It Could Happen Here Weekly 218

Date: February 7, 2026
Podcast: It Could Happen Here – Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
Hosts: Robert Evans, Garrison Davis, Mia Wong, James Stout, Sophie Lichterman
Episode Theme:
This episode compiles several discussions from the past week, focusing on the collapse and authoritarian turn in the U.S., the pitfalls of online anti-fascism, the history of U.S. intervention in Panama, and the ongoing institutional responses to protests and state violence. The team examines the dangerous normalization of fascist policies and strategies for resistance, contextualized by both historical parallels and present-day news.

Table of Contents

1. Main Theme Overview
2. Segment 1: The Misapplication of Dog Whistles & Online Anti-Fascism
3. Segment 2: History of U.S. Intervention in Panama & Parallels with Venezuela
4. Segment 3: Robert Evans' Keynote—Resistance, Authoritarianism, and Moral Risk
5. Segment 4: Weekly News—ICE Protests, Election Interference, and State Repression

Main Theme Overview

The episode interrogates America's accelerating collapse towards overt fascism and the responses—from both the population and authorities—shaping this moment. Starting with a sharp critique of online ‘anti-fascist code-hunting’ and performative resistance, the hosts pivot to a deep-dive history lesson on U.S. imperial projects in Panama, then present a sobering live keynote about what meaningful resistance against authoritarianism in the U.S. might entail. The episode closes with a current-events news brief documenting ongoing ICE raids, civil rights cases, and government overreach.

Segment 1: The Misapplication of Dog Whistles & Online Anti-Fascism

Key Points

• Dogpspotting & Numerology: Garrison Davis and Mia Wong lampoon the obsessive hunt for Nazi symbolism in government communications, mockingly decoding supposed secret codes in a DHS tweet ("14 words," "1488"), to highlight how such focus misses the point.
• The Real Problem: Fascist rhetoric and policies are being enacted overtly. The government does not need dog whistles when its policies and messaging are explicitly fascistic.
• Dangers of Paranoia: The "paranoid style" described by Richard Hofstadter (13:47) is now ubiquitous across the political spectrum, with leftists and liberals adopting a conspiracy-hunting mindset once relegated to the right.
• Critique of Tactics: Garrison and Mia argue that this paranoid style is psychologically understandable but practically useless. Real anti-fascism should focus on actual material opposition and solidarity, not armchair code-breaking.
• Aesthetic Resistance: The fixation on surface-level signals over systemic violence is part of capitalist spectacle. Quoting Walter Benjamin and Mark Fisher, they warn that aesthetics have supplanted political substance, entrenching both reaction and resistance in a feedback loop of symbol over action (34:54).
• Normalization Is Complete: Once fascistic power is institutionalized, critique must move from media literacy to active collective resistance. Dog whistle-hunting is powerless once violent policies are enacted openly.

Notable Quotes

• Garrison Davis [08:16]: “We're converting capitalized letters in the first half of a tweet into numbers and then rearranging the order of those letters to get a 1488. It's literally German. ... Meanwhile, you can just look at the actual text of the post, you can look at the painting. Both of those things have an inherent fascist quality.”
• Mia Wong [10:46]: “Dog whistles don't matter if the regular whistle is already fascist. If they're just saying things openly and doing things, what purpose does a dog whistle have?”
• Garrison Davis [16:47]: “Everyone in America wants to have access to secret information... having that informational exclusivity in a world of information saturation. ... it's such a romantic idea that, that I alone have the info or the clue that to piece this together.”
• Mia Wong [24:19]: “It's already become normalized because they have power. The only way to denormalize it is not actually to do media critique, it's to like, actually oppose them.”

Timestamp Highlights

• [02:23] — Segment opens with Garrison’s comedic Nazi-code breakdown.
• [13:47] — Richard Hofstadter's “paranoid style,” implications for American political culture.
• [24:19] — Elaboration on normalization and limits of rhetorical resistance.
• [34:54] — Deep dive into aestheticization of politics, referencing Benjamin and Fisher.

