It Could Happen Here - New York Antifascists Confront the Far Right

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

Robert sits down with two New York City Antifascists to talk about the strategy behind different actions to counter far right organizing in the city.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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So, everyone who listens to the show regularly will know that there have been a rash of attacks by the far right on drag queen story hours and kind of similar events to that. Events that are LGBT friendly events that also involve children have been regularly attacked all over the United States. At the same time, there have been escalating attacks by right wingers, often the very same people on reproductive health care, resources, clinics, that sort of thing. This is happening all over the country, but one place where things have been particularly aggressive as of late is in New York, New York City. And today we're going to be speaking with a couple of different people who live in New York who have been present at some of these actions and who want to talk about what's been going on with the far right

and the attempts to defend these people in these organizations from right-wing aggression. So I want to introduce Talia. Now, Talia, you are known to our audience. You've been on this show and some of our other shows a couple of times in the past. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. And hello to everyone who still remembers what I sound like. And do you want to you want to drop your your Twitter and stuff up at the top here too, because you do a lot of on the ground reporting at different times and in the city. Sure. It's pretty simple. It's Talia OTG as in on the ground. Um, and yeah, that's where I do my,

uh, reporting on events, uh, analysis, all that dumb shit. And then, uh, our other guests are two New Yorkers.

Sorry, New York people, um, who are both anti-fascist activists who have been present in the streets for a number of these recent events. I'd like to introduce Tom and Barry. Do we want to go around and do pronouns real quick here? I'm he, him. Yeah, sure. I'm she, or they.

This is Tom. I'm he, him. And I'm she, her. Awesome. All right. Well, that is so I guess I'd like to kind of start and hand it over to Talia if she wants to give kind of an overview of how all of this has has has gone down. But basically, we've seen I mean, the thing that surprised me most in the coverage that I have watched from a distance is how aggressive and large some of the right wing presence has been at like, reproductive health clinics in New York City. I was kind of surprised to see that in New York.

Yeah. So there is a group in New York called NYC for Abortion Rights, and they host once monthly clinic defenses at the Planned Parenthood on Bleecker in lower Manhattan. on bleaker in lower Manhattan. Um, and they do that because there is a church nearby the, um, Basilica of old St. Pat's that hosts a, a coalition of anti-abortion, uh, religious zealot groups. They, um, organize these large, they're usually processions to the Planned Parenthood where they pray outside, they throw holy water on the building, they attempt to hand out propaganda and literature and intimidate people who are coming into the clinic for necessary health services. And these same individuals have been seen attending anti-vax rallies that the man who leads the procession to the Planned Parenthood his name is Christopher Monsenski he's also known

as Fidelis and he has invaded clinics in White Plains New York in I think East Hempstead. He has been trying to revive Red Rose Rescue, which people who are familiar with the fight for reproductive rights are probably aware that that is the primary group that invades clinics and tries to harass patients, threatens doctors and care workers and all sorts of things. The main people who lead Red Rose are either in jail or have died, thankfully. And he's trying to revive that here in New York. And he has attended rallies organized by far-right conspiracists,

anti-vax conspiracists. And it's like, you know, he went to DC for the March for Life and then he stuck around for the My Body, My Choice anti-vax rally. It's very contradictory, but we see these same people because they're aligning on conservatism, on Christofascism. And we're seeing them pop up in shared spaces pretty frequently in New York in ways that I think are more transparent or like more easy to clock here, even if there is like a larger density of them that do mobilize to these specific things like clinic crossmans

yeah that's um that's a really interesting point and that's also what we've seen a lot in the pacific northwest um you know we just had an attempted rally at a drag queen story hour in eugene and it was a lot of the same old crowd who used to rally in Portland before they got scared off of Portland. Now, I'm wondering, kind of, how would you characterize the response of the police to these events and how they kind of have treated the right wing at these? Well, it is about as cliche as cliche comes, because every single time um when i've covered clinic defenses specifically the police are helping move the procession along and threatening clinic defenders with arrest on the basis that they're blocking the roadway um they are they they essentially work as like secondary security um sometimes they will split off from the other

police and be like pushing and shoving clinic defenders on their own in a way that doesn't make any sort of strategic sense but it's like they're getting enjoyment from doing that um it's it's the same story over and over again you know we see it in, in San Diego, uh, when anti-fascists were mobilizing against, uh, like Trump supporters that were being very violent, the Trump supporters were doing the violent and it was the police that were attacking the anti-fascist trying to fight against, like trying to defend themselves against the far right. Um, and we saw the same thing at penn state just the other night yeah we did the there was a a gaggle of like proud boys or or i think tess owen referred to them as fascists in all black who were uh macing the crowd and they um they you know didn't do anything. The police escorted.

