t happen in a vacuum. He’s a result of decades of systemic injustice. We can talk about the solutions, but we can’t really have a meaningful understanding of the solutions unless we understand what got us here in the first place.
Sam Goldman 19:16
I think that’s really important, and I think that there also can be a lot of rich disagreement on both the source and the legacy of how far you want to go back on where the seeds of this fascism are. I appreciate all the examples that you lifted up. I think, personally, a country founded in slavery and genocide has this deep, deep in its roots. Yet we could disagree on that and still very much agree that what we are seeing right now is fascism, and we all have to unite to defeat that now, for any positive future that we want to see. [QR: That’s correct.]
I’m seeing, rightly so, people confronting a lot of this in a new way, post the horrific murder of Renee Nicole Good, and I just wanted to talk to you about it Qasim, because I think that this killing really is a turning point. You have an ICE agent gunning down, killing, in broad daylight, someone, during a raid, as part of their overall terrorizing and brutalizing of immigrants and whole communities. The federal government’s response, this regime’s response, immediately, was justifying the killing and the blame was shifted onto the protesters, the community, her wife, rather than the shooter.
I wanted to get your thinking, historically, legally. Qasim, what line do you see being crossed when the State’s deploying these masked men to terrorize, to brutalize, to kidnap, to kill a civilian — when the regime then publicly defends, slanders the victim, goes to seek charges for the wife and not the murderer. At this point, what should people understand about how far along the road to fascism we already are, and what illusions about restraint from this regime should be abandoned?
Qasim Rashid 21:10
Yeah, they don’t have any restraint. They’re sprinting full speed ahead. I wrote about this a couple of days ago, that while we are all rightly outraged at the cold blooded murder of Renee Good, in addition to Renee’s horrific murder that she suffered and her family suffering, we have to also remember that last year was the deadliest year in the last two decades of the number of people killed by ICE. Just a week before Renee Good was killed, a young Black father, 43 years old, Keith Porter, was killed in cold blood by an off duty ICE agent.
There are thirty five examples, and the vast majority are Black and brown people. So it’s a very systemic and coordinated attack on people. This is why I say that the whole second amendment argument, that we need unlimited guns to protect ourselves from government tyranny, that’s a b.s. argument. That’s not why you want unlimited guns. You want unlimited guns because you want to advance white supremacy. Because, I’ll tell you what: If it really was about protecting against government tyranny, what you’re watching right now — with the government raiding the streets, raiding innocent people, torturing U.S. citizens, making women suffer miscarriages in their gulags, more than 200 US citizens have been arrested and tortured, veterans have been deported — if it was about tyranny, this would be the time for you to step up. But it’s not about that, because, for the most part, they’re targeting Black and brown people.
Here in the Chicagoland area where I live, ICE’s own data admits that more than 97% of the people that they have targeted and arrested had no criminal record, whatsoever — 97%. It’s completely asinine. It’s insufferable. I’m just shocked that people still think that this is about due process of law; this is about keeping our country safe. But when I say people, I mean the people who aren’t MAGA. I think folks in the MAGA cult still believe, or that’s what they’ve convinced themselves, or they’re trying to avoid the fact that this is a racist endeavor, because they’re targeting Black and brown people, and 97%, 98% almost, are innocent. I’m talking about corporate Democrats.
I was so disappointed watching like Amy Klobuchar, Alyssa Slotkin, two corporate Democrats from Minnesota and Michigan respectively, that their response was that: Well, both sides. They “both sides” the argument. You have an armed agent of the state step in front of the vehicle, then step to the side and shoot and kill a mother, with her spouse right there, with plushies in the glove compartment for God’s sake, and rather than say this is horrific and wrong, they’re both sides-ing it?
I’m sorry, with spineless, feckless politicians like these who needs MAGA Republicans at this point? For those who are frustrated and angry, channel that rage, put your efforts, your dollars, your time, your resources, your networks, behind the people who are actually going to be fighting for justice unapologetically, and get behind them. Because now is the time we can make a change.
