Upcoming Talk: Understanding and Challenging Right-Wing Movements Against Democracy

I am speaking on November 8, 3-5 pm, at the UU Church in Spokane and simultaneously on zoom. The event is sponsored by the East Side Gladiators, Indivisible, and the church’s social justice committee. More sponsoring orgs may be added soon. Sign up is available here or here.

Understanding and Challenging Anti-Democracy Movements

Last weekend I spoke via zoom to the Humanists of Greater Portland. A few key points:

  1. Under Trump 2.0, we are in a crucial window of time to resist fascism, after which we may not be able to resist through normal public means. (Tarso Ramos suggests we may be in a crucial “12 to 18-month window.”)
  2. Fascism is a social movement seeking power, always already connected to sources of power. We defeat it not by policing, dialogue, or elections, but through building an alternative social movement.
  3. We should focus on moving people along the “spectrum of allies,” getting those who passively agree with us involved in movements, getting people who are neutral to become aware, and raising questions for conservatives who are passively watching. By and large, we should not waste our time attempting to win over entrenched supporters of fascism and Christian nationalism, but rather focus on mobilizing with those we can reach.

Video of my talk is available here: https://youtu.be/qYcVSWFFbuM.

When State Terror Comes to Town

Judy Rohrer and I have a new op-ed out in RANGE: “When State Terror Comes to Town.”

We address both the national context of rising authoritarian power as well as the local context in Spokane, Washington. At a time of consolidation of executive power and far-right “states of emergency,” we address the arrests of local activists who tried to prevent an illegal ICE arrest, and our mayor’s unfortunate decision to issue a state of emergency to curtail the protest.

Panel Recording: Ethics of Researching Formers and Far-Right Participants

A recording of last week’s panel on research on former members of the far-right and far-right participants is now available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htxYs2CCqRI.

The panel included chapter authors from a section of The Ethics of Researching the Far Right and was cosponsored by the Reactionary Politics Research Network and C-REX, the Center for Research on Extremism based in Oslo. You can also view the previous webinars 1-4, with presentations from other chapter authors in the book, on the Reactionary Politics Research Network’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ReacPolNet/videos.