Greetings from the Twin Cities. My bona fides: I'm staff for an education union. Worked in labor politics (member-to-member, not a lobbyist) for just under 20 years. I'm also a union member. The local I work for is very left-ish. I'm also a union member. I have lived in MN since the 80s. Raised my kid here. And I've been around the work since I was in my late teens.
I want to add what I think is important context to Mathias' assessment of what's happening here. I also want to be clear that I believe that MN was always the target, and that what happened in LA, Chicago, and Portland were test runs.
Minnesota is different from those places in a lot of ways. We're smaller, and more isolated. We're flyover country, which means folks don't pay much attention to us - think about how much national press attention we got for our 1/23 general strike outside of niche news outlets While people were going apeshit over how cold and snowy it was going to be, there was very little mention about how dangerously cold it was, and there were 50K people outside for hours here. The weather here (and not just winters) forces you to learn patience and to build stamina that goes deep.
A lot of the usual tribalism amongst labor and between labor, faith, and progressive orgs don't hold up here. There's still some of it, and a lot of us have been working to address that since 2018-ish. Yes, we still have gaps and problems. And unlike a lot of places, we're actually trying to address that. We're fundamentally a pro-worker state. (A union state too, but that's a little different).
When folks that aren't from here write or talk about MN, you'll often hear "a deep blue state, in a red part of the country". And precious little analysis goes into that.
We're standoffish people (it takes a while to get to know us), but we know who our neighbors are. We'll push out our asshole neighbor's care when it gets stuck, and we'll shovel a stranger's sidewalk. (Because we know that the weather here can kill you, and that regular ice can leave you with a broken leg). We value our parks - not just cool state parks, but the little city park down the block, and we have lots of those. Outside of our cities and farming communities, we are shockingly white. And we have been aggressively pro-immigrant for decades. (Ya think people come here for the weather?)
But I really think, in this moment, what has made the difference is COVID and the murder of George Floyd. These two events, showed us that we had a choice to make in how we move forward. They also broke a lot of right-wing brains.
Like a lot of cities, mutual aid groups came together here at the start of the pandemic. But those groups were really tested over the summer, especially after the National Guard was deployed in our streets. What a lot of people either forget, or never knew, what how fascists came to our state during the Uprising. A lot of folks don't know, or care, that it was a Boogaloo Boy that kicked off the destruction around the 3rd precinct. Many aren't aware that in our Black neighborhoods, folks set up patrols (sometimes armed) to protect their communities from real outside agitators. And - I think this is really important - folks don't understand that the legislative wins that Walz gets the credit for was actually only possible because of those coalitions I hinted at at the start of this.
We also learned a lot after the Uprising. Especially about how groups are marginalized and infiltrated. We learned to think more deeply about tactics, and keeping each other safe. And we didn't wait to see what would happen after the 2024 election. We knew we were going to be a target. Not just because of Trump's insane levels of entitlement, but because we lived through the response to us in 2020.
Basic organizing principles aren't just for getting a good contract. They translate pretty well to politics (if you actually focus on the politics and not just elections). One thing the boss knows is that if you want to break worker power, you go after the tightest, strongest one. You can break the weak unions, the business unions left and right, but you don't get rid of unionism that way. We may be a smaller population, but we are also deeply rooted in shared values and strong relationships in ways that larger populations are not. They have to break us here, if they want the rest of you to fall.
I spend a good part of each day anxious. I've cried every day in my car since the occupation started. I worry every day for kids that were already reeling from the pandemic who are now breathing in tear gas outside their school. I worry about what will happen when the leg session starts in two weeks (don't forget, we had our Speaker murdered, and another long-time state Senator badly injured). And every day, my fellow Minnesotans give me hope.
You are giving the rest of us hope too. You are known and seen by more people than you know. All of our friends are talking about the heroism in MN right now (from CA); you are inspiring all of us.
It’s interesting to see how different communities use their local culture to protest. I was in Portland for a march and it was part street fair/comic con at a protest vibe. San Diego was pissed, but in flip flops. LA is bringing some heat. So keep it up. You all are amazing.
