The Skinny: Cracker Barrel – March 2025 Blogs

Author’s note: in addition to my work here on NIDC, I also blog about fascism and current affairs on the Fediverse; click here to check it out. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today.

 

Springtime for the Trumpenreich

Welcome back to The Skinny, folks. The first week of March was a busy time on my Fediverse blog as we covered the suppression of anti-genocide speech, Google’s fascist bootlicking, why Gavin Newsome, Marco Rubio, and Elon Musk should all get in the sea, and the installation of a digital fascist regime as the Trump administration promised to use AI to go after student protesters who oppose the genocide in Gaza. This is a back-dated post featuring my blog writing from March 1st to 7th, 2025; if that’s confusing, you can find more information about what’s going on, here. I’ve standardized the format of these The Skinny posts, so you can either follow the links below to read on my blog, or you can just find them on page two of this post with the buttons at the bottom of the article.

 

March 1st to March 7th, 2025

 

The Bipartisan Ideological Policing of Anti-Genocide Speech

“On some (disgusting) level, you have to admire the brass balls on our pro-genocide U.S. establishment to keep pushing the idea that acknowledging Israel’s crimes against humanity in Gaza and longstanding violence against Palestinians is “antisemitism” without the faintest hint of irony or anything resembling a reasonable argument. “It’s antisemitism because we say so and words mean whatever power says they do” is an awfully familiar argument in fascist societies and under totalitarian states, but that doesn’t make it true and pretending that it does to justify punishing and hindering folks who’re opposing a genocide has a funny way of exposing that the emperor(s) have no clothes over time.”

 

Google Tells the Trump Regime It’s Onside 

“Most outlets are hell bent on covering Google’s desire to collaborate with a fascist U.S. government as a pathetic private sector attempt to curry favor with Trump, or story about Downmarket Mussolini’s laughable obsession with names on maps. The sinister reality however is that it is in precisely how Google is choosing to curry favor with Trump, that how far they’re willing to go reveals itself. Eliminating Black History Month from the calendar is objectively supporting a white supremacist regime objective, just as eliminating Pride Month from the calendar supports a heteronormative, anti-LGBTQ agenda. Changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico on its maps, even if it’s just for American users, is an open signal of support for the Trump administration’s hyper-nationalist, and increasingly expansionist agenda. This isn’t currying favor with fascists; Google is signaling to the fascist administration, that they’re ready to help them literally do fascism, presumably for profit.”

 

Trump Takes Possession of the Gaza Genocide

“As the article notes, the four billion dollars that little maggot Rubio just approved is only part of a larger twelve billion dollars the Trump administration is sending Israel, and the White House has publicly backed Israel’s renewed efforts to starve women and children to death, citing some presumably made up shit about “Hamas” – despite the fact that these are crimes against humanity and thus cannot be justified or legally authorized no matter what excuse Downmarket Mussolini wants to offer for doing so. The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess.”

 

Boomeranging, Musk, and Fascist Unreality

“Setting aside the fact that the author and I clearly have wildly divergent opinions about to what degree the American system under free market fundamentalism actually represents a democracy, this is a fairly accurate assessment of the rhetorical style deployed by Dowmarket Mussolini, his mandarins, and the “America First” fascist movement in modern politics. I would have liked to see Schram point out that this style of discourse is always employed by fascist movements throughout history, without variation, and some comparison to the DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactics employed by abusers, because I think both of those things are quite instructional in the context of Americans being woefully unprepared to recognize and combat fascist politics in a country where fascist ideology has been normalized for decades and decades.”

 

Riding Dead Trans People to the 2028 Dem Nomination

“Given that, hosting Charlie Kirk on your podcast in the first place is a profoundly craven and dangerous act of fascist collaboration. Enough so that even if Newsom and Kirk were chatting about the weather, he should still be forced to resign immediately from both the party and the governorship. Of course, they weren’t just talking about the weather; Governor Newsom, who by the way has one of the safest seats in all of US government and thus has no electoral need to pander to again, fascists who want to criminalize and ultimately end the existence of trans people, invited Charlie on his podcast to spew transphobic propaganda in service of an active fascist pogrom targeting trans people and in particular young trans women; and then agreed with him. There is no wiggle room or nuance to be had here, Newsom just helped the fascists make trans people less safe in America and his actions absolutely will have a body count associated with them down the line.”

 

Rubio, Digital Fascism, and Anti-Genocide Protest

“The second thing you need to understand is that this same fascist regime, and a significant portion of the American “centrist” establishment, have already defined opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza as being “pro-Hamas” and our government has officially labelled Hamas as a terrorist group; which unlocks a plethora of nightmare fascist enforcement and punishment options our governments installed in response to the attacks on 9/11. Please keep in mind that whether you agree or disagree with the official designation of Hamas as a terrorist group is irrelevant; that’s the law as presently constructed and you absolutely don’t have to be pro-Hamas for these chucklefucks to say you are because you oppose facilitating a genocide and bombing fucking hospitals.”

 

 

– Nina Illingworth

 

Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.

Subscribe to NIDC to for email updates whenever a new post is published.

Support my work on Ko-Fi by clicking here.