trump turns hate speech into a campaign merch line
Berlusconi and Obama at the G8, back when calling a Black president "tanned" was still considered shockingly racist and not just another GOP fundraiser warm-up line.
Remember when "virtue-signalling" meant some liberal on Twitter reminding you to say chairperson? Adorable times. Trump looked at that and decided the real growth market was vice-signalling: performative racism and misogyny as a brand strategy. From his 2015 "they're rapists" campaign launch to posting a video of the Obamas depicted as apes, the man didn’t just dog-whistle, he brought an airhorn to a Klan rally and called it authenticity.
This is now an established rightwing business model: constantly violate basic norms, gorge on free media coverage, then claim you’re bravely "saying what everyone’s thinking" when you’re really just saying what the actual bigots are thinking. Trump’s Access Hollywood "pussy-grabbing" tape didn’t end his career; it opened the door for JD Vance’s "childless cat ladies" spiel and Tucker Carlson’s escalating misogynist cosplay. Each stunt makes the next one worse and more acceptable, a kind of hate-based multi-level marketing scheme where the product is social collapse.
The article walks through how this vice-signalling arms race has turned politics into a contest over who can be the most proudly cruel, with Trump as the trendsetter and Farage, Berlusconi & friends as the international franchisees. The point isn’t policy; it’s to show your base you’re willing to dehumanize the right targets and dare anyone to object. Call it the new conservative value system: family, flag, and publicly test-driving fascist rhetoric for clicks.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump spends $600 million to prove he’s ‘tough on crime’ in the safest dc in 30 years
Behold, $600 million worth of background extras for Trump’s ‘crime emergency’ that DOJ stats say doesn’t exist.
The Trump administration has managed to light more than $330 million in taxpayer money on fire so far — on pace for over $600 million — to keep nearly 2,500 National Guard troops wandering around Washington, D.C., in a city the Justice Department says hit a 30-year low in crime in 2024. Trump declared a "crime emergency" anyway, because why let reality interfere with a good fearmongering photo op? Democrats on the GOP-led Senate Homeland Security Committee kindly checked whether this very expensive cosplay-police operation is doing anything and, shockingly, the Guard cannot identify a single measurable public safety benefit from their presence.
Instead, the mission goal is basically "end all violent crime and overdoses" — a totally normal, definitely not "stay forever" metric for a domestic military deployment in the nation’s capital. While actual crime has gone down over the past year, there’s no evidence the troops had anything to do with it. What they can brag about is packing 6,030 pounds of food, painting 270 feet of fence, and pruning 65 trees, which sounds less like a security operation and more like a very overfunded Boy Scout project. Meanwhile, the deployment cost is on track to exceed the entire annual D.C. police budget, but sure, tell us again how Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility.
Oversight hasn’t gone great either: the Pentagon just ignored senators’ written questions until committee staff physically showed up at D.C. National Guard HQ. A federal judge already ruled the deployment illegally intrudes on local authority, only for an appeals court to swoop in and announce that the president has a "unique power" to turn the capital into a semi-permanent military backdrop. As a bonus, two Guard members have been shot — one fatally — during this political theater. Or, as Sen. Gary Peters more politely put it, this is a "very expensive publicity stunt" that normalizes soldiers in American streets and degrades readiness. Trump calls it law and order; everyone else calls it paying hundreds of millions for a campaign ad with rifles.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump conducts the fascism philharmonic
Trump posts fan art of himself as Supreme Conductor, leading an orchestra of bootlickers in the "Symphony No. 1 in C Minor: Democracy, Silenced."
Trump has decided that if real artists keep cancelling on him, he'll just cancel the actual arts. The newly rebranded "Trump Kennedy Center" is being closed for a "refit"—which very conveniently solves the problem of performers refusing to appear during his presidency. Hard to pull out of a concert that mysteriously no longer exists. Problem solved, free speech muted, donor plaque intact.
Enter Jon McNaughton, court painter to the MAGA monarchy, with his latest masterpiece of authoritarian fan fiction: Maga Symphony, personally blessed by Trump on Truth Social. The painting shows Trump as an omnipotent conductor leading an orchestra of right-wing politicians and hangers-on: Marco Rubio sawing away in the violins, JD Vance on cello, Melania demoted to the second desk, Tucker Carlson banging cymbals like the world’s smuggest percussion section, and Elon Musk on electric guitar because of course he is. No music stands, no scores—just pure Trumpian telepathy, a kind of political séance with better lighting.
