Podcast Summary: Between Us – Episode 58: "This Machine Kills Fascism"

Date: September 3, 2025
Hosts: John Totten, Mason Neely
Guest: Sue Grand (Psychoanalyst, author, expert on relational psychoanalysis, trauma, and fascism)

Episode Overview

This episode delves into the psychological underpinnings of fascism, hatred, and the cycle of trauma—both individual and societal. Through a wide-ranging conversation with psychoanalyst Sue Grand, hosts John Totten and Mason Neely examine how ideals of masculinity, compliance, identity, and political division play out in modern America and how psychotherapy can offer tools for resistance and repair. The discussion draws from psychoanalysis, history, philosophy, and personal reflections to explore how "evil regenerates," why alliances are so difficult across social and political divides, and how examining our own hatred can ultimately be a tool for healing.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Hatred, Fascism, and the "Perpetrator Fragment"

(Main discussion: 01:18 – 13:18)

• Who do we hate?
  • Sue Grand reflects on her complex feelings of hatred, especially towards politicians who, despite knowing better, have capitulated to Trumpism:
    • "What I hate the most... is the complete passivity and compliance and lying of the Republicans who have hated Trump... and just have rolled over completely." (Sue Grand, 08:17)
    • Expresses betrayal by white women who continue to vote for Trump, despite his documented misogyny and criminal behavior.
• Empathy vs. Schadenfreude:
  • Grand describes moments of pity for politicians like Marco Rubio, noting their oscillation between humiliation and complicity within fascist structures, especially through a lens of emasculation and toxic masculinity.
    • "You see him in these meetings... he looks like a beaten child... at the same time... happy to implement all this stuff... are you that ambitious that you’ll sell out everything?" (Sue Grand, 10:08-11:13)

2. The Psychological and Cultural Roots of Fascism

(Major Focus: 13:18 – 31:47)

• Masculinity and Fascism:
  • Grand references scholarship on how fascist systems create strict gender hierarchies, promising borrowed "phallic power" to men who comply, but always under threat of humiliation.
    • "There’s this fantasy that your masculine integrity is being bolstered... while there’s always this backflow of being humiliated, dominated and castrated." (Sue Grand, 14:48–15:14)
• Umberto Eco’s Analysis:
  • Totten summarizes Eco’s idea of fascism as "fuzzy totalitarianism", a structure of control promising contradictory things to different groups, resisting reflection.
    • "Fascism prefers its status as a floating signifier. It thrives on not meaning anything." (John Totten, 16:40)
• Deleuze & Guattari and the Attraction to Fascism:
  • Mason Neely introduces the idea that fascism is not just imposed by authority, but something we (collectively) may desire because it offers the relief of certainty, order, and belonging—even as it restricts.
    • "Fascism... provides this beautiful unity... the hope that there is someone there who knows me so well they can order this society and they can make it make sense. Produces a sense of relief." (Mason Neely, 25:07–26:12)
  • "What fascism offers is velocity. What it promises is urgency towards the future, but it can never deliver on it." (Mason Neely, 26:55–27:27)
  • "What really happens for all of that promise? Everything gets narrowed down into a very small spectrum of choice and of behavior and of options for agency. And that's the cruel side of it." (Mason Neely, 28:19–28:54)

3. Trauma, Masculinity, and Perpetration

(Around 32:07 – 49:15)

• Cycle of Trauma:
  • Grand discusses how trauma does not always create perpetrators, but certain conditions (especially lack of positive attachments) make this more probable.
    • "Traumatized people don’t always traumatize others... most traumatized people actually are in their daily interactions... devoted... their inner goodness is amazing." (Sue Grand, 32:18–32:49)
    • The process of "identifying with the aggressor" is more likely if abuse is combined with isolation, lack of empathy, colonial/structural violence, and especially rigid models of masculinity.
• Protective Factors:
  • Empathic attachment—even with one figure (like a teacher or a younger sibling)—is a powerful protective factor against perpetration.
    • "If there's even one person in their lives... with whom they have a bond of empathy, connection, recognition... that is an enormous bulwark against becoming a perpetrator." (Sue Grand, 41:36)
• Concrete Example:
  • The importance of a child experiencing joy and encouragement from caregivers—"fertilizer on the sense of self"—is illustrated in a story about a mother openly encouraging and celebrating her daughter (49:09–49:46).