“For those still resisting using the term, for insisting that America is not fascist, I keep thinking of that footage last week of all the people in the detention center in Texas in similar outfits, waving their arms at a camera in the sky, to protest the squalid conditions they are being kept in. There were children in that video. I don’t know how you look at that and don’t immediately think of the Holocaust photos we all grew up with. Sometimes I want to tell people who aren’t calling this shit fascist: Okay, go to that concentration camp and scream over the wall, ‘It’s okay! Don’t worry, this isn’t actually fascism!’”
I really like the historical link to treatment of immigrants and African Americans -- the KKK, the American Bund, the 1850s No-Nothing Party, 1890s-1900 anti-immigrant hate-mongering -- this is a long USA tradition that now has a new face, but it's the same-old, same-old...
“America” has always been racist. This was true long before there was even a thought of the USA. But racism has never totally defined us.
“America” has always been authoritarian. This was true before the US, but of course “America” has also always been anti-authoritarian.
MAGA is fascist. But fascism does not totally define it as a morphing, growing, shrinking, and dangerous movement. The same is even more true of every individual who voted for Trump three times in a row, has had a Trump sign in their yard for 12 years, or styles herself as MAGA.
Shame plays an important role in the thoughts and feelings of MAGAism. So do guilt, fear, and rage. These types of emotions play an important role in fascism too, lest we forget that MAGAism is just one more form of fascism. It IS just one more form of fascism, and it won’t be the last.
I like to do visibility protests on corners where the traffic is forced to stop. I am not a quiet Quaker type protester. I like to push out my little sign (“Think Trump will Stop with Migrants?”) and make eye contact while I point at the sign and then point right back at them. I like to do that while making sure they can see my big sign hanging on my neck (“State Destruction led to the Holocaust/ Don’t think it didn’t!”) I like to get negative reactions. I probably like negative reactions better than positive ones.
And did I say I am not a Quaker? I don’t like to even let them think they can have the last word. If they call me a loser, I taunt them to tell the world what a winner they are. If they call me a retard, I beg them to show everybody how smart they are, how knowledgeable, how capable, how wise, how hygienic. On the street corner no one has YET been able to out “shit talk” me.
Oh, right… SHAME! If they say the right wrong things I do talk about shame. I ask them if their parents would be proud of them. Are their children? If they get loud, I get louder. I can just intone the single word “SHAME” like barefoot and sun-drunk prophet. Or I can sing to them, “IF you’re a Nazi and you know it, stomp your foot. If you’re a Nazi and you know it, don’t be afraid to show it, stomp your foot….” I tend to have more fun than they do.
I don’t hate the trumpers. I kind of like them. I’ve shaken hands with some after “abusing” them for a while. I’ve cheerfully held their signs that say “I am Charlie Kirk.” “Well, I’m way worse,” I’d say, “so of course I’ll hold this sign. I am Spartacus too.” MAGA ladies have asked me to take their group photo with one of their phones. I like them, but they know I can give them a hard time too. It’s not all in good fun, but it’s not all bad either.
My take on most trumpers is that they have been shamed all their lives. They’ve been tricked and manipulated. Trump acts out for them in a way that makes them feel good even as it makes them feel bad, kind of they way a triple snort of absinthe warms and numbs, lightens and weighs, uplifts and crushes down.
I know that if Trump wins, it will not really make them feel good for more than a minute or so. I know this just like I know how goading them to sputter with rage (or to reach for their gun) gives me only the most fleeting and momentary thrill.
I noticed Mathias contributes to The Nation. I wonder if he's had the chance to ask Katha Pollitt why she signed the Harper's Letter. I mean, because she's a gullible, elderly coward, obviously, but I'd like to hear about that in her own words.
"… if you’re in a bar, and a dude comes in shouting racial slurs and sieg-heiling, you understand that that dude poses an urgent threat in need of confronting. I think a lot of Americans in that situation would tell that Nazi to leave, and if he refused, *physically force* him to leave. … They always pose an urgent threat."
Name them, shame them, shun them, run them out. Not a moment's peace. Ever.
In regard to the last paragraph of this excellent interview, I think it’s a badge of honor to not be hired by The NY Times. I was a loyal subscriber to the Times for many years, but no longer.