The image leans into the classic dictator fantasy: the conductor as supreme ruler, one man with "the power of life and death over the voices of the instruments," as Elias Canetti put it. One hundred players, no dissent, no disagreement, no individuality—just bodies executing the Leader’s will. It’s not a metaphor they stumbled into by accident; this is the aesthetic language of autocracy dressed up as a patriotic concert poster. While actual orchestras thrive on tension, negotiation, and listening, McNaughton’s MAGA pit band is a visual hymn to submission.
So Trump is literally closing down a major cultural institution under his own brand while boosting kitsch propaganda that presents him as the mystical, unquestioned source of all sound and meaning. The "Maga Symphony" isn’t about music; it’s about normalizing the idea that a healthy society is one where everyone stares at the podium and waits for Dear Leader’s next downbeat.
#fascism#killing-democracy
no kings, just trump and 3,000 secret police
Homeland Security’s finest pose in Minnesota, bravely defending America from the menace of people standing in their own neighborhoods while not being sufficiently terrified of Donald Trump’s secret police.
The "No Kings" marches are back on March 28, because nothing says constitutional monarchy cosplay like Donald Trump flooding Minnesota with 3,000 immigration agents and getting two civilians, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, killed in the process. The administration immediately branded Pretti a "domestic terrorist" who was supposedly out to massacre federal officers — and then witness videos and accounts inconveniently showed that story to be, in technical legal terms, complete garbage.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is now in the spotlight for running what activists are flat-out calling a secret police force terrorizing Americans. Even a couple of Republicans have noticed this might be bad and are calling for her to be fired, while Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino — previously scolded by federal judges for his tactics, so naturally promoted into this mess — has been quietly sidelined. In other words, the regime empowered the guy judges already hated and then acted shocked when things went predictably lethal.
Indivisible, which has turned "No Kings" into the unofficial national pastime of objecting to authoritarian cosplay, is staging its flagship march in the Twin Cities. They say Trump is weaker and lashing out, which tracks: weaker authoritarians do tend to crank the repression dial to 11 on their way down. Their online training on how to peacefully and lawfully monitor immigration agents drew 200,000 people, because when the government deploys a roaming federal death squad vibe, the only counterweight left is millions of regular people with cameras, clipboards, and a basic understanding of civil rights.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump fights antisemitism by… demanding a list of jews
Federal civil-rights lawyers heroically marching into court to demand the one thing history has always shown keeps Jews safest: a government-ordered list of where they live.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new way to "protect" Jews from antisemitism: order the University of Pennsylvania to compile and hand over a government-ready list of Jews, complete with personal contact information and addresses. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — you know, the agency that’s supposed to prevent discrimination — actually sued Penn to force compliance when the university refused to help the feds build a 21st-century registry. Because nothing says "never again" like recreating one of history’s favorite tools of persecution.
The demand is so grotesque that everyone from Penn Hillel and Meor to the ADL, AJC, Jewish Federation, AAUP-Penn, the Association for Jewish Studies, ACE, and PEN America are all on the same side for once, united in a single, horrified "absolutely not". They seem to have noticed that in an era where Trump-world openly flirts with white supremacy, traffics in antisemitic tropes, and platforms Nick Fuentes fanboys, handing over a neat spreadsheet of Jewish students and faculty might not end well. The authors point out that history is full of examples — like Dutch Jewish census data used by Nazis — where "protective" data magically transformed into a deportation and extermination aid kit.
And this isn’t a one-off; it’s part of a wider project. The administration has been weaponizing allegations of antisemitism and "wokeness" to attack universities, threaten research funding, enforce ideological conformity, harass international students with disfavored views, and even demand lists of patients receiving gender-affirming care. In other words, the Penn subpoena isn’t about safety; it’s a test case to normalize the government’s power to compel ideological and identity-based lists — Jews today, other religious, immigrant, or "unpatriotic" groups tomorrow. But sure, tell us again how this is all about protecting civil rights.
#fascism#killing-democracy
ice discovers the constitution is optional
ICE agents play real-life Call of Duty on American streets, sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security and your shredded civil liberties.
ICE has fully completed its glow-up from obscure post‑9/11 bureaucracy to Trump’s personal praetorian guard, now patrolling American streets like an occupying army with a flag pin. An ICE agent killed Renee Good in Minneapolis, and it’s not some isolated tragedy — it’s the logical end point of a system that merged "immigration enforcement" with "counter-terrorism" and then handed it a budget bigger than most actual militaries. Because nothing says "land of the free" like needing body armor to drive to the grocery store without getting shot by a federal immigration cop.
