Antifascist Dad Podcast

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 about ten minutes to get clear — personally and ideologically — about my own evolving relationship to Catholicism, anticapitalism, and antifascist organizing. If you’ve ever struggled with the contradictions of religious institutions while still feeling pulled toward their radical roots, this may resonate.

We also close with Fascist Dad of the Week, featuring the tragic anti-heroism of White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, whose devotion to a decrepit sex criminal seems to grow deeper with every press conference.

David's excellent podcast on Liberation Theology

Liberation Theology Primer on Conspirituality

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@antifascistdad
TikTok: @antifascistdad
Instagram: @matthew_remski
Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social

Join the community and get all Part 2 episodes + extras on Patreon:
https://patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast

Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times
North Atlantic Books · Coming April 26, 2026

just say the word.

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 outsider culture from the inside. Together we trace how today’s meme-driven environments blur the lines between subculture and politics, and why attempts to “decode” online radicalization so often miss the mark. What looks like political ideology is often a shared subcultural language. What looks like a manifesto might actually be a dare, a joke, or an attempt to create meaning in the void.

We talk about the very ambiguous case of Tyler Robinson, alleged killer of Charlie Kirk, and why the bullet-casing engravings left behind point less toward a stable ideology and more toward the chaotic, dare-based dynamics of online subcultures. We also begin unpacking the emerging story of Graham Platner, and why he has become a Rorschach test for liberal and left anxieties.

Cy argues that online extremism is not distortion of human nature, but a predictable outcome of alienation, platform incentives, and a society that doesn’t give people — especially young men — stable roles, narratives, or futures. But she also insists the internet itself isn’t broken. The tools could be used for creativity, care, and community; they’ve simply been captured by the wrong incentives.

If you’re a parent, educator, caregiver, or anyone trying to understand what’s happening to young people online — and what can actually intervene in these dynamics — Cy’s insights are super helpful.

Cy's Website

Cy's Substack: Abstract Machines

• Subscribe on Patreon for Part 2 and full archive access:
https://www.patreon.com/antifascistadpodcast

• Preorder Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (April 26, 2026)

• Follow me on Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social
• Follow me on Instagram: @matthew_remski
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• Rate & Review — it helps this project reach more people!

• Share this episode with educators, caregivers, or anyone trying to understand online radicalization.

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: how normalizing adrenaline and pain helps you keep your head during arrests, how to tell hurt from injury, and why the ability to read an adversary in real time matters as much as strategy documents. We sit with responsibility: what communities owe each other when actions bring heat, how mutual aid and legal defense slot into any honest conversation about risk, and why some moments demand acting without guarantees simply to preserve human dignity.

In the closing segment, I unpack the Graham Platner morality play: a black box for the contemplation of masculinity, recklessness, red flags, trauma, accountability, marks of Cain, internet vs. public identities, and the status of trust in the spectacle.

Subscribe on YouTube at @antifascistdad for weekly mini-essays and the Basics series; the first Basics installment is now public.

Join the Patreon for Part 2s, early access, and paywalled bonus briefs.

TikTok and YouTube @antifascistdad.

Pre-order the book that this project supports — Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books) — pub date April 26, 2026.

Brief: Beyond Violence and Nonviolence (Part 1) w/ Ben Case 

Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence 

Magic Numbers Are No Shortcut to Strategy (New article from Ben Case) 

Venezuela Military Personnel 

'Violent protest is not protected,' Biden says of college campus unrest - ABC News

The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance | ICNC

Hegseth orders that all defense personnel review his speech to top military brass on fitness, standards | CNN Politics

Pete Hegseth | Signal, Tattoos, Harvey Milk, Secretary Defense, Military Career, & Facts | Britannica

Sullivan man launches campaign for U.S. Senate | PenBay Pilot

The Political Awakening of the Oyster Farmer Taking on Susan Collins | The New Republic

Who is Graham Platner and why is he everywhere right now? | Maine Public

Can a Maine Oyster Farmer Defeat a Five-Term Republican Senator?

