the Rapture edition

Nine FACTS, One LIE
Issue #27

1. I once posted this in relation to Henry Kissinger, about whom I said many things that, to be fair, weren't very nice while nevertheless being true, but it feels particularly germane on this rainy yet beautiful San Francisco morning in which a world with an astonishingly high level of ambient fascism continues to argue over the merits of glossing over the lack of merits of Charlie Kirk.

2. I used to chide people for using the term "fascism" so blithely. It's not fascist when the doorman won't let you into the club, or the insurance company yanks your coverage. It's actually brute capitalism. But I have come full circle on this, because I say with zero rhetoric or polemic intent - we are now living under fully Fascist rule. It's not a placard or a slogan or a bumper sticker, it's 2025 American Reality.

3. From any side of the political spectrum you could argue whether or not that is technically true, but it's an argument you'd lose. Or at least one in which you'd unwittingly be contending that fascism, in the end, is good for us.

4. So what is fascism, now that we've just branded and seared it into the hide our increasingly bovine leader? (If you're wondering, by "bovine" I literally mean dimwitted, increasingly laden with toxic milk, a cud-chomper, easily distracted by any blade of adulating clover, and very likely suffering from Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.) Let's use a few totally non-partisan definitions, which were basically the foundation of The Greatest Generation and everything it fought for, and see if it checks any current boxes.

5. For fascist governance to be accurate named, it has to involve Ultranationalism. See: mass deportations, pay-for-play visas, the demonization of Ukraine, the support/encouragement of fellow worldwide ultranationalists, sweeping tariffs, the shunting aside of NATO, border walls, and rampant pet-eating.

6. It requires an All-Powerful Charismatic Leader who demands obedience, compliance, sycophancy, subordination, ductility, self-abasement, and constant praise. See: any given day, Mike Johnson, the sidelining of Congress into a wet bar napkin, packing the Supreme Court, and The Atrophied Mind Of Susan Collins.

7. It glorifies militarization and colonial/imperial expansion. See: Greenland, Canada, the Gulf of America, The Secretary Of War, the annexing of Gaza to turn it into a theme park, the Hegsething of the armed forces, unneeded/unattended tank parades, occupation of cities in clear defiance of Posse Comitatus laws, and the fact that ICE is 50k signing-bonusing its way into soon becoming larger than the Marine Corps.

8. A rise of totalitarian behavior, which is more or less asserting government control of any and all aspects of society thought to be inherently independent as part of the tenets of that society. See: Jimmy Kimmel, Harvard, Voice Of America, PBS, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, National Parks, the Nexstar-Tegna merger, endless lawsuits, reporting restrictions, school curriculum mandates, Good Elon & Bad Elon, and the bootlicking acquiescence of Big Tech leaders, such as Washington Post owner Mr. Jeff Bezos, Facebook Sunglasses Dork Mark Zuckerberg, mouse-flogger and Disney apologist Bob Iger, and Ayn Rand fetishist Peter Thiel.

9. A Cult Of Personality fueled Propaganda Machine/Blatant Firehose spewing 24/7 resentment, division, and misinformation sharing a distressingly incenstual relationship with the Personality itself and not bothering to masquerade as journalism any longer, if it ever did. Plus, Rupert Murdoch: immigrant.

10. An all-access stratospheric moneyed class, including Dear Leader/Less-Dear Family themselves directing state, foreign, and economic policy toward self-enrichment. See Trump Coin, Trump NFTs, Trump playing cards, Qatari Trump Plane, Trump Golf Courses, Trump Secret Service invoicing at Trump Hotels, Trump Son Japanese/Indonesian business deals, Trump Daughter Chinese business deals, Trump Son-In-Law Saudi Billions, etc.

11. Ignoring, denying, or contravening court orders without consequence.

12. Mass incarceration, calls for increased punishment, the establishment of Big Business Penal Systems, holding centers, Alligator Alcatraz, El Salvador, Uganda, flouting Due Process, the FEAR SYSTEM of impenetrable lockdown bureaucracy.

13. Revenge and state power retribution personally directed toward political rivals. There's a thousand words, but two will suffice: Jim Comey.

14. The one central and grossly essential component without which fascism cannot exist: scapegoating of minorities/foreigners and casting them as directly responsibly for virtually all social ills, but in particular convincing the very dumbest/most easily swayed/least educated/least informed/most desperate/most socially closed/most religiously infatuated/most insular/most conspiratorial/most deeply afraid segment of society enticed by the candy that Mexican laborers are responsible for their impotence. See: MAGA.

15. Despite my tendency toward grim, adjective-laden cynicism under the guise of posts full of so many sentences even my family no longer reads them, you can be certain that we ARE under a fascist kleptocracy at the moment. You can be sure of it regardless of your personal politics simply by considering that the Donald J. Trump bogeyman of the moment is not only War Ravaged Portland (have you ever been to tiny, serene, hippie, wonderfully gourmand, music-crazy Portland? If not, you have no idea how demented the notion that it requires a few weeks of National Guardsmen occupation/trash pick-up to cure its arty-heroin ills), and (sigh) once again ANTIFA, an organization that doesn't exist, has no membership or leaders, raises no funds, spams you with no texts, and is basically a meaningless phrase standing into for a widespread disgruntled counter-cultural feeling that in some way threatens the stability of Donald J. Trump's incessant self-enrichment. Because he couldn't care less otherwise if black-hoodie dudes throw rocks through North Face windows during random protests. What bothers him is the name itself: ANTI FASCIST. Which, to be fair to Donald J. Trump, is sort of a ringing call to duty that does not particularly jibe with rape (metaphorically and literally) or embezzlement.

16. I am siempre antifascista, and have been in a general way since cognizant of the term, but more specifically since I read George Orwell's "Homage To Catalonia" while smoking pot on a sheetless mattress on the floor of a dorm, way back in Olden Times when our literary and cultural heroes did things like volunteer to go to Spain and risk their lives fighting pig-sodomizing Fascists.
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17. Can anyone with a straight face tell me these conditions aren't already being met, and have been more or less across the board for quite a while now? Friends, why don't we all volunteer to stay exactly where we are, right here and now, to gang together intellectually to fight the fascists bobbing like apples among us?