Over multiple administrations, the dragnet quietly expanded, due process quietly withered, and then Trump stormed in and said the quiet part loud: immigrants are an existential threat, ICE are the holy warriors, and anyone in their path is collateral. Add rightwing media howling about "demographic replacement," a culture that treats soldiers with infinite license abroad and cops with military toys at home, and you get exactly what we’re seeing: paramilitary raids on US streets where the "targets" are supposedly undocumented migrants but the message is for everyone — your rights exist only at the pleasure of the guy with the gun and the badge.
The author points out the really fun part: this isn’t uniquely American. The UK is running the same playbook, just with fewer assault rifles and more passive‑aggressive press conferences. Demonize migrants, turn protests into "public order" threats, let border agents grab your phone even if you’re not under arrest, and parade ministers through immigration raids for B‑roll. In other words, if you squint at ICE today, you can see the Home Office’s tomorrow. But sure, tell yourself "it can’t happen here" — right up until it does, on your street, at your traffic stop, with your rights.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump considers sending the 82nd airborne to fight… press conferences
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, apparently now a prime suspect in the federal crime of Saying Mean Things About ICE.
Nothing says "law and order" like threatening to roll tanks into Minneapolis because the mayor hurt ICE's feelings. Jacob Frey went on "Meet the Press" to point out the awkward fact that crime in his city is actually down in multiple categories, and that Minneapolis is, in his words, "safe" and "not going to be intimidated." In other words, the situation on the ground doesn’t remotely justify Donald Trump dusting off the Insurrection Act — unless the real emergency is that local officials keep telling federal agents to "get the f--- out" after they shoot a woman to death.
The Pentagon, ever the straight man in this ongoing farce, has already put about 1,500 active-duty troops from the 11th Airborne Division on prepare-to-deploy orders, calling it "prudent planning" in case Trump decides that protesting ICE killings is now an insurrection. A helpful White House official chimed in that it’s "typical" for the "Department of War" — yes, they actually called it that — to be ready for whatever the president dreams up, presumably between Truth Social posts about the deep state.
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is investigating Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for the apparent crime of… publicly criticizing federal immigration enforcement. The theory: that their statements might have "conspired" to impede ICE, which is a long way of saying the feds are testing whether the First Amendment still applies to people who tell them to go away. Walz called it what it is — "weaponizing the justice system and threatening political opponents" — which is a dangerous authoritarian tactic, but a very on-brand one for this administration.
Frey’s proposed public safety plan is radical in its simplicity: if the goal is peace and safety, maybe stop flooding the city with federal officers who keep shooting residents and provoking protests. The administration’s counterproposal is to send in paratroopers and criminally investigate the people asking them to leave. But sure, tell us more about how this is all about "safety" and not about turning dissent into a military problem.
#fascism#killing-democracy#anti-immigration
usda invents the google gulag for scientists
USDA scientists heroically defending the homeland by typing foreign names into Google and emailing them to a security office, because nothing protects corn yields like a low-budget loyalty purge.
The Trump USDA has discovered a bold new frontier in national security: making crop scientists moonlight as FBI informants with a Google search bar. Under a new directive, researchers in the Agricultural Research Service are ordered to investigate every foreign co-author on their papers for signs of "subversive or criminal activity" and send the names of anyone "concerning" to the agency’s Office of Homeland Security. Because nothing says cutting-edge agricultural research like turning your co-authors into case files.
Supervisors literally called the policy "dystopic" in a meeting, which, in the Trump era, is less a warning and more a product requirement. The order doesn’t just blacklist scientists from the usual "countries of concern" like China, Iran, and Cuba; it also forces staff to vet collaborators from places like Canada and Germany and ship their names off to a homeland security unit that works with federal intelligence agencies. No one will say what they’re doing with those lists, but sure, this is just about "protecting research," not building a handy little registry of foreign scientists who dared to work with Americans.