There was an incident where a Proud Boy was assaulting or like somehow there was a fight that happened with a demonstrator and a Proud Boy. And the demonstrator, the police threw the demonstrator on the ground and then escorted the Proud Boy into the building where Gavin McInnes and Alex Stein were supposed to put on a very bad comedy show that didn't end up happening. Lead him back to his friends. Jesus Christ. I asked that question and I know everybody like listening and I know all of you knew like what the answer was going to be. I feel like you still have to like ask it. curious, the NYPD has a kind of manpower, access to manpower and access to surveillance equipment that in my experience outdoes most nations I've been in. And I'm interested particularly, and everyone's responses are welcome, but particularly what Tom and Barry might have to say about what sort of roadblocks that provides towards organizing responses to

these events and kind of how activists have had to adapt to that. This is Tom here. I mean, I will say it's very clear that the NYPD constantly monitors any sort of online space whatsoever. And I think most people know to organize, you know, in person or on signal with a small group of their friends, rather than trying to get a larger group of people to come to a thing publicly on the internet. Because anytime that happens, it's like there's instantly, you know, that much larger of a police presence. You get dozens and dozens of what's called the SRG, the Strategic Response Group, which

I think Talia can maybe speak on that a little more, but they're basically the hats and bats that come bust up protests. Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And I would also say that because of the sheer volume of events that these exact same group of people who are now attacking drag story hours and clinics, because we know this group already, and they were having almost daily anti-vax rallies, which objectively stopped kind of being a thing to even consider, try to mobilize the counter protest for. So I think there is kind of a large disconnect right now, which whether by design or accidentally, where I think a lot of people feel like people who might attend a counter protest that is

might feel like, oh, no, it counter protest that is might feel like oh no it's just those same idiots up to their nonsense again you know that that's we don't worry about that like tell me if it's the proud boys coming and then we'll mobilize to kind of protest um so i i honestly feel that it's sort of the mental kind of the mental associations that we have with these familiar faces um i mean despite the fact that it's been kind of obviously long observed that the anti-vax stuff is a direct pipeline and radicalization platform for these more extremist and post-fascist and transphobic actions now, people still can't really detach that.

I know this is actually serious now. So, but yeah agreed with that tom said that it's a matter of not dropping it i'm sorry i mean that gets to another kind of advantage these folks have which is because of how much additional state repression y'all are dealing with the kind of personal cost of attending these events and countering the right is higher, both in terms of potential risk and just kind of in terms of the trauma incurred. I know from personal experience, I mean, I haven't been out in the street in quite a while, about a year at this point.

And I know a lot of other people who are in the same place because it just kind of, you know, you can't only take so much as an individual. What are some ways in which y'all as a community try to cope with burnouts that you can continue to meet the pace at which the right is doing this stuff? I mean, I think it's really relying on other people, like the same one, two or three or four or five people can't keep doing everything. Well, as soon as people start to get exhausted, I think then it's time to, you know, take a step back, take a week off, take three weeks off.

There have to be other people that are ready to step up throughout your community, but throughout everywhere. Yeah, and definitely I think there's going to be more of a need to emphasize that this requires everyday anti-fascists. I think in New York City, especially, we kind of fell into a trap where any kind of public call to counter was very militant in style and wording, you know, very clear that it's ACAB and they're Black, if you water, things like that. And the kinds of people that are just community members that we actually do need to also show up and tell the fascists that they're not welcome in their neighborhoods either, they're not going to respond to something like that for a multitude of reasons. And what can you say about sort of the numbers that you're seeing kind of on both sides on

the ground here? What's like a normal action looking like in terms of that? I mean, you know, just from reporting and keeping tabs on different types of protests in New York City, we have a lot of nonprofits and more established type groups that organize larger events. And those are typically just marches for visibility and awareness. And when it comes to a counter, or some sort of direct action, like mutual aid, for example, we see much smaller numbers, but those numbers that I mean, that I see, at least is that these are people who've built community and communicate together, as opposed to seeing a flyer and showing up just for that one day.