Sam Goldman 23:45
I see so much potential in this moment at the same time that I see in no possible universe can you say that Trump’s imploding, that the regime’s on its last breath, that this isn’t a time to be extremely frightened for all of humanity. [QR: yeah] But I often see, as somebody from Minnesota was saying, ICE is tackling and grabbing the observers today, their violence against all has escalated — yes, that is very real, and I think that we are in a moment of so much potential. There are so many people from all across the country who detest, who are disgusted, by everything that this regime is doing, and that includes people in power.
But right now, people are way too on the defensive, and they are too much looking for a proxy in power to do the job that we have to do. Personally, I think that now is the time to act, that it is righteous and just so important, all the actions that people are taking, the walkouts, the shutdowns that are planned, all of that is so important, and it needs to be aimed, in my opinion, at the removal of the Trump fascist regime. This is a time where, yes, there are people in power right now who are not acting, but they can be compelled and enabled to act to legitimately remove Trump, through our actions. But it’s not going to happen through a one off protest. It really needs to be all of society raising this demand again and again and again. This is how we know that tyrants have been removed around the world. This is what’s needed in this country, too.
Qasim Rashid 25:22
To your exact point, your really beautiful point, Sam: We have this mass movement of people start to organize and activate now in whatever we decide to do, whether it’s a general strike, whether it is just shutting down Trump’s fascism. I want governors to contrive a plan to stop paying federal taxes if Trump is going to cut off SNAP and TANF. Because now the federal government is failing in its obligation, so we’re absolved from obligation as well. Let’s come up with these creative legal arguments and act on them. But that only happens if you have fighters. It’s not gonna happen with these complicit, corporate funded politicians. We need public service from our fighters. That’s what we should be pushing for right now.
Sam Goldman 25:55
I wanted to return to some of what we were talking about regarding the rule of law and how that shapes, really, a lot of what we are seeing, both what Trump’s doing domestically and around the world. Over the past four years, the Supreme Court has essentially upended the integrity and legitimacy of the rule of law in the United States. In his first term, Trump packed the federal judiciary with fascists and fascist collaborators.
I think it was Sunday, the New York Times came out with analysis that Trump’s superstar appellate judges have voted 133 to 12 in his favor, saying his judges have formed a nearly united phalanx to advance his agenda. Now Vance is saying ICE agents have absolute immunity. We see Greg Bovino breaking down doors in Minneapolis without judicial warrants. As a lawyer, what does this mean for our functional constitutional system? At what point do we say: No, this isn’t just a U.S. legal system with a strained constitutional system — and start recognizing it as a legal architecture for a fascist state?
Qasim Rashid 27:05
What distinguishes a functioning democratic republic from a fascist state? The fundamental defining feature is due process of law — that the government cannot take away your rights without due process of law. This is defined in the Constitution and been elaborated upon throughout American history by numerous Supreme Court precedents; law after law after law. It’s mentioned, I think, at least three times in the Constitution. Due process of law basically says this: If I want to say that Sam committed a crime in a fascist dictatorship, I can say Sam committed a crime and throw Sam in prison forever.
In a democratic republic like what we have, if I say Sam committed a crime, I have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt, and a jury of Sam’s peers have to convict Sam to say: Yes, we agree Sam committed a crime. That evidence has to be public, that trial has to be public. Sam must be given not only an opportunity, but legal counsel to defend Sam’s interests and Sam’s assets and anything that Sam has domain over. What’s happening right now with the denial of due process, where 97% of people arrested have committed no crime whatsoever, where an innocent woman can be sitting in her car — someone mentioned the comments, with her dog in the backseat — and be smiling and waving ICE agents by and then casually driving and getting shot in the face at point blank range, this is a fundamental denial of due process. It’s violent and offensive because there’s no line of what the limit is.
Where is the line that we’re going to draw? The point I try to make when I bring up things like Venezuela and Palestine and Iran, is: Whenever you think of any of these places, or the Venezuelan boats that are being blown up, whatever you think of any of these situations, once you allow the denial of due process and its replacement with violent blunt force, then you’ve opened Pandora’s box, and there’s no closing that. There’s no closing that, because what is the line at that point? With due process, there’s a line. There’s a very clear line. I cannot take away Sam’s rights unless I have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sam committed illegal acts.
