Antifascist Dad Podcast

I sit down with historian of fascism Craig Johnson to talk about one of the hardest and most urgent questions facing parents right now: how do we talk to our sons about fascism in a world where so much political socialization happens online, fast, and without supervision? I open the episode in the shadow of the killing of Renee Nicole Good by ICE—and how disorienting it feels to say what we plainl...

What makes art politically dangerous to fascism—and why does empathy now count as transgression? Today I'm joined by art historian, educator, and curator Sarah Jaffray for a wide-ranging conversation about modern art, fascism, and the politics of perception. Starting from the Nazis’ infamous “Degenerate Art” campaign, Sarah traces how artists in the aftermath of World War I deliberately abandoned...

Happy New Year, everyon! This is Part 2 of my conversation with Richard Gilman-Opalsky on the “ Communism of Love ." Love isn’t something to trade, measure, or deserve, and this makes it incompatible with capitalism, and how it gets distorted into obligation, sacrifice, and unpaid, gendered domestic labor. We talk about improvisation in music, parenting, and politics. Suppressing improvisation is...

Happy Solstice, Holiday, Christmas, Deep Winter, Chanukkah, Kwanzaa to you all. A familiar short story today, this time ending in revolution—not sentimentality. Notes: H.C. Andersen : The Little Match Girl  (Hersholt translation) Patreon:  https://www.patreon.com/cw/AntifascistDadPodcast   TikTok and YouTube: @antifascistdad  You can still pre-order my book and as a gift, and let them know in a ca...

In Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano, we move from the critique of debate and “critical thinking” into the deeper question: what actually radicalizes us? Sarah talks about the moments that changed her politics—teaching in prisons, supporting a student after sexual violence—and why no amount of abstract knowledge could have done the same work. I share how parenting an autistic...

I asked communist philosopher and jazz drummer Richard Gilman-Opalsky a deceptively simple question: What do we actually mean when we say “love”?  Richard’s " Communism of Love ," insists that love is an active, non-exchange relation that contradicts the logic of capitalism. You can’t measure or spreadsheet it, or cost it out. Unfortunately, this fact can also curdle into an excuse for sidelining...

In part two, Sara and I open with the question Matt Walsh can’t stop weaponizing: “What is a woman?” Sara walks me through her one-woman show that answers Walsh by shifting the frame to a deceptively simple word—“chair.” Through a live game with the audience, she demonstrates how even basic terms are messy, negotiated, and context-bound, and how fascist language games depend on pretending that wor...

What if the entire “marketplace of ideas” story about how people change their minds is mostly wrong? In this episode, I talk with political theorist and organizer Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano about why debate, podcasts, and “critical thinking” rarely shift anyone’s core political commitments. Sarah and I dig into her book Don’t Talk About Politics: Changing 21st Century Minds, the limits of political e...

Donald Trump casually embraces the word “fascist” in front of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, and doesn't bat an eye when Mamdani accuses him of funding genocide. This smug absorption of rhetorical confrontation is something we need to think about.   On the same day Mamdani brought socialism discourse to the Oval Office, the Democratic leadership voted in favour of House Resolution 58, “Denouncing the...

In Part 2, David and I go deeper into the contradictions, tensions, and possibilities of the Catholic Church at this political moment. We discuss ideological purity, coalition building, critiques of capitalism, the role of synodality, and how leftists and religious radicals can meet each other in common struggle. What are the spiritual and emotional dimensions of direct action? What gives people c...

I posted a short reflection to TikTok last week, and it landed harder than I expected. It’s about the emotional double-life I believe many of us are living: one foot in the adult world of political vigilance and despair, and one foot in the child-world of curiosity, play, and care. Today I’m expanding that theme and pairing it with another challenge: how suspicion-driven Left analysis shapes our e...

Just a coupla antifascist Canadian dads having a chat about stuff.  In this special crossover episode, I join Cory Johnston of the Skeptical Leftist podcast for a  conversation about cult dynamics, fascism, antifascist parenting, masculinity, and how to support kids with empathy in a collapsing world. We talk about parenting in a political emergency, how to avoid overwhelming kids with adult anxie...