Jennifer Jones of the Union of Concerned Scientists called it a "throwback to McCarthyism" and a "classic hallmark of authoritarianism"—which is polite academic-speak for this is some straight-up police-state garbage. USDA staff say they’re worried this will put foreign students and postdocs—people here on temporary visas—in the administration’s crosshairs. Meanwhile, the agency’s own website still brags that international collaboration is essential to stopping crop diseases and boosting yields. So naturally, Trump’s agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins rolled out a policy that bans co-authoring papers with scientists from entire countries and frames international research as a national security threat that only "America First" surveillance can fix.
All of this slots neatly into the broader Trump second-term project of criminalizing foreign brains: a French scientist detained over anti-Trump messages on his phone, Chinese and Russian researchers locked out of NIH databases, and new moves to shorten how long foreign students can stay in the U.S. The message is clear: if you’re a foreign scientist, the United States would love your talent, your data, and your breakthroughs—just not your presence, your rights, or your name on a paper that hasn’t been cleared by the Google Stasi at USDA Homeland Security.
#fascism#killing-democracy#anti-science
trump discovers nazi geopolitics, calls it 'america first'
Trump stares at a world map, circles the Western Hemisphere, and calls it "my Großer Golf Resort."
Donald Trump’s foreign policy is now being compared to the work of Carl Schmitt, the Nazis’ “crown jurist”, which is exactly the kind of name you want popping up in think pieces about your administration. Schmitt’s big idea was carving the planet into giant authoritarian "great spaces" (Großräume) run by dominant empires that keep out "spatially alien" powers. In other words: regional mob bosses with nuclear weapons and a theory degree.
Trump’s crew has already dusted off the Monroe Doctrine, raided Venezuela, rattled sabers over Greenland, Panama, Colombia, Mexico and Cuba, and tried to strong-arm Ukraine into coughing up territory. Meanwhile, his domestic doctrine of the "exception" politely suggests that constitutional rights are more of a seasonal item than a fixed feature. But we’re told not to worry: this isn’t fascism, it’s just good old-fashioned American hypocrisy with extra narcissism on top.
While Russia and China openly flirt with Schmittian "great space" ideology, Trump isn’t really interested in sharing the world with other spheres of influence. He’s busy nuking Iran’s capabilities, blowing up Russian air defenses in Venezuela, blocking Russian tankers in European waters, and greenlighting CIA-backed Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil infrastructure – all while supposedly being Putin’s best friend. Because nothing says "colluding puppet" like repeatedly kicking your alleged handler in the shins for domestic applause.
The punchline: Trump isn’t a Schmitt-reading fascist mastermind; he’s a Schmitt-confirming case study. He proves Schmitt’s point about Anglo-American "universalism" being a self-serving racket, while simultaneously refusing to let anyone else have their own imperial playground. Schmitt’s ghost is somewhere between horrified and smug, watching a reality TV host improvise his way through 1930s-style power politics with none of the reading and all of the ego.
#fascism#imperialism#killing-democracy
trump doj investigates democrats for quoting the actual law
Jeanine Pirro, now inexplicably in charge of federal prosecutions, prepares to investigate the radical crime of quoting the Uniform Code of Military Justice on camera.
The Trump administration has apparently discovered a bold new legal theory: if Democrats say out loud that soldiers shouldn’t follow illegal orders, that’s “sedition.” Six Democratic lawmakers with military and intel backgrounds made a 90-second video reminding troops of their duty under the Uniform Code of Military Justice not to obey unlawful commands – you know, the thing the Pentagon literally teaches in basic training. In response, Donald Trump called for their arrest, prosecution, and, briefly, execution, because nothing says "I definitely don’t plan to issue illegal orders" like trying to criminalize people for pointing out you can’t obey them.
Now Trump’s hand-picked US attorney in DC, Jeanine Pirro – yes, the former Fox screamer, now in charge of federal prosecutions in the capital, because this timeline is a joke that never ends – is having prosecutors "request interviews" with the lawmakers. Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chrissy Houlahan, Elissa Slotkin, Mark Kelly, and Chris Deluzio have all been contacted by either the FBI or DOJ over the video. Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth has already formally censured Kelly and started proceedings to slash his rank and pension, because this administration treats decorated veterans who quote the law like enemies of the state, and insurrectionists who attacked the Capitol like honored guests.
Watchdog groups are calling this what it is: authoritarian overreach and an assault on the First Amendment. Crow and the others say they’re being targeted not because they lied, but because they said something Trump and Hegseth "didn’t want anyone to hear" – namely that the military is obligated to refuse unlawful commands. In other words, the president is trying to prosecute members of Congress for stating a "bedrock principle of American law" on camera. Government oversight experts are politely screaming that "a sitting president attempting to prosecute his political opponents just for saying something he disagrees with is a hallmark of authoritarianism." But sure, tell us again how the "weaponization of government" is when the IRS audits a billionaire.
