Feminism, Fascism, and the Future

Are you losing your ability to resist fascism? Is the thought of making another phone call or showing up at another demonstration feeling more like obligation than inspiration? In this episode we speak with elders who are putting their bodies on the line resisting an ICE surveillance center in Williston, VT and they tell us how to show up and take care of yourself when you can’t. Listen to “Resistance Persistence” and then share it with your comrades because we have to figure out ways to keep on keeping on.

In this episode we dive into the aesthetics of fascism, Mar-a-Lago face, Hegseth’s “no fat generals” speech, and the racialized histories of fatphobia. We interviewed professors Caroline Heldman and Julie Cassiday to explore how fascist regimes past and present use the body as a site of control to enforce ideas about who belongs and who is targeted. The fascist body must be strong, fit, highly gender differentiated, and containing NO FAT, because fat becomes a sign of excess, lack of discipline, and weakness within fascism. But, as we know, these fascist times can also generate spaces of hope and resistance, needed now more than ever.

What starts with watching Nara Smith make bubblegum from scratch can lead you down a dangerous algorithmic rabbit hole. In this episode, we explore how tradwife influencers romanticize 1950s domesticity, why their content is so addictive, and how TikTok's algorithm connects tradwife videos to far-right conspiracy theories and pronatalist movements. Spoiler alert: the gleaming kitchens and perfect hair aren't as innocent as they seem.

In this episode of We Talk to Really Smart People, Carol Anderson, Prof. of African American Studies and author of White Rage explains what white supremacy has to do with the Trump movement and how to avoid believing that fascism is the same as politics as usual. Whether you voted in 2024 or decided to sit it out, listen to this episode! Whether you’ve lost all hope or you look to heroes of the Civil Rights movement for inspiration, listen to this episode! And then like it and share it with friends and enemies.

We all know part of Project 2025 and the Trump regime is trying to increase the birth rate. But it’s not just the far right that wants you to have babies. It’s the tech brogeoisie who run this world. In this episode we talk to researchers who have been unraveling the bizarre connections between  pronatalism, tech billionaires, and the far right.