Gaslit Nation

We are in the fight of our lives against a neofascist transnational crime syndicate obsessed with gutting your voting rights and turning the DOJ into a petty MAGA HOA. But if you think it's time to curl up and surrender in despair, here to wake you up is Maya Wiley, President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and the daughter of relentless Civil Rights organizers, to break down exactly how we defeat this authoritarian coup. 
The MAGA mob is breaking laws and shredding democratic norms for one simple reason: they are absolutely terrified of our collective power. Maya's parents faced down the exact same terror during the Civil Rights Era, landing on Nixon's enemies list while fighting off a corrupt government, and they won. Maya carries their legacy, reminding us that despair is the oppressor's weapon. Her message is a powerful call-to-action: organized joy, relentless community building, and "fighting forward" are how we create the next era of civil rights. 
They want you exhausted and apathetic, but we will rebuild our democracy. Gen Z, you especially have the sheer numbers to help stop the coup if you show up for the kind of world you want to live in and flex your power. 
The Gaslit Nation bonus show is now included in our Tuesday episodes. Support our independent journalism, hear the continuation of our conversation, and join our resilience community by subscribing on Patreon or Substack today.
Want a plan to launch a dream project and help us build a better world? Order Andrea's new book A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807202/a-reasonable-guide-for-unreasonable-women-by-andrea-chalupa/
EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:
Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit and GaslitNation.Substack.com for our community

New! There's now a California Signal Group for Gaslit Nation listeners to find each other and connect in that state. Join on Patreon or Substack!

The Gaslit Nation Outreach Committee discusses how to talk to the MAGA cult: Join on Patreon or Substack!

Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: Join on Patreon or Substack!

Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: Join on Patreon or Substack!

Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect. Join on Patreon or Substack!

Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join. Join on Patreon or Substack!

Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group. Join on Patreon or Substack!

As always, keep it kind in our chat groups, extend grace and assume good faith. A culture of care is how we build a better world.

Donald Trump and Eva Braun Natalie Harp are trying to escape us in his ballroom bunker while Kremlin operative Paul Manafort's former lawyer, Todd Blanche, destroys lives. Blanche's DOJ illegally persecuted the Prairie Land defendants Soviet-style, condemning them to sweltering Texas prisons for protesting ICE, which is their Constitutionally protected right.
In this week's bonus show Gaslit Nation provides a step-by-step guide on how to write letters of solidarity to the Prairieland Defendants. Longtime Gaslit Nation listener Bethany McKee provided a handy presentation here and in the show notes on how to do so that you can write letters whenever is convenient for you. 
The conversation also includes a discussion with Finale Norton and Katherine White of the grassroots powerhouse Network NoVA and their 10th Women's Summit happening this weekend in Tysons Corner, Virginia, just outside of Washington, DC. Andrea will be there Saturday night, speaking about her new book A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire. Come join Andrea and Gaslit Nation listeners, and an exciting program of changemakers. Get your ticket to the summit here. 
Show Notes:
Write letters to the Prairieland Defendants: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1XojoEjzPYPVY1D_51ER1Zr210XzXGSt_uhu0mmdvRLI/edit?usp=sharing
Join Razom for Ukraine for an evening of LGBTQ solidarity with Ukraine: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/queer-art-as-resistance-pop-up-tickets-1998070757422?aff=oddtdtcreator

Who's scarier than Donald Trump? J.D. Vance, a true believer in America's tech-dystopian future, and he's one heartbeat away from the presidency. This week, independent journalist Gil Durán joins us to discuss his explosive new book, The Nerd Reich: Silicon Valley Fascism and the War on Democracy–the book Mark Zuckerberg doesn't want you to read. (Duran has been blocked and blacklisted from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.)
Duran exposes how billionaire oligarchs like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk are weaponizing crypto, mass surveillance tools like Palantir and Flock cameras, and extreme wealth to overthrow our democracy. Their most dangerous trojan horse is JD Vance. Vance is the kind of opportunist who made the Third Reich possible. In our chilling interview, Durán discusses how Vance is a true believer in tech-fascism and entirely a "creation of Peter Thiel." From fantasizing about purging the civil service to openly defying the courts, Vance is prepared to go much further than wrecking ball Trump could manage. 
We cannot let billionaires buy our government. Support fearless independent journalism by pre-ordering The Nerd Reich today and supporting shows like Gaslit Nation, and tune in to the full episode to learn how we can fight back! And thank you to everyone who preorders Andrea's new book, A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire -- for concrete ways to build a better world from the MAGA dumpster fire ashes. 
EVENTS AT GASLIT NATION:
Join Andrea and actor Steven Pasquale for an Instagram Live this Thursday August 20 at 4:30pm ET to discuss our authoritarian crisis and ways artists and culture can help us rethink and rebuild our democracy. 
Join Gaslit Nation at the Network NoVA Women's Summit this weekend at Tysons Corner, Virginia. Andrea will be speaking Saturday night after the drum circle and before the pajama party (yes, we're serious!) Details here: https://networknova.org/ws2026/

Gaslit Nation Salons take place Mondays 4pm ET over Zoom and are recorded and shared on Patreon.com/Gaslit and GaslitNation.Substack.com for our community

New! There's now a California Signal Group for Gaslit Nation listeners to find each other and connect in that state. Join on Patreon or Substack!

