Whelp, given the news that Columbia University has also surrendered to Trump's fascist demands to avoid retaliatory (and likely illegal) funding cuts, I guess this Vichy establishment thing is a whole ass beat now. Hiding behind the laughably dishonest idea of fighting a grossly distorted definition of "antisemitism" the regime is moving towards the standard authoritarian goal of controlling higher education institutes; it's first target, Columbia, has surrendered without offering even token resistance and as you can imagine, the decision was not popular with people who aren't sniveling collaborators:

commondreams.org/news/trump-co…

'Columbia Has Lost Something It May Never Regain': Outrage as the University Yields to Trump's Demands

"Columbia University received a wave of criticism on Friday after it agreed to a number of demands from the Trump administration as part of negotiations over $400 million in federal grants and contracts that the Trump administration had pulled due to the school's alleged "inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students."

The school agreed to a ban on masks and to appoint a senior vice provost with broad power to oversee both the department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studied and the school's Center for Palestine Studies, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Also, Columbia has hired over 30 "special officers" who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and arrest them, per the memo from the school announcing the update."

Although this article is short, and mostly focuses on (wholly deserved) criticism of Columbia University for caving completely to fascist intimidation, there's actually a lot to unpack about the larger situation here:

- as in the case of the Paul Weiss capitulation story, the greater evil here remains a fascist Trump regime engaging in what amounts to extortion, to further its attacks on protesters, civil rights activists, and higher education in America.

- while on the surface Columbia's concessions to the regime may appear small, they foundationally attack free speech rights on campus, and the academic freedom of the institute, to the point that I'm not even sure you can still call Columbia a university now. Allowing a Trump regime that defines opposing genocide as antisemitism, protest as terrorism, and criticizing the US government as a threat to national security, to influence a department's curriculum, helping it to identify students engaged in constitutionally-protected protests, and literally embedding a small police department's worth of goon squad murderpigs inside the facilities to more expediently violate the rights of protestors, are each in and of themselves damning examples of fascist collaboration that fundamentally invalidate everything Columbia claims it stands for.

- as I've mentioned elsewhere, it's important to understand that "Trump is not threatening to jail or deport anyone running these big law firms and prestigious universities. He's threatening them with funding cuts, lack of access to federal contracts, and harassment investigations." This in turn means that by collaborating with the Trump regime (based on fascist word games and lies that, by capitulating, Columbia itself is helping to transform into enforced reality) the administrators running Columbia, just like the law firm Paul Weiss above, are effectively declaring that there is a monetary cost above which they will happily collaborate with fascism to actively harm their own students and our larger society.

- I realize that $400M in government funding is a lot of money, but we're talking about a university with a $14.8B (with a b) endowment, and one of the wealthiest alumni and donor bases in America. I don't find the senior administrator quoted in this story's excuse that "the federal government had too many ways to take back money from the university" credible, and even if I did you're still saying there's a price point where you'll normalize authoritarianism and support the activates of a fascist regime against your own students. If the price of keeping grand ole Columbia in a "recognizable form" is helping a fascist government install a fascist dictatorship that *will* end in mass graves, then that price is too damn high.

- they literally didn't even *try* to take the Trump regime to court over this.

- since there was no court case, and no legal settlement, the Trump regime is not bound by anyone to cease its attacks on Columbia, or barred from issuing further demands. If tomorrow, Trump decides that the University has to open up a phrenology department, devote its resources to investigating "anti-white racism" on campus, and let one of Elon Musk's DOGE minions run all of its scientific research, he can simply threaten Columbia's funding again to get what he wants. The university now works for Trump; even if they don't realize it yet.

#Trump #Fascism #Columbia #Education #CivilRights

It should also be noted that the details above, do not reflect the full scope of the University of Columbia's capitulation to the Trump regime. As this March 14th, 2025 explainer from Al Jazeera notes, the University already announced it had targeted a number of students who participated in the occupation of Hamilton Hall as part of campus-wide anti-genocide protests for suspension, expulsion, or revoked their degrees:

aljazeera.com/news/2025/3/14/c…

Columbia expels, suspends students after government threats: What we know

"Then, on Thursday, Columbia announced that students involved in last year’s Hamilton Hall protest have received multiple-year suspensions or outright expulsions following the university’s investigations. The months-long process was carried out by the school’s University Judicial Board, and included hearings for each student involved.

“Columbia is committed to enforcing the University’s Rules and Policies and improving our disciplinary processes,” the university said.

Others who have since graduated will have their degrees revoked, it added. The names and precise number of students sanctioned by the judicial board were not revealed.

According to The Associated Press news agency, several other students have been notified by university officials that they are also under investigation for sharing social media posts in support of Palestinian people or joining “unauthorised” protests."

Although the precise number of students targeted for reprisal was unknown at the time of publication, other sources have since reported that 22 students or former students were affected; including Grant Miner, president of the Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) union, who was set to begin negotiations between SWC and Columbia and present demands to protect international and undocumented student workers, the very next day.

Finally, while apologists have pointed out that the disciplinary process behind Columbia's reprisals had been conducted over the course of the prior year, I personally think that excuse falls flat. Der Führer himself threatened that "American students will be permanently expelled, or depending on the crime, arrested" in a proclamation on Truth Social clearly targeting anti-genocide campus protestors; three days later the Trump regime issued its demands to Columbia, and three days after that ICE kidnapped former Columbia student and protest leader Mahmoud Khalil while university officials, who had been warned by Khalil that the Trump regime was targeting him, stood by and did nothing. Furthermore, given that until now the disciplinary body investigating student protestors at Columbia had only issued suspensions, I don't think you need to be Columbo to connect the dots and realize this is all part of the same surrender to and collaboration with fascism by the university here.

Of course, all of this still leaves the question of does Columbia actually "stand for" anything at all? This is after all the university that unleashed police violence against protestors on its own campus, punished professors who took a stand against genocide, and banned student groups protesting Israel's crimes against humanity in Gaza and the US government that underwrote them, long before Trump took office. There is a strong pro-Zionist bent to much of the school's administration, and at least one large alumni group celebrated Trump's original funding cuts. Although it's a little older now, and Columbia has since surrendered to Trump's control whether they realize it or not, this March 8th piece by Columbia alum Natasha Leonard, writing in the Intercept sums up a lot of the ways the university was already enacting a pro-genocide agenda that isn't all that different from Trump's.

theintercept.com/2025/03/08/co…

Columbia Bent Over Backward to Appease Right-Wing, Pro-Israel Attacks — And Trump Still Cut Federal Funding

"Antisemitism is no doubt a legitimate concern in a country led by antisemites; the Trump administration and pro-Israel organizations’ concerns are anything but legitimate. So far, Columbia’s purported crackdown on antisemitism has included anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic repression, the consistent conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and a willingness to only prioritize the concerns of certain Jewish voices, while silencing the dissent of the dozens of anti-Zionist Jews on campus.

“This is not about antisemitism. It is about crushing dissent,” said Reinhold Martin, a Columbia historian of architecture and president of the university’s American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, chapter. “And for those who take the Trump administration’s actions at face value, remember Charlottesville.”

Martin was referring, of course, to the 2017 white supremacist gathering, where neo-Nazis marched with tiki torches chanting “Jews will not replace us,” a fascist murdered an antifascist counter-protester with his car, and Trump responded by calling participants “some very fine people.”

I chose this article in part because Leonard offers a Jewish perspective on the weaponization of antisemitism, by a regime full of confirmed antisemites, to support Israel's genocide in Gaza, while attacking academic freedom, protest rights, and the ability of international students legally studying in the United States to criticize the regime; her perspective is one the regime would prefer you not even know exists. The piece also offers a pretty good catalogue of the ways Columbia was already willing to violate the rights of its students, including but not limited to, unleashing horrifying police violence on entirely non-violent protestors occupying a building on campus. Crucially, Leonard also offers a structural critique about why the modern neoliberal university, and Columbia in particular, is ideologically more aligned with, and thus more susceptible to being control by a fascist regime like Trump's, than US universities have been in the past. It's a great article, and you really should read it all.

Finally of course, the overarching content of Leonard's piece proves two points about Columbia's capitulation that I mentioned in this thread already; that the university could have fought back, it just didn't want to, and that appeasing the fascist Trump regime now won't stop them from demanding more later, just as appeasing GOP inquisitors on the hill, and a Biden administration funding and supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza was no guarantee Trump wouldn't seek to destroy or take control of Columbia in the future, as he has now indeed done. If they didn't have to surrender, and capitulating isn't guaranteed to stop the fascist assault on the university anyway, you have to at least wonder if a university administration that's largely pro-Zionist, and wholly contemptuous of both its staff, and students, simply wanted to do so for ideological reasons.