Chris Hedges was fired from the NY Times 20 years ago. Hamilton Nolan and Chris Hedges are the best and bravest of the independent journalists we follow and support.
"I wrote recently for the Nation about how liberals and centrists and Democratic politicians have this annoying habit of saying that antifa doesn’t even exist—that it’s just an “idea” and that “antifa” is simply a shortening of antifascist. I just wrote a whole book about antifa. It exists"
!!!!
I was one of them until just now! And I'm a social democrat
So they actually EXIST? Organizationally...
Thank fucking GOD! this changes my thinking big time. There is something tangible to be part OF...
So basically antifa is TWO things. The SENTIMENT AND actual on the ground organizing and action
One way to stop local violence in your community is to bully, shame and punch your local Nazi (if needed). Fascists deserve to face a lifetime of consequences for this.
Great interview and I will definitely be buying this book, but Mr. Mathias’ take on free speech challenges my stance on it. I grasp the premise of denying a platform for Nazis or like minded groups. And it’s true that the facist right will do whatever to silence dissenting voices. But we all agree that is wrong. I also agree, however, that pundits do not need to remain neutral to be considered objective. When facist vitriol is spewed, it should be incumbent on whomever is presenting any facist propaganda to vehemently condemn it, whether it’s Rachal Madow or David Muir.
The unresolved question isn’t whether this is fascism. That argument is already over in practice, even if pundits pretend it isn’t.
The real question is institutional alignment: who is being insulated from accountability, who is being designated as a threat, and which tools of the state are being normalized for use against dissent.
Once protest, journalism, and monitoring power are reclassified as “interference,” the label doesn’t matter anymore. The machinery does.
Really insightful and timely interview, thank you! One minor point- this is the first time I've seen the detained Tufts student's name spelled Rameysa instead of Rumeysa, just want to see if that was intentional?
Greetings from the Twin Cities. My bona fides: I'm staff for an education union. Worked in labor politics (member-to-member, not a lobbyist) for just under 20 years. I'm also a union member. The local I work for is very left-ish. I'm also a union member. I have lived in MN since the 80s. Raised my kid here. And I've been around the work since I was in my late teens.
I want to add what I think is important context to Mathias' assessment of what's happening here. I also want to be clear that I believe that MN was always the target, and that what happened in LA, Chicago, and Portland were test runs.
Minnesota is different from those places in a lot of ways. We're smaller, and more isolated. We're flyover country, which means folks don't pay much attention to us - think about how much national press attention we got for our 1/23 general strike outside of niche news outlets While people were going apeshit over how cold and snowy it was going to be, there was very little mention about how dangerously cold it was, and there were 50K people outside for hours here. The weather here (and not just winters) forces you to learn patience and to build stamina that goes deep.
A lot of the usual tribalism amongst labor and between labor, faith, and progressive orgs don't hold up here. There's still some of it, and a lot of us have been working to address that since 2018-ish. Yes, we still have gaps and problems. And unlike a lot of places, we're actually trying to address that. We're fundamentally a pro-worker state. (A union state too, but that's a little different).
When folks that aren't from here write or talk about MN, you'll often hear "a deep blue state, in a red part of the country". And precious little analysis goes into that.
We're standoffish people (it takes a while to get to know us), but we know who our neighbors are. We'll push out our asshole neighbor's care when it gets stuck, and we'll shovel a stranger's sidewalk. (Because we know that the weather here can kill you, and that regular ice can leave you with a broken leg). We value our parks - not just cool state parks, but the little city park down the block, and we have lots of those. Outside of our cities and farming communities, we are shockingly white. And we have been aggressively pro-immigrant for decades. (Ya think people come here for the weather?)
But I really think, in this moment, what has made the difference is COVID and the murder of George Floyd. These two events, showed us that we had a choice to make in how we move forward. They also broke a lot of right-wing brains.