So to recap: Trump floats the death penalty for lawmakers who reminded troops not to commit war crimes, his DOJ and FBI are deployed to investigate them for a 90-second civics lesson, and his Fox News–to–Pentagon pipeline is being used to punish a former Navy captain senator for the crime of having a conscience. The message to the military is clear: the only "illegal order" now is disobeying Donald Trump.
#fascism#killing-democracy
labor department goes full volk-and-heritage
The Department of Labor’s new aesthetic: AI-generated stock Nazis, but make it ‘American Dream.’
The Trump Department of Labor looked at decades of hard-won labor protections and decided what workers really need is… Nazi-adjacent propaganda. The agency blasted out a video captioned “remember who you are, American” with the slogan “One Homeland. One People. One Heritage.” — which just happens to rhyme ideologically with “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer.” But don’t worry, the DOL swears it’s just about “celebrating American workers and the American Dream,” because nothing says “workers’ rights” like dusting off the rhetorical starter pack from 1930s Germany.
Union leaders and historians are, shockingly, not thrilled. Rutgers labor historian Christopher Hayes notes the whole point is to demonize the foreign worker and reassure the white guy who loves Trump that he is the only “real American” and the only one who belongs — you know, exactly how Nazi propaganda worked. The department has already been pumping out AI-generated artwork featuring an all–white male workforce, erasing everyone else, while its social feeds rage about “Americanism,” denounce “globalism,” and push misleading claims that all job gains under Trump go to “native born” Americans. As one former staffer dryly points out, “globalism” is not-so-subtle code for “Jews,” but sure, tell us more about how this is just a patriotic jobs campaign.
Inside the agency, even the people stuck working there can see the fascist writing on the AI-generated wall. Current and former Labor staff describe the feeds as “radical and ideological,” a “whites-only era” throwback, and now just “AI slop developed by a 23-year-old with no discernible insights on work or workers.” Union leaders are connecting the dots between this fascist aesthetic and actual state violence, like the ICE killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis — because when your government starts talking in blood-and-soil slogans and broadcasting white-only imagery, it’s not a branding tweak, it’s a warning. In other words: the Department of Labor has remembered “who they are” — and it’s not the people who protect workers. It’s the people who protect the regime.
#fascism#racism
trump admin heroically fights antisemitism by demanding… a federal list of jews
The Trump-era EEOC, bravely standing up to antisemitism by demanding the one thing history has always shown to be safe: a centralized government list of Jews.
The Trump administration has discovered a bold new strategy to combat antisemitism on campus: force universities to hand over the names, emails, phone numbers, and home addresses of Jews to the federal government. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), now apparently rebranded as the Equal Ethno‑Origin Cataloguing Commission, subpoenaed the University of Pennsylvania for a comprehensive registry of Jewish students, staff, and faculty – plus anyone tied to Jewish organizations or who spoke in confidential antisemitism listening sessions. Because nothing says "protecting a vulnerable minority" like demanding a centralized government list of Jews.
Penn, to its minimal credit, said absolutely not, pointing out that violating people’s privacy and trust might actually make them feel less safe. Jewish faculty groups, Hillel, and national academic organizations are now in court trying to stop the administration from dragging the country back into the greatest hits of 20th‑century horror. As Norm Eisen put it, we’re in territory that should "shock every single one of us" – though in Trump’s America that bar gets lower every week.
The EEOC, led by Andrea Lucas, insists this is all about identifying victims of antisemitic harassment, and if that requires the government to demand a campus-wide Jewish registry, well, what could possibly go wrong? Jewish scholars at Penn helpfully reminded everyone that the last time governments asked universities for "lists of Jews", it did not end in robust civil rights protections. But sure, we’re told, it’s totally benign this time. Just trust the same administration that’s built its brand on bigotry and authoritarian impulses to carefully safeguard a nationwide database of Jews.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump admin solves police shooting by sending in more cops with bigger guns
Nothing says “listening to the community” like lining the streets with more federal agents and calling it freedom.
In response to protests over a police shooting in Minnesota, the Trump administration has come up with a bold new strategy: not accountability, not de-escalation, not reforms—just more federal agents. Because nothing says "we hear your concerns about state violence" like flying in a fresh batch of armed federal officers to stand between angry citizens and any hope of justice.
