Abolish ICE

Gaslit Nation

Trump, Politics, Left, Democracy, Resistance, News, Society & Culture, Progressive, Liberal, Kendzior, Chalupa, Resist

4.8 • 4K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

America has long been on a path toward authoritarianism, as Gaslit Nation warned for years. We also warned the only way out is accountability: abolish ICE and prosecute their crimes against humanity to the fullest extent of international law.

In this week’s Gaslit Nation, we examine the normalcy bias that many in white America, especially within the mainstream media, cling to. We also celebrate the defiant voices on the frontlines in MAGA-besieged cities like Portland and Chicago, who are calling this what it is: fascism. Joining us to discuss how to rebuild American democracy, and make it truly democratic this time, is Zerlina Maxwell, host of Mornings with Zerlina on SiriusXM’s Progress Channel and author of The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide. Find her weekday mornings 7am to 9am ET on SiriusXM Progresss, channel 127.

As always, we offer solutions and ways to stay grounded amid the terrorism sh*tshow and chaos deliberately engineered to confuse and demoralize us. The way we win is by staying focused and committed to doing whatever we can–wherever we are, with whatever we have–to plant seeds of hope and change. No act is too small.

If you want to make a difference, join us for the Gaslit Nation x Sister District Halloween Phonebank on October 22 at 6pm ET. We’ll be calling voters in must-win Virginia races, some of which could be decided by just a handful of votes. Yes, your time and voice still matter. Stephen Miller doesn’t want you to go to our phonebank–so be sure to RSVP here.

Thank you to everyone who joined the Gaslit Nation Salon on Monday at 4pm ET. Join us again this coming Monday for a special session featuring our friends at the Media and Democracy Project, as we discuss how to push back against mainstream media capitulation.

largest mass-murder of Jewish life since the Holocaust. Our hearts are with those impacted by that day and Netanyahu's genocidal war to cling to power that followed. For an important discussion for how to build peace, listen to our interview with the Jewish and Palestinian led Alliance for Middle East Peace from December 2024.

Want Gaslit Nation ad-free? Join our community of listeners for bonus shows, exclusive Q&A sessions, group chats, invites to live events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit!

Show Notes:

RSVP to the Gaslit Nation Phonebank w/Sister for Virginia! https://www.mobilize.us/sisterdistrict/event/847185/

‘Impossible’ for Trump to escape Epstein files being exposed | John Bolton https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lvWbM2g31A

The End of White Politics: How to Heal Our Liberal Divide by Zerlina Maxwell https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/zerlina-maxwell/the-end-of-white-politics/9780306873591/

“There’s a baby!” ICE agents stop Alamosa family at gunpoint, smash car window Immigration arrest last week in southern Colorado follows national trend of escalating force from ICE agents https://coloradosun.com/2025/10/01/ice-alamosa-arrest-gunpoint-infant/

The Fading of the Red, White, and Blue by Zach Bryan: https://www.instagram.com/p/DPWkQ4CEcNp/

Country Music Star Zach Bryan Turns Political With Anti-ICE Ballad https://time.com/7323600/zach-bryan-ice-song-trump/

Opening clip https://www.youtube.com/shorts/AbqZxPsP91I featuring: https://www.tiktok.com/@of_earth.and_seed

Trump’s NSPM-7 Labels Common Beliefs As Terrorism “Indicators” https://www.kenklippenstein.com/p/trumps-nspm-7-labels-common-beliefs

EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:

October 27 4pm ET – Deaf Republic by Ilya Kaminsky + Total Resistance by H. Von Dach – Poetry and guerrilla strategy: tools for survival and defiance.
Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other, available on Patreon.
Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other, available on Patreon.
Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect, available on Patreon.
Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join, available on Patreon.
Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group, available on Patreon.
Have you taken Gaslit Nation’s HyperNormalization Survey Yet?
Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and the first ~40 minutes are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit for our community.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The interview that Ezra Klein did with Tanaasi Coates reveals some things.
0:05.0	The first thing, and I don't want to generalize, but it seems like we're living in a time right now where whiteness,
0:11.0	especially in liberal, progressive, or leftist basis, lacks moral clarity.
0:16.0	We are living in the equinox right now. We are in the equinox where the subconscious, the shadow, is coming up and revealing itself. And in that, you are seeing that white men, a lot of white men, have never really wrestled with how this system would come and affect them. The same way that historically it has affected black people, brown people, people of color, women. And so you're watching in real time people like Dean Withers, Ezra Klein, and other white people
0:39.5	and well-meaning liberal white people left as progressive struggle to have moral clarity.
0:46.8	Ezra Klein goes on in that interview to say something along the lines of like, he's not
0:53.4	using the historical context to examine this moment.
0:56.0	And Tanahasi Coates is saying, but how can you not?
1:00.0	And it also reveals that maybe for a lot of white people and a lot of liberal or progressive or even leftist folks is that as a white person, is this all just philosophical to you? Is this all philosophical to you? And what you're
1:14.8	more afraid of losing is your moral hierarchy as a white person in all of this, which to me
1:22.3	reveals that it's really time for us to start to reorder the hierarchy, to reorder who we put trust in.
1:30.6	My trust is going to go more often to black, brown people of color who live a very real
1:36.8	experience of this authoritarian regime that has always been there. It has always been here for
1:41.6	black people. There's always been here for people of color. We have always lived under an authoritarian regime. It is only now that white people are waking up
1:49.5	and say, oh shit, as Martin or as Malcolm said, the rooster will come home to Ruth. The rooster has come
1:54.8	home to Ruth. And a lot of white people are in a moral quandary. They are in a free fall of moral clarity. I studied my history. My
2:04.5	ancestors wrote about this again and again and again. So to me, there's nothing surprising about
2:09.1	what's happening at this moment. The only thing that I'm surprised about is that white people are
2:12.9	surprised. And then again, that's, I can't be that surprised because white culture has been ignoring the canary and the coal mine for a long time.
2:21.3	And it also reveals the knowledge supremacy that whiteness thinks that it has.
2:26.3	People like Ezra Klein, Dean Withers, a lot of these well-meaning white people are still functioned under knowledge supremacy as if they know instead of saying,
2:34.5	you know what, I don't have the moral clarity
	...

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