Antifascist Dad Podcast

Part 2 with Brad Onishi. What interrupts extremist pipelines? Brad dishes on his Japanese American family and how multicultural, multiethnic community might inoculate against fascist identity formation. I discuss the flip side: whiteness as the erasure of roots, the vulnerability of deracinated teens searching for story What are the healthier forms of religion—traditions that invite complexity, mystery, and emotional range rather than binary thinking and enemy-making?  The coda is on self-regulation, frugality, and inner renewal as part of antifascist life. Do we need antifascist spirituality?  Brad Onishi is a social commentator, scholar, and co-host of the Straight White American Jesus (SWAJ) podcast. He founded Axis Mundi Media in 2023 in order to provide a platform for research-based podcasts focused on safeguarding democracy from the threats of extremism and authoritarianism. His writing has appeared at the New York Times, Politico, Rolling Stone, NBC News, HuffPost, and many other outlets. Onishi is a frequent guest on national radio, podcast, and television outlets, including “Fresh Air” with Terry Gross and MSNBC. His podcast, SWAJ, ranks in the top 50 of Politics shows on Apple’s podcast charts – ahead of programs from NPR, the NYT, and other national outlets. His book, Preparing for War: The Extremist History of White Christian Nationalism – And What Comes Next is available now. Notes:  Satanic Panic archive on Conspirituality. The Devil You Know — Sarah Marshall  The Smoke of Satan on the Silver Screen: The Catholic Horror Film, Vatican II, and the Revival of Demonology | Journal for the Academic Study of Religion All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

What happens when a person we admire is implicated in networks of abuse? How can kids navigate guilt by association without sliding into cynicism or spectacle? Using Deepak Chopra’s Epstein emails to Jeffrey Epstein, we can see what charisma offers people in pain, what red flags look like, and how media culture trains us to confuse popularity with truth. Finally: how much apocalyptic evidence do we need before we pivot from doomscrolling to building durable forms of hope? I draw on Dahr Jamail’s arc catastrophe reporting to documenting Indigenous wisdom to explore the question. Notes:  Occult Features of Anarchism | The Anarchist Library The End of Ice - The New Press — Dahr Jamail We Are the Middle of Forever Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth — Jamail and Rushworth  All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

I’m joined by my friend Blair Hodges—Salt Lake City journalist, nonprofit comms pro, and dad to a trans kid—for a conversation that starts with his powerful public testimony opposing Utah’s anti–gender-affirming-care bills. Blair unpacks what it’s like raising a trans child in a “blue dot” city under a hostile state supermajority, and how the so-called “Utah Way” pairs polite PR with targeted cruelty—from flag bans to efforts to rename Harvey Milk Boulevard in the centre of town. We also trace Blair’s journey from Mormon priesthood culture to trans advocacy: how missionary life cracked his worldview open, how Mormon theology hardens into cis-hetero supremacy, and how real relationships—and research—changed his mind. Part two (now on Patreon) goes deeper on Mormon masculinity, authoritarian parenting, children’s rights, and why protecting his kid ultimately mattered more than reforming an institution from within.PS from Blair!On Mormons not being considered white, see W. Paul Reeve, Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (Oxford University Press).The best current one-volume history of the church in its American context, its political realignments, etc., see Benjamin E. Park, American Zion: A New History of Mormonism (W.W. Norton). The best history of Mormon thought on sexuality and gender is Talor G. Petrey, Tabernacles of Clay: Sexuality and Gender in Modern Mormonism (UNC Press). For a firsthand account of the church's chief architect overseeing its temple building program who came out as trans and subsequently lost her job and church membership, see Laurie Lee Hall, Dictates of Conscience: From Mormon High Priest to My New Life as a Woman (Signature Books). I interviewed her about the book on Relationscapes, "Trans In the Latter Days." Notes:  Relationshapes: Blair Hodges All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

I'm back with Part 2 of my conversation with Dale Beran, turning to what happened to the people he followed while reporting on early 4chan, and what it means to grow out of a life shaped by anonymous online worlds.  Some were able to step away as their offline lives improved, but others remained tied to screens in cycles of  addiction. I also share how Dale’s work has helped me talk with my own kids about online culture, bullying, and the attention economy, as a form of inoculation against extremism and despair. This episode ends with an informal report on how conversations about online spaces are going in this antifascist house.  Notes: It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office —Beran All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

An audio essay on how to talk with young people about the Epstein files from an antifascist perspective. How to hold questions without amplifying sensationalism. How to name harms amidst the absence of accountability. Also: fragmented Epstein File discourse could trigger a QAnon-style wave on the left, unless adults provide steadier sources, context, and care. Notes:  Occult Features of Anarchism | The Anarchist Library All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