But if all that’s required is that I’ve got more muscle than you, well then we’re in big trouble. Because guess what? All that’s required to respond is somebody with even more muscle. That is what leads to war, that’s what leads to revolution, that’s what leads to a lot of death and destruction. So we have entered a very dangerous space right now, and I need folks to understand this is not left versus right. These culture wars, where they want us to think that our enemy is the immigrant or the trans athlete, or the single mom who maybe is on SNAP, or single dad who’s on Section Eight. These aren’t your enemies. These are your neighbors. These are your family members.
I’ll be very clear about this: Your enemy is a billionaire oligarch who is trying to convince you that the person who is an immigrant down the street is your enemy. Your enemies are the Elon Musks, the Peter Thiels of the world who are trying to demonize anyone not like them. I don’t know if people saw the recent clip where Donald Trump said: You know, it might be controversial. I don’t care if it is, but we got a lot of bad people, and some of them are born here. They’re citizens, and we got to deport them.
We got to get them the hell out of here — He’s talking about citizens who oppose him, to get them out here. Do you think he cares about due process at this point? Do you think he cares about any conservative? If a conservative decides: You know what, that’s a bridge too far for me. I’m not. I can’t do that — guess what? you’re next on the hit list. So that’s why it’s so dangerous. That’s why I’m begging and pleading with my friends on the right that I’m not your enemy and you’re not my enemy. I don’t see you as my enemy.
I see you as misguided under a guy who doesn’t care about you the same way he doesn’t care about me and I want us to stand together because we can still have our own personal beliefs and differences and whatnot, and I can support reproducible health access, and you can be anti-abortion, and that’s fine with me, as long as you apply it only to yourself. Because that’s how this country should function. If we don’t make a decision quickly on this, I feel like if we’re not already past it, we’re about to pass a point of no return, and there’s no peaceful way to return from that. That’s the dangerous part.
Sam Goldman 30:42
I think that what you’re saying about that window, that’s getting narrower and narrower, of that time to act and rip the future out of the grip of these fascists, I think, is really heavy and worth sitting in. We, meaning the decent people in this country, have to confront that the people who feel this way are not the majority, but there is a base in this country that sees that murder and sees that as something worth celebrating — that doesn’t just condone the violence, but celebrates it, that celebrates the dehumanization of our immigrant siblings, that celebrates the brutality and the thug mentality of ICE that looks at it and says: more please — that doesn’t feel the gut punch that we should feel when after murdering, uses the ‘b’ word [QR: yeah] to talk about person you just killed.
There are people who celebrate that. The more we try to get those people — which are not everyone, but those really hard core MAGA forces, the more we try to peel them away — the more energy we spend trying to find common ground with them, is energy that we are not spending standing up for our immigrant siblings standing up for our LGBTQ siblings, standing up for humanity and the planet. That’s something I know we can change. I know we can shift our energy. Which doesn’t mean that we stop talking to people. It just means that we direct where we put our energy.
Qasim Rashid 32:18
I wanted to answer one question somebody said: What recourse to the people of Minnesota have when these ICE agents bang on the door yelling for them to open it, can they call the police for help? So couple things: The only time when these ICE fascists can enter your home is if they have a judicial signed warrant that says they can enter your home. Short of that, they can’t. I want to be very clear about this, because what’s happening right now is ICE agents, ICE fascists, are running around with two things that are not signed, judicial warrants.
One, they have unsigned judicial warrants. A judicial warrant that is not signed is as valuable as the piece of paper or the napkin you use to wipe your mouth after lunch. So if it’s not signed, you don’t have to. The second thing is what’s called an ICE detainer. This is a form signed by an ICE supervisor saying that, yes, this person committed some crime, and we’re here to arrest them. An ICE detainer is also as valuable as toilet paper, but actually less valuable, because at least toilet paper has a good use to it. This is something that is not even suited to be toilet paper. It should be thrown in the trash immediately.
So if, god forbid, these ICE fascists are banging on your door, your very simple question is: “Do you have a signed judicial warrant?” If the answer is, “no,” you can tell them to pound sand and tell them to leave, and they have no recourse. If they still do something horrific like break down your door, then I assure you calling 911, is not gonna help you at that point. So let’s hope it does not come to that at that point in time. This is why I wrote “The 13 things to do to protect yourself.” This is where you do not speak to them. You ask for a lawyer. That’s it. You don’t offer any information. You don’t confess anything.