These are people who consistently are engaging with one another and with that space. So like I mentioned, mutual aid, we have Washington Square Park Mutual Aid, which meets every Friday. And the core group that sets it up and distributes and everything is relatively small. But the people who have shown up to support in some capacity in the past two years that it has been active, they all know each other. And that doesn't mean that, you know, they're like necessarily like going to birthday parties together or, you know, donating kidneys to one another or something like that. It's not necessarily like best friend groups, but it's people who have built a sort of neighborhood in this ideology and in this space, in this time. I would also say like these particular events have kind of brought in like a

different group of people. It's not like the same crews of people that were doing other things, because there's more kind of liberal people getting involved that are like coming to these drag queen story hour like defenses to, you know, be joyful and hold up signs and sing and like welcome people into the library. So that's also made it more easy to keep these going because we've kind of got a larger revolving door of people rather than, you know, smaller groups. Yeah, that makes sense as like, particularly as a way to not burn people out, you know?

Welcome, I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me as the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonoro. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father

in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now now and I cannot decide if I like him or

not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot. Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head, search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. I'm curious as to what have you seen as far like one of the major tactics anti-fascists always use is identification and exposing people who are attending these events rallying with fascist organizations have you noticed a difference on how well this works for the people who are showing up to protest at, like, Drag Queen story hour events versus the people showing up at reproductive health care clinics at Planned Parenthoods and such? Because it kind of strikes me that one of those is more mainstream maybe than the other, although perhaps I'm being kind of optimistic in that. But I'm wondering, does it appear to be more effective against kind of one one kind of rally than it is in another kind if that makes any sense so a lot of the people who are engaging in the clint harassment are known among their networks and because their goal is to present a sort of legitimizing face for opposing abortion. They don't typically show up to things that are a little bit more volatile. But we have seen that with so it as it happens that

this the people who are harassing Drag Story Hour for the most part, have been a part of one specific core group of people that I've been monitoring and reporting on for the past year. So I know all of their names, which has pigeonholed them into what they can and can't do. We had, there's this far right propagandist, Oren Levy, his brother was at a, he was trying to harass a drag story hour at the andrew high scale library for the blind and that was an event put on for neurodivergent children and he was attempting to harass that he ended up pepper spraying two people and because he is known his name is out there his face is known and he is identifiable across all social media networks it was very easy for those people

to be able to file complaints against him that's um yeah and another thing too is that because this one group does all of these harassments together they started out doing anti-vax stuff where they were going and harassing a restaurant called dame in um i think it's in the village or yeah it's in the village they were harassing that restaurant for a while and I think it's in the village or yeah, it's in the village. They were harassing that restaurant for a while. And then they started harassing the health commissioner's house and then Gracie mansion, which is where Eric Adams lives. And they were all doing these things together. So their network was very easy to monitor and trace. And so when they started harassing drag story hour, which was undeniably, they were doing that as a result of far-right propaganda that was being pushed into all of their social media spaces, trying to convince them that Drag Story Hour is, you know, the Satan incarnate.

They start showing up and trying to harass those. And immediately they're known. They tried to harass, they tried to disrupt AOC at a listening event that she was doing in Queens immediately. They were known. It was like, I saw the footage and I was like, that's Robert White. That's, you know, Cliff Lee, that's Ronan Levy. And it's doing that because they're known, because it's clear that it's one group that's showing up and doing this, trying to follow the lead on what is the trending outrage on the far right that week. It limits the number of people who are interested in joining them because they rely on making it seem like they are just neighbors and constituents who aren't happy with

