On  this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we speak with long-running  journalist and researcher Chris Mathias on his new book, "To Catch a  Fascist: The Fight to Expose the Radical Right."

In  the book, Mathias profiles multiple antifascist researchers and  activists, shinning a light on grassroots opposition to fascism and the  everyday people that put themselves in harms way to stand up to violent  white supremacists.

During  our discussion, we talk about several of the people profiled in the  book, as well as how many organizers and researchers are now turning  their attention on ICE. We also talk about how the GOP has consumed much  of the existing white nationalist movement, what happens to fascist  street formations with Trump in power, and how journalists, communities,  and organizers can respond.

https://bsky.app/profile/letsgomathias.bsky.social

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/30/antifa-unmasking-ice

Follow  Chris and his reporting here on BlueSky and be sure to check out this  piece at the Guardian about how antifascist sleuths are now turning  their attention to unmasking ICE agents.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/To-Catch-a-Fascist/Christopher-Mathias/9781668034767

Spy vs Fash: Chris Mathias on His New Antifascist Spy Thriller

In this episode we feature two interviews regarding the Prairieland trials and defendants.

The first interview is with two people from the support crew, made up of friends and family of the defendants. We talk about how things went down at the noise demo that led to these arrests, how the trial went and how everyone is holding up.

The second interview is with Xavier de Janon, from the People’s Law Collective, and the National Lawyers Guild. We speak with them in more detail about the charges, and the unprecedented way these cases are being dealt with in general.

Please follow along with these cases and upcoming trials, as there is a lot more to come and they need all the support they can get!

Best place to find info is at https://prairielanddefendants.com/ Please donate if you can at https://www.givesendgo.com/supportDFWprotestors

Here is some more info about Dario’s upcoming trial

https://www.keranews.org/criminal-justice/2026-03-10/dario-sanchez-prairieland-ice-shooting  [https://www.keranews.org/criminal-justice/2026-03-10/dario-sanchez-prairieland-ice-shooting]

This article is mentioned in the interview with Xavier

https://www.typeinvestigations.org/investigation/2026/03/26/exclusive-fbi-files-counter-government-argument-in-texas-antifa-trial/

And here is two more recent articles with good info

https://thelensnola.org/2026/04/02/prairieland-protest-ice-convictions-texas-louisiana/

https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-state-vs-the-emma-goldman-book-club/  [https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/the-state-vs-the-emma-goldman-book-club/]

Check out People’s Law Collective here

https://www.peopleslaw.co/

And the National Lawyers at

https://www.nlg.org/

More info on International Solidarity Movement at
https://palsolidarity.org [https://palsolidarity.org/]
and follow them on instagram and upscrolled at
@ismpalestine

On the Prairieland Defendants

Lake Effect Collective (https://lakeeffect.noblogs.org/) is a Chicago-based group formed in the wake of the Palestine encampments in Chicago in 2024 that has been experimenting with radical political development, writing and analysis for the last few years. Neither an affinity group nor a party, Lake Effect is concerned about increasing capacity for strategic action while interfacing with mass struggle. In this interview, we sit down with them to talk about their model of engagement with anti-deportation and anti-ICE organization in Chicago.

Drawing on their recent writings, we discuss how resistance in Chicago has evolved over the past decade from large protests and rapid-response mobilizations toward more targeted confrontations with the infrastructure that enables deportations (such as offices, detention contracts, and transportation hubs). While some disruptions have successfully delayed or stopped deportations, LE members point out that many tactics —especially tech-heavy rapid response systems or symbolic protests — have often failed to build lasting power because they remain reactionary and disconnected from everyday relationships with affected communities. 

LE emphasizes that durable resistance depends on relationships of obligation and solidarity that persist beyond individual raids or crises. We speak about their experimentations with a Los Angeles-inspired tactic called "community defense hubs", or “centros.” These are physical spaces where neighbors, organizers, and existing anti-deportation networks can gather regularly, build trust, and coordinate practical defense efforts over time. We touch on the importance of grounding organizing spaces in what local communities already need, how to navigate tensions with nonprofits and/or peace-policing tendencies while maintaining autonomy, and the need to balance security with openness. LE members also articulate the importance of being clear and upfront about their politics across different spaces. 

This discussion is part of an ongoing series that The Beautiful Idea is developing to explore different kinds of anti-ICE organizing efforts across the US. For more information about Lake Effect's work, please check out their blog at https://lakeeffect.noblogs.org/.

