Antifascist Dad Podcast

On the same day I spoke with João Biondi about Lula's WhatsApp army, I talked with Belgrade writer and curator Lav Mrenović about a slower revolution. On October 25, the Student List defeated Aleksandar Vučić's Serbian Progressive Party with about 52.5 percent of the vote, ending fourteen years of his bullshit rule. The Student List is a leaderless movement that grew out of the student blockades that followed the November 2024 collapse of the Novi Sad station canopy, which killed 16 people. Lav describes Vučić's alchemy of boring nerd and street tough, and the collective political depression that preceded the uprising. He explains how faculty plenums spread into citizens' assemblies and independent unions, and how the plenums vetted a slate of 250 non-politicians. And we discuss whether a movement that has so far kept ideology off the table can form and hold a vision for a post-strongman future. Lav Mrenović is a culture worker from Belgrade, Serbia. With an education in contemporary art history, he has been active in the independent cultural scene as a writer, editor, curator, and organizer. Sources Slavoj Žižek, "The New Face of Protest," Project Syndicate (Feb 13, 2025) Vincent Bevins, "Diary," London Review of Books, Vol. 48 No. 6 Srđan Atanasovski, "A victory for student populism: Elite conflict and Serbia's future," LINKS (Oct 30, 2026) Yugopnik, "A Balkan Leftist's Read On Serbia's Student Victory," YouTube (Oct 27, 2026) Civic Initiatives, "Protests Against Corruption in Serbia: A Review of Events and Institutional Response" (2025) N1, "BBC: Vučić's biggest test in Belgrade" — Vučić's Radical Party and information-ministry record (Dec 2023) Pulitzer Center / New York Times, "The President, the Soccer Hooligans and an Underworld 'House of Horrors'" (May 2023) PBS / AP, protests over irregularities in Serbia's December 2023 election The Gazelle, "Serbia vs. Rio Tinto: Serbian Public Expresses Concerns Over Lithium Mining" (Sept 2024) N1, Belgrade prosecutor's March 15 sonic weapon findings and the counter-evidence (Sept 2026) bne IntelliNews, "Violent clashes in Serbia raise fears of state-sanctioned thuggery" (Aug 2025) Sadie Zarris, "From plenums to parliament: the rulebook behind Serbia's Student List," The Loop / ECPR (Oct 21, 2026) Denisa Kostovicova and Jessie Barton Hro...

In the months following Lula's second-place finish in the first round of Brazil's 2026 presidential election, a WhatsApp channel run by André Janones grew from about 50,000 followers to more than 10 million, and Lula came back to beat Flávio Bolsonaro. I talk with João Biondi, a Brasília-based writer, content creator and storytelling specialist, about what the Exército do Lula felt like from the inside: the daily missions, the rule never to engage the opposition, the 24-hour livestream that took over the "Dark Saturday" before the vote, the fandom AI memes, and the reclaiming of the green-and-yellow soccer jersey from the far right. I open by connecting the campaign to Sarah Stein Lubrano's work on why argument rarely changes minds, and to the mini-manual of Janonism. We close on whether this kind of mobilization can outlast a single election based on a critical binary choice. João Biondi is a writer and content creator from Brasília, Brazil. He has an International Relations degree and is also a Storytelling Specialist. He analyses fashion, film, art, and the semiotics that build the symbiotic relation between pop culture and politics. You can find João on social media using the tag @ojoaobiondi. Patreon subscribers can hear my conversation with Lav Mrenovic on the Serbian student movement, up now. Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Subscribe to Antifascist Dad Podcast (all platforms) SOURCES Mini-Manual of Informational Insurgency (or Janonism), English PDF Agência Pública: With Janones's "army," Lula achieves an unprecedented comeback Paraíba Business: From 50,000 to 10 million, how Janones changed the digital race SBT News: Exército do Lula reaches 10 million WhatsApp followers SBT News: Lula gets his first cellphone and calls for 10 million in the digital "army" Diário do Nordeste: TSE technical review finds no reported fake news on the Exército do Lula channel Editora Record: André Janones, Janonismo Cultural Sarah Stein Lubrano, Don't Talk About Politics (Bloomsbury) Antifascist Dad Episode 10: Don't Talk About Politics with Sarah Stein Lubrano MIT Press: Max Haiven, The Player and the Played

