Matt DaSilva, Aaron Regunberg, Jonathan Smucker
Bill Fletcher joins Fighting Fascism to discuss organized labor, anti-fascist strategy, and why understanding MAGA as a social movement matters for confronting it.
The post Understanding MAGA as a Social Movement—With Bill Fletcher Jr. appeared first on The Nation.

Supporters of President Donald Trump at an event in Marietta, Georgia, on July 22, 2026.
(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)For this Labor Day episode we’re joined by Bill Fletcher, a longtime union organizer who’s spent the past several years working to build out the labor movement’s anti-fascist infrastructure. Bill has an important reminder for those of us who direct most of our anti-fascist energy toward Trump and the oligarchy: MAGA isn’t some Astroturf trick. It’s a genuine social movement representing some 25 to 30 percent of Americans, and any strategies that ignore this fact are missing something fundamental about today’s dangerous political reality. You can learn more about Bill’s organization, Standing for Democracy, here.
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Matt DaSilva is a co-host of the Fighting Fascism podcast.
Aaron Regunberg is a climate lawyer, a contributing editor at The New Republic, and a former Rhode Island state representative.
Jonathan Smucker is cofounder and executive director of Popular Comms, a cofounder of Pennsylvania Stands Up, and the author of Hegemony How-To: A Roadmap for Radicals. He has worked for over 25 years as a political organizer, campaigner, and strategist, and has trained thousands of organizers and social movement participants.
David Morales’s campaign manager Ben Shanahan joins Fighting Fascism to discuss the message, organizing strategy, and tactics behind Morales’s primary victory in Providence.
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