Like a lot of cities, mutual aid groups came together here at the start of the pandemic. But those groups were really tested over the summer, especially after the National Guard was deployed in our streets. What a lot of people either forget, or never knew, what how fascists came to our state during the Uprising. A lot of folks don't know, or care, that it was a Boogaloo Boy that kicked off the destruction around the 3rd precinct. Many aren't aware that in our Black neighborhoods, folks set up patrols (sometimes armed) to protect their communities from real outside agitators. And - I think this is really important - folks don't understand that the legislative wins that Walz gets the credit for was actually only possible because of those coalitions I hinted at at the start of this.
We also learned a lot after the Uprising. Especially about how groups are marginalized and infiltrated. We learned to think more deeply about tactics, and keeping each other safe. And we didn't wait to see what would happen after the 2024 election. We knew we were going to be a target. Not just because of Trump's insane levels of entitlement, but because we lived through the response to us in 2020.
Basic organizing principles aren't just for getting a good contract. They translate pretty well to politics (if you actually focus on the politics and not just elections). One thing the boss knows is that if you want to break worker power, you go after the tightest, strongest one. You can break the weak unions, the business unions left and right, but you don't get rid of unionism that way. We may be a smaller population, but we are also deeply rooted in shared values and strong relationships in ways that larger populations are not. They have to break us here, if they want the rest of you to fall.
I spend a good part of each day anxious. I've cried every day in my car since the occupation started. I worry every day for kids that were already reeling from the pandemic who are now breathing in tear gas outside their school. I worry about what will happen when the leg session starts in two weeks (don't forget, we had our Speaker murdered, and another long-time state Senator badly injured). And every day, my fellow Minnesotans give me hope.
You are giving the rest of us hope too. You are known and seen by more people than you know. All of our friends are talking about the heroism in MN right now (from CA); you are inspiring all of us.
It’s interesting to see how different communities use their local culture to protest. I was in Portland for a march and it was part street fair/comic con at a protest vibe. San Diego was pissed, but in flip flops. LA is bringing some heat. So keep it up. You all are amazing.
In Solidarity and Respect from Vancouver, BC, Canada.
This is the most encouraging material I have read in weeks. Thank you.
“For those still resisting using the term, for insisting that America is not fascist, I keep thinking of that footage last week of all the people in the detention center in Texas in similar outfits, waving their arms at a camera in the sky, to protest the squalid conditions they are being kept in. There were children in that video. I don’t know how you look at that and don’t immediately think of the Holocaust photos we all grew up with. Sometimes I want to tell people who aren’t calling this shit fascist: Okay, go to that concentration camp and scream over the wall, ‘It’s okay! Don’t worry, this isn’t actually fascism!’”
Exactly.
I really like the historical link to treatment of immigrants and African Americans -- the KKK, the American Bund, the 1850s No-Nothing Party, 1890s-1900 anti-immigrant hate-mongering -- this is a long USA tradition that now has a new face, but it's the same-old, same-old...
Shouldn't your top photo be labeled "Very fine people on the other side"?
“America” has always been racist. This was true long before there was even a thought of the USA. But racism has never totally defined us.
“America” has always been authoritarian. This was true before the US, but of course “America” has also always been anti-authoritarian.
MAGA is fascist. But fascism does not totally define it as a morphing, growing, shrinking, and dangerous movement. The same is even more true of every individual who voted for Trump three times in a row, has had a Trump sign in their yard for 12 years, or styles herself as MAGA.
Shame plays an important role in the thoughts and feelings of MAGAism. So do guilt, fear, and rage. These types of emotions play an important role in fascism too, lest we forget that MAGAism is just one more form of fascism. It IS just one more form of fascism, and it won’t be the last.
I like to do visibility protests on corners where the traffic is forced to stop. I am not a quiet Quaker type protester. I like to push out my little sign (“Think Trump will Stop with Migrants?”) and make eye contact while I point at the sign and then point right back at them. I like to do that while making sure they can see my big sign hanging on my neck (“State Destruction led to the Holocaust/ Don’t think it didn’t!”) I like to get negative reactions. I probably like negative reactions better than positive ones.
And did I say I am not a Quaker? I don’t like to even let them think they can have the last word. If they call me a loser, I taunt them to tell the world what a winner they are. If they call me a retard, I beg them to show everybody how smart they are, how knowledgeable, how capable, how wise, how hygienic. On the street corner no one has YET been able to out “shit talk” me.