Well, this one hits closer to home than I'd like. The University of Michigan has become the latest extremely wealthy ($19.2B endowment as of June 30, 2024) US higher education institute to capitulate to Trump, and in doing so further the regime's efforts to enforce a white supremacist worldview on education in America.

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/m…

University of Michigan shutters its flagship diversity program

“The federal government is determined to dismantle and control higher education and to make our institutions more uniform, more inequitable, and more exclusive,” Rebekah Modrak, the chair of the faculty senate, wrote in an email to colleagues about the decision, according to the Detroit Free Press. “They are using the power of the government to engineer a sweeping culture change towards white supremacy. Unfortunately, University of Michigan leaders seem determined to comply and to collaborate in our own destruction.”

As someone intimately familiar with how UM operates, the administrator's decision to surrender completely in the face of Trump's threats to cut all federal funding is hardly surprising; although it is extremely disappointing. Michigan is in many ways the perfect model of the neoliberal (capitalist) university; it receives over a billion dollars a year in federal research funding, and the school had already cut back on its diversity initiatives in admissions and hiring in response to a 6-3 fascist high SCOTUS striking down Affirmative Action. As in the case with Columbia, I am fairly certain the school's wealthy alumni base, access to some of the finest lawyers in America, and massive endowment would have allowed it to fight Trump's extortion in court; and that decision would be largely supported by students, faculty, and even the (Democrat controlled) state government. Despite this, a conflict-adverse administration that has transformed UM into a money printing machine over the past couple of decades in particular, was never going to risk perhaps billions of dollars in funding; even if it means capitulating to fascism. While some may be inclined to forgive Michigan's leadership for their cowardice given those stakes, I will once again remind folks that if you don't stand for opposing extortion, fascism, and white supremacy, why should anyone believe you stand for anything at all?

Worse still, is that Michigan's rational for groveling before Trump's white nationalist agenda tries to have it both ways, while (not so) subtly reinforcing white supremacist propaganda and world views. The university touts the groundbreaking success of its expansive DEI programs; while simultaneously pretending they're unconcerned with ending these programs because racism is over or something, I guess. The administration also points to the myriad of fascist executive orders and threats issued by the Trump regime, but then offers up the excuse that "some in our campus community have voiced frustration that they did not feel included in DEI initiatives and that the programming fell short in fostering connections among diverse groups" - as if Trump's orders and Michigan's actions have anything at all to do with "fostering connections among diverse groups" or helping people the DEI initiative wasn't helping enough. Finally the UM administration promises to continue to foster "multiculturalism" and states it remains "steadfast in our dedication to academic freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of expression" - as if Trump can't threaten Michigan's funding again to cancel programs that foster "multiculturalism" (another word fascists use instead of slurs), or terms like "academic freedom" mean anything in light of the Faustian (non) bargain the University has struck here.

The sad truth here is that out of nothing more than greed and cowardice, the University of Michigan has given Downmarket Mussolini and his white nationalist agenda a victory that will ring across the nation. The UM DEI program was expanded in part to counteract the rise of white nationalist politics during the first Trump presidency, it was a highly successful endeavor that was considered a model for other schools to copy nationally, and Michigan's commitment to diversity programs was genuine. If a northern liberal school with more money than god and every reason to fight back, won't take on the Trump regime's fascist agenda, who else is going to have the courage to do so?

#Fascism #Trump #Education #UniversityOfMichigan #UM #DEI #WhiteNationalism #PorkReich #WhiteSupremacy #Collaboration #VichyEstablishment #Capitalism

And another white shoe DC law firm decides to capitulate to fascism rather than fight; even as their colleagues at other firms are successfully getting restraining orders to block Trump's strongarm tactics. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (typically shortened to just "Skadden") joins the firm Paul Weiss on the wall of infamy and cowardice, with a "deal" that's even more collaborationist with, again - fascists and a fascist agenda.

commondreams.org/news/skadden-…

'Pathetic': Elite Law Firm Blasted for Striking Deal With Trump Administration

"The firm has agreed to provide at least $100 million in pro bono legal services to the federal government during his administration "and beyond," according to a Truth Social post from U.S. President Donald Trump. Also, the "firm will not engage in illegal" diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) "discrimination and preferences," according to the post, which also noted that the firm proactively reached out to the administration about an agreement.

Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump called the deal "essentially a settlement," according to Reuters.

"Pathetic when the richest and most powerful lawyers in America won't stand up for the profession that made them rich and powerful," wrote U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on X on Friday, reacting to earlier reporting that the firm was in discussions with the White House over a deal."

In addition to the $100M of pro bono work for the Trump regime, other outlets are reporting that Skadden has promised to offer fellowships to "conservative" (so, fascist, because conservative means fascist in this political environment) law graduates, and take cases for conservative causes - which I think we can safely parse to mean things like "reverse racism" lawsuits, and anti-gender discrimination cases that involve "protecting women" by persecuting trans women. Did I mention that Skadden took these steps preemptively, as in before Trump even issued an executive order targeting them?

As in the case of Paul Weiss, and various wealthy Universities in America, the simple truth is that these folks are choosing to actively collaborate with fascists, and reinforcing the twisted unreality imposed by a fascist regime, for nothing more than money. We have a term for people who help fascists, do fascism, for money - it's fascist collaborator, or simply just "fascist." Like all the others, Skadden thinks they're striking a deal to stop Der Führer's assault on their very lucrative enterprise; and like the others, they'll soon discover that they work for Trump now, and there's no amount of appeasement that will change that.

#Fascism #Trump #BigLaw #Skadden #Collaboration #VichyEstablishment #Courts #Law

If you're wondering why the pundit class and the mainstream media organizations that employ them have been so tepid in their criticism of Trump, so unwilling to name the fascist beast and draw the logical conclusions the regime's actions imply, perhaps it's because they know they've been complicit in this fascist nightmare? As Joan Westenberg notes in this brilliant March 15th drag out piece, the normalization of the fascist ideology the Trump regime is running on now has many fathers in American society, and not all of them are folks who'd want to be known as supporters of MAGA fascism; but that's precisely the role they've served, for personal gain:

theindex.media/the-pundit-clas…

The Pundit Class Played Devil’s Advocate. Now the Devil’s at the Door.

"A revolving door of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post columnists made a career of platforming people who—either blatantly or through implication—argued that transgender people shouldn't exist. That democracy had "gone too far." They raged against "wokeism" because they couldn’t conceive of a world where it wouldn’t prevail. They bemoaned "cancel culture" not because they cared about free speech, but because they mistakenly believed the right-wing ideologues they dined with had been cast out for good.

In their intellectual stupor, they decided that the forces of social change were so overpowering and unstoppable that the world needed a voice to speak up against them in an infernal balancing act. And it felt daring, didn't it? To be the literary equivalent of the Cool Girl—not like those Other Girls who care about freedom, equity, history, and common sense.

They dressed themselves up as the beatniks of cultural commentary. They convinced themselves of their "underground" status. They basked in institutional protection, indulging in a self-congratulatory circle-jerk of mock dissent where the stakes were always someone else's problem. They positioned themselves as lone voices against an imagined tide of unthinking dogma, pretending that they were fighting against orthodoxy when, in reality, they were just reinforcing the status quo with a hipster filter. They weren't holding truth to power. They were selling a brand: rebellion without responsibility, provocation without principle, and the posture of dissent with none of the burden of consequence.

They dined on the aesthetic of courage without ever taking a risk. And why not? The market for disaffected liberals playing footsie with fascists was lucrative and full of opportunities for highbrow grift."

#Fascism #Trump #Media #NYT #WaPo #WSJ #Collaboration #Transphobia #MigrantRights #Normalization #Propaganda #Complicity #MAGA #PorkReich

To the surprise of perhaps nobody with a pulse, yet another Big Law firm has preemptively surrendered in advance to the Pork Reich's fascist agenda to avoid Trump's revenge for *checks notes* taking completely legitimate cases against him and his fascist allies - including "representing two Georgia election workers who sued his (Trump's) former attorney and adviser, Rudy Giuliani, for defamation."

commondreams.org/news/trump-do…

'Absolutely Shameful': Critics Slam Latest Law Firm to Cave Amid Trump's Revenge Threats

"Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP proactively reached out to President Trump and his Administration, offering their decisive commitment to ending the Weaponization of the Justice System and the Legal Profession," Trump said on his Truth Social network. "The President is delivering on his promises of eradicating Partisan Lawfare in America, and restoring Liberty and Justice FOR ALL."

According to Trump, Willkie—whose partners include former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff—will provide a total of at least $100 million in pro bono services to veterans, active duty U.S. troops, and Gold Star families; law enforcement and first responders; to "ensuring fairness in our justice system;" and combating antisemitism.

The firm also agreed to commit to "merit-based hiring" and refrain from "illegal" diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring, promotion, and retention. It must also "not deny representation to clients, such as members of politically disenfranchised groups... who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms... because of the personal political views of individual lawyers."

