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fascism
'Profiles in Cowardice' Award Seeks to Identify Leaders Enabling Rise of Fascist Trump
The nominees "took an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,'" said retired Maj. Gen. Dennis Laich. "Through their actions, or inaction, they are violating that oath."
Jul 09, 2025
A network of former intelligence, military, and national security officials on Tuesday launched the Profiles in Cowardice Award and urged the public to vote for nominees who are "silent in the face of the country's descent into fascism," a march led by U.S. President Donald Trump.
"We are in a constitutional crisis," says the Eisenhower Media Network's (EMN) website for the award. "Trump is amassing power in the executive branch, ignoring Congress and the courts. Meanwhile, leaders who have sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution are sitting on their hands."
The new honor is the inverse of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award, created by the late president's family "to recognize and celebrate the quality of political courage that he admired most." This year's recipient is Trump's former vice president, Mike Pence, "for putting his life and career on the line to ensure the constitutional transfer of presidential power on January 6, 2021," when Trump incited an insurrection and his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.
"We, the American people, are here to remind them of who they serve, and that it's time to do their constitutional duty by standing up to this administration and its authoritarian bent."
Nominees for the inaugural Profiles in Cowardice Award are former President George W. Bush, former Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), retired Gens. David Petraeus and Mark Milley, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Republican members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"The 'Profiles in Cowardice' Award was created to call out those weak souls who are failing to engage in efforts to keep our country from sleepwalking into fascism," said EMN's director, retired Maj. Gen. (ret.) Dennis Laich, in a statement.
"These leaders, both past and present, took an oath to 'support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,'" he noted. "Through their actions, or inaction, they are violating that oath. We, the American people, are here to remind them of who they serve, and that it's time to do their constitutional duty by standing up to this administration and its authoritarian bent."
The public can vote at ProfilesInCowardice.org until August 1, after which the award will be presented to the winner "at the most inconvenient time possible," according to the website.
The site lays out why people were nominated as "cowards." For example, "Bush has a long and storied history of cowardice" and "is solidifying his legacy" by retreating rather than serving as a leader in the Republican Party and standing up to Trump.
In Congress, "Mace is a one-woman culture war content machine—exactly how the military-industrial complex and mainstream media like it," the site continues. Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, "has chosen to push through Trump's agenda of unfettered militarism and confirm unqualified MAGA loyalists like Pete Hegseth," the defense secretary. Republicans on that committee also "rubber-stamped Pete Hegseth to cater to Trump and his blindly loyal MAGA cronies."
Among former military leaders, the site says, "Milley attempted to make a principled stand after the January 6th insurrection—but cowardice won out in the end," and Petraeus said at a conference that "the world was in for 'exciting times' under Trump."
"The Joint Chiefs of Staff are tasked with defending the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic," the site notes. "But as reckless U.S. military actions push the world closer to nuclear catastrophe, they've chosen silence over service. No resignations. No public warnings."
As for Blinken, who served under former President Joe Biden, "he ignored a flood of real-time reports detailing Israeli human rights violations—and now we know his public claims of 'working overtime' on cease-fires were outright lies," the site adds. "With American diplomacy in free fall, Blinken chose complicity and cover stories over truth and action."
Christian Sorenson, EMN's associate director, said that "it takes courage to do the right thing... It takes even more courage to do the right thing when the system itself fosters militarism and war profiteering."
"Targeting 'leaders' in the nation's capital, Profiles in Cowardice highlights the craven and the pushovers, as well as those who eagerly abet authoritarianism and nonstop war for personal and professional gain," Sorenson added. "Virtue and public service will arrive in D.C. one way or another. Profiles in Cowardice is part of that broader effort."
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SCOTUS v. Democracy: 7 Supreme Court Decisions Brought Fascism to America
Trump v. CASA, Inc. was the coup de grace, capping six earlier and toxic SCOTUS decisions which, scattered over two centuries, collectively enabled this moment.
Jul 07, 2025
The Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision on June 27, 2025 created in President Donald Trump an American fascist dictator.
