The Skinny: Staggering On Fumes
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.
And Sometimes, You Lose
The end of June hit the burgeoning Trumpenreich like a brick crashing through a window, and the first part of July wasn’t much better. The Supreme Court is letting the Swine Emperor violate the US Constitution, we’re selling concentration camp merchandise on the internet, and our ongoing ethnic cleansing project is about to kick into high gear as the Gestapo gets more federal funding than every other federal law enforcement agency, combined. Tragedy also struck in my little corner of the world as our beloved four year old housecat, Trotsky, passed away quite suddenly on July 2nd; for once, the Skinny simply couldn’t be there. We tried our best however, because the hits don’t stop coming in the Amerika the Trump regime has now created. 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.
June 21st – July 10th, 2025
Climate Crisis, Extractivism, and the Pig Empire
“If we stop burning fossil fuels, the wealth and thus power tied in to all that (already booked) oil simply vanishes overnight. Fortunes would be lost, power centers fueled by obscene wealth would implode, and the people who own and control our society now, would lose their grip on the ability to dictate the future of humanity from their glass citadels in Western Europe and North America. And so it is that ceasing to dig up, burn, and base our entire economy on fossil fuel production and consumption that is actively going to murder billions of people has not been, and will never be, a serious consideration for the ruling elite in our society.”
The Panopticon Sees Us All
“You have to understand the sheer scope of what the Trump regime is doing here, and what AI-enabled oppression is going to look like. We’re talking about the ability to integrate literally every aspect of your data and living footprint into one all seeing master computer that makes the punchcards they used to conduct the Holocaust in Germany look quaint. That means DNA, healthcare data, traffic cameras, tax information, real time tracking technology, full identity theft folders from private data brokers, SSA and tax data, and so on; this is some actual Minority Report shit now.”
Corporate Collaborators Name Their Price
“I think the tale of Verizon surrendering to Trump’s fascist ‘anti-woke” agenda without being threatened by the regime, exemplifies why I don’t think we can trust corporations to oppose fascism, even if US courts ultimately hold that Trump has no power to punish private sector actors for their apparent ideological positions. Whereas the majority of the Vichy Establishment collaboration we’ve talked about is a question of cowardice and complicity in the face of threats by a fascist regime, the Verizon betrayal story is a much older song and dance about the power of raw, unbridled greed.”
LAPD is Trump’s 5th Column in LA
“This isn’t about elections, this is about a pre-existing reactionary police state that already regards marginalized people and protesters as the enemy. Folks who are actively opposing the fascist regime have to understand that when we take to the streets, it’s not going to be “red versus blue” at a law enforcement level and we cannot rely on support from opposition political leaders who built and immunized the police state for precisely the same purpose Trump is using it for now; crushing opposition and suppressing constitutionally-protected protest against the machine.”
Theocratic Characteristics
“In theory, all the SCOTUS judges have ruled here is that schools have to provide advance warning to parents that materials acknowledging the existence of LGBTQ+ people are going to be taught, and allow them to opt their child out of being exposed to objectionable ideas like “queer people are human beings just like you.” In practice however, this is just going to be a straight ban on LGBTQ+ material being taught in public schools because the solution of separating out into two classes is expensive and unworkable for educators who are legally obliged to provide supervision and educational programming for the religious opt-out students simultaneously.”
Dark Patterns In Global Gulags
“The history is the history. The Nazis argued that by their very nature, Jews were a national security risk; just as our government argues that migrants themselves represent a literal fucking invasion of the United States by rarely-identified nefarious actors. The Holocaust didn’t start with mass murders; this process of systemically eliminating a whole culture in Europe started with stripping the rights and citizenship of Jewish people. It started with Gestapo raids, and “concentrating” racialized “prisoners” into camps. It’s not an accident that Auschwitz wasn’t built in Germany, but in occupied Poland, far away from the power of German law.”
Gestapo House Raids in Occupied Territory
“The real question remains however; why is Customs and Border Protection plus other immigration agents tooling around a 97% Latino city armed like they’re walking into the Tet Offensive, deploying explosives and drones to force their way into a family’s home like they’re tossing a cartel hideout over a traffic accident? Given that Sierra-Hernandez surrendered later that afternoon and is already out on bail, the police couldn’t have handled that? I’m not a mind reader but it sure feels to me like the Gestapo wanted to scare some brown people and get revenge on a guy who rear-ended their car.”
Alligators, Concentration Camps, and Theatrical Fascism
“The fascist Florida government purposely built a concentration camp in the middle of a hurricane alley swamp, to facilitate the fascist Trump regime’s ethnic cleansing project. And now, we’re treating people who may be guilty of nothing more than a civil violation like War on Terror prisoners at Gitmo. We’ve had entire hearings about the effects of restricting access to food, shower facilities, and medicine because this is what our government did to suspected terrorists during the one of the darkest moments of modern American history. We know leaving the lights on twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week to deny prisons adequate rest and a sense of passing time is a type of torture because we purposely did that “to root out Al-Qaeda.”
– Nina Illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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