The plan, as usual, is to treat a political crisis as a PR opportunity and a law-enforcement cosplay convention. Instead of supporting independent investigations or protecting protesters' rights, the White House is beefing up the federal presence in Minneapolis, turning a grieving city into a live-fire backdrop for Trump's "law and order" campaign trailer. In other words: when the public demands less brutality, this administration's answer is always, proudly, unapologetically, more boots, more badges, more batons.
And just to complete the democracy-speedrun, all of this is wrapped in the familiar rhetoric that anyone in the streets is a threat, local officials can't be trusted, and only Washington's loyal shock troops can restore "order." It's the same old formula: federalize the response, criminalize dissent, and then act shocked when people use words like "authoritarian" to describe an administration that keeps treating American cities like occupied territory. But sure, tell us again how this is all about "public safety."
#fascism#killing-democracy
manifest destiny but make it arctic
Trump staring at a map of the Arctic like a toddler with a crayon, convinced that if he colors Greenland red it legally becomes his.
Donald Trump has once again discovered maps and immediately decided other people's land should be his. This time it's Greenland, which he says the US needs to "own" to stop Russia and China from doing it first, because nothing says defending the rules-based international order like threatening to annex part of a fellow NATO member "the easy way or the hard way." The White House is openly musing about buying the semi-autonomous Danish territory, while very pointedly refusing to rule out just taking it by force. So yes, we're now workshopping colonial conquest strategies against our own alliance partners.
Denmark and Greenland have responded with the radical position that their territory is not for sale and that military action would kind of, sort of, end NATO. Meanwhile, Trump insists leases and long-term defense agreements are for losers — "countries can't make nine-year deals or even 100-year deals," he says, they have to have ownership. This is extra adorable given the US already has a permanent base there and the right to bring as many troops as it wants, but sure, let's threaten war with Denmark because the landlord-tenant relationship offends Dear Leader's real-estate brain.
Trump claims, without evidence, that Greenland is "covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place," which is a bold statement considering it's mostly covered with, you know, ice. But never mind: he's decided he doesn't want Russia or China as a "neighbour in Greenland" and NATO needs to "understand that" — translation: toss out the UN Charter, sovereignty, and the "inviolability of borders" so Donald can cosplay 19th-century empire-builder with melting Arctic real estate and rare earth minerals. America's allies have lined up behind Denmark to remind him that only Denmark and Greenland get to decide Greenland's status, but he's fresh off using military force to snatch Venezuela's president, so the whole "we don't invade people to steal their stuff" norm is already on life support.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio now gets to fly to Copenhagen and explain why the US president is threatening to nuke the transatlantic alliance over an island that already hosts a US base under existing agreements. In other words: NATO is scrambling to reaffirm basic international law while Trump is busy reinventing Manifest Destiny: Polar Edition. But hey, as the ice caps melt and resource fever rises, at least we know Washington's Arctic strategy is: if it looks valuable, annex first, read UN Charter later.
#fascism#killing-democracy
iran’s supreme leader blames trump for… iranians hating him
Iranians fill the streets to protest their collapsing economy and brutal theocracy, which the supreme leader bravely explains is actually just a fan meetup for Donald Trump.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has decided that Iranians flooding the streets over a collapsing currency, soaring prices, and decades of repression aren’t actually mad at him – they’re just out there “ruining their own streets to make the president of another country happy.” That “other country” being the United States, and that president being Donald Trump, who is now apparently the official scapegoat for every regime that’s run out of excuses and tear gas. Because nothing says “totally legitimate government” like insisting your own people are secretly on Team MAGA.
As protests spread across Tehran and other cities, Iran’s rulers went with the classic authoritarian starter pack: nationwide internet blackout, blocked international calls, and security forces firing rifles and shotguns at largely peaceful demonstrators. Rights groups say dozens have been killed, including children, with families pressured to go on state TV and blame “accidents” or other protesters – and if they don’t cooperate, the regime helpfully offers secret burials. In other words: full fascist cosplay, just without the production values.
President Masoud Pezeshkian is out here mumbling that protesters’ concerns should be addressed, while the Revolutionary Guard and intelligence services are doing what they always do: mass arrests, beatings, and coverups. Protesters are even chanting in favor of the late shah, which used to be a fast track to a death sentence – a sign of just how badly the clerics have lost the plot. But sure, according to Khamenei, this is all just a big surprise party for Donald Trump, personally orchestred from Mar-a-Lago between golf rounds and indictments.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump watches venezuela’s constitutional dumpster fire for tips
Delcy Rodríguez getting sworn in as "interim" leader in a country where nothing is interim except democracy.