Setting aside the fact that forcing the law firm run in part by Kamala Harris's husband to grovel and capitulate without a fight is a huge propaganda win for Der Führer, Trump's increasing control of Big Law is a much bigger story than folks outside of the legal world may realize. I think most people grasp that like virtually all of the stories about white shoe DC law firms agreeing to work for Trump, even if they don't realize that's what they've done yet, the story of Wilkie's preemptive surrender is primarily about cowardice, greed, and collaboration.

What I'm not sure a lot of people who aren't familiar with how civil rights law actually functions in America understand however, is that every time Trump forcibly recruits one of these DC firms, he's also knocking out a valuable plank of resistance to his authoritarian violations because there are literally only so many lawyers available to take civil rights cases, and those cases are typically done pro bono. While it would be nice to imagine a legal system not entirely dependent on lawsuits and rich lawyers engaging in a little reputation washing to protect the civil rights of folks persecuted by a fascist government, that is in fact the situation in the really real world we're living in. At the rate he's going so far, Trump is not only going to force all the best law firms in DC to work for the regime, but he's also going to drastically reduce the number of cases that can be brought against his government for even clear civil rights violations, simply because there won't be any lawyers left able to take those cases at rates targeted people can afford.

#Fascism #Trump #BigLaw #WilkieFarrLaw #Collaboration #VichyEstablishment #Courts #Law #DougEmhoff #RudyGuilliani #ElectionDenial

Speaking of cowardice, complicity, and paving the road for fascism, let us not forget that the Trump regime's enabling of an ongoing genocide by Israel in Gaza, their fascist kidnapping spree against student protestors, and their quest to control American universities under the guise of "fighting antisemitism" are built on the back of policies, and in particular ideological justifications, provided by a Democratic Party that picked supporting genocide, hunting down migrants, and building out a police state over winning "the most important election in American history."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Don’t just blame Trump – Democrats paved the way for this campus crackdown

"For instance, the reason Trump could plausibly refer to Gaza a “demolition site” is because, for more than a year prior to his re-election, his Democratic predecessor (urged on by Schumer and others) supplied unlimited weapons to Israel to carry out a campaign of destruction that has few modern equivalents – a campaign that was not just restricted to Gaza, but also extended to the West Bank, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. Biden’s planned successor, Kamala Harris, and her surrogates repeatedly stressed to voters that these policies would continue largely unchanged under her watch.

Even before Trump had a chance to weigh in, Joe Biden immediately characterized the protests at Columbia as “antisemitic” and declared that “order must prevail” on college campuses. Democratic lawmakers put aggressive pressure on the former Columbia University president Minouche Shafik to crush the protests. She ultimately did so with the assistance of New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams (who justified his clampdown via evidence-free statements that the protests were driven primarily by “outside agitators”). Trump celebrated the pictures and videos of students getting roughed up by the NYPDand, upon Trump’s reclaiming the White House, the justice department interceded on behalf of Adams – making his criminal investigation go away in apparent exchange for the mayor adopting a more aggressive posture on immigration – a move that critics claim is a quid pro quo.

In a similar vein, it was Biden who enshrined the IHRA definition of antisemitism into federal guidance, despite the definition’s author repeatedly describing it as a “travesty” to use this definition to regulate speech and behavior. Building on Biden’s introduction, Trump is poised to sign a bill that would implement this same definition into federal anti-discrimination law – and in the meantime, he’s insisting Columbia and other schools adopt this definition in their own codes of conduct. NYU and Harvard have already taken this step, overriding concerns by civil rights and civil liberties organizations – from the ACLU, to Fire and the AAUP, to Israeli civil rights groups – who stressed that IHRA’s definition is extremely vague and provides strong leeway for institutional stakeholders to censor most critical discussion of Israel, Zionism or Judaism more broadly, by Jews and non-Jews alike."

Look, you can criticize me for playing "the blame game" all you like, but every goddamn thing Trump is doing surrounding the US-backed genocide in Gaza, including the domestic installation of fascist ideological policing, was and is facilitated by a Biden administration that was warned all of this - from Trump winning, to deploying War on Terror logic repression on anti-genocide protesters - was on the table if they didn't change course. If you want to know why only fourteen Democrats signed a letter decrying the fascist abduction of Mahmoud Khalil, and only thirty-four Democrat lawmakers signed the letter demanding the release of Rumeysa Ozturk (whose only "crime" appears to be have been writing an op-ed calling for her University to divest from Israel and condemn a genocide) you don't have to look any further than a mainstream Democratic Party leadership class that's fat on AIPAC donations and happily told you student protestors were violent antisemites who endorsed terrorist organizations, demanded colleges take action to suppress the protests, and justified a brutal police crackdown on... college kids who don't want their government to facilitate a genocide. It's kind of hard to criticize all that fascism when your donors love it and you directly made the arguments Trump is using to conduct it, after all.

#Fascism #Trump #Israel #Gaza #Genocide #StudentProtests #ICE #DHS #Collaborators #PoliceState #Antisemitism #DemocraticParty #IdeologicalPolicing #WarOnTerror

While a lot of the stories in this thread focus on the cowardice of institutional actors in either submitting to, or even assisting the fascist Trump regime in installing a Christian Nationalist dictatorship, when the history of this political moment is written, it will be noted that it was actually big companies in the US private sector that embraced the regime's white nationalist policy platforms first and in doing so, helped legitimate Trump's quest to rule as King of America. Unlike institutional actors in higher education, lawyers targeted for revenge by Der Führer, or bodies controlled by the (openly fascist) US government through funding, large corporations in the private sector required little if any incentive to adopt Trump's authoritarian "anti-DEI" policies; indeed, companies like Walmart, Paramount, and even Victoria's Secret practically fell all over themselves to align with the regime's agenda, essentially obeying in advance, before the administration had to apply any pressure at all.

Why would they do that? As this short essay in The Guardian lays bare, the truth is that they never really wanted to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion even before the rise of Trump - which is why the programs they installed after the twin motivating factors of the George Floyd protests against police violence, and the COVID pandemic, were never really designed to achieve those objectives in the first place.

theguardian.com/us-news/ng-int…

American corporations didn’t want to diversify, anyway

"Within days of taking office, Donald Trump signed an executive order that would eliminate Johnson’s civil rights order. The order directed the office of federal contract compliance to stop “promoting diversity” and holding contractors responsible for “affirmative action”. To Smith, the administration’s early actions amount to “a blatant effort in order to not only uphold the white power structure, but to remove any government responsibility to uphold the rights of individuals of color, specifically Black people”. It is the fruit of a conservative movement that has been trying to reverse course ever since the government began taking seriously efforts to protect the rights of Americans regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.

In 2020, hundreds of private companies pledged to change their culture – to use their power and influence and, most importantly, money, to re-shape American society toward more just ends. Now, the three largest employers in the nation – Walmart, Amazon, and the federal government – have all rolled those policies back. Dozens of other corporations have turned back the clock on even pretending to care about equality in the workplace as well.

To businesses’ credit, they had a difficult task ahead of them in 2020. “They’re faced with putting a policy in place quickly that’s responsive and doesn’t sound like lip service to frustrated people,” Dawkins said. But in doing so, they made an admission: they had not been taking diversity seriously before – and the capitulation to the administration’s demands since has betrayed that truth. And they made clear their efforts were always lip service."

Look, I don't think it's really news that much of the American private sector's DEI initiatives were motivated more by *appearing* to oppose white supremacy and enforced social hierarchies in an increasingly Christian Nationalist political environment, than actually opposing those problems. This was pointed out long before Trump's second term, and obviously their actions since the regime was installed have demonstrated that critics were right to question the commitment of American corporations that directly profit from a white supremacist order that marks out certain groups of people for brutal exploitation. In that context then, it's important to understand that we are in fact not "all in this together" and a corporate sector that gladly donated to Trump's election campaigns must be understood as *active* partners in the installation of a Christian Nationalist dictatorship in America. The fact that they did so because they think it'll improve their bottom line is largely irrelevant; fascist collaboration is still fascist collaboration, regardless of the motives that inspire it.

#Fascism #Trump #Capitalism #DEI #Walmart #Amazon #racism #Paramount #ChristianNationalism #WhiteSupremacy #BLM #ObeyingInAdvance #Pandemic

I've been waiting for just over a week for the folks at TMR to clip this interview with former Skadden lawyer Rachel Cohen so I could share it here. Not only is Cohen's inside baseball perspective on the cowardice of Big Law firms groveling before Trump an interesting watch, but she's also one of the few people with knowledge of the situation willing to state what *I* feel is pretty obvious - that the Trump regime's war on Big Law is about trying to restrict the number of lawyers and firms that will bring totally legitimate cases against their fascist policies and activities, through a sheer question of numbers and resources.