Because, remember, they can lie to you. This is law in America. This is how jacked up the situation is that law enforcement can lie to you to get information out of you. You cannot lie to them. There should never be a circumstance where you’re lying to law enforcement, and the best way to not lie to law enforcement is just to not speak. Simply say: I want my lawyer. They could ask you a million questions, and every single answer should be: “That’s a great question. I want my lawyer.” And that’s it. That’s all you should say.
Sam Goldman 34:16
It’s so good to see this legal education that people are getting, unfortunately, in real time — how so many people were right along with you saying what to do. This is an understanding that we need to be spreading. This is really important, and it’s important that people know what their rights are and fight for them, even as this regime has made clear, they don’t care about the rights and lives of people. So we have to hold those two realities at once [QR: That’s right.] to continue to struggle to have the rights that are enshrined in the Constitution and laws that are on the books to be upheld, and to know that this regime is out to run roughshod over it all. That’s tricky, to do both.
Whatever we thought was normal really, under fascism already, died on a snowy Minnesota street with Renee Nicole Good. We are now in a place where speaking out could mean risking your life. So we really have to get people on the footing to act now, to act together, to really unite everybody in the sustained nonviolent movement, the civil uprising we need, demanding the removal of this regime. Because the longer that it stays in place, the more locked in it becomes, and the harder it is to change things.
I wanted to ask you about the connection between the lawless terror on the world and the lawless terror on the streets, and where you see them coming together, because a lot of people, not from a place of malice or disregard, have talked about Venezuela, the threats on Colombia, Mexico and Greenland and at least the whole hemisphere, as distractions. I’m seeing that the regime is using an openly illegal regime change logic abroad, and I’m wondering, how do you see that same logic translate into how this regime views domestic political opposition; immigrants, protesters, dissidents?
Qasim Rashid 36:17
I think we’ve already kind of seen the result of injustice in this space, and the connection between the two. My member of Congress, this corporate Democrat who’s voted with Republicans on horrific pieces of legislation that gut the ACA, to remove disability rights, because, as we know, people with disabilities have way too much power in this country and need to be brought in check, to offshore drill… the guy is basically a MAGA Republican, but pretends he’s a Democrat, because it’s a deep blue seat — just an insufferable human being — today called for Trump to not invade Venezuela. I responded back to him: You see how easy that was?
Where was this energy when Biden was funding Netanyahu to commit genocide in Palestine, or when Trump was bombing all these countries? — seven different countries. You don’t get to be selective with human rights. You don’t get to be selective with our Constitution, with due process of law. I joked about this earlier, but what has become of the FIFA peace prize that you can bomb seven countries and still win? But it’s like you have to joke. Somebody mentioned in the comments, USAID [cuts by DOGE] is expected to kill 14 million people by 2030 it’s already killed 730,000 by scholarly estimates. And right now, Trump is cutting off SNAP to Minnesota based off of the fraudulent reporting of a right wing propagandist who is funded by billionaires and in coordination with the Republican Party.
So this is all manufactured. By the way, let me just pause for a minute. If you haven’t already subscribed to Sam, you need to, because what we’re seeing with the corporate media environment is the sanitization of white supremacy, of fascism, and we need to empower those journalists and activists who are speaking truth to power. Tell me if I’m wrong here. But I would venture to guess that you are not funded by multi billionaires. You’re funded by we the people, and that you’re not gonna sell us out. You’re not gonna come in tomorrow and be like: We should invade Greenland. That doesn’t happen by accident. So if you haven’t already subscribed to her, please do. Because at the end of the day, we need to support these kinds of independent voices, and Sam is an excellent example of that.
Now, I digress, back to my point, that it’s critical we understand that our foreign policy and our domestic policy are gonna be connected, because it’s the same people writing both. There’s a — can’t remember his first name — a Canadian statesman [Scottish journalist Neal Ascheson] who really painfully and beautifully said that it is instructive to see how a government treats refugees, because if it could treat citizens the same way, they would. That’s exactly what we’re seeing happening right now. We saw how Trump treated Afghan refugees. We saw how he treated refugees from Venezuela, from Haiti, and now he’s treating American citizens the exact same way. Renee Good was a U.S. citizen, had no criminal record, did everything by the book, but because she opposed dear leader, she was executed.