This week's Patreon coda applies Lara Sheehi's model of psychic intrusion — confusion, fear, exhaustion, and despair — to both the CASE report and the lived experience in the U of T Gaza encampment. I look at Émile Durkheim's "social effervescence," Ben Case's "contentious effervescence," Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth, and Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery's Joyful Militancy, while tracking how state-backed reports and direct repression work together to disorient, frighten, exhaust, and demoralize anti-genocide organizers. This coda revisits conversations with encampment organizer Sara Rasikh and with Daniel Sailofsky on the Jewish Faculty Network's fight against the CASE report's flawed methodology, and then closes with Sheehi's reframing of repetition compulsion. It's not personal failure that repeats. It's but power and oppression. Reversing that repetition is a daily practice. Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: [@antifascistdad] Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources CASE (Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences) report – Canada.ca Flawed by Design: JFN's response to the CASE report Episode 44: Psychic Militancy w/ Dr. Lara Sheehi – Matthew Remski's Substack Episode 2: Gaza Encampment w/ Sara Rasikh – Antifascist Dad Podcast Episode 42: Keep the Little Flame Alive w/ Carsie Blanton – Matthew Remski's Substack Episode 27: The Proto-Fascism of "Trust Me" Carney w/ Leftie Jane – Apple Podcasts Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act – Department of Justice Canada Street Rebellion: Resistance Beyond Violence and Nonviolence, by Benjamin S. Case – Firestorm Books Joyful Militancy: Building Thriving Resistance in Toxic Times, by Carla Bergman and Nick Montgomery

Next week, from November 6 to 8, the Marxist-Leninist Alliance of Workers and Students is hosting Seeds Beneath the Snow, a three-day anti-imperialist symposium in Toronto, with an opening keynote by Ajamu Baraka. Today I sit down with AWAS founding members Sabine Fernandez, a former migrant care worker and PhD candidate in Critical Disability Studies at York University, Talia, a Master’s student in engineering, and Mahyar Mohaghegh Dolatabadi, a PhD candidate in political science at York who researches Iranian capitalism. We discuss why anti-imperialism is a crucial topic to discuss, especially in election season, what Marxism-Leninism means to them in 2026, vanguardism and the potential limits of spontaneous movements like Occupy, why social revolution needs engineers, and how they navigate vibes-based myths about who "working people" are, and what they value.  I also asked them how they came to their values and commitments. SourcesSeeds Beneath the Snow: An Anti-Imperialist Symposium (Eventbrite)Alliance of Workers and StudentsPeter Kropotkin, An Appeal to the Young (1880), Marxists Internet ArchiveMao Zedong, On Contradiction (1937), Marxists Internet ArchiveRadhika Desai, Geopolitical Economy (Pluto Press)Vincent Bevins, If We Burn (Hachette)Anton Jäger, Hyperpolitics (Verso) SOCIALS Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Subscribe to Antifascist Dad Podcast (all platforms)

Max Haiven's The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism argues that financialization has trickled down into our personal lives, turning each of us into a speculative player in a maze of unwinnable games: education, housing, fitness, relationships. When we realize the game is rigged, we can lose our minds, but our rage can be redirected away from the ruling class and onto scapegoated "cheaters": migrants, trans people benefits claimants, DEI hires. Max walks me through his three-part model of manifest, latent, and microfascism, and why 21st-century fascist group activity looks more like a Fortnite lobby than a Nuremberg rally. We get into Silicon Valley's Dungeons and Dragons-derived worldbuilding, the fragility of fascist friendship as seen in the QAnon collapse, the problem of who owns the platforms we play on, and the distinction between revenge fantasy and an avenging imaginary.  Before the interview: a note on Olivia Chow's re-election and the Bradford campaign's Victory app. Now on Patreon: "The Anti-Imperialists Come to Town," ahead of the Seeds Beneath the Snow symposium in Toronto, November 6–8. Sources The Player and the Played, free open access edition (MIT Press Direct) Billionaires & Guillotines board game by Max Haiven (Pluto Press) Revenge Capitalism by Max Haiven (Pluto Press) On Microfascism: Gender, War, and Death by Jack Z. Bratich (Common Notions) Everything to Play For by Marijam Did, open access edition (OAPEN) Kingdom of Play by David Toomey (Simon & Schuster) The Score by C. Thi Nguyen (Penguin) Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed by Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff (Penguin) Sarah Stein Lubrano, author of Don’t Talk About Politics (London Review of Books contributor page) Casual Games for Protesters by Paolo Pedercini and Harry Josephine Giles (Molleindustria) David Graeber, “On the Phenomenology of Giant Puppets,” in Possibilities (The Anarchist Library) Seeds Beneath the Snow: An Anti-Imperialist Symposium, Toronto, Nov 6–8 (Eventbrite) Socials Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Subscribe to Antifascist Dad Podcast (all platforms)

