How to Catch a Fascist: Antifa vs. MAGA

Feb 11, 2026

Christopher Mathias, investigative reporter and author of To Catch a Fascist, explains anti-fascist history and modern tactics. He describes decentralized, hyper-local organizing made up of queer, working-class, and everyday people. The conversation covers OSINT, infiltration, doxxing, exposing white supremacists and links to GOP circles, and why community self-defense matters now.

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INSIGHT

Underground Antifa Network Exposed Extremists

Christopher Mathias discovered an existing underground network unmasking white supremacists after Charlottesville.
That network, Antifa, combined espionage, research, and journalism to expose thousands of extremists.

INSIGHT

Antifa’s Core Beliefs And Tactics

Antifa refers to a decentralized mix of anarchists, socialists, and radicals who sometimes use violence to confront fascists.
They reject relying on state institutions and prioritize denying fascists a platform and organizing direct resistance.

ANECDOTE

Everyday People Become Anti-Fascist Researchers

Antifa activists span demographics: parents, workers, queers, trans people, and many neurodivergent researchers.
Many were radicalized by local incidents of fascist violence, like El Paso or Portland attacks.

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As Gaslit Nation has long warned: our institutions are complicit. Nazis infiltrate police departments, protecting an elite pedophile ring–protected by the FBI and DOJ. What can the American people do in a time of elite criminal impunity? Enter antifa. As investigative reporter Christopher Mathias reveals in his new book To Catch a Fascist, the solution is self-reliance and tenacious research skills.

As Mathias explains, antifa does exist, haunting Donald Trump's nightmares, and has been a force of resistance throughout American history. Antifa is part of a long tradition in America, composed of LGBTQ people, neurodivergent people, the working class, and other everyday Americans–operating in a hyper-localized decentralized network.

Mathias details how activists have unmasked neo-Nazis through Open Source Intelligence (OSINT), infiltrating online and offline groups, hacking, posting "meet your local Nazi" fliers in communities, and citizen investigative journalism. One researcher read 60,000 tweets just to find a single biographical detail to out a Nazi hiding in the dark.

As we'll cover in future episodes, antifa's strategies can also apply to outing Jeffrey Epstein's co-conspirators who think they can continue hiding from justice. Just as the NAACP's Walter White investigated lynchings in the 1920s when the police protected their friends in the Klan, citizen researchers can map the flight logs and financial ties of Trump and Epstein's friends. If the FBI and DOJ continue to protect billionaire lawlessness, we must create a social cost for corruption and predatory elites. If the Department of Justice won't unmask the villains, then it's up to us to do it. "We protect us" is the rallying cry of liberation movements, of neighbors helping neighbors against corruption and institutional failure that protects predators in power. As Gaslit Nation has long warned: it's up to us to save us.

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