The clip is only about 15 minutes long, but I guarantee you that Cohen here is spitting more truth than you'll find in all the articles about Big Law's capitalist cowardice and craven surrender in media sources like the Washington Post, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal. It's worth the watch:

The Majority Report: Trump's Revenge

"Sam and Emma are joined by Rachel Cohen, lawyer formerly of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, to discuss the country’s largest law firms bending the knee to Donald Trump."

youtube.com/watch?v=y0bVdiTDzQ…

#VichyEstablishment #BigLaw #Law #Courts #Skadden #RachelCohen #TMR #SamSeder #EmmaVigeland #Fascism #Trump #Collaboration

Five more high profile #BigLaw legal firms have capitulated to Downmarket Mussolini's fascist threats in order to keep raking in federal contracts; even as 500 of their contemporaries in US law are actively proving that fighting the Trump regime is an option:

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/a…

Trump says five more law firms agree to pro bono work to avoid punitive executive orders

"Donald Trump said on Friday that five major law firms reached agreements to together provide his administration $600m in pro bono legal work, among other terms, to avoid executive orders punishing them, a significant capitulation to the president as he attacks the legal profession.

The five firms – Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft – are among the most prestigious and recognized firms in the US.

Trump’s announcement on Friday on Truth Social means he has secured a total of $940m in pro bono work from some of the most powerful law firms in the US.

The orders come as Trump’s attack on the legal profession has divided the most prestigious firms in the US. More than 500 firms signed an amicus brief last week in support of a legal challenge to executive orders punishing the firm Perkins Coie. But many of the country’s biggest firms – including those that reached agreements announced on Friday – were conspicuously absent."

Frankly, I'm tired of repeating myself so I'll keep this brief. These firms are all kissing the fascist toad in the White House's ring because standing up to him, even when the law is on their side, risks too much of their ability to make money and that's more important to them than the law, or any sort of moral obligation to oppose fascism from those in a position to do so. Like every other Big Law firm before them, these folks have traded away their independence and integrity without any guarantee whatsoever that this represents the end of Downmarket Mussolini's demands; which means, even if they don't realize it, all of these law firms work for Trump now. Maybe these bigshot lawyers honestly believe, as former Skadden lawyer Rachel Cohen reported in the interview I shared above, that they can outsmart the regime, but that presupposes the Trump administration is playing by a set of rules - which is an idea that is wholly discredited by the blatantly unconstitutional executive orders and threats from the White House that brought us to this moment in the first place.

Finally I would encourage folks not to dismiss the almost 1 billion dollars in promises for pro bono services to the regime and causes Trump himself supports, that Der Leader has extracted here. Downmarket Mussolini is forcibly recruiting massive law firms to help him conduct an assault on our civil rights and the American legal system itself, and when he says the firms have agreed they “will not deny representation to clients, such as members of politically disenfranchised groups and Government Officials, employees, and advisors” he's making that explicitly clear. I mean let's cut the bullshit here, this is a regime that has argued that white people, and fundamentalist Christians are "politically disenfranchised groups" in fucking writing, so I don't think it's hard to imagine what kind of cases Trump is going to deploy his new minions to argue on behalf of his fascist, white nationalist regime. Trump just bought himself an army of lawyers to do fascism with, and it didn't cost him anything more than the paper his unconstitutional executive orders were printed on.

#Fascism #Trump #Courts #VichyEstablishment #CivilRights #KirklandEllis #LathamWatkins #AOShearman #Cadwalader #SimpsonThacherBartlett #Collaboration #Cowardice

Well, if you were expecting the cybersecurity industry to respond any better to Trump using government access to target one of its firms, than Big Law did, I suspect you're going to be disappointed:

reuters.com/world/us/cybersecu…

Cybersecurity industry falls silent as Trump turns ire on SentinelOne

"Krebs' speech was followed by applause then, but Reuters found little sign of industry support for Krebs or SentinelOne as they face Trump now.

Katie Moussouris, founder of Luta Security, said she doubted the industry would publicly back SentinelOne given the White House's actions.

"I don't think it's feasible for cybersecurity companies to have a broader response on this," she said. "The risk is just too high."

Reuters contacted 33 of the largest U.S. cybersecurity companies, including tech companies and professional services firms with large cybersecurity practices, and three industry groups, for comment on Trump's action against SentinelOne.

Only one offered comment on Trump's action. The rest declined, did not respond or did not answer questions."

We kind of touched on this story already in another thread, but the short version is that Trump is using federal security clearances to damage a company called SentinelOne, for employing Chris Krebs - a former Trump official who balked at supporting Der Leader's "big lie" that the 2020 election is stolen. This is petty revenge, and a warning shot to everyone else in the industry that Trump can come after them if they displease him; but it's also about making the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election part of official regime policy and punishing anyone who disputes that with the full force of the DoJ and federal government.

On one hand, this isn't as big a story as Trump conscripting DC's biggest law firms via executive order, or the Yarvinite quest to have the regime literally seize control of higher education institutions via false claims about fighting antisemitism. What it is however, is a demonstration that Trump's success in those endeavors so far has emboldened him to extend his reach, and provided him with a successful model for how to use his power as POTUS to enforced ideological conformity, and assert direct control over portions of the private sector. As long as everyone stays silent, surrenders, or worse: openly collaborates, there's really no reason to believe he's going to stop doing this any time soon.

#Fascism #Trump #ChrisKrebs #Cybersecurity #SentinelOne #TheBigLie

While its certainly true that part of why so much of the US mainstream establishment, particularly in the private sector, is willing to collaborate openly with the fascist Trump regime is because they prefer fascism to sharing, it's also true that there are clear material benefits to legitimizing and supporting the Trumpenreich regime. In what reasonable people would describe as "open corruption," Federal Election Commission data shows that the administration has dropped or frozen federal enforcement cases against "at least 17 corporations that donated to the president's inaugural fund."

commondreams.org/news/trump-co…

'See How This Works?': Trump Drops Cases Against Corporations That Funded His Inauguration

"Public Citizen found that corporations facing federal investigations or enforcement lawsuits donated a combined $50 million to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee. Trump raised a record sum of $239 million for his second inauguration, the new FEC filings show.

"Corporations facing federal lawsuits and investigations aren't giving millions to Trump's inauguration out of the kindness of their hearts," said Public Citizen researcher Rick Claypool. "They are trying to buy good will. And when you're a corporation under investigation or facing prosecution, that means the government dropping enforcement actions against you. In some cases, it may even mean receiving pardons in cases in which guilty pleas have already been entered, or retractions of settlements already entered into."

Bank of America, Capital One, Coinbase, DuPont, and JPMorgan are among the corporations that donated to Trump's inauguration and subsequently had federal enforcement cases dismissed.

Public Citizen noted that Google, which donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee, could benefit from the Trump Justice Department's decision during an ongoing antitrust case to scrap part of a "proposed breakup plan requiring Google to sell off AI businesses."

As the article notes, dropped federal enforcement cases against corporations that paid millions to kiss the ring at the Klepto Kaiser's inauguration isn't the only way large corporate actors like Apple, Google, and Coinbase have directly benefited from fascist collaboration. Apple in particular must be delighted with Trump's decision to exempt most of its imports from his absurd tariffs; which seems like a ridiculously good return on its investment of a million dollars for Der Leader's inauguration. Finally, while I personally don't care that much about the regime's decision to monetize the Easter Egg Roll by accepting corporate sponsors, it does speak to the crass levels of greed and corruption the administration and its lawless president are willing to engage in.

On some level I understand that right now it's hard to care that much about bog standard open corruption between the Trump regime and corporate actors happy to normalize and facilitate fascism for five points a share. The Pork Reich is snatching protestors off the street, fighting a war that doesn't exist against a gang that isn't invading us while trafficking migrants to a torture prison in El Salvador, and Elon Musk is firing thousands of federal workers in a scheme to pay for billionaire tax cuts that will absolutely get people killed. There's a lot going on, and "rich capitalists are doing something terrible for their own financial benefit" almost doesn't rate as "news" in an environment like the one we're living in.

The fact is however, it's precisely because of all the other evil fascist shit is going on that private sector collaboration with the Trump regime is such an important story. As I've explained elsewhere: fascism costs American society a horrifying toll both financially and in terms of human suffering, but the installation and operation of a fascist regime can be quite profitable for some. These companies, many of whom also contribute to Republican election funds and political action committees, absolutely know what Trump is and what he means to do because Downmarket Mussolini and his minions say the quiet parts out loud on the regular. They just don't give a fuck, and are happy to help a fascist government normalize its authoritarian activities and odious ideology by touting the support they receive from respected American corporations; as long as doing so pays off on their bottom line.