As he laid it out at Davos, Carney’s prescription for avoiding fascist chaos is more of the same conservative capitalism that accelerates fascism: tax cuts, deregulation, fast-tracked investment in oil, AI, and minerals, and new trading blocs with the more stable “middle powers.” He’s not talking about or taking action domestically to support labour unions, redistribution, social safety nets, or anti-racist and democratic protections.  Carney’s calm, paternal style makes his status quo vision emotionally appealing to liberals seeking stability. Antifascism cannot be a gentler version of domination. We don’t need a kinder patriarch inside the sweatshop. We need politics and parental figures that lead us out of it. CODA: Alex Pretti was a hero, but the straightforward normalcy of his decent actions tell us something about the contested territory of masculinity in this fascist era. Notes: Terror, Love and Brainwashing: Attachment in Cults and Totalitarian Systems Jessica Hauser (friend of Alex Pretti) statement. All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

Writer Dale Beran visits to discuss the far-right online subcultures he documented in his excellent 2019 book, It Came from Something Awful: How a Toxic Troll Army Accidentally Memed Donald Trump into Office. I ask whether the cohort of alienated, terminally online young men still exists and whether it lost power after gaining it. TLDR? The specific 4chan generation has aged or splintered, but the type endures, and its ideas have been mainstreamed—especially through Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter into a platform that rewards provocation and misinformation. Did these young men ever face a real ideological fork? Do they regret that meme-friendly scapegoating traveled faster than deeper structural explanations? We also whether the left should start meming harder.  DALE BERAN is a writer and artist whose work has been published in McSweeney’s, Quartz, The Huffington Post, The Daily Dot, The Nib, and The Baltimore City Paper. He has a BA in classics from Bard and a JD from Fordham. He lives in Baltimore. All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

I'm back with Rev. Angela Denker, discussing antifascist faith under pressure. Angela names the misogyny threaded through white Christian nationalism—from “submission” theology to the contempt aimed at women who refuse it—and explains why the killing of Renee Good landed as specifically gendered terror. We talk about the double-bind of ministry: how churches can be both sites of harassment and, in places like Minneapolis, hubs of women-led resistance and care. Then I ask Angela to “translate” an antifascist Jesus for nonreligious young people by riffing on familiar parables—the Prodigal Son, Workers in the Vineyard, and the Talents—as lessons about mercy, economic fairness, and the moral danger of hoarding. The conversation turns to the hardest question: where nonviolence meets its limits, and how Lutheran traditions wrestle with power, resistance, and the realities of state violence. I close with reflections on Bishop Rob Hirschfeld’s call for clergy to “get their affairs in order” and what that kind of embodied witness implies about capitalism, solidarity, and the spiritual scar tissue we carry. Notes: Disciples of White Jesus: The Radicalization of American Boyhood | Broadleaf Books All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

Carney’s recent speech at Davos really is as important as everyone’s saying it is. But in my view, it’s not important for the obvious truth we just heard him confess, but for the lessons it provides about the deep contradictions and hypocrisies of liberal politics, and how when it pretends to stand up to fascism it’s really asking that the capital order return to an era of better optics. Carney told a truth about neoliberalism that conceals a bigger lie about capitalist inevitability, and how pulling this off with the affect of a more benevolent patriarch can be really attractive and distracting. Part two, available now on Patreon, explores Carney’s masculinity and paternal political style in depth. Does he offer secure attachment? Notes ICE taps Canadian firm for 20 armoured vehicles despite Trump trade war | Globalnews.ca ‘Deeply troubling’: Canadian legislators call for halt to ICE armored vehicle sale after report by The Independent Leadnow. “Stop the Contract: No Canadian Weapons to ICE.” “Principled and pragmatic: Canada’s path” Prime Minister Carney addresses the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting  The Power of the Powerless  ECONOMIC WARFARE. (Hansard, 17 January 1940) All theme music by the amazing www.kalliemarie.com.Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, April 2026).Preorder: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/ Instagram: @matthew_remski TikTok: @antifascistdad Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social (Bluesky Social) YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AntifascistDad 

Craig Johnson, historian who studies fascist movements and aesthetics, joins to unpack why fascism can look cool online. He traces its appeal to speed, power, transgression, and subcultural style. They discuss why mocking looks backfires, when transgression becomes conformity, and how collective tactics and lived diversity blunt fascist recruitment.