Charlie Kirk standing on stage facing audience with his back to the camera, with confetti falling everywhere

What Charlie Kirk’s Life and Death Can Tell Us About the U.S. Right in the Age of Trump

Matthew N Lyons

Charlie Kirk’s life and death offer a microcosm of the MAGA movement’s shift to the right over the past decade—and of the dynamic factional interplay that has fueled that shift. Regardless of why Kirk was targeted, the right is using his killing as an opportunity to impose a climate of enforced loyalty and gear up for what could be a major political crackdown.

Antifascist, conservatism, Donald Trump, far right, MAGA movement, repression

Bronze sculpture of three hooded, faceless figures

Epstein’s Ghost and the Many Sides of Conspiracism

Matthew N Lyons

1 comment

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal highlights that assessing conspiracy theories’ political meaning and significance can be complicated. While some conspiracies are real, conspiracism exaggerates the role of small groups in making politics and history, plays fast and loose with the facts, and diverts attention away from the real systems and movements that predominantly shape our world. All conspiracism involves scapegoating, but the motivation behind such scapegoating varies widely, from demonizing subversives in defense of entrenched power, to a well-meaning but misguided effort to challenge such power. Anti-elite conspiracism (often but by no means always rooted in antisemitism) has been a major vehicle with which far rightists repackage their ideology in progressive-sounding ways, and with which they try to manipulate or form alliances with the left.

anti-Chinese racism, Antifascist, antisemitism, conspiracism, Donald Trump, Jeffrey Epstein, MAGA movement

*A wall of uniformed California National Guard troops in riot gear, by pillar with "Fuck ICE" graffiti.

Antifascism in 2025: Shane Burley interviews Xtn Alexander and Matthew N. Lyons

3WF

No comments

This interview first appeared on Shane Burley’s website Maiseh Review. We appreciate Shane’s efforts over the years to help bring three way fight politics to a broader audience.

Antifascist, community self-defense, Donald Trump, fascism, liberal antifascism, MAGA movement, Network Contagion Research Institute, Party for Socialism and Liberation, red-brown politics, threewayfight

People in suits seated around a very large table, with a red baseball cap on the table in front of almost every person.

Trumpism’s multiple factions

3WF

No comments

As the Trump administration attacks oppressed communities and dismantles social and environmental programs with breathtaking speed, it’s important that we understand our enemy’s strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions. The Trump movement encompasses at least five major components and multiple fault lines. A major point of potential conflict within the administration is between established capital’s socially conservative wing (represented by Project 2025 contributors such as Russell Vought, Peter Navarro, and Tom Homan) and big tech capital (represented by figures such as Elon Musk and JD Vance), a conflict that big tech is likely to win.

Antifascist, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, MAGA movement, tech capitalists

Color drawing of smiling dog leaning on the letters "DOGE," with American flags, and with words "Department of Government Efficiency" arching above.

The DOGE and the neoreactionaries

Matthew N Lyons

No comments

While MAGA movement ideology centers on right-wing populism, DOGE’s attack on the administrative state is guided by neoreactionaries, whose ideology glorifies elites and rejects populist appeals in principle. And while the first Trump administration was backed by an unstable coalition of competing capitalist interests, now high technology capitalists closely aligned with neoreactionary politics are at the head of the pro-Trump business bloc. These changes have helped make the second Trump presidency more dangerous than the first, but they also point to potential divisions and conflicts within the Trump coalition.

Antifascist, business and politics, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, neoreaction, tech capitalists

Chaos or Revolution? It Depends on Us

3WF

4 comments

The institutional far right is strong, while the far left is weak and disorganized. To develop the capacity to meaningfully intervene in the current crisis, far leftists need to engage with oppressed communities and work together with liberals in a united front.