The Gaslit Nation Outreach Committee discusses how to talk to the MAGA cult: Join on Patreon or Substack!

Minnesota Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: Join on Patreon or Substack!

Vermont Signal group for Gaslit Nation listeners in the state to find each other: Join on Patreon or Substack!

Arizona-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to connect. Join on Patreon or Substack!

Indiana-based listeners launched a Signal group for others in the state to join. Join on Patreon or Substack!

Florida-based listeners are going strong meeting in person. Be sure to join their Signal group. Join on Patreon or Substack!

As always, keep it kind in our chat groups, extend grace and assume good faith. A culture of care is how we build a better world.

The brilliant Wajahat Ali, author of Go Back to Where You Came From, and playwright of The Domestic Crusaders, had me on The LeftHook to share my new book A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women: 20 Steps to Find Your Purpose and Power in a World on Fire. Watch or listen to the full discussion on how to overcome the very real and urgent threat of fascism. (Side note: In France, Marine Le Pen is campaigning for president wearing an ankle monitor, following in the footsteps of her fellow Russian asset, the convicted felon/Epstein wing-man).
Trump is doing to our country what he did to the East Wing of our White House. How do we rebuild from the wreckage? That's what A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women is about. It's for anyone tired of Steve Bannon trying to demoralize us and flood the zone with sh*t. It's about concrete steps to stay grounded and focused in a world of chaos, to align your deepest needs and dreams with a higher purpose, creating world domination for the collective good.
My own journey begins with being raised on stories of the government trying to kill you, and blame you for the crime, helped by Western corruption to cover-up the torture and murder. I am of course speaking of my Ukrainian heritage and the Holodomor, Stalin's genocide famine in Ukraine. In all my years of studying my family's history and the two monsters, Hitler and Stalin, who drove that history, I look back on America's own, and see the authoritarianism that established this country. The white supremacy blood lust terrorizing Black Americans, Native Americans, mass discrimination and violence against immigrants, and the list goes on. Trump, Stephen Miller, Peter Thiel, and too many others carry on that violent legacy. That's why they're aligned with the Kremlin, which sees Ukrainians as inferior. 
In Ukrainian culture, we're taught to fight for our very lives, our voice, our art, our culture, our language, because no one else will. They want to erase us, so we must do the opposite and shine, shine, shine. In Ukrainian culture, art is literally survival. The coded language of poetry preserves historical truth, our shared humanity, our courage and defiance. 
Life is incredibly stubborn. Creativity is how we fortify our resilience. A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women provides 20 concrete steps for women–who are the favorite target of fascists, because they fear the fight in us–and their allies–to dream big for themselves and the kind of world we want to live in. That is how we reset the culture, overcome their darkness with our light, and gather our people to create a better world. We are the alternative to their dystopian vision for our future, a future that belongs to us. 
To better get to new my new and most personal book, I put together this Q&A: 
Empowerment can be a privilege. Many nonwhite women, especially immigrants, are juggling several jobs just to survive. How does this book make space for different lived experiences
A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women is based on my own lived experience of being raised in a Ukrainian immigrant family. My grandmothers both worked as maids to survive. So I take nothing for granted when it comes to the diversity of demands on women today. Throughout the book, I share wisdom and insights from women across history. There's also a recommended reading guide in the book, featuring an incredible list of women authors, like Mikki Kendall and trans activist Raquel Willis. I also share a troubling story about a Black mentor telling me to get a white man to join me for my pitch meetings and just sit there. I'm sad to say it did make a difference. 
Planting seeds of hope and change – whether that's through launching a dream project like a film, book, business, non-profit, or some other ambitious goal – can be a grind. Does this book highlight organizations on the frontlines doing that unglamorous work in the shadows, helping us build that collective power? 
Yes, absolutely! And I made sure that the blurbs (endorsements) featured at the front of the book included voices from grassroots groups, to promote their efforts to a wider audience. Julie Delaurier of Rise and Resist began as an organizer in ACT UP and helped organize Tesla Takedown and No Kings. She also organizes to track and resist ICE raids in NYC. She read the book and provided a heartfelt endorsement. So did civil rights leader Maya Wiley, President of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, and Holley Atkinson of the grassroots group the Media and Democracy Project bringing legal challenges to the existence of Fox News.
Isn't self-help ego-driven? 
A Reasonable Guide is all about collective action. Individual choices produce collective action. Think of A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women as Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way meets Timothy Snyder's On Tyranny. Self-knowledge isn't the end goal here; it's the foundation for knowing where you can make an impact. It cites women across movements and their advice on how to stay creative and build power in a time of mass destruction. 
But isn't this focus on the self just new age nonsense which is a slippery slope to fascism, given reports of new age online movements being breeding grounds for fascist cult recruitment?
This book follows an ancient tradition of taking on an empire with the power of ideas. Ideas cannot be killed. And you cannot stop an idea whose time has come. 
Know thyself was popularized by the ancient Greeks, most famously by Socrates who was a champion of women for that time. The Greeks were conquered by the sadistic and corrupt Roman Empire. A couple hundred years later, the Greeks conquered them right back through the power of self-knowledge and ideas. Greek became the dominant language of the Roman Empire. Self-knowledge is not ego. The book walks you through steps to think creatively and conquer doubt in order to build meaningful collective action. 
I had to produce my film Mr. Jones myself because no one wanted it. Mr. Jones was a film to bring historical justice and truth to a massive genocide by the Kremlin, covered up for generations, including with the help of Western corruption. A former Ambassador to Ukraine called Mr. Jones Ukraine's Schindler's List. A screening was shut down in Moscow, and Memorial, Russia's once largest NGO that dared to screen it, was liquidated. There were death threats and harassment during the making of the film, but still the team and I fought on, holding on to the power of our creativity and voices. That is what A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women is about: remembering the power of your voice in a world that wants to silence you and kill you. It's also a damn good time. 
I hope you will consider checking it out and pre-ordering A Reasonable Guide for Unreasonable Women, which helps build buzz in the industry and gets the word out. Thank you to everyone who has supported my work over the years. It means so much.

