Antifascist Dad Podcast

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 

Picking it back up with historian of fascism Craig Johnson with the question of why fascism can feel cool—especially online—and how we might interrupt that appeal without fighting on fascism’s terms. But fascism isn't just pretending to be cool: it’s popular, aesthetic, and subcultural, and it sells itself through speed, power, transgression, and a sense of newness.

There's a tactical dilemma: how to puncture influencers like Andrew Tate or Nick Fuentes without reinforcing their own status metrics (looks, dominance, sexual access). Craig feels, for instance, that jawline mockery backfires, and why we have to keep the critique on what actually matters: cruelty, exploitation, and fascist politics.

No one organizes alone: tactics are collective, context-dependent, and always strategic. We close on coalition-building and why real, lived diversity makes fascist lies harder to sell.

I end with a brief coda on talking with my kids about the attack on Caracas.

Notes:

How to Talk to Your Son About Fascism — Johnson

Fifteen Minutes of Fascism — Johnson's podcast

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 Rev. Angela Denker,  Lutheran minister, journalist, and mom in Minneapolis, as the city groans under intensified ICE activity. We discuss realities on the ground for families and schools, how she talks with her own kids about fear and safety, and why she believes clear, steady adult context matters in a fragmented media world.

As a minister, Denker's visitation and public theology assignments weave pastoral care and sacramental life into public resilience. As a journalist, the core revelation of her book Disciples of White: The Radicalization of American Boyhood, revolves around her framework of “White Jesus” as a cultural product that sanctifies hierarchy, masculinity, and domination. We talk about how that distortion links to the wider ecosystem of white Christian nationalism.

Part 2 now up on Patreon, explores misogyny in the church, antifascist readings of parables, and hard questions about force, nonviolence, and witness.

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 

I'm back with Sarah Jaffray to probe the aesthetics of fascism and the politics of cultural memory. We talk about how fascist movements rely on a triumphalist victim complex that cannot tolerate vulnerability or disability, and how this connects to the Nazi impulse to purify society through the language of degeneracy and the “enemy within.” Of course we also ping Hitler’s own frustrated artistic ambitions and the nineteenth-century “beautiful ruin” vibe, tracing how nostalgia for an imagined past becomes a visual template for authoritarian order.

I close out with a personal coda on writing, mentorship, attention, and rebuilding an inner voice after a personal collapse—through time and cursive.

About — Sarah Jaffray 

You can support the show on Patreon!

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 

Barron, Stephanie, ed. “Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
https://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/0892362651.html

Bauhaus-Archiv Museum für Gestaltung. “Bauhaus History 1919–1933.”
https://www.bauhaus.de/en/das_bauhaus/21_history/

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 1935.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

Dixon, Paul. “Uncanny Valley.” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/science/uncanny-valley

Dix, Otto. “War (Der Krieg), 1929–1932.” Dresden State Art Collections.
https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/334771

Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin, 2003.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297974/the-coming-of-the-third-reich-by-richard-j-evans/

Gross, George. “Background and Biography.” Tate.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-grosz-1188

Harrison, Charles, Francis Frascina, and Gill Perry. Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300055191/primitivism-cubism-abstraction/

Hitler, Adolf. Speech at the opening of the Entartete Kunst exhibition, Munich, July 19, 1937.
English excerpts reproduced at:
https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/entart.htm

Holbein, Hans (the Younger). “The Ambassadors.” National Gallery, London.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors

Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. 1911.
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3483

Lawrence, Jacob. “The Migration Series.” Museum of Modern Art.
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/37346

Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” ARTnews, 1971.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists-2413/

Riley, Bridget. “Lecture and Interviews.” Tate Britain Archive.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bridget-riley-1845

Rothko, Mark. “Rothko Room.” Tate Modern.
https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/rothko-room

Schulz-Hoffmann, Carla, and Judith C. Weiss, eds. Neue Sachlichkeit / New Objectivity. Munich: Prestel, 2015.
https://www.prestel.com/books/neue-sachlichkeit-new-objectivity/

Tate. “Dada.”
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/dada

Tate. “Surrealism.”
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism

Velázquez, Diego. “Las Meninas.” Museo del Prado.
https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/las-meninas/9fdc5f42-5e09-4c5a-9d50-70b43fca0a30

Walker, Kara. “Artist Overview.” Tate.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kara-walker-2660

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim. History of the Art of Antiquity. 1764.
English edition via Project Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21891

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 plainly saw while powerful institutions deny it. As a parent of two sons, I think out loud about what it means to slow things down, to regulate myself first, and to create a space where fear, grief, anger, and dignity can all be held without panic or cynicism.