Venezuela has sworn in Delcy Rodríguez as an "interim leader," because nothing says stable constitutional order like constantly needing a new interim anything. The country’s democratic institutions have been ground down so thoroughly that leadership transitions now look like a cross between a telenovela and a civics class taught by a coup plotter.
Naturally, this kind of chaos is catnip for Trump and his fan club, who love to hold up Venezuela as the ultimate "socialism gone wrong" cautionary tale while conveniently ignoring the part where the real problem is authoritarian power-hoarding and the systematic destruction of checks and balances. In other words: they break the system, you starve, and then they go on TV to blame "the left."
And while Caracas plays musical chairs with the presidency, you can practically hear Republicans in D.C. taking notes: sideline the legislature, pack the courts, declare whoever you like the "legitimate" leader, and call it all "constitutional" with a straight face. Because why respect term limits and separation of powers when you can just cosplay democracy and dare anyone to stop you?
#fascism#killing-democracy#imperialism
stalin cosplay, but make it fox news
Pete Hegseth explains that the real laws of war are whatever Donald Trump yelled at the TV last night.
Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have decided that if you can’t win wars, you can at least purge the people who know how. Former infantry chief Maj Gen Paul Eaton says Trump’s ongoing effort to turn the U.S. military into his personal fan club is “reminiscent of Stalin” – and for once that’s not liberal hyperbole, that’s a guy who spent 37 years in uniform watching what actual authoritarian rot looks like.
Step one in Trump’s second-term military makeover: install Fox & Friends ornament Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon, a man Eaton says swears not just loyalty but “fealty” to Trump – because nothing says "civilian control of the military" like putting a cable-news hype man in charge of the world’s largest war machine. Step two: immediately fire the military inspector general, then clean out the top military lawyers (JAGs) whose annoying job is to explain that "war crimes" are still technically bad. Then dump the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, plus the Navy and Air Force chiefs, and replace them with people Trump claims have said they’d "kill for him." But sure, tell us again how this is all about "efficiency" and "readiness."
The result is a Pentagon-wide message written in 50-foot letters: toe the line or get purged. Eaton explicitly compares it to Stalin’s 1940s officer purges – no gulags yet, just career executions and political commissars in suits. Meanwhile, Trump and Hegseth are road-testing their new loyalty-based military on real people: more than 20 lethal strikes on boats in Latin American waters, including a notorious second strike that killed survivors clinging to wreckage after the first bombing. The Washington Post reports Hegseth literally issued a "kill everybody" order, which the Pentagon’s own law-of-war manual says is illegal. Eaton calls the 2 September strike either a war crime or murder, comparing it to U-boat commanders machine-gunning survivors in the water in WWII – but don’t worry, Hegseth is very focused on the real threat: "wokeness."
To drive the point home, Hegseth summoned commanders to Quantico for a loyalty-and-rant session about "woke" liberals and "fat generals," encouraging anyone who disagreed to resign. In other words, it’s not a professional military anymore, it’s a Trump-branded paramilitary with nukes. Eaton warns the U.S. now has a "1940s Stalin problem" inside its own armed forces. The war on norms, the purging of independent oversight, the illegal kill orders – all the things experts literally war-gamed as Trump’s worst authoritarian instincts are now just… policy. But hey, at least the culture wars are winning.
#fascism#killing-democracy#lawlessness
supreme court briefly remembers posse comitatus, ruins trump’s troop cosplay
Nothing says ‘land of the free’ like waving to soldiers on patrol in your own capital because the president wanted a domestic occupation aesthetic.
Donald Trump rang in the New Year by reluctantly pretending he always meant to stop using the National Guard as his personal campaign security force. After the Supreme Court ruled last week that he can't use troops in Chicago for domestic law enforcement, the administration quietly pulled its legal bid to keep control of deployed forces in Los Angeles too. In other words, the Court had to step in and remind the president that the military is not his rent-a-cop service.
Trump announced on Truth Social that he is withdrawing National Guard troops from "several" cities, including Chicago and LA, and promised they would "come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again"—because nothing says respect for constitutional limits like openly threatening to re-deploy soldiers on US streets the moment you can cook up an excuse. Portland got a name-check, Washington DC did not, which is convenient, since troops are still patrolling the capital like it's his own personal Green Zone.