There are many reasons for the rise of a successful fascist movement in an America that has always embraced what today we recognize as fascist ideology; trying to pin it down to one specific factor is a fool's errand. But if and when the history of this era is written, I'm willing to bet that rampant greed and a ruling class that lusts for power over the rest of us will rank pretty highly on the list of contributing factors to this political moment.

Archived: archive.ph/tXEjr

#Fascism #Propaganda #Corruption #Trump #Apple #Coinbase #Google #Capitalism #DuPont #JPMorgan #BankOfAmerica #CapitalOne #FEC

I haven't written about Trump's fascist attempts to exert control over Harvard University primarily because after making a great fanfare of announcing they intended to fight back against the regime's ideological policing, they quietly walked back their resistance posture, repurposed their diversity, equity, and inclusion office, and shockingly agreed to share information on foreign students with DHS. For all intents and purposes, Harvard's actions represented a complete capitulation to the fascist regime's agenda, with some posturing thrown in that allowed Harvard to save face in a way for example, Columbia had not. As we've noted many times in this thread however, appeasing fascists doesn't work and once you agree to obey Trump's authoritarian edicts, you're essentially property of the regime going forward.

Harvard is now learning this lesson the hard way because despite all their cowardly bootlicking, Trump is still openly announcing the regime's intention to revoke Harvard's tax except status; something he has literally no legal authority to do according to most experts.

truthout.org/articles/trump-se…

Trump Seeks to Revoke Harvard’s Tax Status Despite Numerous Concessions

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.

In response, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (New York) and three other Democratic senators have demanded that the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) internal watchdog investigate whether the Trump administration is unlawfully pressuring the agency to target Harvard.

Just weeks ago, Harvard was celebrated for resisting the Trump administration’s threats to withhold $2.2 billion in federal funding, positioning itself as a defender of academic freedom by filing a lawsuit challenging the funding freeze. But recently, the university has quietly reversed course, rebranding and altering the mission of its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) office, announcing that it will no longer fund affinity group celebrations during commencement, and sharing international student information with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“You mean to tell me banning affinity group graduations, handing over school records to the DHS gestapo, cracking down on protests, and dismantling DEI didn’t appease this fascist dictator?! I’m shocked I tell you,” Harvard Law School instructor Alejandra Caraballo said on Bluesky."

I think the facts of this story speak for themselves; Trump's war on higher education to enforce a white nationalist ideological framework on American life is clearly fascist, Harvard put on a brave face but ultimately chose craven collaboration with the regime's fascist agenda, and surprise, surprise, Trump has continued to threaten the University and demand further concessions. Trump is a fascist bully hellbent on controlling every aspect of our society and you don't ever stop a bully by appeasing them.

There is however a deeper layer of fascist fuckery going on here, because Trump's war on higher education also aligns perfectly with noted fascist theorist Curtis Yarvin's proposed "Butterfly Revolution" to transform America into a fascist dictatorship under Trump; part of which revolves around destroying or taking control of "the Cathedral" which Yavrin defines as the mainstream media, prestigious American universities, and important cultural institutions. I doubt Trump has ever read The Butterfly Revolution, but his Vice President, JD Vance, certainly has. He's a devote follower of Yarvin's expressly "neo-fascist" teachings, as are key billionaire TechBro Trump donors and supporters like Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen. Now whether or not Trump understands that all of this is part of a plan by his nazi billionaire buddies to shatter the American nation state and create techno-feudalist "Patchwork" or "Network State" city-state dictatorships out of the smoldering ashes is more debatable; but either way, all of these guys are clearly working on the installation of a fascist political, social, and ideological framework on our society that will last decades beyond Trump's own miserable existence.

#Fascism #Trump #Harvard #DEI #Education #StephenMiller #DHS #CurtisYarvin #ChristianNationalism #StudentProtests #Genocide #Gaza #Israel #Palestinians #Collaboration #VichyEstablishment #ElonMusk #PeterThiel #ButterflyRevolution

If you want proof that Democratic Party leaders and their top donors, including AIPAC, don't give one flying fuck whether or not their support for Israel's genocide in Gaza elected Trump or continues to help his fascist agenda, I'd argue that you don't have to look any further than the actions of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, since the Kelpto Kaiser's second inauguration. Fortunately for us, The Majority Report recently put out a twenty minute clip that does just that; from Schumer's capitulation on the GOP's class war continuing resolution, to recent remarks revealing that the Senator would rather empower Trump's fascist assault on student protestors and higher education, than speak out against the fake antisemitism crisis *Democrats* originally helped create to justify repressing college kids opposing a genocide, Sam and Emma cover all the shameful lowlights.

Clueless Chuck Schumer Makes A Fool Of Himself On CNN

youtube.com/watch?v=O9te-K4E8l…

Once again please let me take a moment to remind angry liberals that both Sam Seder and Emma Vigland are Democrats, who vote for Democrats, and tell their audience to vote for Democrats; no matter how much lanyards inside the party want to pretend otherwise, TMR's criticisms of feckless, collaborating Democrat leadership are coming from inside the house, not the "far left."

For those of us living in the really real world where the Democratic Party is clearly not doing enough to fight Trump's fascist agenda however, I'd like to point out that what Schumer is doing throughout this video goes far beyond mere cowardly inaction in the face of a fascist takeover of our society, and veers into open collaboration. As Vigland in particular points out, even while pretending to defend Harvard from the Trump administration's attempts to use a fake antisemitism crisis on college campuses to seize control of the University, Schumer actively makes the regime's case for it by trying to thread the needle between "Harvard has an antisemitism problem and hasn't done enough to combat it" and "Trump's actions aren't justified in response to antisemitism." In doing so, the Senator comes off essentially supporting Trump's argument that Harvard is allowing hate crimes because people protested Israel's ongoing, US-backed genocide in Gaza.

Factually speaking, this is all bullshit. The protests aren't and were never antisemitic; that's just a lie Biden and the Dem Party's establishment insisted on deploying to protect the genocide they were enabling Israel to conduct, and wave away their own base's concerns about murderpigs beating up college students and professors on live TV. Schumer knows that, but he's being paid to pretend otherwise and he's not prepared to break the kayfabe even if it means essentially helping Donald Trump run roughshod over the American constitution and our civil rights. This is consistent messaging from Democratic Party leaders and luminaries, and I'm sorry but given the circumstances it makes them all collaborators with a fascist regime; in addition to being dishonest, bootlicking minions for donor class rich people.

#Fascism #USPol #ChuckSchumer #Collaborator #DemocraticParty #Gaza #Harvard #Genocide #Israel #AIPAC #TheMajorityReport #Trump #StudentProtests #CampusProtests #MahmoudKhalil #RumeysaOzturk #Palestinians #ICE

A lot of things have changed, mostly for the worst, between the first and second Trump presidency. For example, during our first dance with assclown fascism under Downmarket Mussolini, American corporate media made a massive show of "opposing" Trump; despite the fact that I (and many other observers) pointed out that their coverage of the administration typically benefitted the regime more often than it hurt them, and the class solidarity inherent to corporate media outlets often resulted in them covering up for the wealthy donors and supporters that propped up Trump's administration until the precise moment it became clear he wasn't going to win a second term in 2020. The story has been quite different here in the second Trump era however; as this Guardian article notes, despite Trump's threats and smears towards the media, corporate outlets like WaPo, LA Times, and now CBS have willingly collaborated with Trump's fascist regime and agenda. What changed? As it turns out, the whims and financial motivations of billionaire reactionaries who own corporate media companies.

theguardian.com/us-news/2025/m…

Trump complains the US media aren’t bending to his will. Aren’t they?

"Despite that acquiescence, Trump has continued to threaten journalists, branding pollsters “negative criminals” who “should be investigated for election fraud”. In April, he attacked “radical lunatic Democrats and their comrades in the fake news media”, adding: “Those lying to the American People on behalf of violent criminals have to be held responsible by the Agencies and the Courts.”

The attacks overlook the ways in which some outlets have submitted to Trump’s will – either by executives settling frivolous lawsuits or wealthy owners interfering to avoid upsetting Trump.

Jeff Bezos, the Washington Post owner, ordered an overhaul to the paper’s editorial pages in February that effectively muzzled the newspaper’s criticism of Trump. The Los Angeles Times dropped its endorsement of Kamala Harris under pressure from Patrick Soon-Shiong, its billionaire owner.

In December, ABC News settled a Trump lawsuit, in a move first amendment experts said could foster more attacks on the media. And in another blow, the owner of CBS News is said to be considering settling a $10bn lawsuit brought against the network over the editing of a Kamala Harris interview."

