It Could Happen Here Weekly 203

Date: October 11, 2025
Podcast: It Could Happen Here (Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts)
Hosts: Robert Evans, Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout
Featured Guests: Raven (journalist, Unraveled), Dr. Kaveh Hoda

Episode Overview

This intense weekly episode documents America’s ongoing slide into authoritarianism with a focus on federal law enforcement crackdowns on immigration and dissent, government overreaches, the impact of new anti-vaccine narratives, and the implications of the Trump administration’s domestic and international policies. Chicago and Portland become battlegrounds for immigration enforcement and protest, while the federal apparatus leverages misinformation and state violence to further its aims. Woven throughout is the chilling normalization of military force in civilian spaces, the erosion of civil liberties, and struggles over truth in the press.

1. Chicago Under Federal Siege: ICE and Border Patrol Crackdown

[02:45–44:33] Field Report: Raven (Unraveled) on the Chicago ICE Raids

Protests Turn Violent

• Raven's first-hand account of being shot in the face by riot munitions while covering an anti-ICE protest outside Chicago’s Broadview detention facility.
  • “I have like some swelling still in my jaw. I'm going to the doctor... But nothing's broken.” (Raven, 03:57)
• Feds indiscriminately firing “pepper ball” rounds that are leaving protesters and journalists injured.
  • “These guys, like, fucking ambushed them... shooting them in the face.” (Raven, 05:18)
• Broadview, a majority Black, working-class Chicago suburb, has seen routine, peaceful protests for a decade, but nothing as militarized as now.
• The local Black police chief and mayor express shock as ICE sets up illegal barriers and disregards city authority.
  • “ICE is disrespecting me as the police chief…” (Robert Evans, 18:59)

Federal Killings and Media Complicity

• ICE killed a man at a traffic stop with no clear justification; official explanations contradict available video evidence.
  • “They claim he had some traffic violations, which is true, but I mean, like, who doesn't?” (Raven, 07:57)
  • “People will just keep printing [DHS press releases]... and so that's the first... version of the story.” (Robert Evans, 08:48)
• Reports of ICE and Border Patrol units from across the US, notably Bovino’s LA Border Patrol, rounding up whole apartment buildings—a clear escalation.
• Mainstream Chicago news was slow to cover egregious raids; alternative and independent media rushed to fill the gap, but the flood of news outpaces newsroom capacity.

Raids, Detention Horrors, and Community Terror

• Description of massive night-time raid on a South Shore apartment—hundreds of armed feds, tenants of all backgrounds detained, children pulled out naked.
  • “I am still... trying to wrap my head around this raid because it's just... so horrific...” (Raven, 27:24)
  • “They're literally ripping kids from their fucking mothers at one in the morning and... throwing them into U-Haul vans.” (Robert Evans, 28:02)
• ICE detention center at Broadview crammed far beyond intended capacity; horrid conditions, lack of resources, and no oversight.
• Whole neighborhoods now gripped by fear, reminiscent of historic ethnic cleansings (“Anne Frank hiding in her attic” comparisons).
  • “People are... hiding in their homes... worried that if they go to Sam's Club, they will be kidnapped by secret police.” (Raven, 13:16)
• Local police are reduced to traffic control as federal forces operate with total impunity; sometimes even local law enforcement is victimized by federal tactics.

Protest Suppression and Lawless Federal Agents

• Protester and press face escalating chemical weapons (tear gas) and riot munitions; no accountability, no ID; feds “like proud boys with badges and gear.”
  • “All policing is violence. All cops are violent... but there is something different happening here... zero accountability.” (Raven, 14:11)
  • “It's kind of like... if you just gave a bunch of chuds a bunch of military and police gear...” (Raven, 15:17)
• Raven: While all police are violent, the accountability gap for feds is especially dangerous.
• Local protest culture lacks “autonomous organizing” strength seen in Portland/Seattle, but response is evolving and no one feels safe.

Media, Narrative, and Ethnic Cleansing

• Mainstream, especially national, coverage often relies on DHS talking points or even fringe “UFO news” outlets used as regime mouthpieces.
  • “Their big thing is that they, like, quote, unquote, take UFOs seriously. And these are the people... who were given... the exclusive scoop…” (Robert Evans, 31:08)
• US founding violence—genocide and slavery—being openly iterated in present-day Chicago.
  • “The founding violence of the United States is the genocide of indigenous people and slavery. And you look at what they're doing right now... that violence just being replicated over and over again...” (Robert Evans, 34:57)
• The deliberate creation of “atrocity fatigue”—so many horrors, so fast, no one can keep up or organize an effective singular response.