Maine Senate candidate promoted violent political action in since-deleted online posts - POLITICO

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner covers up controversial tattoo: What to know

Graham Platner—and His Mom—Try to Move Past Tattoo Scandal at a Maine Town Hall | Vanity Fair

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 prof, serial entrepreneur, and podcast mainstay—and his new book will land loudly with U.S. liberals searching for ways to “win back men” from Trumpism. I read the book closely—praise where it’s due, pushback where it matters—and make the case that while Galloway offers genuine, sometimes moving reflections on love, fatherhood, and responsibility, his framework ultimately shores up the liberal-capitalist status quo that keeps feeding the conditions in which authoritarianism grows.

Across the hour, I map Galloway’s 44 “notes” into five big buckets—reframing masculinity, capitalist pep talk, productivity metaphors, pro-family traditionalism, and the kinder-gentler counterweight to manosphere alpha tropes—and test how each plays in the current political economy.

I highlight where the book’s affective power (memoir + confessional humility) outpaces its thin endnotes and limited policy imagination; where “protect, provide, procreate” functions as a sticky brand more than a credible gender theory; and where straw-man takes (on “toxic masculinity,” college, participation trophies) obscure structural realities.

I also dig into the contradictions: the book’s bootstrap sermons versus its tender late-chapter wisdom on loyalty and unconditional love; the patriotic gloss versus the missing history; and how a spirituality of private consolation can soothe readers without moving them toward material change. If you’re a parent, teacher, organizer—or just a listener trying to make sense of “men’s crisis” content without getting pulled rightward—this breakdown offers context, citations to chase, and a rubric for reading similar books with both empathy and rigor.

Find me on YouTube and TikTok as @antfascistdad. Part 2's and extras on Patreon.

Brief: Galloway and the Mooch: The Lost Boys of Capitalism (Pt 1)

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 by despair but grounded in struggle, truth, and imagination.

Bray, Mark. Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2017.

Bray, Mark, and Robert H. Haworth, eds. Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader. Translated by Mark Bray and Joseph McCabe. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2019

Meet the Portland protest frog that started a movement - YouTube 

‘I’ve definitely had spicier tamales,’ says Portland ICE protest frog that got pepper sprayed by federal agents - oregonlive.com

ICE Agents Shoot Pepper Spray into Protester's Frog Costume Air Vent  

Antifa expert at Rutgers University flees US amid death threats

He Wrote a Book About Antifa. Death Threats Are Driving Him Out of the US | WIRED

Antifa expert at Rutgers University says he is moving to Spain because of death threats

Rutgers Expert on Antifa Flees to Spain After Death Threats - The New York Times

Antifa Expert to Flee with Family to Spain Following Death Threats | Democracy Now!

Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization – The White House 

You can pre-order Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books | April 26 2026)

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 putting your body between ICE and your neighbor.

We dig into the realities of “big” vs. “little” violence, the strategic and moral limits of “respectable” protest narratives, and why bodies, training, and solidarity matter when the state blurs dissent with “disorder.” Ben lays out how fight-sport training can normalize adrenaline, prevent panic, and sharpen on-the-spot judgment; why movements we label “nonviolent” often include non-armed force; and how a range of tactics actually functions together on the ground. We also revisit the 2017 Richard Spencer punch as a case study in consequence, deterrence, and dignity — and what it does (and doesn’t) tell us about backlash and movement strategy.

Ben Case is an antifascist organizer and researcher whose work interrogates how punditry and policy launder certain protest tactics as “legible” while criminalizing others. He’s a retired pro Muay Thai fighter, a coach/official, and the author of Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence. His scholarship and fieldwork examine how non-armed force (property damage, de-arrests, sabotage) gets mislabeled or erased — with real consequences for movements and public understanding.

Part 2 now on Patreon: the second half of my conversation with Ben — plus a segment on the Graham Platner morality play (PTSD, internet alienation, a Nazi tattoo, accountability, and the anxieties of masculinity). Will remain paywalled for 2–3 weeks. Join at @antifascistdadpodcast to hear it now.

Subscribe on YouTube at @antifascistdad for weekly mini-essays and the Basics series; the first Basics installment is now public.

Join the Patreon for Part 2s, early access, and paywalled bonus briefs.

TikTok and YouTube @antifascistdad.

Pre-order the book that this project supports — Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books) — pub date April 26, 2026.