xyz and it's like no you're a coordinated group of harassers yeah we know who you are so that mask being off definitely i think has helped to reduce the willingness to grow in those harassments but i can't necessarily speak to the future on what would hold or like what other people have been inspired by them because we have seen neo-nazis show up in other states to protest drag story hour the same way that these this little you know band of harassers has been harassing story hours yeah um yeah sorry just a direct response to that that i definitely agree um that yeah we've been monitoring the movement of uh the main actors in the anti-vax movement for a while but i did want to say that it is occasionally other groups but that they all have

the same thing in common and that they attach to the kind of hot topic issue that they see happening in other cities and states. So we did have actually like a very like certainly Christofatious group, TFP I believe that it was called, who, you know, had publicly announced a rally to harass Astoria or initially latched onto that. But all of it is kind of following national trends because they

were initially trying to make CRT in schools be the thing that was a multitude of different groups that are trying

and you know they're looking for something that sticks and they're looking for something that pass or buy or any given

pass or buy walking by will see their side if they hear it but their lack of success if they hear it. But their lack of success, though, is because of their, you know, violence and not especially convincing and very human on sounding antics to where it is clear that they are not actually, they're protesting what they claim themselves they're protesting.

You know, they're losing sympathy because eventually their signs started being about Antifa instead of about allegedly protecting the children and stuff. So their own messaging is kind of probably also at fault there. But this issue is still always going to be at risk for attracting different neo-Nazi groups. I mean, we see in Orlando now there's a whole coalition of Nazis who are joining together to attack the story hour. We've actually seen some of that in New York. It's just coincidence that this one crazy anti-vaxxer who was showing up to attack the story hour was the same day that perhaps other groups were. I don't want to say too much about that at the moment because I think Tom had something.

to say too much about that at the moment because i think tom had something yeah i was just going to say i mean about the you know neo-nazis and other areas coming and uh protesting these drag queen story hours i mean at the first bigger one we did was at elmhurst library there were not only somebody who was at a neo-nazi rally in front of trump tower once we had a january 6th insurrectionist and i think uh talia can probably speak to those two characters a little more but then um there were some other um there was another drag queen story hour where someone from gdl showed up uh and i'm sure you're familiar with gdl robert right yes yes yeah the goyim defense league these guys drive around the hate bus flying the swastika there yeah i mean you just said swastika but in case people are not aware of what Goyim means, what you need to know is the Goyim Defense League are hardcore Nazis.

Yeah, like they are legitimate, straight up neo-Nazis. They fly the swastika, they go harass Jewish neighborhoods. Capital N. Yeah, capital N Nazi. Yeah, one of them went and harassed one of the drag queen story hours recently uh then he uh ran off and said he was going to get his friends and didn't show up with anyone else from what i heard then uh speaking of neo-nazis, you probably know Jovi Val. Oh, yeah. Jovi and I had a conversation a couple of years ago with my good friend Goad.

Yeah, your old buddy. Well, he showed up at a, I believe it was a pediatric health care facility. I don't know if they do gender affirming care, but he was in front of that place holding up a sign. I'm sorry? I said, neither did he have to sign i'm sorry i said neither did he yeah exactly it was literally because the clinic had uh pride flags in the window yeah that makes sense okay that that makes sense he was holding up a sign that said uh i'd rather a nazi than a pedophile which is just like a nonsensical and be like just say you're a nazi than a pedophile which is just like a nonsensical and b like just say you're a nazi just say you're a nazi bro we all know just say you're a fucking nazi why is that the choice

it's so funny because there's like pictures of him with the swastika necklace like doing the roman salute like dude everyone knows you're a nazi yeah no he's completely unashamed and that's the weirdest part about him because of uh you know he learned an interesting lesson about wearing just a you know a MAGA hat in a bar in Brooklyn a few years ago if anyone knows what incident I'm talking about so I find it interesting that this actually did not deter him from ever leaving his house again you know nearly losing his entire nose um so and then still deciding to just double down and actually start carrying the nazi flags thinking it'll go better this time um and apparently he just yeah he's trying to make

nazi shit he's trying to make his name again in 2022 like jovi val is like, he's, he's expired. And he doesn't seem to realize that. No, he's one of like, you know, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna show up. And I'm gonna have nobody with me. And I'm just gonna be standing in front of a closed pediatric clinic. Like with a sign telling people all they see from a distance is the word pedophile and the word nazi yeah like i mean he did have his one little buddy with him in fairness according to his own videos that he posted of the encounter and that buddy of his whoever he was could be heard saying uh something like hey man you know i can't fight i actually i saw i saw the video that jovi that got posted

on telegram and he said jovi i can't fight and he said, Joby, I can't fight. I can't fight, man. Joby, I can't fight. And you can also hear Joby yelling, what are you doing? What are you doing? As he gets tossed into a construction area. And he's such an embarrassment to even other Nazis. They were even making fun of him online.