Antifascist, Donald Trump, far right, radical left

Review of Alberto Toscano’s “Late Fascism”

3WF

No comments

Alberto Toscano’s book offers a helpful overview of antifascist writings with an emphasis on authors loosely associated with Critical Theory. Of particular value is Toscano’s discussion of the role of myth in fascist ideology, which focuses on contributions by Italian scholar Furio Jesi and has relevance for understanding Donald Trump’s speeches and far right online meme culture. Yet Toscano’s discussion of “racial fascism” exaggerates capitalists’ ability to control events, strips both fascists and antifascists of political agency, and reflects an obliviousness to antifascists’ strategic and tactical concerns.

Antifascist, Book Review, fascism, Paul Bowman

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Notes on Trump/MAGA 2024

Matthew N Lyons

5 comments

Even more than in the past, Trump and the MAGA movement have brought key elements of fascist politics into the Republican Party, and a second Trump presidency is likely to be significantly more authoritarian than the first one.

Antifascist, Donald Trump, MAGA movement, US presidential elections

Chaos or Revolution? It Depends on Us

3WF

4 comments

The institutional far right is strong, while the far left is weak and disorganized. To develop the capacity to meaningfully intervene in the current crisis, far leftists need to engage with oppressed communities and work together with liberals in a united front.

Antifascist, Donald Trump, far right, radical left

Who’s Afraid of Luigi Mangione? A Response to Alexander Reid Ross

3WF

2 comments

Luigi Mangione’s recent alleged killing of an insurance CEO touched a wedge issue that cuts across class and across the political spectrum—the massive corruption of the health insurance industry—and created an opening for the left. A recent article by ex-leftist Alexander Reid Ross, which dismisses Mangione as expressing an American proclivity for violence, represents a counterinsurgency action in defense of the state.

Alexander Reid Ross, Anti-capitalism, counter insurgency, health care, health insurance industry, liberal antifascism, Luigi Mangione

Reading Adam Shatz on the war in Gaza

Three Way Fight

3 comments

by Matthew N. Lyons How do we forcefully make the case to defend the Palestinian people in Gaza against Israel’s increasingly genocidal assault, and also honor the conflict’s heartbreaking contradictions? This is a question I’ve …

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Burn the foundation and all that it upholds: an antifascist review of “Tell Me I’m Worthless” by Alison Rumfitt

Three Way Fight

1 comment

“The House spreads. Its arteries run throughout the country. Its lifeblood flows into Westminster, into Scotland Yard, into every village and every city. It flows into you, and into your mother. It keeps you alive. …

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Books

Scroll to see more and click on a book for more information about it and where to buy it.

Epstein’s Ghost and the Many Sides of Conspiracism

Epstein’s Ghost and the Many Sides of Conspiracism

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal highlights that assessing conspiracy theories’ political meaning and significance can be complicated. While some conspiracies are real, conspiracism exaggerates the role of small groups in making politics and history, plays fast and loose with the facts, and diverts attention away from the real systems and movements that predominantly shape our world. All conspiracism involves scapegoating, but the motivation behind such scapegoating varies widely, from demonizing subversives in defense of entrenched power, to a well-meaning but misguided effort to challenge such power. Anti-elite conspiracism (often but by no means always rooted in antisemitism) has been a major vehicle with which far rightists repackage their ideology in progressive-sounding ways, and with which they try to manipulate or form alliances with the left.
, , , , , ,
Antifascism in 2025: Shane Burley interviews Xtn Alexander and Matthew N. Lyons

Antifascism in 2025: Shane Burley interviews Xtn Alexander and Matthew N. Lyons

This interview first appeared on Shane Burley’s website Maiseh Review. We appreciate Shane’s efforts over the years to help bring three way fight politics to a broader audience.
, , , , , , , , ,
Trumpism’s multiple factions

Trumpism’s multiple factions

As the Trump administration attacks oppressed communities and dismantles social and environmental programs with breathtaking speed, it’s important that we understand our enemy’s strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions. The Trump movement encompasses at least five major components and multiple fault lines. A major point of potential conflict within the administration is between established capital’s socially conservative wing (represented by Project 2025 contributors such as Russell Vought, Peter Navarro, and Tom Homan) and big tech capital (represented by figures such as Elon Musk and JD Vance), a conflict that big tech is likely to win.
, , , ,
The DOGE and the neoreactionaries