Organizing Amid Terror

• Raven: In Chicago, autonomous organizing culture is newer; activists are adapting to a much more violent and less structured federal response.
• Calls for sharing information and breaking through media blackout—raising awareness is resistance.

“As bleak as this episode sounded, we do have to keep the fighting spirit alive and not just resign ourselves to total doomerism... We have the moral high ground.” (Raven, 49:09)

2. The Weaponization of Political Violence and Media

[80:59–99:12] Political Violence, Partisanship, and Manufactured Narratives

• Garrison Davis covers the Grand Blanc, Michigan church shooting: perpetrator was a right-wing Christian, not a “leftist terrorist” as initially portrayed.
  • Both mainstream media and politicians quick to weaponize violence—picking and choosing incidents as partisan cudgels.
  • “The conversation… is such an open display of... picking and choosing shootings to care about and then which can be weaponized against political enemies.” (Garrison Davis, 85:28)
• Recent high-profile shootings and their partisan framing:
  • Manhattan mass shooting, ICE facility shooting, Catholic school shooting—all with complex personal rather than clear political motivations.
  • “The state just tries to take advantage of naturally emergent events, twisting them to fit narratives…” (Garrison Davis, 93:12)
• False attributions and misinformation rampant across social media:
  • Right-wing influencers post false imagery and donations tied to shooters to falsely pin ideological motives.
• State rhetoric and new Trump policy targets anti-ICE, anti-Christian, or “leftist” dissent as terrorism.
  • “Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced... undercover operations to infiltrate and uproot, quote, leftist terror cells in Texas.” (Garrison Davis, 95:28)

3. New Anti-Vaccine Campaign: Institutionalizing Misinformation

[103:55–138:34] The Collapse of US Medical Institutions & Anti-Vax Policy

Anti-Vaccine Propaganda Goes Mainstream

• Dr. Kaveh Hoda discusses the systematic dismantling of public health and the rise of anti-vaccine cranks to positions of power.
  • “You can't put a hater in charge of the thing they hate the most. And that is what has happened…” (Dr. Hoda, 106:52)
• Trump parrots classic anti-vaccine tropes (MMR-autism lies, “split the shot” nonsense); no medical basis, just rehashing dubious Wakefield claims.
  • “If you delay vaccines, if you split them up… there is a much greater chance you will miss that. Measles is bad.” (Dr. Hoda, 110:46)

Hepatitis B Vaccine Under Attack

• Trump and RFK Jr. falsely paint Hep B as solely a sexually transmitted disease, urge to delay infant vaccination—a dangerous public health myth.
  • “There's just so much the fire hose in this... of nonsense.” (Robert Evans, 113:33)
  • “If you are exposed to [Hep B] as a baby... you're like 90%+ likely to get chronic infection.” (Dr. Hoda, 117:18)
  • “Why would you give an infant a vaccine for something they could only get through sex? … but it's just wrong.” (Dr. Hoda, 127:10)

Undermining Health Bureaucracy

• Dr. Marty Makary (new FDA head) responsible for popularizing “medical error is the third leading cause of death” – a misleading, unrigorous claim that's fuel for anti-medical narratives.
  • “It's like the herpes of medical misinformation… it always comes back.” (Dr. Hoda, 131:11)
• Anti-vax policy as both top-down (bureaucratic sabotage) and bottom-up (grassroots disinformation).
• “There are more of us than there are of them. Their ability to shape the world is disastrous, but... always in danger of simply being reverted first.” (Robert Evans, 137:44)

4. Portland, ICE, and Federalizing the National Guard

[143:45–169:34] Militarization, Propaganda, and Resistance in Portland

• Right-wing influencer’s arrest outside Portland ICE facility triggers demands for military intervention; Trump admin seeks to deploy National Guard to “crush” anti-ICE protests.
  • “I’m calling on the Trump administration to launch a legal challenge against Oregon... and if necessary, deploy National Guard.” (Tim Pool, 147:00)
• Federal judge (Imbergot) blocks Trump’s attempt to federalize state National Guard, stating: violence elsewhere is no justification for federal troop deployment here; protests do not meet the legal definition of “rebellion.”
  • “To accept the defendant's arguments... would be to render meaningless the extraordinary requirements of 10 USC 12,406…” (Garrison Davis, 152:22)
• Administration tries workaround by sending out-of-state Guard (Texas, California) in defiance of injunction; judge expands TRO to block these deployments as well.
• Trump and Stephen Miller deploy “insurrection” language to justify potential invocation of the Insurrection Act for suppressing domestic dissent.
  • “His use of the word insurrection... is important.” (Garrison Davis, 155:11)