Brief: Beyond Violence and Nonviolence (Part 1) w/ Ben Case 

Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence 

Magic Numbers Are No Shortcut to Strategy (New article from Ben Case) 

Venezuela Military Personnel 

'Violent protest is not protected,' Biden says of college campus unrest - ABC News

The Success of Nonviolent Civil Resistance | ICNC

Hegseth orders that all defense personnel review his speech to top military brass on fitness, standards | CNN Politics

Pete Hegseth | Signal, Tattoos, Harvey Milk, Secretary Defense, Military Career, & Facts | Britannica

Sullivan man launches campaign for U.S. Senate | PenBay Pilot

The Political Awakening of the Oyster Farmer Taking on Susan Collins | The New Republic

Who is Graham Platner and why is he everywhere right now? | Maine Public

Can a Maine Oyster Farmer Defeat a Five-Term Republican Senator?

Maine Senate candidate promoted violent political action in since-deleted online posts - POLITICO

Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner covers up controversial tattoo: What to know

Graham Platner—and His Mom—Try to Move Past Tattoo Scandal at a Maine Town Hall | Vanity Fair

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 the river to the sea,” movement discipline, gatekeeping and rules, and what was built even after tents came down. We end on globalize the intifada as a transnational language forliberation—and a closing story about the Macklemore “Hind’s Hall” moment with my kids.

Guest
Sara Rasikh — organizer/spokesperson, UofT Occupy for Palestine; PhD student (UofT).

• Follow: YouTube/TikTok @antifascistdad 
• Pre-order the book Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, Apr 2026): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/

Content notes
State violence, encampments, doxxing, police, genocide/famine, antisemitism/anti-Palestinian racism (discussion), explicit lyric quoted (“FTP”) in Macklemore section.

References

UofT encampment—injunction & dismantling (July 2–3, 2024): University’s official notice and Reuters same-day coverage confirm the court order to clear by 6:00 p.m., July 3 and the camp’s removal. Office of the President

Campus encampment wave scale (May 2024): AP reported rapid spread across Europe and the U.S.; The Chronicle’s tracker packages recap scope and arrests through 2024–25. AP News

Greta Thunberg—deportation & Athens remarks (Oct 6, 2025): On-the-ground AP and Reuters pieces (plus AP video) document the deportations and her statement at Athens airport. AP News

Hannibal Directive on Oct 7, 2023: Haaretz investigation (with summary reporting by Al Jazeera) details the order’s use on Oct 7. Haaretz

“Imperial boomerang” (Césaire): Primary text from Monthly Review Press / NYU Press (JSTOR book page) for Discourse on Colonialism. Monthly Review

UK role in F-35 supply chain (~15% workshare): UK government and BAE sources (plus NAO summary) reaffirm ~15% UK content on every F-35. National Audit Office (NAO)

Palestine Action—RAF plane damage & subsequent arrests after proscription (2025): Timeline covered by AP and Reuters from June–Oct 2025, including charges over RAF Brize Norton and mass arrests for “support for a proscribed organisation.” AP News

Canada—status of arms export permits to Israel & contested “freeze”: Reuters on the March 2024 freeze on new permits; full NGO report (Arms Embargo Now, July 29, 2025) with shipment/bullets figures; Canadian government response; additional Reuters context on lawsuits and supplier overviews. Reuters 

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 flood of death threats.

But no one can exile the work. Mark joins me to ground antifascism in history, movement strategy, and parenting. We unpack how education becomes propaganda when sourcing and truth-testing are abandoned; and how movements need a diversity of rhetoric—from accessible to militant.

Also: navigating slogans like Abolish ICE, ACAB, and Globalize the Intifada, and the Glastonbury “Death to the IDF” chant. We compare liberal/centrist antifascism with mass, working-class antifascism, and manage to end on hope: making space for young people’s bold experiments even when veteran organizers feel the weight of years.

Also: news from the Portland Frog detachment!

The full second half—movement discipline, courts vs. power, deeper dive on slogans, and my reflection on Mark’s “technique vs. content” distinction—is live now for supporters: https://www.patreon.com/cw/AntifascistDadPodcast.