Segment 2: History of U.S. Intervention in Panama & Parallels with Venezuela

Key Points

• Panama as Imperial Test Site: Hans Charles and James Stout narrate the long arc of U.S. interventions in Panama, from the canal’s genesis, through coups, failed treaties, military invasions, and the rise and fall of Noriega (47:27—94:50).
• White Supremacy & the Canal: The construction of both railroad and canal is contextualized in settler-colonial logics—intentional racial hierarchies and labor stratification (69:07).
• CIA and Dictators: The U.S. embraced dictators when convenient—first Torrijos, then Noriega—until their usefulness wore out. The "war on drugs" and “restoring democracy” narratives veiled imperial motives.
• 1989 Invasion Parallels 2026 Venezuela: The logic used for Panama's 1989 invasion (protecting 'American lives', rooting out drugs, democracy) is almost verbatim to contemporary justifications for intervention in Venezuela, including recent U.S. kidnapping of Venezuela's president (110:31).
• Aftermath & Selective Outrage: The U.S. often moves on after regime change. Drug trafficking and corruption rarely improve; the Panamanian or Venezuelan people are left to pick up the pieces.

Notable Quotes

• Hans Charles [67:58]: “Civilisation, as Roosevelt argued, was the urgent mandate for all these actions toward building the canal.”
• James Stout [110:40]: “You don't need to go carry water for the guy they deposed. ... It is wild that we look to what happened in Panama and we're like, you know what? We can do better than that. We don't even have to declare a war.”
• Hans Charles [119:58]: “American interests supersede all else. American laws somehow apply to the entire world, while the world’s laws never apply to America. And the actual people on the ground in both cases don't matter at all.”

Timestamp Highlights

• [47:27] — U.S. involvement in Panama—colonial beginnings to the 20th century.
• [69:07] — Racial hierarchy in canal construction.
• [94:50] — Dictators Torrijos and Noriega; U.S. complicity and eventual fallout.
• [110:31] — Drawing direct historical line from Panama 1989 to Venezuela 2026.

Segment 3: Robert Evans' Keynote—Resistance, Authoritarianism, and Moral Risk

Key Points

• Liberal Paralysis: Robert Evans’s speech at the Japanese American National Museum (124:29—148:44) is a passionate call to recognize that traditional forms of legal/crisis-averse resistance (voting, nonconfrontational protest) are insufficient in the face of state violence and fascist escalation.
• The Bait & The Trap: Any resistance, no matter how mild, is used by authorities as pretext for greater crackdown. The regime perceives all dissent as 'violent' (127:10).
• Learning from History: Evans uses the story from Milton Mayer’s “They Thought They Were Free” to illustrate how incremental personal choices not to resist can accumulate into national complicity in atrocity.
• What Real Resistance Demands: Real moral resistance is risky, uncomfortable, and may involve breaking old conventions, including tolerated forms of action (153:30).
• General Strike as Leverage: The general strike is posited as the core nonviolent tactic that could upend authoritarian dominance, but it must be ready for state retaliation.
• The Need for Accountability: Evans ends with a call for real, far-reaching justice—not just superficial “reconciliation commissions,” but legal accountability for political criminals and media elites facilitating atrocity (160:22).

Notable Quotes

• Robert Evans [127:10]: “Any act of resistance, big or small, is all the justification federal agents need to deploy more of the violence they were already using.”
• Evans citing Milton Mayer [137:25]: “The world was lost one day in 1935 here in Germany. It was I who lost it. And I will tell you how... I had to commit a positive evil there and then in the hope of a possible good later on. The good outweighed the evil, but the good was only a hope, the evil a fact.”
• Robert Evans [153:30]: “If the question is what does fighting back look like in terms of what is an escalation ... that is still within the bounds of what most people ... would call ... peaceful and morally justified ... the only thing that comes to mind is a general strike. It's almost the only leverage that we have.”
• Robert Evans [160:22]: “We need something along the lines of a Nuremberg ... That sort of thing should be seen as just as illegal as ... busting into somebody’s house with guns.”