Michael Löwy is a veteran Marxist sociologist and ecosocialist, and a long-time scholar of revolutionary movements. I spoke with him on October 15, two days before the October 17 national mobilization in France. I asked Michael how the high school uprising compares with May 1968, and he described a mass movement that began from concrete material conditions: missing teachers, schools without furniture, crumbling walls, and classrooms ill-equipped for deadly summer heat. This movement has grown into a broader revolt against a government that refuses to tax the rich while it increases funding for the military. We discuss why the street rhetoric is antifascist, why he finds the government’s attempt to blame La France Insoumise not credible, and why schools and tenant unions show that class struggle extends beyond the factory. He tells me how he supports the students blockading the university across from his apartment, and gives his advice to parents. For more timeline and context, scroll back to Episode 52 with Danielle Duncan. Socials Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Subscribe to Antifascist Dad Podcast (all platforms) Sources International Viewpoint: Michael Löwy author profile Institute of Advanced Studies, University of São Paulo: Löwy curriculum vitae Maire-Info: movement origins at Créteil Caducée: 2026 heat wave excess deaths 24 heures: student loses hand at Lens Public Sénat: Matignon on LFI; Retailleau on banning LFI La Gazette France / AFP: LFI mayor Bally Bagayoko and the students

On September 18, students at a suburban Paris high school went on strike against deplorable conditions and in solidarity with their underpaid teachers. Within weeks, high school students across France were blockading their schools over faculty shortages, crumbling buildings, overloaded classes and Parcoursup, the algorithmic placement system that chooses professional pathways for them at 15. By October 17, the children-led revolt had drawn up to 800,000 people into the streets alongside university students, unions and veterans of the gilets jaunes. They were met with brutal militarized police force. I spoke with Danielle Duncan, an American professor of Internet culture and English in Paris, on October 15. She walks me through the stratified French school system, conditions in the banlieues, the memes mocking police infiltration, why the street rhetoric is antifascist, and who in French politics is speaking to the moment. I open with a timeline through October 20 and close on how reactionary centrists are reframing the uprising as a story about property damage and "ultra-left violence". My interview with Michael Löwy on the same topic but from a revolutionary history perspective, is up on Patreon now. Socials Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Subscribe to Antifascist Dad Podcast (all platforms) Sources Maire-Info: movement origins at Lycée Saint-Exupéry, Créteil Brut: demands on Parcoursup and university places France 24: October 13 turnout and university closures 24 heures: student loses hand at Lens franceinfo: arrests and injuries as of October 15 Sud Radio: stun grenades re-authorized October 16 Orange / L’Express: October 17 turnout and toll CNN: orchestra and tear gas at Place de la République CNews: second night of looting in Paris

Another TO election episode, gearing up for October 26! Diana Yoon is running for Toronto City Council in University-Rosedale. Yoon came to tenant organizing through climate work, helping ACORN secure a climate grant to survey tenants before and after energy retrofits, and later joined the board of the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations. Her professional work is in co-op housing policy, including the federal Co-op Housing Development Program. We also talk about what she hears about homelessness at the door, and why she rejects jails and involuntary treatment as responses. I bring her a puzzle from Etobicoke: city land at 5207 Dundas West, leased to Tricon and Kilmer on confidential terms, where the “affordable” units are priced at up to full average market rent. What's going on with Toronto housing, and what can socialists do about it? Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources Diana Yoon for City Council, University-Rosedale The Local: Ward 11 University-Rosedale candidate tracker Toronto ACORN 2026 municipal election platform Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations Jacobin: Toronto's Tenant Union Is Just Getting Started The Grind: Building Citywide Tenant Power City of Toronto: TCHC single-family homes transferred to community land trusts CMHC: Co-op Housing Development Program Government of Canada: Launch of the $1.5 billion Co-operative Housing Development Program Quill and Quire: Maggie Helwig wins 2025 Toronto Book Award for Encampment CP24: Maggie Helwig wins the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Encampment CreateTO: 5207 Dundas Street West (Bloor-Kipling Block 1) Link2Build: Affordable rents at 5207 Dundas West set at 40 to 100 percent of average market rent APTN: Grassy Narrows repeats call for Carney apology over "outlast" remark CP24: Ontario plans massive jail...