Lake Effect on Anti-Deportation Organizing in Chicago

We speak with an organizer based in New Orleans about the community’s efforts to confront ICE during a special operation that took place there in December of 2025. Among other topics, we touch on the complicated dynamics of organizing with nonprofit groups, the ways that police operations can impact community defense initiatives, and how NOLA’s powerful tradition of mutual aid in the wake of Katrina has transformed into a preventative tactic against ICE kidnappings there. This conversation is part of an ongoing series we’re developing on ICE resistance efforts across the country. Stay tuned for more like this soon!

In the meantime, consider supporting the upcoming Week of Action in Minneapolis, from February 25th to March 1st. More info here: https://melttheicemn.com/

Mutual Aid as Prevention: Resisting ICE in New Orleans

In this episode we talk to a variety of people on the ground in Minneapolis about their thoughts on the filter blockades and other things happening there currently relating to anti ICE resistance. These reportbacks and recordings were done between January 24 through February 5th. 

For more info on filter blockades, check out this great recent piece by Crimethinc 

https://crimethinc.com/2026/02/06/filter-blockades-a-tactic-from-the-twin-cities-to-fight-ice-and-defend-your-neighborhood#a-step-by-step-guide

This is part of an ongoing series on ICE/DHS activity, the ways it varies in local conditions, and how that interplays with local histories and dynamics of resistance.

Music in this episode:

Texture Freq - So What? It’s the Future

https://texturefreq.bandcamp.com

YP Engineering - Tim Walz

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lqrqct0mGTAPc0IrRx7G6AcKtrkgzhyg8&si=Z7p7PrquBdTkVNb-

Carsie Blanton - Come Out Ye Cowards ICE

https://carsieblanton.bandcamp.com

Intro music by Breakaway and Seaside Tryst





Minneapolis Montage: Interviews from the Filter Blockades and More 

In this episode we sit down with a member of Crimethinc to discuss the first year of the second Trump administration. In many ways the speed, severity, and violence of the first year has made the situation difficult to understand comprehensively. So, instead of just focusing on the swirl of events over the past 12 months, we are going to go back to the roots of what's happening today, the rise of neoliberalism.

To make sense of everything we have experienced over the last year we start with events that occurred almost 40 years ago, with the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of neoliberalism to primacy. This started a dynamic in which wealth has been increasingly concentrated in the hands of a shrinking number, in which cost of living is rising and wages are not keeping up, in which debt has come to be the mechanism used to fill in those financial gaps. Combined with an increasing scarcity of resources neoliberalism has led to a world in which those with resources and investments are capable of mobilizing state violence to protect and expand those interests in conflict with an increasingly desperate populace. Since the Obama administration and the financial crisis of 2008 capital and power has accelerated the dynamic of concentration, setting the stage for the invasions of American cities, the brutalization of our communities, and the serial violation of "rights" that many of us thought of as inviolable.

Also during this period movements have arisen to oppose this concentration of power and wealth every step of the way. From the fights in the streets during the global anti-capitalist movement to the parks of Occupy, the barricades of the movements against the police in 2014 and 2020, or on the plains at Standing Rock, a dynamic of conflict has emerged along with the logistics and knowledge to sustain prolonged conflict with the state.

This is all setting the stage for what is happening in Minneapolis, where the DHS has deployed all available units, and still cannot control the streets. We finish our discussion talking about the implications of what is happening in Minneapolis and how this might just become a quagmire that the administration cannot commit more to or pull itself out of without significant costs.

We recorded this before the brutal ICE execution of Alex Pretti. Since then the people of Minneapolis have fought bravely in the streets against ICE, as well as the state police and local cops. 

https://crimethinc.com/2026/01/25/minneapolis-responds-to-the-murder-of-alex-pretti-an-eyewitness-account

For more on what is happening in Minneapolis check out Crimethinc (https://crimethinc.com) , Unicorn Riot (https://unicornriot.ninja) and tune in to this show as we bring you all updates from the ground.

Fires In the Distance During Dark Days: One Year of Trump 2.0

In this episode, we speak with some organizers involved in anti-ICE resistance at the peak of the show-downs in Minneapolis, one week after ICE agents killed Renee Good, and 20 minutes after Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis was shot. We discuss some of the ways that people in the city are escalating their engagement with ICE, how local police are engaging (or not) with ICE activity, and ways that people elsewhere can best support Minneapolis and prepare for further crackdowns in their own cities.