Timestamp Highlights

• [124:29] — Keynote address begins.
• [127:10] — The liberal trap of “taking the bait.”
• [137:25] — The Mayer anecdote; incremental complicity.
• [153:30] — The case for a general strike.
• [160:22] — On accountability after the regime falls.

Segment 4: Weekly News—ICE Protests, Election Interference, and State Repression

Key Points

• ICE & Protest Repression: Detailed report on large-scale, multigenerational ICE protests in Portland, Oregon, escalated by indiscriminate use of tear gas, including on children and elderly (171:06).
• Health Effects & State Response: Sophie Lichterman explains the severe reproductive health risks posed by tear gas, the inadequacy of existing medical studies, and the government’s unwillingness to recognize the harm (177:26).
• Federal Crackdowns: Ongoing ICE operations in Minneapolis, withdrawal of some federal agents, political efforts to ‘normalize’ mass deportation through rhetoric and legislation (183:21).
• Judiciary & Journalism: Activists and journalists (notably Don Lemon and others) are facing criminal charges for protest coverage, raising First Amendment alarm bells (186:47).
• State Funding and Surveillance Expansion: Congressional battles over DHS funding, purported “reforms” like body cameras and mask bans, and evidence of actual reductions to oversight despite public posturing (188:06, 191:14).
• Election Security Pretexts: FBI raids on Georgia election offices, Speaker Mike Johnson's unsubstantiated allegations of 2020 voter fraud to justify intrusive federal intervention (201:25—205:51).
• Visa Revocation for Dissent: The case of Ramesa Ozturk, whose visa was revoked for writing an op-ed, revealing the administration's willingness to punish protected speech under the guise of terrorism (211:12).

Notable Quotes

• Sophie Lichterman [177:33]: “There’s evidence from Gaza it can cause miscarriages. ... Wear a respirator if you go to protest.”
• James Stout [184:23]: “The Border Patrol agents clearly love this... They call it going on safari.”
• Robert Evans [191:48]: “Obviously, having a camera on the agent is not going to prevent them from killing someone because they think it's good what they're doing. They don't think it's bad.”
• James Stout [213:13]: “Pretty bleak.”

Timestamp Highlights

• [171:06] — Portland ICE protests and mass gassing.
• [183:21] — Details on ICE/Border Patrol troop deployments in Minneapolis.
• [191:14] — Realities and failures of body camera policies.
• [201:25] — FBI raids and Trump’s intervention in Georgia elections.
• [211:12] — Visa crackdown on dissent and hollow legal justifications.
• [213:21] — Brief, sobering Syria crisis update.

Conclusion

This episode of It Could Happen Here is a searing overview of late-stage American crisis, both philosophically and practically: the rise of overt authoritarianism; the failure of liberal and left tactics stuck in old paradigms; the importance of real material resistance; the global context and imperial echoes; and the urgent need for new forms of courage and solidarity. With analysis rooted in theory, history, and lived news, the hosts challenge listeners to abandon the illusions of safe protest and code-breaking in favor of real, risky collective action.

Notable, Memorable Moments

• Garrison’s “Nazi code” bit: [02:23 – 08:16] — A masterclass in sarcasm to puncture conspiratorial anti-fascism.
• Robert Evans’ Keynote: [124:29 – 160:22] — A rare, extended plea for real risk and moral clarity.
• Panama-Venezuela Parallel: [110:40 – 119:58] — Essential history for understanding today’s headlines.
• Health Warnings on Tear Gas: [177:26 – 178:14] — Crucial practical advice for protesters.

[For source citations and further reading, refer to the episode show notes or the direct transcript provided.]