Many cities on Turtle Island are hoping Mamdani fever comes to town. But Toronto is seriously considering rolling out the red carpet for a right wing populist climbing in the polls. I'm joined by Inori Roy, Features Editor at The Local, to discuss her in-depth profile of Toronto mayoral candidate Brad Bradford, published just 2 weeks before the October 26 election. We discuss her data-first method, the weaknesses of Canadian investigative journalism, the gap between feelings and facts about crime in Toronto, and Bradford's shift from bike-lane councillor to right-wing fear-monger. We cover allegations from former staffers, the campaign's response, his Al-Quds Day stance and pro-Israel base, and whether his campaign represents a backlash to the Mamdani model of municipal politics. Inori Roy is a Toronto-based journalist and Features Editor at The Local. She holds a Master's in investigative journalism from City University of London. She has led data-driven investigations into long-term care and road safety, and her work has appeared in The Walrus, the Toronto Star, The Narwhal, Unearthed, and CBC. Sources Brad Bradford Seems Angry—He’s Betting Torontonians Are Too (The Local) Inori Roy’s work at The Local Who’s Actually Running Ontario’s Long-Term Care Homes? (The Local) Who Is Watching Over Ontario’s Most Vulnerable Seniors? (The Local) The Deadly Inequality of Toronto’s Vision Zero Rollout (The Local) Toronto Police Service shootings dashboards Toronto’s Al-Quds rally goes ahead after judge dismisses Ontario’s injunction bid (CP24) Toronto council passes bubble zone bylaw restricting protests (The CJN) Max Haiven, The Player and the Played: From Gamed Capitalism to 21st-Century Fascism (MIT Press, open access) Socials Podcast: Antifascist Dad podcast available here Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad

On September 20th, Yom Kippur, Canadian Army veteran Sean Ward opened fire outside the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville, Ontario. An hour later, and before the first news report, NDP leader Avi Lewis posted a personal prayer of atonement, reflecting on how antizionist Jews had failed to stop a genocide committed in the name of Jewish safety. I trace how pro-Israel commentators, Liberal MPs and the Globe and Mail linked Lewis's prayer to the shooting, even as reporting showed Ward was likely a second-wave QAnon antivax conspiracist who appeared to blame Jews for COVID. I also look at CBC anchor Neil Herland's twisted account of a protest against Mark Regev, Public Safety Canada's new conflation of antizionism with antisemitism, and Yoni Goldstein's National Post column, which broadcast a thinly-veiled call for vigilante violence against Lewis. If you're a progressive or leftist and you haven't yet lent a hand (in whatever way you can) to your fellow Palestinians and antizionist Jews, now's the time. Because right now, attacking critics of Israel as antisemitic is becoming indistinguishable from attacking the political alternative to capitalism and imperialism, at this precarious moment for the climate and ourselves. Bluesky: matthewremski.bsky.social Instagram: @matthew_remski YouTube: @antifascistdad TikTok: @antifascistdad Patreon: antifascistdadpodcast Order Antifascist Dad Sources Avi Lewis, Yom Kippur post on X Quinte News, first report of the Belleville shooting, Sept 20, 8:33 pm Global News, Man wielding shotgun opened fire at officer outside Belleville synagogue: SIU Global News, Belleville gunman spouted COVID-19 conspiracies while in army National Post via Yahoo, Belleville suspect "spouted" theory that blamed Jews for COVID CBC News, Synagogue shooter's online username alluded to killing Jews Globe and Mail, Belleville synagogue shooting was a "hate-motivated" crime, police say Ezra Levant post on X Mia Bloom post on X Artur Wilczynski post on X Vivian Bercovici post on X CIJA post on X CP24, NDP leader Lewis criticized for saying Jews "failed to do our part" Robyn Urback, "Avi L...