5. ICE Surveillance, Suppression of Rapid Response, and Weaponizing the Law

[177:23–189:52] Criminalizing Dissent and Eroding Press Rights

• ICE shooting a woman in Chicago who was part of legal observer/rapid response teams; DHS claims she was “armed with a semi-automatic weapon,” but all evidence points to her just driving a car and being licensed to carry.
  • “The only thing we 100% know is that ICE shot this woman. That’s it.” (Robert Evans, 175:20)
• Tech activist tools (People Over Papers, ICE Block) face targeted takedown after right-wing pressure—ICE equating filming officers with “doxxing” and conflating it with “acts of violence.”
• Independent Atlanta reporter Mario Guevara deported after filming law enforcement at protests; press rights, especially for immigrants, in grave danger.

6. Public Lands, Tariffs, and Economic Authoritarianism

[189:52–204:49] Roadless Rule, Logging, and Tariff Regimes

• Trump admin seeks to rescind Clinton-era Roadless Rule, opening millions of acres of national forest to road building & logging; overwhelming public opposition in comment period.
  • “Cutting roads into forests provides more ignition opportunities... forests with roads were four times more likely to have fires…” (James Stout, 191:23)
• Admin imposes stiff tariffs on Canadian lumber, furniture, and kitchen cabinets; talks of 100% tariffs on pharmaceuticals and foreign films, most of which serve as nationalist bluster as much as actionable policy.
  • “On November 5, the Supreme Court is going to start hearing the case against... tariffs that Trump has been doing...” (Robert Evans, 204:13)
• Trump proposes funding social programs like WIC with tariff revenues—a move that is dubiously constitutional and reveals an erosion of Congressional fiscal authority.
  • “Trump is going to fund this program with the money from one of the tariff programs... just very unconstitutional.” (Robert Evans, 199:29)

7. Notable Quotes & Moments

• On the horror of the Chicago raids:
  “The last three weeks, four weeks has just been a gradual progression of like the most evil you've ever seen in your life. I don't even know what to say about it anymore...” (Raven, 28:35)
• On the violence of US founding being replayed today:
  “You're just, like, watching... that violence just being replicated over and over again every night. And... this conception of what democracy is like... is going to change completely, or... it’s going to be consumed by the part of it that's just doing this genocide.” (Robert Evans, 34:57)
• On the relentless pace:
  “It feels like screaming underwater and no one can hear you.” (Raven, 11:04)
• On keeping hope:
  “We do have to keep the fighting spirit alive and not just resign ourselves to total doomerism... We have the moral high ground here.” (Raven, 49:09)

8. Calls to Action and Closing Reflections

• Listeners are urged to break out of the media blackout by amplifying stories, correcting disinformation, and refusing to normalize these horrors.
• Despite overwhelming violence and the stifling pace of events, hope is anchored in public opposition to authoritarian policy—“there are more of us than there are of them.”
• The episode closes by honoring resistance, both historic (the liberation of Turin) and present, emphasizing the power of collective action even against great odds.

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:45–44:33] Interview with Raven on ICE raids, protests, and federal violence in Chicago
• [80:59–99:12] Garrison Davis' monologue: church shooting, media framing, and state response to violence
• [103:55–138:34] Dr. Kaveh Hoda: the new anti-vax regime and hepatitis B vaccine
• [143:45–169:34] Portland update: National Guard, “insurrection” narrative, and federal overreach
• [177:23–189:52] Anti-dissent legal strategy, surveillance, and journalism under attack
• [189:52–204:49] Environment and economy: Roadless Rule, logging, and the world of tariffs

9. Final Note

This episode is dense, harrowing, and urgent—a chronicle of policy, violence, and resistance as collapse becomes daily life. There is no rest, but perhaps in collective action and solidarity, there remains a pathway out.