Antifascist Dad Podcast

Matthew Remski

Your waypoint for antifascist lore, strategy, and wisdom from the generations, and now.

  1. DEC 21

    UNLOCK 10.1: Don't Talk About Politics w/ Sarah Stein Lubrano Part 2

    In Part 2 of my conversation with Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano, we move from the critique of debate and “critical thinking” into the deeper question: what actually radicalizes us? Sarah talks about the moments that changed her politics—teaching in prisons, supporting a student after sexual violence—and why no amount of abstract knowledge could have done the same work. I share how parenting an autistic kid has transformed my sense of who the world is designed for, and what it means to resist capitalist norms around productivity, learning, and success. Also: why televised debates and “reasoning as warfare” formats (ahem, Jubilee) are great entertainment but terrible tools for social change, how the marketplace-of-ideas myth functions as liberal ideology, and why protest rarely changes governments or “the public” directly, but can permanently change the protesters themselves. For Lubrano, good politics looks a lot like good friendship: long-term, non-transactional, joyful where possible. She offers advice to a hypothetical 15-year-old on how to enter political life without burning out: learn to be a good friend, find a broken part of the world you care about, and commit to fixing it together. I close with an in-person story about meeting my previous guest, Sarah Rose Kaplan, and watching her improv a small act of mutual aid with three hungry kids in a Toronto restaurant—a live illustration of Lubrano’s thesis that new social experiences can change lives. Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano is a political theorist and organizer with a background in feminist mutual aid, local grassroots work, and teaching in prisons. She holds a PhD from Oxford and a master’s degree from Cambridge, and works with the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. Her first book is Don’t Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds (Bloomsbury). – Website: https://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com – Substack: https://sarahsteinlubrano.substack.com – X (Twitter): https://x.com/SSteinLubrano – Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahsteinlubrano/ – Sense and Solidarity Initiative: https://senseandsolidarity.org – Sense & Solidarity podcast (Spotify): https://open.spotify.com/show/2dcKkTCJNZM2j2CLKJZS3W Buy Don’t Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds – Publisher (Bloomsbury – main hub): https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/dont-talk-about-politics-9781399413923/ – Support the pod on Patreon! – Preorder: Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (out April 26, 2026).  – TikTok: @AntiFascistDad – If you have an antifascism story to share—especially about relationships, generations, or parenting—leave me a voice message on Signal at username: antifascistdad71. Chapters (00:03:05) - What Really Changes Our Minds?(00:06:47) - Criticism of Argument as Warfare(00:12:35) - Liberal's Biggest Mistake(00:18:08) - The Long Term Strategy of Occupy(00:21:46) - What Would You Tell the 15 Year Old About Political Life?(00:25:06) - I Met Friend of the Pod Sara Rose Kaplan IRL!

    32 min
  2. DEC 17

    11. The Communism of Love w/ Richard Gilman-Opalsky

    I asked communist philosopher and jazz drummer Richard Gilman-Opalsky a deceptively simple question: What do we actually mean when we say “love”?  Richard’s "Communism of Love," insists that love is an active, non-exchange relation that contradicts the logic of capitalism. You can’t measure or spreadsheet it, or cost it out. Unfortunately, this fact can also curdle into an excuse for sidelining and ignoring the vast amount of unpaid, often gendered, domestic labor—the "secret workshop" described by feminist marxists—where the concept of love is abused and "weaponized" to justify working for free, claiming that love is its own reward. We talk about how real caregiving love requires parents to actively participate in their children's becoming—what they are not yet. That means getting over the anxiety of control and the tendency to treat children as emotional/financial investments. Parenting, like revolutionary politics and improvisational jazz, requires a constant, collective improvisation and a love for possibilities over rigid predetermined structures. In “Fascist, Squish, and Antifascist News of the Week” I focus on Ontario Premier Doug Ford responding to reporting about a Canadian armored vehicle manufacturer supplying ICE. Part Two is up now on Patreon, where Richard and I go deeper into improvisation, music, and why fascist control hates the freedom required for human flourishing. Richard Gilman-Opalsky at UIS  Support the show and hear Part Two on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/antifascistdadpodcast Show Notes: Canadian Defence Review. “Roman Shimonov: 2025 Defence Executive of the Year.” Canadian Defence Review, 2025. https://canadiandefencereview.com/roman-shimonov-2025-defence-executive-of-the-year/ Canadian Press. “ICE Ordering Fleet of 20 Armoured Vehicles from Canadian Firm.” CityNews Halifax, December 2, 2025. https://halifax.citynews.ca/2025/12/02/ice-ordering-fleet-of-20-armoured-vehicles-from-canadian-firm/ Canadian Press. “ICE Says Armoured Vehicles Ordered from Roshel Produced in U.S.” CityNews Toronto, December 4, 2025. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2025/12/04/ice-says-armoured-vehicles-ordered-from-roshel-produced-in-u-s/ Canadian Press. “Sale of Canadian Armoured Vehicles to ICE Agency ‘Deeply Troubling’: Kwan.” CityNews Toronto, December 3, 2025. https://toronto.citynews.ca/2025/12/03/sale-of-canadian-armoured-vehicles-to-ice-agency-deeply-troubling-kwan/ CPAC. “NDP MP Jenny Kwan Discusses Arms Exports Bill (C-233).” Headline Politics, September 19, 2025. https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/ndp-mp-jenny-kwan-discusses-arms-exports-bill--september-19-2025?id=755fc44b-a0b7-4bb1-b972-855c673ec354 Duggan, Kyle. “Anita Anand Won’t Say Whether Canada Would Block Export of Armoured Vehicles for Use by ICE.” The Globe and Mail, December 2025. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/pol... Chapters (00:00:00) - The Communism of Love with Richard Gilman Opalski(00:01:47) - Canadian Arms to Fascists(00:12:34) - Interview(00:15:16) - Antifascist Dad: Love and the Right(00:16:16) - Defining Love in the Culture(00:20:51) - The Capitalist Theory of Love(00:30:12) - Uncertainty and Parenting