4. Political Hatred, Reflection, and the Risk of Becoming What We Oppose

(Starts ~37:50; deepened at 58:31)

• Owning One’s Hatred:
  • Grand recounts her struggle as a progressive psychoanalyst contending with the hatred she feels—a hatred so intense she fantasizes about violence.
    • "I am filling up with hate and I find myself wanting a gun. No, let's tell the truth. I fantasize about an assault rifle...” (Sue Grand, quoted by Totten, 37:50)
  • The critical move is using reflection and introspection to learn from one’s hate rather than being consumed by it.
    • "At the core of my political hatred, I can see my impotence and my despair... But where there was no reflectivity in my hatred, now reflectivity has arrived... I sense a clarity, strength and fortification that is distinct from Nazi sadism.” (Sue Grand, quoted by Totten, 59:46)
• Therapeutic Use of Anger:
  • The line between destructive and transformative anger is highlighted, notably through group therapy work with clients on probation, reframing anger through the lens of Malcolm X:
    • "Is anger bad? ... Was Malcolm X angry? ... One of the things that we would start to do... is really understand that anger has a use and, like, try to figure out what the use is." (Co-host/JT, 57:01-57:38)
  • Exploring hatred and anger purposefully, rather than seeking to suppress or split off, is central to true change.

5. Division, Race, and the Construction of American Identity

(61:15 – 67:55)

• Divide-and-Conquer:
  • Grand explores American history and the deliberate construction of racial categories to split labor and prevent class-based alliances.
    • "There was a totally conscious intention to split them... So that they could not form these alliances." (Sue Grand, 62:10–63:23)
    • The privileges granted to white indentured servants (not real improvement of conditions, but ceremonial dignity) were designed to prevent unified labor resistance.
  • The American Dream myth further erodes class consciousness:
    • "Americans don't hate rich people; they want to be a rich person... There really is a huge problem around class consciousness... you’re stuck, and you’re struggling to begin to analyze the structural forces in our society...” (Sue Grand, 65:04–66:41)

6. Liberalism, White Guilt, and the Limits of Dialogue

(73:36 – 79:17)

• White Liberal Guilt & "Manic Reparation":
  • The need for white liberals to feel "good," to overcompensate for inherited privilege, can be counterproductive.
    • "You can't define yourself by the worst thing you've ever done, and you can't define yourself by the best... You have to have ordinary human caring and goodness and recognize that you can injure people and just go forward and do your best." (Sue Grand, 75:05–76:32)
• Beyond Mutuality: Reparative Justice:
  • Dialogue is important, but material reparations and structural changes go further than mere recognition or apology.
    • "It isn't enough to just listen, you need to make material changes." (Sue Grand, 78:31)
    • "Maybe 'beyond mutuality' is a better way of describing it... Beyond mutuality towards reparation." (Co-host & Sue Grand, 78:47–78:49)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the attraction to fascism:
  • "Everybody wants this. And if you think you don't, you’re wrong. By the very nature of being these kind of desire-producing machines..." – John Totten (28:57)
  • "What they see the fascist Project is, is constantly limiting those processes [of becoming]... And they would go, no, that's fascism. Fuck that. We must escape that in all its forms." – Mason Neely (30:47)
• On using hatred constructively:
  • "How do you not become them when you are hating them? That's the question. And how can you use your aggression in a way that empowers change?" – Sue Grand (58:31)
• On the failure of alliances:
  • "We have differences with each other. We can be mad at each other, but that's private... we're never going to get anywhere if we don't form these strong alliances." – Sue Grand (61:15)
• On restorative justice:
  • "It's not just about hearing, it's about listening to what the other needs, what kind of repair they need." – Sue Grand (78:29)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:18 – Topic intro: Hatred and perpetrator fragments
• 08:17 – Grand on hatred for political capitulation, betrayal by women voters
• 10:08 – Empathy and pity for complicit politicians
• 13:18 – Masculinity, humiliation, and fascist structures
• 16:40 – Umberto Eco on fascism as a "floating signifier"
• 22:48 – Neely on the psychoanalytic and philosophical readings of fascism
• 25:07 – Fascism as psychological relief from chaos and disunity
• 28:54 – Dynamism, gender binaries, and the narrowing of agency under fascism
• 32:18 – Cycle of trauma, identification with aggressor
• 41:36 – Protective power of empathy and connection
• 49:09 – Experiences from work with clients on probation and anger management
• 58:31 – Using hatred reflectively, not becoming what we oppose
• 61:15 – Alliances, race, and American history's divide-and-conquer strategy
• 73:45 – White liberal guilt and challenges of "being good"
• 78:31 – The need for reparative justice, beyond mere recognition

Summary Assessment

This episode gives profound, clinically informed insight into how fascism operates on psychological, cultural, and political levels, and how individuals can resist its pull—not just in society, but in their own psyches. Sue Grand’s reflections on hatred, empathy, trauma, and the possibility of repair ground a nuanced, challenging discussion. Throughout, the hosts maintain an earnest, reflective, and sometimes vulnerable tone, underscoring that the biggest work may begin inside ourselves.

Recommended for:
Psychotherapists, clinicians, social theorists, students of history or politics, and anyone grappling with the emotional complexities of our polarized era.