Oh, right… SHAME! If they say the right wrong things I do talk about shame. I ask them if their parents would be proud of them. Are their children? If they get loud, I get louder. I can just intone the single word “SHAME” like barefoot and sun-drunk prophet. Or I can sing to them, “IF you’re a Nazi and you know it, stomp your foot. If you’re a Nazi and you know it, don’t be afraid to show it, stomp your foot….” I tend to have more fun than they do.
I don’t hate the trumpers. I kind of like them. I’ve shaken hands with some after “abusing” them for a while. I’ve cheerfully held their signs that say “I am Charlie Kirk.” “Well, I’m way worse,” I’d say, “so of course I’ll hold this sign. I am Spartacus too.” MAGA ladies have asked me to take their group photo with one of their phones. I like them, but they know I can give them a hard time too. It’s not all in good fun, but it’s not all bad either.
My take on most trumpers is that they have been shamed all their lives. They’ve been tricked and manipulated. Trump acts out for them in a way that makes them feel good even as it makes them feel bad, kind of they way a triple snort of absinthe warms and numbs, lightens and weighs, uplifts and crushes down.
I know that if Trump wins, it will not really make them feel good for more than a minute or so. I know this just like I know how goading them to sputter with rage (or to reach for their gun) gives me only the most fleeting and momentary thrill.
We need more like you.
Like Groucho Marx, I wouldn’t want to associate (too much) with anybody too much like me.
I noticed Mathias contributes to The Nation. I wonder if he's had the chance to ask Katha Pollitt why she signed the Harper's Letter. I mean, because she's a gullible, elderly coward, obviously, but I'd like to hear about that in her own words.
"… if you’re in a bar, and a dude comes in shouting racial slurs and sieg-heiling, you understand that that dude poses an urgent threat in need of confronting. I think a lot of Americans in that situation would tell that Nazi to leave, and if he refused, *physically force* him to leave. … They always pose an urgent threat."
Name them, shame them, shun them, run them out. Not a moment's peace. Ever.
In regard to the last paragraph of this excellent interview, I think it’s a badge of honor to not be hired by The NY Times. I was a loyal subscriber to the Times for many years, but no longer.
Chris Hedges was fired from the NY Times 20 years ago. Hamilton Nolan and Chris Hedges are the best and bravest of the independent journalists we follow and support.
"I wrote recently for the Nation about how liberals and centrists and Democratic politicians have this annoying habit of saying that antifa doesn’t even exist—that it’s just an “idea” and that “antifa” is simply a shortening of antifascist. I just wrote a whole book about antifa. It exists"
!!!!
I was one of them until just now! And I'm a social democrat
So they actually EXIST? Organizationally...
Thank fucking GOD! this changes my thinking big time. There is something tangible to be part OF...
So basically antifa is TWO things. The SENTIMENT AND actual on the ground organizing and action
One way to stop local violence in your community is to bully, shame and punch your local Nazi (if needed). Fascists deserve to face a lifetime of consequences for this.
Great interview and I will definitely be buying this book, but Mr. Mathias’ take on free speech challenges my stance on it. I grasp the premise of denying a platform for Nazis or like minded groups. And it’s true that the facist right will do whatever to silence dissenting voices. But we all agree that is wrong. I also agree, however, that pundits do not need to remain neutral to be considered objective. When facist vitriol is spewed, it should be incumbent on whomever is presenting any facist propaganda to vehemently condemn it, whether it’s Rachal Madow or David Muir.
Definitely the left needs more delusional street corner crazy people cosplaying Chris Hanson, but targeting the Nazis.
MAGA looks like the advertisement buy now pay never
The unresolved question isn’t whether this is fascism. That argument is already over in practice, even if pundits pretend it isn’t.
The real question is institutional alignment: who is being insulated from accountability, who is being designated as a threat, and which tools of the state are being normalized for use against dissent.
Once protest, journalism, and monitoring power are reclassified as “interference,” the label doesn’t matter anymore. The machinery does.
Really insightful and timely interview, thank you! One minor point- this is the first time I've seen the detained Tufts student's name spelled Rameysa instead of Rumeysa, just want to see if that was intentional?