

Refuse Fascism
Refuse Fascism
The Refuse Fascism podcast is an independent and all-volunteer show that produces weekly episodes that expose, analyze, and oppose the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States.
Hosted by Sam Goldman, produced by volunteers with Refuse Fascism.
Hosted by Sam Goldman, produced by volunteers with Refuse Fascism.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jul 31, 2022 • 44min
Danielle Moodie: How to Stand Up to Fascist Bullies
Sam interviews writer and pundit Danielle Moodie about the current state of fascism in the United States and how to actually stand up to the fascist bullies (hint: it’s not what the Democrats are doing right now). Listen to Danielle every weekday on her podcast Woke AF and every week on Democracy-ish (with Wajahat Ali). Follow her on Twitter at @deetwocents on Instagram @deetwocents at and on TikTok at @daniellemoodie_.
Note: Abortion remains legal for now in West Virginia as the House and Senate failed to agree on a bill.
Support the abortion rights protesters arrested in LA for staging a dramatic civil disobedience art statement at the LACMA museum here.
*No show next week - the next episode will be released 8/14/22.
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Jul 24, 2022 • 37min
Highland Park Mass Shooter Crimo Wasn’t A Lone Wolf
Sam speaks to the Rachael Wachstein (first interviewed on Episode #35 in December 2020 - find her on Facebook) again, this time to discuss Robert Crimo, Jr., the mass shooter who murdered people at the Highland Park July 4 parade this year, 2022. Wachstein witnessed not only this horrific event but recognized Crimo as one of the pro-Trump "Stop the Steal" fascists she had been counter-protesting in her community over the past couple of years. She makes a forceful case for his fascist motivations and discusses why it's so hard for people to take these violent fascists seriously as an organized movement, rather than "lone wolves."
Background info and debate on the motivations of the Highland Park shooter at The Forward.
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Jul 17, 2022 • 43min
Post-Roe Reality Check & January 6 Hearing Update
It's just a few weeks into the hellscape that is a post-Roe United States... Sam and Mark chat about just a few of the stories that have come out in recent weeks illustrating the growing catastrophe. Donate to support the Indiana doctor currently under fire from fascist forces for providing abortion care to a 10 year old rape victim who traveled from Ohio here.
Recommended Reading:
They Will Never Believe Us by Jessica Valenti
Dr. Caitlin Bernard Was Meant to Write This With Me Before She Was Attacked for Doing Her Job by Tracey A. Wilkinson
Plus: some of the latest revelations on Trump's fascist coup attempt, which stretched far before the Jan 6th attack on the Capitol, see a few of our previous episodes to look deeper into the lead up:
#36 Eric Boehlert: Trump plots martial law from White House — the press shrugs (Jan 3, 2021)
#35 If it could happen there, it could happen here (Dec 27, 2020)
#33 "Fight for Trump" = Fight for Fascism (Dec 13, 2020)
Also: RiseUp4AbortionRights.org has been subjected to a series of scurrilous Cointelpro-style attacks from both fascist and progressive publications and organizations. See:
To Those Who Would Rather Lie, Slander, and Attack Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights Than Unite All Who Can Be United Against This Fascist Assault
We Need Honest Debate, Not Unprincipled Attacks: A Further Response to the Attacks On Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights by Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights co-initiators Merle Hoffman, Lori Sokol, Sunsara Taylor
Also find responses from Sunsara Taylor and the Revcoms:
In Reply to the Reactionary Hit Piece in the Daily Beast: Why I DO Follow Bob Avakian... and Why YOU Should Too by Sunsara Taylor
A Reply to the “Statement Against RiseUp4AbortionRights”:In Defense of the Emancipation of Humanity and the Leadership We Need to Get There (The Revcoms)
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Jul 10, 2022 • 50min
Christian Theocracy, the Crusades, & Modern-Day America
Sam interviews Dr. Thomas Lecaque about apocalyptic Christianity, the GOP in 2022 and the medieval roots of support for secular fascists like Trump from Christian nationalists. Read his recent articles Patriot Front and the Next Stage of the Culture War, "Jesus, guns, babies": Religious violence is now at the core of the Republican Party, and this piece from 2019 in The Washington Post: The apocalyptic myth that helps explain evangelical support for Trump.
Follow Dr. Lecaque on Twitter @tlecaque and on LinkedIn.
Also mentioned in this episode:
Gospel According to the Klan by Kelly Baker
Check out the latest statement at riseup4abortionrights.org: The Overturning of Abortion Rights Is ILLEGITIMATE! This Decision Must Not Stand. Into the Streets to Demand: The Federal Government Must Restore NATIONWIDE LEGAL ABORTION NOW!
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Jul 4, 2022 • 40min
Overturning Roe: A Watershed Moment for U.S. Fascism
Sam and Coco Das discuss Coco's new article for The Independent: Roe has been overturned and women’s bodies are no longer their own in America. Here’s what to do now. Follow Coco at @Coco_Das.
Over the past couple weeks SCOTUS has issued a series of rulings that flag that they are no longer concerned with the appearance of legitimacy: rights no longer need to be read to people arrested by the police, states cannot issue laws restricting who can conceal guns, and the EPA cannot prevent power plants from filling the air with pollution. They also agreed to hear a case that would enable state legislatures to conduct elections according to whatever procedures they set... and of course overturned the constitutional right to abortion, setting in motion the chaos we're seeing across the country as clinics shut down and patients, including a 10 year old rape victim from Ohio, have had to travel great distances to obtain access to abortion.
Where do we go from here? Check out riseup4abortionrights.org which is calling for continued mobilization in the street to demand the full reinstatement of the right to legal abortion at a national level. Read the response to unprincipled and divisive attacks. Read Coco's speech from the protest in Austin, Texas here: We can turn this around, not as the people we are now but as the people we become through this struggle.
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Jun 26, 2022 • 54min
SCOTUS, The Big Lie, Fascism: All Illegitimate
On our first post-Roe episode, we share some of the voices from the streets over the last couple days outside the Supreme Court demanding the federal government restore the fundamental right to abortion across the country NOW, including Sunsara Taylor (@sunsarataylor), Paxton Smith (@paxtonsmith) and youth organizers.
Then, writer and pundit Wajahat Ali talks to Sam about the January 6 hearings which have unearthed in great detail (though not exhaustive, as Ginni Thomas's key role continues to be obscured) the Trump regime's attempted coup plot. Read his latest piece for The Daily Beast: No, Our Institutions Didn’t Hold After Jan. 6—Just Look at the GOP and follow him on Twitter at @WajahatAli.
How are we accepting a ruling that reverses a fundamental right for more than half the population, issued by an illegitimate court full of fascists appointed by a (perhaps soon-to-be-indicted) criminal?
Answer: we're not. Check out the latest at RiseUp4AbortionRights.org.
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Jun 19, 2022 • 58min
The Looming Abortion Rights Disaster & Even Worse To Come From The Supreme Court
Sam Goldman takes a break from protesting outside the Supreme Court to interview writer Jill Filipovic about the looming abortion rights disaster. Follow Jill’s work at jill.substack.com and follow her on Twitter at @JillFilipovic.
Then, Sunsara Taylor interviews lawyer and host of the Amicus podcast Dahlia Lithwick about the legal rationale behind overturning the right to abortion and the many other implications to individual freedom in the US (this interview originally appeared on The Revolution Nothing Less show).
Tuesday, June 21 at 9am, RiseUp4AbortionRights.org is calling for people to Come to the Supreme Court in DC and Stay; STOP the Supreme Court from Taking Away Abortion Rights! Find out more and get involved at riseup4abortionrights.org.
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