This is why I say even now, as you see these war drums beat for Iran and regime change, you can agree that the Iranian regime is an unjust, theocratic, autocratic state that has no business being in power, and recognize that the solution to that is not violent regime overthrow that’s going to lead to much more death and destruction. Those two things are not contradictory to each other, and we need to instead spend our energy empowering the Iranian people to rise up on their terms, not to call for this violent regime change that’s going to lead to far more death and destruction, as the last 25 years have shown us over and over again.
Sam Goldman 39:21
And to deeply question those who advocate for such in a country that is run right now by Donald Trump. [QR: right] So you think that Donald Trump has the interests of the Iranian people at heart? [Qasim: No, absolutely not.] That’s a willful self delusion.
Qasim Rashid 39:38
One of the funny things I did see was after Trump went after Maduro, all the tweets or posts saying that, hey, in the world, if you’re listening, Donald Trump has made clear, you absolutely can sweep in and pick up the President and the First Lady and leave, wink, wink, nod, nod, you can absolutely do it. That’s the precedent he’s setting. It’s frightening, because at the end of the day, if it’s gonna be ruled by a nuclear power, that’s not a battle that you ever want to be in, because there’s no such thing as blowing up the world 800 times.
You just need once, and unfortunately, we’re gonna find out in a couple of days whether the nuclear clock is going to move closer to midnight. I feel like it is, and that should horrify people, because the most dangerous thing you can do right now is to think that that will never happen. It can. At this rate, if I was a betting man, I would say that it seems like it seems like it probably will happen at some point in our lifetime, and that’s just mortifying.
Sam Goldman 40:23
To me, the reality is that that means that we have to act in ways that are commensurate with that. That we have to do things that are uncomfortable, that require sacrifice, that require risk. Because the objective risk and and sacrifice of humanity is just that much larger right now. As we close out the conversation, I wanted to ask you, for people watching — much appreciation to all that everyone who is and everyone who’s sharing it and commenting so thoughtfully — for those watching who feel the speed of this moment, the qualitative leap, but also maybe feel a little bit paralyzed, what is the most dangerous mistake we could make right now?
Qasim Rashid 41:10
Hopelessness, I think, is the most dangerous mistake. Hopelessness is the most dangerous mistake. James Baldwin is asked about this, about how he manages despair, and he says: I’m angry at the world, but I don’t despair, because I can’t tell my children that there’s no hope. We are in a dark space right now. There’s no doubt in that right. 60% of Americans can’t make ends meet. Wealth and income inequality is the worst [it’s] ever been. One in five people are food insecure. Gun violence is a leading cause of death for children in this country. Fascism is rising.
There’s a lot to be upset about, and you should be upset about. If you have a pulse and a beating heart and a conscience, you’re upset about it. Don’t lose hope. Our country has unfortunately been down these dark alleys before, and through immense struggle, we’ve come out of them only to stumble again. But our founding documents call us to make a more perfect union, and that happens by our mantra, our motto: e pluribus unum — out of many, one. That’s what needs to happen here. But the biggest mistake you can make is losing hope. Don’t lose hope. That shouldn’t be in your DNA. Find people around you to lift you up. Lift people up, and use that collective compassion, that collective synergy, that collective energy, and keep marching forward, because this country is worth fighting for. This is a country I love dearly. It is worth fighting for. Our children’s futures are worth fighting for, and we should go out there and do everything we can to make that happen.
Sam Goldman 42:24
I so agree. Qasim, that this is the future is worth fighting for. Our children, our grandchildren, their future is worth fighting for. And the people here and now, their humanity and their lives and their rights are worth fighting for too. I think that there’s so much that I agree with with what you said about hope, and I just wanted to add that this is a time where huge changes are happening. We see that primarily in the negative, but we’re also seeing some huge changes too. The fact that 7 million people came into the streets on No Kings wasn’t nothing. [QR: yeah] I just want people to imagine, like: Yes, as one person, what we can do is very limited, but there are tens of millions of us in this country do not agree, who do not want to see a fascist America consolidated.