I mean, somebody literally said, why does jovi always get his ass kicked this is ridiculous he is he is the kind of he is the kind and generation of nazi that other nazis consider cringe like exactly fucking jovi val i hate him so much at the same time though it is a little bit alarming because all of this uh tension on uh figures such as jovi val failing every time and like stepping on rakes metaphorically every time he goes outside it does kind of open a nerving vacuum up to like oh what i can be a way better nazi than that yeah so that is the part that concerns me. If the constant attention is that, you know, Jovi Val did not succeed in organizing a transphobic Nazi rally outside of a

closed pediatric clinic. Okay. I guess that's a win, but who else sees that and sees and thinks, Oh, we can do so much better because we do have a problem with unidentified Nazis throughout New York city. There's, you know, there's been increases in all sorts of graffiti all over the subways um nazi literature being put on trains and left to places it's uh you know so who is seeing this and what is the messaging exactly to say that like you won't succeed if you try this either just because you know jovi keeps getting his shit rocked like we

need you to know you will you will get your shit i mean that's the most important thing at least in in my experience and and that is mostly as an observer i'm not an organizer but i've watched what's happened in the pacific northwest and the reason why these people don't rally in portland the way they used to is they were faced with consequences. And that required, I mean, that was, that was not a simple process. It took fucking five years and a lot of people got broken bones and a number of them got killed. But like, that is, that is the thing. People like these people's lives have to be cratered. And one of the things that is a real

problem is that it's a lot easier to crater people for rallying, or it used to be, number one, it used to be easier to crater people's lives because they were willing to rally with Nazis. But also now the right has succeeded in mainstreaming these two specific things, going after drag Queen's Story Hour events and going after reproductive health care clinics and the people using them to such a degree that it's gotten a lot harder to ruin people's lives over this sort of thing that's that's true but at the same time there's an increase in so many of them who are just unabashedly that way yeah post their full names addresses photos they say uh you know, identifying or doxing them is not. It's just actually almost. Yeah. Empowers them. I think being a bigot is in vogue again. Yeah.

Like most like a large chunk of the country is totally fine. If you're a crazy bigot. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures.

I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere.

Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. I found out I was related to the guy that I was dating. I don't feel emotions correctly. I am talking to a felon right now, and I cannot decide if I like him or not. Those were some callers from my call-in podcast, Therapy Gecko. It's a show where I take real phone calls from anonymous strangers all over the world as a fake gecko therapist and try to dig into their brains and learn a little bit about their lives. I know that's a weird concept, but I promise it's pretty interesting if you give it a shot.

Matter of fact, here's a few more examples of the kinds of calls we get on this show. I live with my boyfriend and I found his piss jar in our apartment. I collect my roommate's toenails and fingernails. I have very overbearing parents. Even at the age of 29, they won't let me move out of their house. So if you want an excuse to get out of your own head and see what's going on in someone else's head,

search for Therapy Gecko on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's the one with the green guy on it. The far right is radicalizing in a sort of gradual pace over the course of many years. And what's happening with people who are countering them is that there is this density of media and pundits sort of looking down their nose at the decorum of countering them. So, you know, we look at Penn State. Students showed up in mass, hundreds of them, significantly outnumbered the Proud Boys that did show up, the fascists that did show up, and successfully shut the event down. But there's still this, like, armchair punditry reflex to say, oh, well, they didn't do it right.