Please check out the links below for ways to support people on the ground in Minneapolis right now:

-Venmo @mplsfamilysupport to support young mothers whose families have been ruptured by ice abductions. They are being faced with caring for their children alone, while not being able to work or leave their homes for fear of being disappeared as ICE raids continue to escalate. 

-Venmo @twincitiessolidarity to help buy supplies and community infrastructure for ongoing mutual aid efforts in the face of the ICE siege

-Venmo @Chef-Collective-1123 or CashApp $ChefCollective1123 to source supplies for increasing requests for Shelter in Place Grocery Packs (coming in with greater frequency as people run out of food at home)

-https://www.standwithminnesota.com/ (links to a bunch of crowdfunding and direct fundraising asks, in order of most need)



Current raffle fundraisers — (close Jan 28th)

-https://www.instagram.com/p/DTixS5tFWgo/?img_index=1

-https://www.instagram.com/p/DTdoCR7iSA-/?img_index=1



Please check out the links below for recent articles on ICE raids and rapid response networks in the Twin Cities:

-"Rapid Response Networks in the Twin Cities: A Guide to an Updated Model" https://crimethinc.com/2026/01/15/rapid-response-networks-in-the-twin-cities-a-guide-to-an-updated-model

-"North Minneapolis Chases Out ICE: A Firsthand Account of the Response to Another ICE Shooting" https://crimethinc.com/2026/01/15/north-minneapolis-chases-out-ice-a-firsthand-account-of-the-response-to-another-ice-shooting

-"Minneapolis Responds to ICE Committing Murder: An Account From the Streets" https://crimethinc.com/2026/01/08/minneapolis-responds-to-ice-committing-murder-an-account-from-the-streets



Check out further reading about the Prairieland Case, several people facing charges related to an anti-ICE demo in Texas:

-https://haters.noblogs.org/post/2025/12/11/beneath-the-prairie-the-concrete/

ICE vs Ice On the Ground in Minneapolis

We are at a moment of impasse, a time where political spaces and dynamics are shifting drastically. In the past months we have seen military units deploy to streets, the DOJ get used as an overt weapon of the administration, and terrorism laws being openly utilized to suppress anarchist movements. At the same time, there is a distinct sense in which the state, and this current administration, is breaking the state apart while they are trying to consolidate control over it. We are stuck in a race between administrative authoritarianism and the collapse of the American state as we understand it. The result has been a situation that is kinetic rather than definitive, in which the conditions of politics change into terms that are more material and less clear, which differ from place to place, and in which situational awareness becomes paramount for anyone attempting to act directly and effectively.

At times like this it makes sense to do something anarchists have been doing for decades, delving into operational theory. Operational theory is often described as the space that exists between strategy (large-scale movements over time) and tactics (the immediate techniques of fighting). It is a space in which we focus on dynamics, terrains, logistics, in an attempt not to pin an enemy down to simple categories, but to understand ourselves as acting in an environment that shapes those enemies, and ourselves, in very specific hyper-localized ways. 

In this discussion we will be sitting down with an editor for the upcoming publication BREACH Digest to talk a little bit about operational theory. We discuss what operational theory is, the history of anarchists studying the operational arts, and some resources that you can get into if you want to dig deeper. 

BREACH Digest is a forthcoming publication with a release scheduled in the coming months. To follow their work go to their website, https://breachdigest.noblogs.org/, for more details.

Further Reading

Carl von Clausewitz On War

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1946/1946-h/1946-h.htm

Antoine-Henri Jomini The Art of War

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/13549/13549-h/13549-h.htm

RAND Corporation on Netwar and Swarming

https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/RAND_MR1382.pdf

https://www.rand.org/pubs/documented_briefings/DB311.html

Institute for the Study of Insurgent Warfare

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/institute-for-the-study-of-insurgent-warfare

Links to works by Col. John Boyd on organic command and control and the OODA loop

https://www.colonelboyd.com/boydswork

US Military Counterinsurgency Manual

https://irp.fas.org/doddir/army/fm3-24.pdf





Getting Operational With It: A Discussion with BREACH Digest

We're back after a brief summer break!