Johnson argues that fascist movements have always relied on young men to do their dirty work, and traditional Western masculinity—organized around power, domination, speed, and violence—creates a gateway. Boys aren't inherently fascist, but gendered expectations are easily exploited.

We talk about how platforms like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Discord are dense ecosystems where irony, transgressive humor, and memes function as social signals. Racist or sexist jokes are designed to pull kids in quietly, and how adult outrage can sometimes backfire by confirming the fascist story that these ideas are “forbidden.”

When a kid brings a meme to you, that moment is a crossroads. Punishment and shutdown don’t work. Curiosity, care, and asking a child to explain the joke can slow everything down and open space for honesty. 

Notes:

How to Talk to Your Son About Fascism — Johnson

Fifteen Minutes of Fascism — Johnson's podcast

Part 2 now up on Patreon.

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 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 realism, narrative, and institutional aesthetics in order to resist authoritarian power.

We explore why fascist movements obsess over image control, why abstraction and disorientation can be politically subversive, and how artists make the invisible visible—in part by slowing us down and drawing out deeper levels of attention. We discuss Dada, Surrealism, New Objectivity, Otto Dix, and George Grosz alongside contemporary struggles over AI-generated art and outcome-driven creativity.

We talk a lot about time: the time art requires, the time empathy needs, and the way authoritarian systems try to eliminate both. Sarah argues for art as witness, process, and lived testimony in the face of political dehumanization.

Part Two of this conversation, available now on Patreon, continues into practical guidance on aesthetic freedom and creative survival under pressure.

Antifascist Dad is out on April 26! You can preorder here.

About — Sarah Jaffray 

Barron, Stephanie, ed. “Degenerate Art”: The Fate of the Avant-Garde in Nazi Germany. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
https://www.getty.edu/publications/virtuallibrary/0892362651.html

Bauhaus-Archiv Museum für Gestaltung. “Bauhaus History 1919–1933.”
https://www.bauhaus.de/en/das_bauhaus/21_history/

Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” 1935.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

Dixon, Paul. “Uncanny Valley.” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
https://www.britannica.com/science/uncanny-valley

Dix, Otto. “War (Der Krieg), 1929–1932.” Dresden State Art Collections.
https://skd-online-collection.skd.museum/Details/Index/334771

Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin, 2003.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/297974/the-coming-of-the-third-reich-by-richard-j-evans/

Gross, George. “Background and Biography.” Tate.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-grosz-1188

Harrison, Charles, Francis Frascina, and Gill Perry. Primitivism, Cubism, Abstraction: The Early Twentieth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300055191/primitivism-cubism-abstraction/

Hitler, Adolf. Speech at the opening of the Entartete Kunst exhibition, Munich, July 19, 1937.
English excerpts reproduced at:
https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/entart.htm

Holbein, Hans (the Younger). “The Ambassadors.” National Gallery, London.
https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/hans-holbein-the-younger-the-ambassadors

Kandinsky, Wassily. Concerning the Spiritual in Art. 1911.
https://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3483

Lawrence, Jacob. “The Migration Series.” Museum of Modern Art.
https://www.moma.org/collection/works/37346

Nochlin, Linda. “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” ARTnews, 1971.
https://www.artnews.com/art-news/retrospective/why-have-there-been-no-great-women-artists-2413/

Riley, Bridget. “Lecture and Interviews.” Tate Britain Archive.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/bridget-riley-1845

Rothko, Mark. “Rothko Room.” Tate Modern.
https://www.tate.org.uk/visit/tate-modern/rothko-room

Schulz-Hoffmann, Carla, and Judith C. Weiss, eds. Neue Sachlichkeit / New Objectivity. Munich: Prestel, 2015.
https://www.prestel.com/books/neue-sachlichkeit-new-objectivity/

Tate. “Dada.”
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/d/dada

Tate. “Surrealism.”
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism

Velázquez, Diego. “Las Meninas.” Museo del Prado.
https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/las-meninas/9fdc5f42-5e09-4c5a-9d50-70b43fca0a30

Walker, Kara. “Artist Overview.” Tate.
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/kara-walker-2660

Winckelmann, Johann Joachim. History of the Art of Antiquity. 1764.
English edition via Project Gutenberg:
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21891

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 rooted in an obsession with control, predictability, and rigid developmental maps—hallmarks of fascist thinking. Against that are openness, uncertainty, and experiment as conditions of human flourishing.

We talk family and education, where communistic relations already exist in partial, uneven ways. What would it mean to de-privatize care—while recognizing, as bell hooks warned, that family is not a reliable site of love for everyone?

Richard Gilman-Opalsky at UIS 

Support the show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@antifascistdad
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@antifascistdad
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matthew_remski 
Preorder Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times