Together, we are extremely powerful. [QR: right] That is finding our power again and using it, nonviolently, relentlessly, all of those things, to demand the removal of the regime. And so Qasim, I just want to thank you so much again for taking the time to talk to us, to answer questions. Go support Qasim’s Substack, and are there any other ways that you want people to connect with your work?
Qasim Rashid 43:37
Thank you, Sam for the platform for the opportunity to dialog and just so our listeners know how gracious Sam was: This was planned, I wasn’t able to make it, and Sam was kind enough to work with my schedule and make it happen today. So thank you for your grace in this space as well. I’m @QasimRashid across all platforms. Your poison or pleasure, however you want to define social media, it’s at my name across all platforms. I post daily on Substack on human rights issues. I try to make it a point to not just talk about the issues, but also provide meaningful calls to action; ways you can get involved. I have no paywall. If you want to be a paid subscriber, you’re most welcome to, because it helps me subsidize the cost and makes it available for those who can’t afford, but I really want to emphasize only become a paid subscriber if fits in your budget. I don’t want anyone to pinch themselves on my behalf. My content will have no paywall. You get no special treatment for being a paid subscriber at all. I value every person. Let’s have this conversation again. Let’s keep this thing going, Sam.
Sam Goldman 44:27
In addition to subscribing and following the Substack, be sure to visit RefuseFascism.org. There’s a wealth of resources and ways to act there, including a statement that you can get and spread everywhere, on ICE Gestapo committing cold blooded murder and the demand that The whole Fascist Trump Regime Must Go Now! You can sign up there and get updates and get connected, along with a lot of free resources. I just want to say thanks, all, and thank you so much.
Qasim Rashid 44:56
Take care. Bye. Bye.
Sam Goldman 44:56
Take care.
Sam Goldman 45:02
To listen to the full interview and upcoming lives, subscribe to our Substack. See the show notes for how now here is a presentation from Coco Das.
Coco Das 45:18
I’m gonna start by talking about Mark Ruffalo at the Golden Globes. When he was on the red carpet, he said — and this is not all of what he said, but the gist of what he said: “The world’s completely lost its mind. I don’t know what’s happening in the United States. I can’t pretend like this isn’t insane. Storm Troopers on the streets of America. They’re terrorizing people. They’re killing innocent people. Something’s really wrong here, and I don’t know what the answer is, but the world’s not better with this guy, this madman in the office, who told the world that there is no international law that can stop him. The only thing that concerns him is his own morality.
We have to get out and stop it. There are more of us than there are of them. We have to be brave now. We have to be together. We have to be strong. And now is the time.” I want to say that, besides this moment from Mark Ruffalo and maybe a few other very small exceptions, this was a disgraceful, disgraceful moment for Hollywood where people with large platforms, who had a chance to say something, who have influence over millions of people, acted like a woman had not just been murdered by an ICE agent that acted like they felt no compulsion to take a stand, had no reason to set an example for people.
So I want to say: Cheers to Mark Ruffalo, jeers to all those others. And here we are. It’s 2026 Trump came in swinging, and he is on a roll, and we have made a giant leap into full on fascism. I’m going to say two lines from the statement On the killing of Renee Good: “From Venezuela to the Streets of Minneapolis, this regime murders and demonizes whole peoples and countries without even the pretense of law. By shredding U.S. and international law and getting away with it again and again, this regime is paving the way for horrors that surpass those of the Nazi regime.”
That should be a controversial statement. We should use it a lot. We should bring out people’s reactions to it, because it’s true, and people need to confront the truth of that statement. You know: Is that actually what’s happening, and why is that happening? Trump just told the New York Times, as Ruffalo referenced in his statement, that there are no limits to his global power except “My own morality, my own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.” And then you have Stephen Miller, who said: “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else.
But we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world.” And you have Hegseth, who said: “Maximum lethality, not tepid legality,” is what matters in the military arena. They’re not just talking about shredding the rule of law. They’re not just stating that they are above the law now. They are acting on it. They’re instituting rule by lawless terror and brute force across the streets of this country and across the globe. In this country, the main instrument of lawless terror domestically has been Trump’s ICE Gestapo, and we’ve seen what they were doing and are doing to immigrant communities.
