The Skinny: Stop and Breathe
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.
Wandering Stars
After an entire month of dominating the news cycle, some combination of Easter weekend, Vice President Vance murdering (not really) the Pope, and another Pete Hegseth national security scandal bogged the Trump regime down slightly; giving me a chance to catch up on some recent stories I wanted to talk about. As a result, this edition of The Skinny covers a broad range of topics, with a slight focus on climate crisis, fascist ideological purges in the US government, and why HHS Secretary RFK Jr is starting to scare the hell out of me. As always you can follow the links below to check out these stories on my Fediverse blog, or simply read them in their entirety on page two by using the navigation buttons at the bottom of this article.
April 20th – 23rd, 2025
Don’t Believe “We” Don’t Care About Climate Crisis
“I’m all for a global project to speak the reality that humanity as a whole is worried about, and wants solutions to the climate crisis and our boiling world. By that same measure however, I don’t think any analysis that doesn’t incorporate the reality that our ruling classes and the institutions they own are absolutely planning on running the species right off the ecological cliff while claiming it’s our fault because we didn’t want change hard enough or something, can truly be considered complete. These people mean to kill you and your children for five pennies a share and they’re more or less openly admitting it now.”
Civil Rights Reform For Christian Nationalists
“This plan, which the fascists have articulated in the open multiple times, revolves around repurposing the language of social justice to argue that actually, the state should be punishing folks who infringe on the “liberty” of the *real* victims in our society; rich, straight, and white fundamentalist men. Conceptually the arguments for all this are absurd, but these ideas have been widely adopted (for cynical reasons) on the American right, and the promise to use the government to go after the enemies of an increasingly fundamentalist white American volk is absolutely one of the reasons seventy-five million or so fascists voted for the Trump regime last fall.”
Purging the Government of People With a Conscience
“The mechanism to purge their ideological opposition in the federal government was originally called Schedule F when Trump tried to enact it near the end of his first term, but the fascists haven’t abandoned the project here in his second term because it’s a vital step in enacting their reactionary, Christian Nationalist agenda. Now Trump is attempting to progress this ideological purge and restacking scheme forward under a new title, “Schedule Policy/Career,” to ensure nobody with a conscience inside the government sticks around long enough to object to their fascist activities.”
Governing By Fascist Conspiracy Theory
“Look, I don’t do hagiography here and I’m not going to pretend that ignoring Covid and just letting people die wasn’t eventually a bipartisan position in American politics. But for the Trump regime to replace one of the few supports for the public that the government was bothering to offer with some winger conspiracy nonsense about the lab leak theory and two minutes of hate about Fauci is both disgusting, and definitely a kind of fascist propaganda operation designed to generate an enforced unreality.”
Making a Killing Selling Respectability to Nazis
“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. How do I know? Because Downmarket Mussolini and his minions say the quiet parts out loud on the regular. These rich prick CEOs 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.”
Anti-Trans Politics Affecting Canadian Election
“This contrasts with the British and American trans experience, which has seen bipartisan support for anti-trans policies and the complete surrender of the mainstream “liberal” center on the issue of trans rights. This capitulation to fascist arguments about why trans people don’t deserve the same rights as cis people do has in turn, not only accelerated the anti-trans pogrom but perversely allowed fascist political movements to win entire elections on the back of drummed up moral panics about trans people. The Canadian example (so far) demonstrates that the only way forward that doesn’t end in both trans eliminationist politics and victory for fascist political forces at the ballot box, is to fight back against the anti-trans narratives driving these moral panics.”
Trump Would Burn the World for Capital
“It is shockingly disingenuous and absurd for the Trump regime to argue that regulations on air quality, fossil fuel production, environmental pollution control, and nuclear fucking waste are “contrary to the public interest.” Unfortunately that really doesn’t matter because once again it’s clear that the public interest was never the point of the president’s order. The crass level of corruption and self-serving exercise of power the Klepto Kaiser regularly partakes in makes it obvious that this is all just a way to reward his capitalist donors;without having to tolerate public pushback.”
Why Ultra-Wealthy Americans Love Trump
“The material realities of our present global situation don’t change when power shifts from neoliberal parties, to fascist ones; or vice versa. The planet is still on fire, capital accumulation still depends on the fossil fuels that are killing us, and billions of lives still hang in the balance. The reality that capitalism goes, or a planet that can comfortably support eight billion human beings does, has not changed under either neoliberalism or its kissing cousin fascism. The ultra-wealthy know that its only a matter of time before the billions of people they intend to sacrifice to keep the line going up even during a climate apocalypse, realize what’s going on and come for them.”
RFK Jr is Creating a Eugenicist Nightmare
“I can’t predict the future, but everything about Kennedy’s time in government so far tells me that dismissing him as a woo-reactionary crank is a mistake. We’re talking about a guy who claims to be trying to “solve” autism, while simultaneously lying about, demonizing, and dehumanizing autistic people on live TV. Kennedy knows his anti-vax rhetoric is bullshit, and he knows that he’s not going to “cure” his “epidemic.” If he didn’t know these things before he took the job, there were plenty of actual doctors at HHS already who told him so; to say nothing of the numerous advocates, rights agencies, and autistic people themselves who’ve pointedly told Kennedy how harmful and unwelcome his efforts to “help” have been.”
– Nina Illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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