Jun 12, 2022 • 45min
Federico Finchelstein: "White Replacement Theory" & Fascism
Sam Goldman interviews Dr. Federico Finchelstein on the recent Op Ed he wrote with Dr. Jason Stanley in the LA Times: White replacement theory is fascism’s new name. Follow @FinchelsteinF on Twitter and check out his newest book, Fascist Mythologies: The History and Politics of Unreason in Borges, Freud, and Schmitt.
Recommended reading:
The first January 6 hearing served up surprising revelations — that all point to Trump (Ben Jacobs in Vox)
Jan. 6 Committee Details Proud Boys, Oath Keepers Involvement in Capitol Insurrection (SPLC)
Elegy for a lost America: Will the Jan. 6 committee really change anything? (Jeff Sharlet in Salon)
Buffalo: A Brutal Killer… A Heartless White-Supremacist System (Revcom.us)
Let Us Prey (Rafia Zakaria in The Baffler)
This coming week, RiseUp4AbortionRights.org is calling for people to Come to the Supreme Court in DC and Stay; STOP the Supreme Court from Taking Away Abortion Rights! Find out more and get involved at riseup4abortionrights.org.
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

May 29, 2022 • 1h 1min
Confronting & Rejecting a Culture of Fascist Violence
In the aftermath of the horrific massacre of schoolchildren in Uvalde, Texas, which was close on the heels of a white supremacist killing spree in Buffalo, NY, we’re re-sharing the extremely relevant interview Sam Goldman did with Dr. Carol Anderson in November 2021. Dr. Anderson is the Charles Howard Candler Professor and Chair of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression is Destroying Our Democracy, and her latest book The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America which was the focus of this conversation. Follow Dr. Anderson at professorcarolanderson.org and @ProfCAnderson.
Then, we share a few clips from the protests this past week demanding abortion rights. Featured voices include Mark Ruffalo, Kayli Carter, Sunsara Taylor and some of the students who walked out of school to shut down the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. Find out more about next steps to mobilize for abortion rights at riseup4abortionrights.org.
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown

May 22, 2022 • 31min
Acting Now to Defend Roe + Abortion Rights
Coco Das @Coco_Das and Sam Goldman @SamBGoldman have been busy rallying people in the streets with RiseUp4AbortionRights.org over the past couple weeks - we share some of those speeches today. Join in nationwide protests this Thursday May 26 to raise your voice and raise hell as SCOTUS is on the verge of overturning Roe and allowing many abortion bans to go through. Find or organize a protest here.
Recommended reading:
CPAC Hungary: Global right doubles down on "replacement" theory: "This is what tyrants do"
Refuse Fascism is more than a podcast! You can get involved at RefuseFascism.org. Send your comments to samanthagoldman@refusefascism.org or @SamBGoldman. Connect with the movement at RefuseFascism.org and support:
· Venmo: @RefuseFascism
· Cashapp: $RefuseFascism
· paypal.me/refusefascism
· donate.refusefascism.org
Music for this episode: Penny the Snitch by Ikebe Shakedown