It Could Happen Here

Episode: "What Must Be Done? The Battle Against Fascism"

Podcast by: Cool Zone Media & iHeartPodcasts
Date: February 5, 2026
Host/Speaker: Robert Evans (Keynote), Anne Burroughs (Moderator/Q&A)
Context: Keynote speech by Robert Evans at the Japanese American National Museum Symposium on Combating Authoritarianism, followed by a Q&A with human rights leader Anne Burroughs.

Episode Overview

This powerful episode features journalist and author Robert Evans delivering a keynote speech chronicling the realities of rising authoritarianism, systemic police violence, and the collapse of American democratic norms. Evans interrogates the inadequacy of current forms of resistance, challenges listeners to reconsider what effective opposition entails, and draws sobering parallels to historical fascist regimes. The episode includes a candid and urgent Q&A with Anne Burroughs, emphasizing personal and collective responsibility, the escalation of risk, and the critical choices for resistance and accountability.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Escalating Authoritarian Threat (05:24–19:05)

• Personal Testimony: Evans recounts advising a friend on buying a gas mask for her daughter in light of ICE violence against civilians, including tear gas and flashbangs used against families and infants.

  "Questions like this aren't theoretical to thousands of American parents right now, and they aren't theoretical to me. I was tear gassed more than a hundred times in 2020..." (05:47)

• The Bait Rhetoric: Criticism of liberal leaders' calls for “peaceful protest” despite police escalation.

  “Armed and armored police officers, blind firing chemical weapons at civilians is bait. While any response from those civilians beyond packing up and going home is taking said bait.” (07:15)

• Police, ICE, and State Violence: Evans highlights systemic issues:

  • Qualified immunity for abusive officers
  • Police unions protecting extremists
  • ICE and Homeland Security propagating far-right violence
  • Community organizing met with federal crackdowns

• Grassroots Resistance: Examples of mutual aid and direct action:

  "Local businesses like Rectangle... raised tens of thousands of dollars to buy and distribute food... Rectangle's fundraising campaign earned them a visit from armed ICE agents..." (10:14)

• ICE Watch Networks: Informal community groups monitor and shame ICE, but activists face fatal risks and official demonization.

  “Anyone impeding the actions of law enforcement is a terrorist... You cannot be so well behaved and appropriate in your resistance that this government will not consider you a valid target.” (12:32)

• Liberal Leadership Critiqued: Politicians like Newsom and Booker are condemned for half-measures (“more training for ICE”).

• Historical Parallels & International Context:

  • Misguided American exceptionalism
  • Erosion of a "rules-based international order"
  • The current crisis likened to global failures to check fascism

2. The Moral Choice & Cost of Resistance (19:05–29:55)

• Hope Amid Crisis: Evans notes the mass hatred of the regime by ordinary Americans and points to collective action as the best hope.

  "The bad guys are outnumbered. We can't forget this, and they certainly won't. But the bad guys also have guns and the legal right to use them however they want..." (19:25)

• The General Strike:

  • Evans lauds the Minneapolis coalition for organizing a one-day general strike—seen as essential leverage for meaningful resistance.
  • Warns that any demonstration effective enough to threaten the regime will be criminalized and punished.

• The Lesson of "They Thought They Were Free":

  • Evans recounts Milton Mayer’s post-WWII interviews with “little Nazis” and “little anti-fascists.”

  "The world was lost. One day in 1935, here in Germany, it was I who lost it. And I will tell you how..." (22:33)

• "Lesser Evil" Rationalization:

  • The moral quandary of participating in evil for a possible greater good
  • The failure of educated elites to stand up early and en masse

• Evans' Challenge:

  "It is incumbent on us to look out at the people struggling in Chicago and Minneapolis and Los Angeles and ... ask ourselves, how can I support them? And how can I go further?" (28:44)

• Accepting Risk:

  • Calls on listeners to abandon old boundaries of “acceptable protest” and “become more comfortable with risk.”
  • Cites Bishop Rob Hirschfeld:

    “Get your affairs in order. Make sure you have your wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.” (29:51)

3. Q&A with Anne Burroughs: Moral Risk, Mass Action, and Accountability (33:02–46:44)

What Compels the Leap to Moral Risk? (34:37)

• Evans on Mass Tipping Points:

  "One of the things that is a potential moment of change is when... a large enough chunk of the populace... feels like, well, they've taken what I would go back to, they've taken any sense of security I have... There's no longer a point in me holding back because the state is not holding back...” (35:25)

• Window of Opportunity:

  • The window for mass action "starts closing as soon as it opens," but “never closes all the way” due to population numbers versus police capacity.
  • Delay makes future resistance more dangerous due to increased state power.