So to recap: Trump tried to normalize using the military for policing, the Supreme Court slapped his hand away, and now he's spinning a forced retreat as a bold strategic masterstroke. The only thing "undermined" here isn't his authority—it’s the fantasy that this administration has even a passing acquaintance with the rule of law.
#fascism#killing-democracy
trump sends troops to protect new orleans from falling crime rates
National Guard troops prepare to "fight crime" in a city where the crime stats are dropping but the authoritarian vibes are absolutely skyrocketing.
Donald Trump has approved the deployment of 350 National Guard members to New Orleans through February, because nothing says "law and order" like sending troops into a city where violent crime is actually going down. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell insists the Guard will just be "supporting" federal law enforcement like DOJ and DHS, which in this administration usually means turning domestic policing into a joint military–police cosplay of authoritarian chic.
Louisiana’s Republican governor Jeff Landry is, of course, thrilled. He went on Fox News to praise Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for helping him "crack down on the violence" in a city that’s on pace for its lowest homicide numbers in decades. In other words, the data says "improving public safety", while the GOP says "send in the troops"—but sure, this is definitely about crime and not about putting a federal boot on the neck of a Democratic-led city.
All of this is happening while Border Patrol runs a months-long immigration crackdown in the area with a target of 5,000 arrests, neatly merging "urban crime" panic with "immigration invasion" hysteria. Several hundred people have already been arrested, just to make sure everyone gets the message that federal force is now a permanent background feature of daily life. Meanwhile, Trump has rewarded Landry’s loyalty by naming him special envoy to Greenland, the icy colony Trump keeps insisting the US needs to "take over"—because when you’re busy militarizing American cities, you might as well dabble in bargain-bin imperialism on the side.
New Orleans, which has long experience hosting the Guard for discrete events like the Super Bowl, Mardi Gras, and post-attack security, is now being treated to an extended occupation framed as routine public safety. Crime is down, federal troops are up, immigration raids are ramping, and Republican officials are on TV calling it a win. Nothing is more "Trump era" than using falling crime as the excuse to normalize permanent paramilitary presence in blue cities.
#fascism#killing-democracy
bread, circuses, and a ufc cage on the south lawn
Trump pacing the Daytona 500 field in The Beast, helpfully demonstrating what it looks like when the cult of personality literally leads the race.
Donald Trump spent 2025 turning American sports into his personal traveling propaganda circus, because nothing says "hardest working president" like treating the Super Bowl, Daytona 500, UFC, Ryder Cup, and the US Open as an endless series of campaign walk-ins and camera-thirst photo ops. He buzzed Daytona with Air Force One, paced the field in "The Beast," and literally inserted himself into Chelsea’s Club World Cup trophy lift, because why let the athletes have a moment when Dear Leader needs content for Truth Social?
What looks like leisure is actually the strongman starter pack. Trump is following the Mussolini/Hitler/Putin playbook: launder power and legitimacy through sports spectacle while networks dutifully blast his entrances on loop. Stadium appearances become mini-rallies optimized for "heat"—boos and cheers are the same currency, as long as he dominates the jumbotron. Meanwhile, leagues and broadcasters bend the knee, with the USTA reportedly asking TV partners to censor protests and crowd reactions, because nothing screams "land of the free" like pre-clearing your cutaways with the White House.
Behind the scenes, the real game is pay-to-play. Trump uses luxury suites as donor petting zoos and soft diplomacy hubs: Rolex wines and dines him at the US Open, a sticky trade problem with Switzerland magically eases, and suddenly there’s a gold Rolex clock on the Resolute Desk like it’s an official state emblem. Mega-donor and Mavericks owner Miriam Adelson dumps about $100m into his re-election and casually waves around another $250m if he goes for an unconstitutional third term in 2028, because in this regime, term limits are just another optional rule like holding or traveling.
And now we’re staring down 2026, when the US-hosted World Cup, the Olympics, and an actual UFC card on the White House lawn are poised to merge the presidency with the fight card. In other words: the line between "sports" and "state propaganda" is dissolving in real time, and the American political system is letting a reality TV autocrat turn the jumbotron into a throne—but sure, tell us again how this is just "fun" and "normal" presidential outreach.
#fascism#forever-grifting#oligarchy