    49 min
  3. DEC 14

    UNLOCK 9.1 Trans People Drive Fascists Bananas w/ Sara Rose Caplan pt 2

    In part two, Sara and I open with the question Matt Walsh can’t stop weaponizing: “What is a woman?” Sara walks me through her one-woman show that answers Walsh by shifting the frame to a deceptively simple word—“chair.” Through a live game with the audience, she demonstrates how even basic terms are messy, negotiated, and context-bound, and how fascist language games depend on pretending that words like “woman” have timeless, universal meanings. We dig into why bad-faith questions are a form of bullying, what it means to feel the ground of language fall away under your feet, and how that eerie feeling can also open up freedom and solidarity. We talk about affect as antifascist strategy—why Sara cultivates a calm, philosophical delivery online, how it relates to depression, privilege, and safety, and how it offers a model of trans dignity that refuses both panic and “debate me, bro” energy. I end with a reflection on coming to understand gender performativity as a cis guy. Links from Sara: https://equalitytexas.org/give/501c3/ https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/lastreetcare https://www.instagram.com/sararosecaplan Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski  YouTube: Antifascist Dad on YouTube  TikTok: @antifascistdad Support the project/instant access to Pt 2. Patreon: patreon.com/AntifascistDadPodcast  Preorder the book that this podcast is building toward: Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times. If this episode helped you think or talk differently about fascism and gender, you can: • follow the show in your podcast app • leave a rating or short review • share this episode with a friend, comrade, or family member who’s struggling to talk about trans issues and fascism Chapters (00:00:09) - Anti-Fascist Dad: Trans People Drive Fascists Bananas(00:01:56) - What is a Matt Walsh?(00:12:20) - Does Philosophy Help Manage Anger?(00:19:56) - Queer Advice for 13 Year Olds