Once again, desperate people are being weaponized by fascist regimes. Why did over 60,000 immigrants from the authoritarian regime of Morocco, a regime aligned with Trump, rush the border of Spain, an enemy of Trump? Gaslit Nation has questions. 
The Russian disinformation factories have been pumping out floods of videos and shock-porn social media posts, including several hundred in Spanish. Gaslit Nation investigates to see if there is more to the story. MAGA influencers Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, who led the bipartisan Epstein legislation, seem to think so. 
To listen to the full recording of this segment, which opened Monday's salon, including the Q&A on the shocking events in Morocco and Spain, be sure to sign up at Patreon.com/Gaslit, GaslitNation.Substack.com, or grab a membership on YouTube.This week's bonus show was the extended conversation with kleptocracy expert Casey Michel, sanctioned by Russia, and the author of the new book United States of Oligarchy. 
This week's upcoming salon will be hosted by longtime listeners and salon regulars Bethany and Lisa.
On Monday August 17 at 4pm ET we're opening up our salon for all to hold a letter writing party for the Prairieland Defendants, the group of "antifa" activists given a combined 556 years in prison for protesting a brutal ICE detention center. It's a Soviet-style case of political repression, and history will be on their side. But let's bring them comfort and solidarity now by writing them letters in prison. 
This event is open to all so be sure to invite your friends. The Zoom link will be posted and open to the public on Patreon, Substack and on our socials. Be sure to share it to help us get out the word. For more on their story, listen to Gaslit Nation's episode in the show notes called "Free the Prairieland Defendants and All Political Prisoners." 
Join our community of listeners and get bonus shows, ad free listening, group chats with other listeners, ways to shape the show, invites to exclusive events like our Monday political salons at 4pm ET over Zoom, and more! Discounted annual memberships are available. Become a Democracy Defender at Patreon.com/Gaslit or GaslitNation.Substack.com. 
Listen to the full discussion from the Gaslit Nation Salon on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/gaslit/posts/manufactured-at-165991926
Listen to the full discussion from the Gaslit Nation Salon on Substack: https://gaslitnation.substack.com/p/a-manufactured-invasion-inside-the

Show Notes:
Listen: MeidasTouch Defense Ukraine Update: https://substack.com/@thekenharbaughshow/note/p-210094234?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=2mrjsl
Listen: Free the Prairieland Defendants and All Political Prisoners https://www.patreon.com/gaslit/posts/free-prairieland-162794130?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
Listen: How Oligarchs Bought America, and How We Take It Backhttps://www.gaslitnationpod.com/episodes/how-oligarchs-bought-america-and-how-we-take-it-back/
Spain says 70,000 out of 72,000 migrants that entered Ceuta in mass border crossing have returned to Morocco https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/aug/04/europe-drought-extreme-heat-wildfires-climate-crisis-hungary-romania-ceuta-spain-migration-eu-latest-news-updates
Thomas Massie Questions Timing of GOP-Backed $40 Million Morocco Funding After Ceuta Migrant Influx: 'Now They Are Acting Shocked' https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/thomas-massie-questions-timing-gop-150104969.html
15 defendants get total of 556 years in Prairieland ICE center terrorism case Read more at: https://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/crime/article316360906.html#storylink=cpy