The war in Ukraine is often, like many conflicts, discussed through the lens of foreign policy and the interests of these entities that we call states. This is not the framing that we simply inherit from media, it is one that the Left globally has embraced just as thoroughly as liberals and conservatives. Discussions become echoes of the Cold War, where massive power blocks collide in some geopolitical game involving huge historical projects. 

There are myriad issues with this framing, but we will focus on just one in this episode. This framing has a tragic side effect, it has the tendency to disappear people on the ground living through conflict, and often abandoning them as a result. It has led some on the Left to support the worst authoritarians, right wing religious extremists, and genocidaires, all while abandoning people fighting authoritarianism repeatedly, merely because the states that supports the regime they are fighting are "anti-American". 

We want to have a different discussion about war, and about Ukraine; a discussion about what it means to be an anarchist living in a place actively under invasion, facing existential threats, and the threat of immanent arrest or death if you lose. We are joined by Anton from the Solidarity Collectives to talk about the war, how life continues in a warzone, what the war has meant for the anarchist community in Ukraine and the wider region, and how a movement can not just survive, but also actively engage in the situation around them, against all odds.

You can follow the work of Solidarity Collectives here:

https://www.solidaritycollectives.org/en/

https://bsky.app/profile/solcolua.bsky.social



War from Ground Level: A Discussion About Experiencing the War in Ukraine

On this episode of The Beautiful Idea, we speak with several authors and organizers, marking six months into the second Trump administration coming to power. During our multiple discussions, we look at the recent deployment of the military into Los Angeles, CA, the ramping up of ICE raids and arrests across the US, and the passing of the Republican so-called "Big Beautiful Bill," which ear-marks billions for war and the deportation machine, while cutting taxes on the ultra-wealthy and corporations, and slashing social services, health-care, and food assistance for the poor. Already, which has lead to rural hospitals being threatened with closure [https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/2025/07/10/medicaid-cuts-could-lead-to-8-mississippi-hospitals-closing-see-why/84530916007/] as food banks struggle to keep up with demand [https://www.yahoo.com/news/federal-funding-cuts-could-close-222733096.html].

In this episode you will hear from:

 * Silky Shaw [https://bsky.app/profile/silkys13.bsky.social], the executive director of the Detention Watch Network, and author of Unbuild Walls: Why Immigrant Justice Needs Abolition [https://www.haymarketbooks.org/events/614-unbuild-walls-why-immigrant-justice-needs-abolition], from Haymarket Books. Shaw talks about the rapid acceleration of deportations under Trump and the construction of new detention facilities, such as the newly built concentration camp, Alligator Alcatraz.
 * Jessica Pishko [https://bsky.app/profile/jesspish.bsky.social], author of The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/707263/the-highest-law-in-the-land-by-jessica-pishko/], breaks down the interplay between police and ICE, as well as the brutal violence deployed by law enforcement during recent demonstrations in Los Angeles.
 * Kristian Williams [https://www.kristianwilliams.com/], author of Our Enemies and Blue: Police and Power in America [https://www.kristianwilliams.com/product/our-enemies-in-blue-police-and-power-in-america/], takes on the role of counter-insurgency in the Trump administration, the weaponization of fascist spectacle, and the growth of conspiracy theories within protest movements.
 * Vicky Osterweil [https://bsky.app/profile/vickyacab.bsky.social], author of In Defense of Looting [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/vicky-osterweil-in-defense-of-looting] and a member of Collective of Anarchist Writers (CAW) [https://www.cawshinythings.com/], breaks down the recently passed Republican budget bill, and talks about its potential impact in our communities and ways in which we can push back.

As anger continues to build in the streets, we hope this discussion shines a light on the contours and context of the building social war being waged against poor and working people across the US.

MUSIC:

Intro music by Breakaway [https://breakawaybreakaway.bandcamp.com/] and Seaside Tryst [https://seasidetryst.bandcamp.com/]

Filastine & Nova - Requiem 432 [https://youtu.be/A2LvqColxzA?si=eYcsOINIb65k3758]

Neurosis - The Doorway [https://youtu.be/OUBegD4_Bn4?si=DWI5Z6VcwDftXZ7S]

Big Beautiful Social War: Six Months Into Trump 2.0

The Beautiful Idea is a media project bringing you interviews, ideas, and stories from the frontlines of social movements and struggles, from a distinctly anarchist perspective.

More information at https://thebeautifulidea.show