Now a woman, a poet, a mother of a six year old child who is now an orphan, a woman is dead for being on the scene and observing the conduct of ICE agents and for daring to challenge the legitimacy of their force — for not acting sufficiently submissive. If you look at the footage, this is what is on display, she was not and her wife were not acting sufficiently submissive, and she was killed for it, and then she was called a f’ing bitch, and it’s very good that millions saw this for what it was, and saw the total criminality and illegitimacy of it, and that tens of thousands took to the streets for several days. This has to continue.
But January 3 through January 7, which are coming on either side of a celebration of the January 6, 2021, coup attempt and all that represents about rule by brute force. What we saw in these four days was one, a qualitative rupture with any rule based international order, sharply heightening the danger of wider war and giving Trump the confidence and permission to threaten other countries with the same, starting with Greenland, but also threatening Cuba, Mexico, Colombia. And two: Unleashing open terror and intimidation on the streets of this country, elevated to state sanctioned murder of anyone who stands in their way.
This summary execution of Renee Good was carried out by ICE, but it was legitimized and justified by the regime as a promise of more to come; of how they intend to rule the people of this country, to govern the people of this country. How did they justify it? First, they claimed that the agent acted in self defense. First with a bevy of outright lies that were exposed by the footage itself, and then they started to portray Renee Good as a domestic terrorist in a way that is more consistent with the National Security Presidential memo seven and the leaked Bondi memo that attempts to redefine domestic terrorism, not only as anti-fascist organizing, but even beliefs and speech that could be tied to anti-fascist violence as they define it, including things like anti-Americanism, speaking out against the church.
There’s a whole list of things — things that are beliefs and thoughts that are actually held by millions of people in this country can come into the realm of being categorized as domestic terrorism. They also surged more ICE agents into Minneapolis. They use this killing to intimidate protesters. They escalated door to door raids, attacks on schools and retail spaces and threats against anyone who resists, and calling that impeding law enforcement. JD Vance said that this ice agent has absolute immunity, and Trump said that Renee Good and her wife were “disrespectful to law enforcement,” and therefore deserve to be killed.
Kristi Noem put a message on her podium hours after the killing, “One of Ours, All of Yours.” This is a fascist slogan used by Nazis to justify collective punishment and terror. So the message is unmistakable: Speaking out now could cost you your life. They’re telling protesters that they should learn a lesson from this. There is a danger that that is the lesson that people will take from it. If we take the Golden Globes as a bad example, we really have a fight with society to not take that lesson. But we know that there are millions of people — tens of thousands took to the streets. There are millions of people who hate this.
Most of the country does not see what ICE did and this murder as legitimate. They are, right now, relying on forces including the Democratic Party that is afraid of Trump and the MAGA fascists, and they are also afraid of their own base not acting within the norms and confines of the electoral system, even while they are under fierce attack, and even while they are compelled to speak out, as in the case of this killing, when the mayor of Minneapolis told ICE: “ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” But he also said this on a podcast where he was asked: Can law enforcement, police in Minneapolis or Minnesota arrest ICE agents?
And he said: “Legally, yes. Practically no. Even after killing someone. Why? Because federal forces, these are his words, “drastically outnumber local police and have bigger guns.” He said he doesn’t want warfare in the streets. So what does that tell us? It tells us, in part, that this regime’s ruthless brute force and threats of violence work. If that becomes what determines what anyone can do to stop it, then the window is closing. We are very far down the road to fascism consolidation. All you have then is some hope that somehow this regime will restrain itself — that Trump will restrain himself by his own morality, in his own words.
But they will not restrain themselves. They have no reason to, this is not just the work of a malignant narcissist addicted to power, which was the focus of this article by Edsel in New York Times, all about the psychological reasons that Trump does what he does and why he behaves the way he does. But it did not account for any of the ideology. And you know, you hear this all the time; Trump has no ideology, it’s just a thirst for power. No. It is a thirst for power in order to lock down fascist rule.
The ideology behind that is very clear. They are fighting for something. They are fighting for a country that is governed by a different form of brutal rule. They’re fighting for a country that is openly ruled by the hatred of Black and brown people, by the hatred of women and LGBTQ people, the hatred of foreigners, and the belief that they are the only legitimate people and the only legitimate rulers and beneficiaries of the planet and its resources. They’re fighting for a world where they have unchallenged domination over the world order, and these other imperialist rivals do not. When that is what you’re fighting for, against the interests of the masses of humanity, you cannot retreat. We’re talking about something that requires the violent subjugation of millions of people and backing down means defeat.