The DOGE and the neoreactionaries

While MAGA movement ideology centers on right-wing populism, DOGE’s attack on the administrative state is guided by neoreactionaries, whose ideology glorifies elites and rejects populist appeals in principle. And while the first Trump administration was backed by an unstable coalition of competing capitalist interests, now high technology capitalists closely aligned with neoreactionary politics are at the head of the pro-Trump business bloc. These changes have helped make the second Trump presidency more dangerous than the first, but they also point to potential divisions and conflicts within the Trump coalition.
, , , , ,

Chaos or Revolution? It Depends on Us

The institutional far right is strong, while the far left is weak and disorganized. To develop the capacity to meaningfully intervene in the current crisis, far leftists need to engage with oppressed communities and work together with liberals in a united front.
, , ,
Review of Alberto Toscano’s “Late Fascism”

Review of Alberto Toscano’s “Late Fascism”

Alberto Toscano’s book offers a helpful overview of antifascist writings with an emphasis on authors loosely associated with Critical Theory. Of particular value is Toscano’s discussion of the role of myth in fascist ideology, which focuses on contributions by Italian scholar Furio Jesi and has relevance for understanding Donald Trump’s speeches and far right online meme culture. Yet Toscano’s discussion of “racial fascism” exaggerates capitalists’ ability to control events, strips both fascists and antifascists of political agency, and reflects an obliviousness to antifascists’ strategic and tactical concerns.
, , ,
123…87 Next

Most Popular

What Charlie Kirk’s Life and Death Can Tell Us About the U.S. Right in the Age of Trump

Charlie Kirk’s life and death offer a microcosm of the MAGA movement’s shift to the right over the past decade—and of the dynamic factional interplay that has fueled that shift. Regardless of why Kirk was targeted, the right is using his killing as an opportunity to impose a climate of enforced loyalty and gear up for what could be a major political crackdown.

Epstein’s Ghost and the Many Sides of Conspiracism

The Jeffrey Epstein scandal highlights that assessing conspiracy theories’ political meaning and significance can be complicated. While some conspiracies are real, conspiracism exaggerates the role of small groups in making politics and history, plays fast and loose with the facts, and diverts attention away from the real systems and movements that predominantly shape our world. All conspiracism involves scapegoating, but the motivation behind such scapegoating varies widely, from demonizing subversives in defense of entrenched power, to a well-meaning but misguided effort to challenge such power. Anti-elite conspiracism (often but by no means always rooted in antisemitism) has been a major vehicle with which far rightists repackage their ideology in progressive-sounding ways, and with which they try to manipulate or form alliances with the left.

Antifascism in 2025: Shane Burley interviews Xtn Alexander and Matthew N. Lyons

This interview first appeared on Shane Burley’s website Maiseh Review. We appreciate Shane’s efforts over the years to help bring three way fight politics to a broader audience.

Trumpism’s multiple factions

As the Trump administration attacks oppressed communities and dismantles social and environmental programs with breathtaking speed, it’s important that we understand our enemy’s strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions. The Trump movement encompasses at least five major components and multiple fault lines. A major point of potential conflict within the administration is between established capital’s socially conservative wing (represented by Project 2025 contributors such as Russell Vought, Peter Navarro, and Tom Homan) and big tech capital (represented by figures such as Elon Musk and JD Vance), a conflict that big tech is likely to win.

The DOGE and the neoreactionaries

While MAGA movement ideology centers on right-wing populism, DOGE’s attack on the administrative state is guided by neoreactionaries, whose ideology glorifies elites and rejects populist appeals in principle. And while the first Trump administration was backed by an unstable coalition of competing capitalist interests, now high technology capitalists closely aligned with neoreactionary politics are at the head of the pro-Trump business bloc. These changes have helped make the second Trump presidency more dangerous than the first, but they also point to potential divisions and conflicts within the Trump coalition.