Folks, this is a story about greed and cowardice and that's not just my opinion. Trump isn't right, and the activities he's undertaking to cow the American media, be they government investigations or frivolous lawsuits, have no basis in the law. If folks like Jeff Bezos, Patrick Soon-Shiong, and Shari Redstone wanted to fight this, they'd win. Since surrendering and collaborating is more profitable to these billionaire leeches however, they're directing their media companies to roll over. Furthermore, the cost of this collaboration with fascism goes far beyond the mitigation of Trump criticism in our media environment; with billionaire media barons kissing his ring, and corporate outlets scrambling to settle his obscenely conspiratorial lawsuits based on open lies, the Kelpto Kaiser will now argue that he's been right about the media all along and that justifies further cracking down on the so-called "free press" in America. Collaborating with fascism, will merely breed more fascism; not that any of these rich reactionaries who own media companies seem to give a shit at all.

As someone who engages in a lot of media criticism and analysis, I can't say any of this is surprising to me; if anything, corporate media's outward posture of hostility towards Trump at points during his first administration is the historical aberration here. For profit media in America has always consistently sided with power and the state; after all the same class of people who own corporate media companies, also own most of the country. Just because we can easily predict class solidarity and billionaire ownership rolling over for fascism however, doesn't change the horrifying reality of what's going on here; nobody is handing out Pulitzer's here, but both WaPo and the LA Times did some excellent critical reporting during the first Trump regime and have been nowhere as effective here in Der Leader's second term. This is a big win for the Kelpto Kaiser; which makes it a devastating loss for all of us who don't want the fascists to win.

#Fascism #Trump #Media #Collaboration #Capitalism #CorporateMedia #WashingtonPost #LATimes #CBS #60Minutes #ShariRedstone #JeffBezos #PatrickSoonShiong #USPol #censorship

One of the hallmarks of the second Trump era is the way the Pork Reich consistently finds a way to make bad things, infinitely worse. For example, I don't think anyone reading this would be surprised to hear me describe Fox News as an objectively fascist media organization, that is closely aligned with and prepared to lie to promote, Republican political objectives and GOP politicians. "Fox News lies for Republicans" was a pretty heady message in 1999, but it's essentially a "well, duh" moment here in 2025. When you combine the power of the Fox Media apparatus with a Trump regime that approaches governance like a type of reality television show and actively sees control of media messaging as foundation to the success of their fascist project however, this unholy union creates something that roughly approximates "state news" in a dictatorship.

For a closer look at the scale of this collaboration, let's take a look at this Media Matters report from May 1st, detailing just how often, in raw mathematical terms, the Trump administration went on Fox News to speak directly to the nation in Trump's first 100 days.

mediamatters.org/fox-news/key-…

Key Trump officials appeared more than 500 times on Fox networks in the first 100 days of his presidency

"Key Trump administration officials appeared on Fox networks over 500 times in his first 100 days in office. President Donald Trump's “border czar” Thomas Homan led all officials with at least 59 appearances while Fox News' Hannity led all shows with 71 interviews.

Trump officials appeared on Fox networks on 96 of the administration's first 100 days. The number of daily appearances by key officials was highest on both February 3, following Trump's announcement of his first set of tariffs, and March 4, seemingly to prime the Fox audience for his congressional address that evening, with at least 13 appearances on each day.

Media Matters looked at Fox appearances by key nominated or confirmed Trump officials during the administration’s first 100 days. Trump's “border czar,” Thomas Homan, remains the most prominent administration official on the networks, appearing at least 59 times in total. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (40 appearances), deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller (40), and Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin (33) followed. Rounding out the top five most frequent officials who appeared on Fox is former counselor to the president Alina Habba who had 29 appearances before she left the administration when Trump appointed her interim U.S. attorney for the district of New Jersey on March 24."

Obviously this isn't really an article so much as a statistical analysis of how extensively the Trump administration has collaborated with Fox News to disseminate propaganda into the public discourse. You may of course quibble with my characterization of Trump regime media appearances as "propagandizing the American people" but my response to that is going to be to tell you to go fuck yourself with a chainsaw because quibbling with rubes about obviously demonstrable facts isn't my idea of a fun time. In a little over three months of covering the Trump regime, I honestly can't think of a single Fox News appearance by a US government official that hasn't featured lies, manipulation, and fascist propaganda; in fact I'd argue that appearances by overt fascist dipshits working in the Trump administration, folks like Tom Homan, and Stephen Miller, have done more to normalize fascist ideology in our discourse than any overtly nazi YouTuber or essayist in our society. The idea that the Trump administration is working with Fox News to produce pro-regime, pro-fascist propaganda is indisputable in my opinion; and the raw numbers compiled by Media Matters here demonstrates that with absolute certainty.

Look folks, all media organizations, particularly for-profit media organizations owned by reactionary billionaire maggots who love them some white supremacy, have a political bias. But there's a big difference between bias, and a major cable news network offering itself up as Trump state media to push forward an authoritarian agenda and the police state dictatorship necessary to enforce it. As terrible as Fox has always been, they've now become the Völkischer Beobachter for the Trump 2.0 era and administration. While a lot of this thread is about members of the "liberal" establishment collaborating with the fascist Pork Reich regime, the reality is that Trump wouldn't be sitting in the White House without Fox News, and they remain an integral part of his attempts to govern by fascist conspiracy theory and Christian Nationalist animus.

#Fascism #Media #Trump #Lies #FoxNews #Propaganda #StateMedia #MediaMatters #Analysis #Censorship #NaziConspiracyTheories #ChristianNationalism #WhiteSupremacy

The larger American establishment's ongoing surrender to Trump and his fascist regime is a story with many high-profile cowards, culprits, and collaborators. But given the frequently self-declared role of American media to speak truth to power, and protect our "democracy," I think it's entirely fair that corporate news outlets paving the way for Downmarket Mussolini to install a fascist dictatorship come in for extra vigorous criticism by honest observers who understand what they're doing. Take for example this recent piece for the Intercept by Natasha Leonard, examining how corporate media outlets reported the Department of Justice's outrageous plans to prosecute Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver on wholly fabricated assault charges, after she attempted to conduct legal oversight on a privately-run ICE facility in her district.

theintercept.com/2025/05/20/tr…

Trump Is Prosecuting a Congressional Democrat for Doing Her Job. The Media’s Response: No Big Deal.

“Democratic Rep. McIver charged with assault after skirmish at ICE center, New Jersey prosecutor says,” The Associated Press reported. “Rep. LaMonica McIver charged by DOJ over incident with ICE agents,” read the ABC News headline. “The Justice Department charged a New Jersey congresswoman with assaulting federal agents during a clash outside a Newark immigration detention center,” began the New York Times’s coverage.

All of these are technically accurate: Alina Habba, Trump’s sometime personal lawyer and the interim federal prosecutor for New Jersey, announced on X that the administration was charging the member of Congress with “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” after an incident when McIver and two other House members went to view ICE’s privately run Delaney Hall detention facility.

News organizations should, however, have long ago stopped affording the Trump administration such credulous coverage. Even the most bare-bones, facts-only reporting here fails the basic task of truth-telling if it doesn’t lead by pointing out that these charges are manufactured, malicious, politically motivated attacks."

I've written a bit about both the (now dropped) charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and the pending charges against Congresswoman McIver so I won't rehash all the details here again; needless to say I agree wholeheartedly with Leonard's assertion that the charges against McIver are trumped up fascist nonsense, a clear case of attempted political intimidation, and part of a seemingly racist pattern of targeting its political opponents with the Justice Department, by the Trump administration. Furthermore, given that the incident that motivated interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba to file assault charges that each carry a maximum sentence of eight years was captured entirely on video, I don't think it is at all reasonable to pretend the Trump regime might have a point, or that this is a "she said, they said" kind of issue. Yet as Leonard documents, that's exactly how subservient media reported not only the story of McIver's targeting, but also the attempted prosecution of Baraka as well.

Look folks, this isn't a question of partisan political coverage; I'm no friend of the Democratic Party, and based on the significant quantity of her writing I've read, I'd be willing to bet neither is Leonard. There is something fundamentally wrong, and actively dangerous, about a US corporate media complex that can watch a fascist, white nationalist, and openly nativist regime engage in a clear act of authoritarian political intimidation against its duly-elected political opposition, to protect a nightmare mass deportation scheme built on legal arguments you know are extremely dubious, and report it as a "clash" while accepting Alina Habba of all people's arguments at face value. This isn't bad journalism, this is paving the way for the fascist repression of Trump's political opponents in real time and whether its a result of cowardice, or open collaboration, is absolutely fucking irrelevant. The United States is speedrunning a descent into a fascist dictatorship run by a brainwormed septuagenarian racist and his openly white nationalist toady Stephen Miller, and these chucklefucks are out here pretending just maybe a Congresswoman should do a couple decades of hard time for bumping into an ICE murderpig while literally being prevented from doing her job; even though we have the entire interaction on fucking video.