Pre-order the book that powers this podcast: Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (pub date April 26, 2026)
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/

Bray, Mark. Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2017.

Bray, Mark, and Robert H. Haworth, eds. Anarchist Education and the Modern School: A Francisco Ferrer Reader. Translated by Mark Bray and Joseph McCabe. Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2019

Meet the Portland protest frog that started a movement - YouTube 

‘I’ve definitely had spicier tamales,’ says Portland ICE protest frog that got pepper sprayed by federal agents - oregonlive.com

ICE Agents Shoot Pepper Spray into Protester's Frog Costume Air Vent  

Antifa expert at Rutgers University flees US amid death threats

He Wrote a Book About Antifa. Death Threats Are Driving Him Out of the US | WIRED

Antifa expert at Rutgers University says he is moving to Spain because of death threats

Rutgers Expert on Antifa Flees to Spain After Death Threats - The New York Times

Antifa Expert to Flee with Family to Spain Following Death Threats | Democracy Now!

Designating Antifa as a Domestic Terrorist Organization – The White House 

Bluesky: under my name — Matthew Remski

Instagram: @matthew_remski

YouTube: @antifascistdad

TikTok: @antifascistdad (3–4 mini-essays/week)

Theme music by https://www.kalliemarie.com/.

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 you’re just trying to get by. I close with a personal meditation on intergenerational trauma, my mother, and why toughness without resentment can still be a form of love.

Guest
Nathan Evans Fox — songwriter, record Heirloom (May release). 

Where to follow / support
• Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/AntifascistDadPodcast
• Follow: YouTube/TikTok @antifascistdad • IG @Matthew_Remski
• Pre-order the book Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, Apr 2026): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/

Content notes
Religious themes; family trauma; addiction; war; grief; light profanity.

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 Thunberg’s deportation and how liberal institutions police dissent—then close with a “fashy dad” segment on UK PM Keir Starmer and the criminalization of Palestine Action supporters. If you’ve wondered what encampments actually do—politically, ethically, and communally—this is your primer.

Guest
Sara Rasikh (PhD student, University of Toronto). MA in Social Justice Education; HBA in Ethics, Society & Law and in Critical Studies in Equity & Solidarity (UofT).

Listen & Support
• Watch/subscribe: YouTube @antifascistdad
• TikTok: @antifascistdad
• IG: @matthew_Remski
• Part 2 is up now on Patreon: @antifascistdadpodcast (temporarily paywalled)
• Pre-order the book Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (North Atlantic Books, Apr 2026): https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807656/antifascist-dad-by-matthew-remski/

Content notes
State violence; detention; doxxing; police actions; genocide; fasting/starvation; prison abuse (discussion).

References

UofT encampment—injunction & dismantling (July 2–3, 2024): University’s official notice and Reuters same-day coverage confirm the court order to clear by 6:00 p.m., July 3 and the camp’s removal. Office of the President

Campus encampment wave scale (May 2024): AP reported rapid spread across Europe and the U.S.; The Chronicle’s tracker packages recap scope and arrests through 2024–25. AP News

Greta Thunberg—deportation & Athens remarks (Oct 6, 2025): On-the-ground AP and Reuters pieces (plus AP video) document the deportations and her statement at Athens airport. AP News

Hannibal Directive on Oct 7, 2023: Haaretz investigation (with summary reporting by Al Jazeera) details the order’s use on Oct 7. Haaretz

“Imperial boomerang” (Césaire): Primary text from Monthly Review Press / NYU Press (JSTOR book page) for Discourse on Colonialism. Monthly Review

UK role in F-35 supply chain (~15% workshare): UK government and BAE sources (plus NAO summary) reaffirm ~15% UK content on every F-35. National Audit Office (NAO)

Palestine Action—RAF plane damage & subsequent arrests after proscription (2025): Timeline covered by AP and Reuters from June–Oct 2025, including charges over RAF Brize Norton and mass arrests for “support for a proscribed organisation.” AP News

Canada—status of arms export permits to Israel & contested “freeze”: Reuters on the March 2024 freeze on new permits; full NGO report (Arms Embargo Now, July 29, 2025) with shipment/bullets figures; Canadian government response; additional Reuters context on lawsuits and supplier overviews. Reuters