Today I’m speaking with Steven Monacelli, an independent investigative journalist based in Texas. Steven does an incredible job covering right-wing extremism. His latest pieces include an examination of what experts are calling a new form of fascism helmed by the White House, and a more complex understanding of what we’re witnessing called competitive authoritarianism. Steven also just published an explosive investigation into an ICE lawyer in Dallas who runs an anonymous, white supremacist X account.

I first met Steven in Dallas — where I lived for a couple of years while covering immigration and the border — at a QAnon conference where disgraced Gen. Mike Flynn infamously called for a Myanmar-like coup to install Trump in power. That was in 2021, which seems like a quaint time as I write this just four years later. Our previous conversation focused on threats posed to democracy by Christian nationalism, another focus of Steven’s work.

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