There's no, like, it's not the right way to protest. they didn't do it right there's no like it's not the right way to protest and i think um what barry is sort of barry mentioned earlier about everyday anti-fascist yeah and that's again like with your neighbors and recognizing that it's not this weird um inaccessible like isolated group of people who solely show up very militant and in black block. And they've got like all this training and all these like slogans and slang and words. And, you know, it's, it's none of that iconography because that is also the conservative media, i.e. Andy Ngo constantly refers to all sorts of things as, oh, this is just Antifa. And the purpose of that is to make it seem like you can't do that too.

When in reality, Andy Ngo, that little shit thing, he referred to the successful defense at the Elmhurst Library. He claimed that it was Antifa militants. And I happen to know there was a pastor who was there. There was a nursing mother with her infant and her toddler who was there. There were librarians present. And there were people who showed up because they were in the neighborhood and they heard that far right extremists were going to try and harass. And sure enough, just like Tom mentioned, there was a J six insurrectionist who tried to get into the building.

I recognize. Yeah. He tried to rush in. I recognize him. His name's Mitchell Bosch. He's best known for getting arrested for taking a knee in a burger King. Yeah. This guy tried to rush in and i don't know how it happened but

all of a sudden my arm was hooked into his arm twisting his upper body slightly so he didn't have a good he didn't have good leverage to try and burst into the building where i knew that if he got in he would refuse to leave until he was physically removed by police so then he could then go online and say that he was fighting for freedom and collect bullshit donations for bullshit legal funds so getting all back to this though is that the media and like these these pundits and everything they are complicit in making it harder for people to build community but people need to understand it is literally your neighbors it is your local librarian it is your uh friends it is your local librarian. It is your friends. It is your

coworkers. It's regular people. The same way people showed up to protest in 2020. They, you know, Oh, should I bring a sign? Should I bring a bottle of water? Should I bring my ID? What should I bring? And they just showed up and they marked, you can do the same thing because when you have a significant number of people, you don't need to worry about being militant because you outnumber them and across the board if you look at data the the the positions and the the politics that these people hold and the things that they're pushing are in the significant minority of opinion a majority of people are totally fine with trans people. They're totally fine with drag story hour. Like it's not a thing,

but people aren't showing up to remind them that their opinion is the minority and that they are outnumbered. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, I agree with that last point. And unfortunately the problem seems to be about our kind of cultural inability to agree on the definition of violence and how even though people are OK, largely with queer and trans people and protecting trans kids, and they definitely do not support Nazis.

They still do not think that any kind of militant action, including violence against these people, is ever appropriate. including violence against these people is ever appropriate. And just a direct response to the Penn State thing. It goes beyond punditry even because Penn State itself released a statement saying that, that it does not condone violence without saying who started the violence, AKA the Proud Boys who were Mason people. They said that just cause you don't agree with a speaker and their right to free speech, AKA hateful tour of Gavin McInnes and the Proud Boys, that there is no excuse for violence.

So they denounced the content of the message asbo where people who have the voice to send these messages are still playing the meat at the dinner table, both sides. Surely we can come to a peaceful resolution and then blaming the side that actually is militantly opposed to it. And how to overcome that, I don't know. But I do think, like Talia also said, everyday anti-fascism is a pretty good start. I do think that, like Tali also said, everyday anti-fascism is a pretty good start. Yeah, I mean, with everyday anti-fascism, like the right does this grassroots organizing and gets people to like tacitly agree with what the Proud Boys and these fascist groups do. I think there's plenty of like normal people who would tacitly agree with what we're doing on this side of things. But I mean, you look at like, I was a somebody uh campaigning for maybe it was ron desantis robert you know about this it was like a literal neo-nazi who got no it was a ruby

rubio and it was a the guy was a member of the um he was a cuban fascist who was a member of the league of the south big confederacy guy yes yes well like there was a journalist online who was like, this is awful. Somebody's like, he's literally a Nazi. And then you look up this journalist's like history of articles she's written. And one was like, this is why you should be friends with a Nazi. Or I'm paraphrasing, but that's literally like we should befriend Nazis. Like it's it is ridiculous how so much of the mainstream is like, let's come to the table and be polite. I mean, I really think, and I think a lot of other people think when it comes to Nazis and fascists in