They have to accelerate. They can’t do that by following the governing norms of the last 80 years. They can’t do it by allowing people to keep any pretense of the right to free speech and dissent. They have to crush they have to purge the institutions. They have to remake the courts. Here’s a statistic that came out recently: Trump appointed judges have formed a very disciplined block. They’re repeatedly ruling to shield his agenda from legal challenge. He staffed the Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security from top to bottom with people who believe that the 2020 election was stolen, and who are loyal to him personally.
The appellate courts that he has transformed, all the stacking of those courts that he did has paid off, where they have voted in his favor 133 times and against him 12 times; 133 to 12. Then, of course, you have the fascist stacked Supreme Court. So this is fascism. It has direction and momentum. It is moving very rapidly toward its ultimate direction and momentum, which is to have unchallenged authority to be able to ethnically cleanse this country, to completely transform society from top to bottom. It cannot be lived with. It has to be defeated. I want to talk for a minute here about what does it mean that this fascism cannot be lived with, that it must be defeated.
I think we need to have some serious struggle with the decent country on what not living with this fascism means. It does not mean we don’t want to live with it, and therefore it will go away because they don’t have public opinion on their side. Public opinion does not mean anything to them, especially when they don’t have to be beholden to the rule of law. It doesn’t mean that we can just choose as individuals not to submit to it. One: Doing that could get you killed. But ultimately, that is not what is going to defeat this. But that is how millions of people are acting right now. They are waiting this out. They are waiting until something that doesn’t involve much sacrifice from them can resolve it.
We an discuss this more, but I think this comes down to not understanding that this trajectory is fighting for something, and that it is accelerating in that fight, which is what the last ten days has shown us. I have not even unearthed all the things that have happened in the last ten days, I focused on a couple. In that situation, either we will be forced to slavishly submit to fascist rule, or we will defeat it. We will either be swept up and crushed by it. with all that means for the future of humanity, or we will defeat it. There’s no middle ground. Refuse Fascism, we all here gather today are the people who recognize that, and we have a tremendous responsibility.
What we called for on November 5th was right. It was what was needed. It still is what is needed: Millions of people rising up nonviolently to create a profound political crisis that can drive this regime out of power. But it’s clear that getting the decent people on the path to defeat this is a huge fight that we have to wage. I want to make one more point on not living with this fascism — why we can’t live with this fascism. In a recent post, Heather Cox Richardson made an important point about the footage that was released from the officer’s perspective and the regime’s response. What they thought that footage was gonna do. They thought, and they believe, that footage vindicates them — that that footage justifies the murder of Renee Good.
So you have MAGA watching this and feeling like this woman deserved to die. Then you have millions of others viewing the exact same footage and, rightly, seeing this as cold blooded murder. These two sides cannot be reconciled. There is no living with this, because you have two sides in this country right now who have completely different views of reality, completely different ideas about morality, completely different values, completely different ideas of how society should look, one side or another is going to win. One side is in power right now, and the longer they remain in power, the more likely it is that they can lock down power, and their vision of the future will get cemented into reality.
But the other side has the majority of people, which is a sleeping giant, that we are the ones that have to prod very sharply to wake up and realize their power. And this is going to take some serious ideological and political struggle. It’s going to take serious organization, really going out to the masses and meeting with people, really taking on people’s questions, taking on their creative ideas and their sincere desires to see an end to this nightmare as a challenge for them to step in now and do what needs to be done. Real struggle to confront reality and transform it, real unity and real sacrifice that honors the memory of Renee Good.
Sam Goldman 1:01:01
Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism. Support the show by becoming a patron. Join today at patreon.com/refuse fascism, or by subscribing to our Substack or getting our merch. See the show notes, for links for all of those things, or for $0 you can help build our audience by sharing the show, rating and reviewing on Apple podcasts or your listening platform of choice or recommending our Substack. Be sure to stay connected for developments and actions by visiting and signing up at refusefascism.org and on our social media at refuse fascism, you can also text refuse to 855-755-1314, so you’re always in the loop until next time, In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America.