If this is the kind of coverage corporate media outlets intend to provide during the second Trump administration, then Downmarket Mussolini doesn't need to suppress the media. After all, they're already happy to work for him and his fascist agenda right now, and Der Leader is rather busy tearing what passes for American democracy apart as we speak.

#Trump #Fascism #Propaganda #Media #Collaborators #CorporateMedia #LaMonicaMcIver #RasBaraka #AlinaHabba #DoJ #Dictatorship #ICE #DHS #MassDeportations #DelaneyHall

If we all survive our descent into a cracker nazi dictatorship, someone needs to make sure Disney's Bob Iger holds a special place among the coward collaborators whose names live in infamy long after Downmarket Mussolini and his fascist regime are gone. We're talking about a man who has already written a $15M check to Trump's presidential library to appease Der Leader and settle a baseless lawsuit built around an ABC anchor saying Trump was found liable for "rape" in the E Jean Carroll case; Trump was "merely" convicted of sexual assault, which should give you an idea of what a sniveling coward collaborator Iger is. And what has Bob actually earned for all that groveling? Absolutely nothing. In March the FCC announced investigations in Disney and ABC news for diversity crimes, and now Trump is threatening to sue ABC again for accurately describing his corrupt bribery deal to accept a $400M airplane from Qatar.

Please keep in mind that we're talking about Disney; if there exists a US media corporation with the power to take on the Justice Department and a fascist president, it's probably these guys. Perhaps I'm being too hard on Bob however; how was Iger to know that settling with Trump wouldn't work and the President would use that settlement to argue he was legally within his rights to keep targeting media outlets critical of him at every opportunity? We all make mistakes, but the CEO of Disney wouldn't be foolish enough to make that same mistake twice, would he?

Spoiler: yes, Bob Iger is that pathetic, at least if reports from multiple sources connected to ABC's popular daytime talk show The View are any indication. Last week, Iger and the president of ABC News met with the five celebrity hosts of the show to encourage the women to "tone down" their political coverage, with the clear implication that the boss meant the show's vociferous (and well earned) criticism of the Klepto Kaiser.

archive.ph/ilZPZ

Disney CEO Told Hosts of ‘The View’ to Tone Down Trump-Bashing

"Disney and ABC News have asked the hosts of The View to tone down their political rhetoric, multiple sources told the Daily Beast.
Since President Donald Trump’s election in 2024, the panel of co-hosts on The View—Whoopi Goldberg, Joy Behar, Sara Haines, Ana Navarro, Sunny Hostin, and Alyssa Farah Griffin—have consistently criticized Trump administration officials and policies.
But its constant focus on Trump and politics seems to have roiled the network’s top bosses, including Disney CEO Bob Iger and ABC News President Almin Karamehmedovic."

Alright, so as the story notes, we don't have the smoking gun indicating that Trump actually demanded Iger lean on the hosts of the View to silence their criticism, but given the Klepto Kaiser has openly leaned on Iger to try and silence *other* critics on ABC, and Bob's own consistent pattern of obedience and surrender in the face of the regime's prior threats, I think we can safely surmise that these events are all connected. The suits framed their demands in the form of a request, and tried to pretend this was about expanding the show's audience, but the raw viewer data exposes that as a lie. Furthermore, it really doesn't matter whether or not Iger is doing Trump's bidding as a result of a direct order, or merely a fear of reprisal, this is still the CEO of one of the most powerful media companies on earth attempting to censor commentary to protect a would-be fascist dictator, either way.

Furthermore, I think it's easy to miss the gravity of the situation here if you presume this is a story about Trump's wounded pride and obsession with the world of daytime Television talk shows; I confess that I myself missed this news last week because I can't say I've ever been a fan of The View, a daytime politics-adjacent talk show that is more or less what the Joe Rogan Experience would be with more hosts and a target audience of moderately left of center women. Despite the fact that its not my cup of tea however, a quick poke through television ratings data demonstrates that The View and the ladies who host it are extremely popular; the show is one of the few politics or politics-adjacent shows on network television that can consistently outdraw fascist Fox News programming in its time slot. This means that as silly as it sounds, The View is objectively one of the most widely-watched sources of criticism against the Trump regime; and as such, it's not that hard to see why Donny has a burr up his ass about anti-Trump commentary on the show.

Look folks, maybe neither of us care about The View because milquetoast bougie liberal celebrities probably aren't going to defeat fascism. But it is precisely the moderate nature of the show that should alarm you. If the Trump regime is unprepared to tolerate popular criticism of its activities from bog standard liberals, how can anyone actually engaging in dissent believe they'll be safe?

Note: I blamed Bob Iger for 60 Minutes and that's incorrect; my bad.

While it's certainly not the most devastating way the Christian Nationalist Trumpenreich is making the world a demonstrably worse place, Downmarket Mussolini's fascist war against all things "DEI" is having splash effects on one of the world's largest and most famous Pride celebrations, in Toronto Canada. Mere weeks before the annual parade to celebrate LGBTQ joy and existence, US-based corporate sponsors Google and Home Depot dropped their support for Toronto Pride in one line emails; which now brings the number of major Pig Empire corporations withdrawing from the festival because they're sniveling worms terrified of Trump to five, after Nissan, Adidas and Clorox pulled out earlier this year.

theguardian.com/world/2025/may…

Google and Home Depot drop Pride Toronto sponsorship amid Trump’s DEI war

"The White House’s condemnation of diversity and inclusion efforts has resulted in corporations shirking away from festivals that they once loudly supported, said Sui Sui, a professor at Toronto Metropolitan University whose research focuses on DEI initiatives.

Sui said that the move also signals that commitments large sponsors made in the past were tenuous and motivated not because of genuine support, but because of the perceived profitability of aligning with such causes."

The article goes on to note that Google, Home Depot, and Nissan all have a myriad of excuses for their supplication before Trump's crusade to protect straight white Christian men from knowing other people exist, but those excuses aren't worth the (digital) paper they're printed on. These gutless mutherfuckers are scared Trump is gonna come after them for crimes against normative heterosexuality, even if their presumed diversity atrocities are committed across the Canadian border.

Of course, we could also talk about why corporate sponsored Pride events really aren't doing that much to further the cause of LGBTQ acceptance in an increasingly fascist world, or why corporate support for these types of events was always performative pinkwashing; these large corporate actors can withdraw their financial support from Pride festivals, but they can't withdraw a commitment to diversity and equality they never really shared. Still, in the final analysis, even performative support is an improvement over actively submitting to an Christian Nationalist agenda and the fascist President openly dedicated to running LGBTQ people of public life. Queer people don't need Home Depot and Google to sanction their celebrations, but you'd best believe we aren't going to forget which side the larger Pig Empire establishment chose when our right to exist became a political football, in an increasingly fascist "West."

#Fascism #VichyAmerica #Pride #Toronto #Trump #DEI #ChristianNationalism #AntiTransPogrom #Homophobia #PinkWashing #Google #HomeDeport #Corporations #Clorox #Nissan #Adidas

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound as they say. A recent Popular Information report exposes 19 corporations also pulling back from supporting American Pride events, and since I decided to wade us into this I might as well help you fill out your boycott list going forward.

popular.info/p/pride-and-preju…

19 companies pulling back their support for Pride

"For years, major corporations publicly celebrated the LGBTQ community. Corporations regularly highlighted the contributions of LGBTQ employees, facilitated LGBTQ resource groups, donated to pro-LGBTQ charities, and sponsored Pride Month parades each June. This was supposedly part of a principled commitment to inclusion, including the full spectrum of sexual orientations and gender identities.

But, in recent years, many Republicans, including President Trump, have decided that valuing diversity, including the LGBTQ community, constitutes discrimination against straight white men. Pride parades, fun events about accepting people for who they are, were rebranded by these Republicans as part of a nefarious scheme to indoctrinate children. Trump has issued several executive orders targeting the LGBTQ community and pressured corporations to end diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) activities.

The pressure campaign appears to be working. Numerous corporations that have previously presented themselves as champions of the LGBTQ community have pulled their support for Pride parades this month, a Popular Information investigation reveals."

So, I don't want to give the work Legum and the team have done here short shrift, and I'm sure these corporations all have a ton of reasons why they're not sniveling cowards submitting to Trump's fascist anti-DEI campaign, but I think we're all just here for the list of collaborators. So here it is:

Lowe's, Dyson, Nivea, Tiffany & Co., Capital One, UPS, Disney, DoorDash, Live Nation, Anheuser-Busch, Diageo, PepsiCo, Nissan, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Citi, Mastercard, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Deloitte.

I wish the CEOs and marketing managers of all these companies a very special "fuck you" and my sincerest hopes that they "rest in piss, you fucking coward collaborators."

Aight, I'm done. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.

#Fascism #DEI #Trump #Woke #Pride #Corporations #Collaborators #Pinkwashing

Feeling a little burnt, and I need to clear out some tabs; gonna do a couple posts about leopards eating collaborator faces.