In Part 2 of my conversation with Cy Canterel, we keep digging into how people form identity, belief, and belonging inside the swirl of irony, nihilism, and digital performance that defines so much of contemporary life. We explore the psychology of online radicalization—what actually pulls people toward fascist aesthetics, what ambivalence can teach us about resistance, and how the very same infra...

I sit down with Jesuit priest and liberation theologian Father David Inczauskis, S.J., who has been helping lead faith-based protests at Chicago’s Broadview ICE Detention Center. We get into the lived meaning of community life, the risks and necessities of nonviolent resistance, and why liberation theology is suddenly back at the center of the global Catholic conversation. Before we talk, I take a...

I sit down with feral scholar and TikTok analyst Cy Canterel to explore one of the strangest and most opaque zones of contemporary politics: the swirling online subcultures where memes, irony, nihilism, and fragmented identity collide with rising fascism. Cy brings a rare combination of systemic thinking, psychological insight, and lived experience as an autistic researcher who understands outside...

In Part 2 of our conversation, Ben Case and I move from frameworks to consequences. We revisit the 2017 Richard Spencer punch as a concrete case of “little” versus “big” violence, asking what deterrence, backlash, and dignity look like when an act becomes a meme and a cautionary tale at the same time. Ben draws on his Muay Thai career to talk about fight training as a metaphor for political life:...

Note: This review is also available on YouTube . How many wellness brofluencer podcasters does it take to screw in a lightbulb? Three: one to film it, one to sell the “ancestral light protocol,” and one to warn bulbs are “seed oils for your eyes.” In this longer solo episode I dig into Scott Galloway’s Notes on Being a Man (Simon & Schuster, published Nov 5). Galloway is everywhere—NYU Stern p...

Hello everyone! Part 2 opens with reflections on Mark’s balance between public scholarship and private parenting, then moves into his distinction between liberal history and fascist propaganda—the moment when sourcing gives way to myth. We discuss how protest slogans can be misread yet remain essential to antifascist diversity and vitality, and end with Mark’s hope for new generations unburdened b...

Antifascist courage is a choreography of mutual aid, preparation, and care. In this episode I talk with scholar-organizer and retired Muay Thai fighter Ben Case, author of Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence (2022), about how “physical courage” develops across a spectrum of practices — from speaking up for a co-worker and signing a union card to holding a picket line and p...

Part 2 with Sara Rasik opens with my reflections on Part 1 (how UofT organizers timed the encampment to convocation, why student testimony was patronized as a “mental-health” issue) and on how movement memory travels from 1980s anti-apartheid organizing to Gen Z. Then Sara and I work through the hard stuff: “students should be studying,” “supporting terrorism,” safety claims, the meaning of “from...

Mark Bray, historian of antifascism is now in exile,  thanks to the backlash over Charlie Kirk’s murder and the Trump administration's accelerating attempts to label antifascists as terrorists. Bray, his partner and their two young children fled the US after the local Turning Point USA chapter posted a petition to have him fired from Rutgers, where he teaches. Altogether, these attacks prompted a...

Summary Unlocking Part 2 for y'all. Opening with a reflection on Part 1 (kinship, food, music, “yallidarity”) and then Nathan and I go verse-by-verse through “Hillbilly Hymn.” We talk housework and masculinity, charismatic church roots, incarnation vs. redemptive suffering, why “resurrection > crucifixion” reframes violence, and how meanness and generosity can spring from the same muscle when y...

UofT encampment organizer Sara Rasikh joins me to walk through the inside story of “Occupy for Palestine”—from the first tents at King’s College Circle (May 2, 2024) to the court-ordered dismantling (July 3). We talk logistics, negotiation, care work, spiritual life in the camp, and the personal risks for student spokespeople. I set the scene with “Fascist / Squish / Antifascist” news on Greta Thu...

Welcome to the inaugural episode of  Antifascist Dad Podcast!  Matthew Remski sits down with songwriter Nathan Evans Fox to talk about kinship, Appalachia, and the viral hymn that’s resonating across communities. Nathan shares the roots of his concept of yallidarity —solidarity rooted in labor, joy, food, music, and taking care of one another. They discuss the myths and realities of Appalachia, th...