All tagged Fascism
Political analyst, writer, and Three Way Fight contributor Matthew N. Lyons joins me to discuss his analysis of the upcoming US presidential election, and how the choices presented to voters is "between a Democratic option more abysmal than four years ago and a Republican option even more catastrophic than last time." This interview was recorded just a few days before voting day on November 5th, and is based on Matthew's article, Three Way Fight Analysis of Trump and the 2024 Election.
Author and journalist Shane Burley returns to the podcast to discuss the anthology No Pasaran: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis, published this fall through AK Press. Burley is the editor and a contributor to this collection.
In catching up since our last interview, I ask Shane to clarify where the far-right stands in a "post-Trump" context. What inroads have far-right, and explicitly fascist, ideologues made in political discourse and policy in the United States over the past two years? How coherent is the far-right agenda, and who are their targets? What are the paths to power? And most importantly, how can various subcultural spaces, as well as rural and urban communities, each build effective resistances to this threat? No Pasaran, with its broad collection of voices, provides some of the most comprehensive answers to these questions.
Journalist Arun Gupta returns to the podcast to discuss the "very corporeal ideology" of fascism, the so-called "Great Replacement Theory,” the recent mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, and how each of these subjects tie into the broader sociopolitical project of the far right in the United States.
The ideological and conspiratorial framework of the “Great Replacement Theory” has motivated numerous individuals to commit racist mass violence over the years, with one of the most prominent examples being the recent massacre in Buffalo, New York by an 18-year-old white man on May 14th. It also, as Gupta lucidly articulates in this interview, informs the underlying white grievance politics and goals of the conservative right in the United States, informing the rhetoric of the most popular political commentators in the country, namely Fox News star pundit Tucker Carlson. With the stated aims and motivations laid bare in the manifesto of the mass shooter in Buffalo, and Carlson mainstreaming these ideas in more digestible and politically friendly terms to millions of regular viewers, fascism is alive and well in the United States.
Activist, analyst, and author Brynn Tannehill joins me to discuss the recent leak of the Supreme Court's drafted majority opinion to overturn Roe v. Wade and Casey.
Having extensively documented the factors leading to the fascist turn the United States is taking in her book American Fascism: How the GOP Is Subverting Democracy and elsewhere, Tannehill predicted a conservative stacked Supreme Court would, in due time, overturn several sweeping decisions the Court has made over the decades, including: the expansion and protection of reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, and more. As the Republican Party openly moves into fascist territory and the Democratic Party fecklessly concedes to the GOP's sweeping agenda, whatever rights and protections that have been granted by the federal government for marginalized groups will be effectively rescinded. Overturning Roe v. Wade is just the beginning. A far-right autocracy is on the horizon.
Award-winning journalist, policy researcher, author, and historian Paul Street joins me to discuss the highly controversial and divisive Kyle Rittenhouse case and subsequent acquittal. Along with providing a substantive exploration of the broad sociopolitical context of this trial, we also touch on the case of the modern-day lynching of Ahmaud Arbery and the recent conviction of the men who murdered him in Georgia, the concerted legislative push in Republican dominated states across the U.S. to impose harsher voter restrictions and roll back reproductive rights on the national level, and what these trends mean for the upcoming elections of 2022 and 2024, and electoral politics as a whole.
Journalist Shane Burley joins me to discuss his newest book, Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse, published through AK Press.
Smoke choked cities. Supply chain disruptions. Pandemic. Riots. Fascist violence. The calamitous events of 2020 sent shock waves through the social fabric of the United States. There is the pervasive sense that we've crossed a threshold, one that cannot be walked back or reversed.
In Why We Fight, Burley navigates this territory of the here and now, providing deep insights into the conditions that gave rise to some of the most dramatic developments of the past several years. In this interview, I ask Burley to provide updates into the evolution of fascist politics during this time, and what antifascist resistance to the far right looks like, and must adapt to, in a time of apocalyptic rupture.
What happened on January 6th was neither the beginning, nor the endpoint, of the fascist trajectory this nation has been lurching headlong toward. It was a flashpoint.
Shane Burley joins me to discuss his book Fascism Today: What It Is and How To End It. At the beginning of this interview, Shane provides a precise description of what fascism is, the historical context in which it first emerged, as well what fascist organizing in contemporary US society looks like. We discuss and break down the pseudo-scientific claims espoused by many of these groups regarding the concepts of race, as well as the reasons as to why and how these widely dismissed pseudo-scientific claims still exist and continue to spread among the far-right.