As you know, I was devastated by the University of Michigan's decision to bend the knee to Trump's blatantly fascist "war on woke and DEI" agenda, and shut down its entire diversity initiative to appease fascists. It turns out I wasn't the only one who didn't love that decision, and the man who ultimately made it, former UM President Santa Ono, started feeling pressure from Regents who are up for reelection soon and know their constituents, the larger UM family, are not fucking happy about groveling before the Klepto Kaiser.

Ono however, always an ambitious careerist, had a plan; he would parlay his time at Michigan and his willingness to engage in transactional fascism with the Trump regime, into the same position at the far less "woke" University of Florida. Surely, a state whose governor says it's where "woke goes to die" would appreciate Santa's willingness to play the game right?

Yeah you knew where I was going with this already. Ono got the all clear from UF's board of trustees, but the DeSantis-controlled state board of governors who primarily act to make sure all of Florida's universities are run by nazis, gave him the raspberry and now Ono is out of a job; having traded whatever reputation he built at Michigan for absolutely nothing.

archive.ph/6Ac33

The Funniest Face-Plant by a College Official Trying to Appease Donald Trump Is Here

"It was for this conservative audience that Ono had spent weeks, if not longer, trying to establish himself as a good soldier in the culture war against higher education. And it was this same audience that, on Tuesday, denied Ono his next job. Ono had previously supported diversity initiatives at Michigan, a campus with a liberal reputation compared to other heavyweights in the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference. Though Ono had gone to pains to distance himself from his own record on that issue, Republican politicians from around the state pounced on it anyway. Donald Trump Jr. asked whether Florida’s bosses had “lost their minds.” Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds called for a new search.

And so when the vote came around, DeSantis’ board rejected Ono. UF “sets the benchmark for education nationwide,” one MAGA congressman claimed. “There’s too much smoke with Santa Ono. We need a leader, not a DEI acolyte. Leave the Ann Arbor thinking in Ann Arbor.”

Ono will no longer be a top educator at the biggest, most beloved schools we have. But if his former colleagues are paying attention, he has at least offered them one parting educational gift. Ono is proof that there is no length the leadership of the country’s crown-jewel universities can go to that will convince right-wing assailants to give them a soft landing. Ono played a stupid game and won a stupid prize."

Which of course brings us to the venerable Columbia University; the focal point of the fascist US right's war on anti-genocide protestors under the guise of combatting "antisemitism." The truth is Columbia has been collaborating with the US police state against its own students long before Trump reentered the White House, and they were still the first target of the Trump regime's war on higher education and what the Yarvinites in Trump's orbit call "The Cathedral." You would think this might have taught them a valuable lesson about the folly of appeasing the fascist right (including many in pocket Dem politicians who support the US-backed genocide of Palestinians in Gaza by Israel) but as I noted in a post in this thread already, it did not. Columbia rolled over like a dead frog and surrendered to all of the Trump regime's demands, including, outrageously, allowing fascist regime oversight over its academic programs involving MENA and South Asian issues. Of course this did nothing to stop Trump from cutting over $400M worth of funding to the university, but surely this second act of appeasement would at least get the Trump regime off their back, right?

Naw, shitbag Secretary of Education Linda McMahon is leaning on the Middle States Commission on Higher Education to pull Columbia's accreditation.

commondreams.org/news/columbia…

Despite Columbia's Acquiescence, Trump Admin Targets the School's Accreditation

"Columbia's efforts to work in good faith with the administration made clear to every college and university the simple fact that this administration isn't interested in addressing antisemitism or working towards good policy," he said. "They want to harm and control schools."

Newsflash, these nazis literally wrote down that they wanted to seize control of universities. Schools were warned that appeasement wouldn't work, and once you gave a bully like Trump an inch he would just keep coming back for more. But many of these enlightened centrists making bank from "administrating" universities that run like corporations knew better, didn't they?

No tears for collaborators

Continuing our safari tour of leopards eating faces, let's take a quick look at how collaborating with the fascist Trump regime and its white nationalist agenda has worked out for multinational corporations.

This 10 minute video by Mike Figueredo of The Humanist Report looks at a pretty broad swathe of the ways collaborating with fascism and the Trump regime is harming some of the largest corporations on Earth, including a little bit about the effect of tariffs on their bottom lines. Most of this discussion however is right in our wheelhouse; including segments about Target putting itself in a catch-22 by capitulating to fascist outrage and openly embracing Trump's war on "woke" despite depending on a variety of marginalized communities to generate profit, and McDonald's catching a double whammy after their shameless support for both Trump and the Israeli army is tanking their bottom line.

The overarching message here is both that boycott strategies work, and Trump returning to office does not mean a large percentage of American consumers want the companies they purchase things from to become fascist collaborating ideological outposts for Trumpism. Given that these corporations were warned that this was so while they were doing all this winger signaling and abandoning the people who actually buy their goods and services, I don't imagine anyone watching Mike's presentation is going to be all that broke up about learning these folks fucked around and found out.

The only thing I'd really add here that Figueredo only alludes to is the reality that none of the consequences these corporations are facing were difficult to predict, which means companies like Target, Walmart, McDonald's, Starbucks, and more choose to do this of their own volition. They were hoping to trade the customers who paid their fat bonuses every year, for a smaller, pro-Trump, pro-genocide, right wing customer base because an election gave them an excuse to do so. As such not only do I not care about their demise, I'm happy to actively hope for it. Collaborators get the wall mate; good luck with your new fundie nazi right wing podcaster customers who I'm sure will help you keep the lights on when Trump crashes the global economy again soon.

The Humanist Report: Corporations Who Pandered to Trump Cry HARD About Declining Profits From Boycotts

youtube.com/watch?v=v0vdTZRpr7…

"Multinational corporations apparently jumped the gun by trying to appease Donald Trump given how severe consumer backlash has been. To make matters worse, corporations like Target, Walmart, and Home Depot are warning investors about additional boycotts to come. However, consumer backlash isn’t the only thing they have to worry about because declining consumer confidence (due to Trump’s tariffs) and the United States’ deteriorating reputation on the global stage is also costing them greatly. In this video we’ll discuss the crises greedy corporations are facing."

#TheHumanistReport

I probably haven't spent as much time as I should have, talking about the Washington Post and billionaire maggot owner Jeff Bezos' low-key capitulation or perhaps more accurately long-awaited embrace of the fascist American right; at least in part because a lot of the people at WaPo are still doing something resembling journalism and fact-based reporting has a well-known bias against the Emperor of Lies and the larger Trump regime. Bezos himself however, has repeatedly signaled to the Kelpto Kaiser that he, his empire, and his newspaper are open for business with the regime; with the two most prominent examples being Amazon's $1M donation to Trump's inauguration, and Jeff's reorganization of the WaPo editorial department to promote pro-capitalist libertarian propaganda in the service of a billionaire oligarch; namely himself.

So how is this re-imagining of the country's "liberal" paper of record going? Well if this short and to the point post by the fedi's own @davidgerard is any indication, the answer is "not great, Bob!"

pivot-to-ai.com/2025/06/04/was…

Washington Post goes AI to clean up amateur right-wing op-eds

"The first part of the AI-fueled platform plan is called Ripple. The Post wants to fill out the opinion section with “nonprofessional writers.” How will they quality check these? They’ll run them past an AI!

Why does the Post want to do this? Because they can’t find enough good writers to create the owner’s desired libertarian propaganda.

The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos. In February this year, Bezos mandated that the Post’s opinion pages would support “personal liberties and free markets” and not print pieces that did not support these. Sounds nice, but those are specific jargon terms that rich libertarians use to mean “liberty for my money” and not any other sort of freedom or liberty for any other person."

Obviously, Dave's focus is the implementation of bunk "AI" programs to filter through trashfire winger substack author submissions, but our interest here is mostly the divide this exposes between the Bezos-loyal editorial board, and the actual news departments at the Washington Post. Please keep in mind that this is the same editorial board that just endorsed RFK Jr's transphobic, pro-conversation therapy "study" of trans care in America; the Post's upper management is desperate to realign the paper much further to the right to align with the billionaire boss's wishes, even if they're still failing in that endeavor for the most part. How desperate? Well I'm pretty sure begging substack libertarians to write editorial pieces in the paper of record for the most politically-connected city in America, under the guise of democratizing the opinions section, is a depth not even Bezos thought he'd ever have to sink to.

In the bigger picture the real lesson we might be learning here is that the pro-fascist, anti-humanist billionaire agenda being forced on Pig Empire society by the amoral oligarch maggots who own everything around us, including our governments, is simply not popular; and even force feeding it to us through every major organ of our discourse, isn't changing that reality anytime soon.

#WaPo #WashingtonPost #JeffBezos #AI #FreeMarketFundamentalism #Media #Libertarianism