    35 min
  4. DEC 10

    10: Don't Talk About Politics w/ Sarah Stein Lubrano

    What if the entire “marketplace of ideas” story about how people change their minds is mostly wrong? In this episode, I talk with political theorist and organizer Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano about why debate, podcasts, and “critical thinking” rarely shift anyone’s core political commitments. Sarah and I dig into her book Don’t Talk About Politics: Changing 21st Century Minds, the limits of political education, the classed nature of “critical thinking,” cognitive dissonance and cult dynamics, and why good politics begins with friendships, cooperative projects, and building a different world together. Dr. Sarah Stein Lubrano is a political theorist and organizer with a background in feminist mutual aid, local grassroots work, and teaching in prisons. She holds a PhD from Oxford and a master’s degree from Cambridge. Sarah works with the Sense and Solidarity Initiative and the Future Narratives Lab. Her first book is Don’t Talk About Politics: Changing 21st Century Minds (Bloomsbury). Website: https://www.sarahsteinlubrano.com Substack  https://sarahsteinlubrano.substack.com  X (Twitter): https://x.com/SSteinLubrano  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahsteinlubrano/  Sense and Solidarity Initiative: https://senseandsolidarity.org  Sense & Solidarity podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2dcKkTCJNZM2j2CLKJZS3W  Don’t Talk About Politics: How to Change 21st-Century Minds: https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/dont-talk-about-politics-9781399413923/ (Bloomsbury Publishing) Mentioned in this episode – Olivia Nuzzi, American Canto – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (audio excerpt) – Leon Festinger, When Prophecy Fails and the origins of cognitive dissonance theory – Thomas Kelly’s archival critique of Festinger’s study (discussed further on Conspirituality) – System justification theory – Aristotle on friendship and the “friend of virtue” – The Dig podcast (as a political education project) – The School of Life – Please leave a rating and review so more people can find the show! – Preorder my book Antifascist Dad: Urgent Conversations with Young People in Chaotic Times (out April 26, 2026) – Become a supporter on Patreon. – If you have an antifascism story to share – especially about relationships, generations, or parenting – leave me a voice message on Signal at username: antifascistdad71. Chapters (00:00:38) - Don't Talk About Politics With Sarah Stein Lubrano(00:02:50) - Olivia Nuzzi's American Canto(00:07:14) - "Don't Talk About Politics"(00:12:50) - How Do People Change Their Minds?(00:17:42) - What's Hard in the World?(00:26:44) - Cognitive dissonance and the conversion(00:38:54) - Fascist Dad of the Week

    42 min
  5. DEC 3

    9. Trans People Drive Fascists Bananas w/ Sara Rose Caplan

    Donald Trump casually embraces the word “fascist” in front of Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, and doesn't bat an eye when Mamdani accuses him of funding genocide. This smug absorption of rhetorical confrontation is something we need to think about.   On the same day Mamdani brought socialism discourse to the Oval Office, the Democratic leadership voted in favour of House Resolution 58, “Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism,” which features Jordan Peterson’s favorite “100 million deaths” talking point from the dodgy stats of 1997's Black Book of Communism. But guess what? this same week, the province of Kerala, which has be led by democratically-elected communist parties since 1957, declared that it had eradicated extreme poverty for 64K households through an intensive micro-plan program involving helping folks making like than $3/day get good documents, ration cards, travel allowances, health care, house repairs, and palliative nursing.  And: I'm joined today by trans philosopher and performer Sara Rose Caplan. We explore why trans people drive fascists bananas; fascism as a fear response to freedom and uncertainty; C.T. Nguyen’s idea of “games as existential balm”; the Cassandra feeling of warning about fascism while no one listens; philosophy as “thinking in slow motion”; and why you can’t win arguments with bad-faith actors like Matt Walsh. Part 2 is available now on Patreon. Sara Rose Caplan is a trans woman, performer, and educator originally from Houston, Texas. She studied philosophy in undergrad before spending a decade in LA as an improv comedian. This fall, she started working on a MA in philosophy at Cal State LA under the mentorship of trans philosopher Talia Mae Bettcher, though she has sadly had to put her studies on hold as she and her wife, also trans, have decided to leave the United States for safer, hopefully less christofascist shores up North. Sources: Text - H.Con.Res.58 - 119th Congress (2025-2026): Denouncing the horrors of socialism.  The Right Can’t Figure Out What to Do With Zohran Mamdani   Jordan Peterson: The right to be politically incorrect | National Post  The Black Book of Communism Is a Shoddy Work of History  How Kerala eliminated extreme poverty | Brookings Kerala becomes the first state to eradicate extreme poverty | Peoples Democracy Links from Sara: https://equalitytexas.org/give/501c3/ https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/lastreetcare https://www.instagram.com/sararosecaplan Bluesky: @matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski  YouTube: Antifascist Dad on YouTube  TikTok: @antifascistdad Support the project/instant access to Pt 2. Patreon: patreon.com/AntifascistDadPodcast  ... Chapters (00:02:58) - Trump Is Making the F word Okay(00:06:33) - House Resolution 58 Denouncing the Horrors of Socialism(00:17:54) - Intro: Sara Rose Caplan(00:18:39) - Why Do Trans People Drive Fascists bananas?(00:27:26) - What Does It Mean to Be Trans in America?(00:34:08) - Why I Studied Philosophy(00:39:19) - Matt Walsh on Philosophy

    45 min
4.9
out of 5
36 Ratings

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Your waypoint for antifascist lore, strategy, and wisdom from the generations, and now.

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