What Does Fighting Back Actually Mean? (37:02)

• Evans: General Strike as Primary Leverage

  “It's almost the only leverage that we have, which is why I'm happy to see them starting to explore doing it as a real thing. In Minneapolis...” (37:56)

• Organizational Realities:

  • True general strike requires union/infrastructure support
  • Necessitates "a ton of illegalism,” mutual aid, food networks
  • The regime will criminalize leaders, use black sites, and escalate repression

• Fear of Violent Escalation:

  “What happens if we cross the point into which there is no longer any hope or talk of peaceful resistance? ... When you cross that line, there's no longer any question of right or wrong. It's just a matter of what can survive the onslaught...” (40:44)

• State Fragmentation Risk:

  • National Guard vs. Federal forces—could emerge
  • Avert internecine conflict to prevent devastating international consequences (food, medicine systems)

Building Toward Transformation and Accountability (42:22)

• Anne Burroughs’ South African Context:
  • General strike and international pressure broke apartheid’s back, but post-crisis reconciliation lacked restitution and deep justice.
• Evans on American Accountability:
  • Predicts any Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be "half-assed" and insufficient.
  • Nuremberg cited as partial failure: most perpetrators unpunished.

  “We do need something along the lines of a Nuremberg... But it’s also a failure if we do not extend any attempt at... justice... to the people who run all of the major social media corporations in the world, all of whom are deeply complicit in not just our authoritarian slide, but in direct violence.” (45:25)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If your enemy controls the police and the military and they've promised to destroy you, what does fighting back even mean?" — Robert Evans (08:36)
• "You cannot be so well behaved and appropriate in your resistance that this government will not consider you a valid target." — Robert Evans (12:32)
• “The world was lost one day in 1935 here in Germany. It was I who lost it. And I will tell you how..." — Milton Mayer’s interviewee, as recounted by Evans (22:33)
• “We all have the benefit of an education... It is incumbent on us…ask ourselves, how can I support them? And how can I go further?” — Robert Evans (28:44)
• “Make sure you have your wills written, because it may be that now is no longer the time for statements, but for us with our bodies to stand between the powers of this world and the most vulnerable.” — Bishop Rob Hirschfeld, via Evans (29:51)
• "The window starts closing as soon as it opens, but it can never close all the way, because there’s not a lot of them." — Robert Evans (36:27)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 05:24 – Evans’ speech begins: ICE violence, police impunity, breakdown of “liberal” resistance
• 10:14 – Community resistance, Rectangle pizza, mutual aid
• 12:32 – How the regime labels all dissent as terrorism
• 19:05 – General strike in Minneapolis; reassessing peaceful protest
• 22:33 – “They Thought They Were Free” and the importance of moral action
• 28:44 – Evans’ direct challenge to the privileged
• 29:51 – Quoting Bishop Hirschfeld on ultimate commitment
• 33:02 – Q&A starts: mass action, tipping points, and the closing window
• 37:56 – What can really shift power: the general strike and its demands
• 40:44 – Dangers of violent escalation and state fragmentation
• 45:25 – On justice, Nuremberg, and holding tech elites accountable
• 46:44 – Closing thanks and thoughts

Conclusion

Robert Evans’ keynote and the following discussion survey the bleak frontlines of the fight against fascism and authoritarianism in contemporary America. The conversation scrutinizes current liberal strategies as inadequate, challenges comfortable boundaries of dissent, and warns that “all dissent is violent” in the eyes of the regime. It situates the potential for mass action and general strikes as both urgent necessity and massive risk, demanding organizational seriousness and willingness to accept legal and physical dangers. The session closes with a frank reckoning on post-crisis accountability, drawing hard lessons from international history and calling out the complicity of corporate tech.

Evans’ tone is direct, urgent, and unapologetically challenging:

“None of us can afford to hold on to our old ideas of what counts as acceptable and unacceptable protest. We're all going to have to become more comfortable with taking on risk..." (28:54)

Listeners are left with a call to confront their own complicity, reassess what they are willing to risk, and to refuse comfortable illusions about the effectiveness of traditional protest in the face of resurgent fascism.