the far right, you have to make it as costly as possible, whatever that means to you, you have to make it as costly as possible for them. So they are deterred from doing this organizing. Yeah. I think that's the, the most durable conclusion certainly that i have seems like what y'all have experienced too and are continuing to experience is there is there anything else y'all wanted to get into about about what's been happening in and with with these events before

we kind of close out for the day the only thing i could think to add was that that it's not over and um people might think, they stopped coming to drag story hours for whatever reason, but they're going to find the next thing, the next issue, the next clinic, the next hospital, the next healthcare provider, the next family who has trans children. They have addresses, they have names, they know where to go. They're just looking for when they feel most emboldened to do so um and it's kind of it's hard to communicate that because people think oh okay that was a successful action you know we're done we're done with them for now but i don't know it's it's it's just it's

really hard to communicate the message that like you know it's like head on a swivel this is the this is the hardest thing to not just to get across to people but to kind of like actively accept for yourself because it's it's one of the most frustrating realities of living in our society but there's no way to get around it which is that like not being eaten by these people is the result of constant vigilance against them. Like, they win if you don't continue showing up. And one day in the bright blue yonder, I do believe that if people continue showing up and continue making it clear that their cause is hopeless hopeless these people will all drink themselves to death or whatever but um you know that's that's not an immediate term sort of thing no i know well and i mean on from just my personal note like yes that is exactly the mode i'm in now and i i mean i'm a

jewish anti-fascist organizer it's almost this kind of history repeating itself ancestral need um to keep at it and i'm one of many people um in the same kind of mindset to where it's not an option to rest and wait until they you know strike when they think we're not looking yeah um but it's it's you know obviously yeah i mean we have like we have evidence that they are looking for the next thing we have evidence that um you know there's this one woman who got heavily involved with um the anti-vax group new york freedom rally um and she would go on you know instagram live stream saying a lot of like transphobic stuff but she never transferred that over onto public spaces until this week, where she reiterated the same points that she was making in the privacy of her home on that live stream to her little audience.

She's now saying it on a stage that she's sharing with the candidate for governor, Lee Zeldin. She's repeating the same thing. So it's showing also that they are finding it they're finding themselves more comfortable in saying these uh bigoted things and and pushing more extreme things and expecting for their followers and their uh friends to follow suit there's people who've shown up to these these harassments of drag story art who have said directly to me that they don't really agree with the harassment itself, but that their friends are there doing the harassment. And so they're showing up for them. And that's a very quick road to they're going to decide to care about this very deeply and go very hard about it.

to decide to care about this very deeply and go very hard about it. But what has worked is when people show up and make it not happy and not good for them, when their footage is ruined, when their soundbites are fucked up, when they are blocked from doing the thing that they're trying to do to generate that content, to feed that like bigoted beast. When people show up,

when those events keep happening, that's a big thing is that like the venues that host these events need to not cancel them because when those venues cancel, it tells the bigots that they are winning. And what needs to happen is the venues feeling brave to put out calls for community support the same way that happened in Eugene. Because when that venue put out that ask, they got hundreds of people and they outnumbered the bigots 10 to 1. I was just going to say, I'm very heartened by how supportive the people in the neighborhoods

and libraries have been, whether they're allowed to officially support anything or not. It's been nice to know that people are happy we're there. And also, I would really love to see a meme of Jovi Val stepping on a rake now that you have that image in my head. Yeah. Was there anything else we wanted to get to? Self-defense is community defense. Yep. uh self-defense is community offense defense and um if people are interested um people in new york created something called ifac fund where you donate funds and then people who want to receive individual first aid kits um can request one and receive one for free. Um, and it was created in honor of a

anti-fascist badass named Torch, um, who is always presente. Um, but yeah, if, if people wanted to check that out, it's, uh, the Twitter account is just at IFAK fund, I F A K fund fund um if they want to donate i think it's uh cash app is ifact fund i think you know someone else could look it up to check yes dollar sign ifact fund oh i'm sorry dollar sign ifact fund thank you dollar sign whatever yeah um and you know it it's just a matter of like, knowing that we keep us safe in every sense of the word. your time. Thank you for continuing to be out there in the streets. And everybody else, get out there and make a fascist stay worse. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of riot. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturno on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season

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