The decision in the case Trump v. CASA, Inc. did not seem momentous. It declared only that Federal District judges could no longer issue “universal” injunctions to foreclose nationwide harm; they could now grant relief only to a plaintiff in a specific lawsuit. But the decision was far from trivial: Trump v. CASA, Inc. was the coup de grace, capping six earlier and toxic SCOTUS decisions which, scattered over two centuries, collectively enabled fascism.
In deciding Trump v. CASA Inc., the six conservative justices of the Roberts Court agreed with the Republican Party’s inane claim: The injunctions of Federal District judges across the country were impeding President Trump’s ability to govern.
A president who can break laws at will is a dictator. The political system creating and accommodating this condition is fascism. Donald Trump is a dictator heading a fascist regime.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller: “Our objective, one way or another, is to make clear that the district courts of this country do not have the authority to direct the functions of the executive branch.”
Attorney-General Pam Bondi: “Active liberal… judges have used these injunctions to block virtually all of President Trump’s policies.”
The argument is laughingly specious, plausible but dead wrong in describing what is actually transpiring. It is no more than misleading spin, resting on two audacious assumptions: (1) The “functions of the executive branch” never violate the law, and “President Trump’s policies” certainly have not. (2) The “active liberal judges” who think otherwise are knee-jerk partisans with not a shred of professional integrity.
Injunctions in lawsuits are issued to block the defendant’s illegal action from continuing to harm the plaintiff, when the judge determines the lawsuit is warranted and the harm is serious. Federal District judges deal with issues nationwide in scope—their purview is every bit as wide as the Supreme Court’s—and if they believe the harm from the defendant’s action poses a threat to the nation at large, the injunction is applied “universally” across the country. We have followed this protocol since it was established by the Judiciary Act of 1789.
Federal District judges do not engage in blocking actions they know to be legal. The injunction in the case at hand and some 40 others against Trump were issued by judges who thought his actions were not, and were harmful nationwide.
Did they make judgment calls? Yes, Federal District judges don’t do anything else. Do they ever make bad ones? Certainly, but they err on the side of caution. If they’ve misjudged, and the enjoined action turns out to be legal, its interruption does no serious social harm. If they’ve judged correctly, and the action is in fact illegal, its interruption prevents serious social harm.
Here, then, is what Mr. Miller, Ms. Bondi, et al., are truly seeking: No Federal District judge should be empowered to protect the nation’s well-being from President Trump’s illegal actions.
And that’s what the Supreme Court’s decision has now codified.
Trump v. CASA is truly cataclysmic. After 236 years of upholding the rule of law, the Supreme Court has now offered Trump an off ramp. He can violate any law he pleases and not be enjoined from jeopardizing the American people.
A president who can break laws at will is a dictator. The political system creating and accommodating this condition is fascism. Donald Trump is a dictator heading a fascist regime.
Fascism is defined in scholarly literature as far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist governance, characterized by a dictatorial leader, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, frequently a fusion with corporate power, and often a cult of personality.
Here we are.
The Supreme Court’s first toxic decision occurred in 1803, in the case of Marbury v. Madison. With no constitutional authority to do so, Chief Justice John Marshall’s Court overturned a law passed by an elected Congress and signed by an elected president. How democratic was that? SCOTUS has exercised the power of judicial review ever since, throwing out both federal and state laws.
Corporate oligarchy was the intermediate step between government by the people and fascism.
The next devastating decision was Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 83 years later. In this case the court upgraded the status of U.S. corporations from artificial persons created by state charters, to that of legal persons, with constitutionally protected rights of free speech, peaceful assembly, petition for redress of grievances, and freedom from unlawful search and seizure. Corporate personhood is prima facie preposterous—in fact its granting was technically illegal—but today it is “settled law.”
The misfortunes of judicial review and corporate personhood joined forces in two more SCOTUS decisions, in 1976 and 1978. Buckley v. Valeo found unconstitutional the Corrupt Practices Act of 1910, and declared spending money in political campaigns is an exercise of free speech. Two years later, in First National Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional a state law prohibiting corporations from spending money in political campaigns. The court concluded, citing Buckley, spending money in political campaigns is free speech and corporations have that right, protected by the Constitution.
But money doesn’t utter sounds or leave marks, and corporations don’t walk, eat, breathe, make love, or succumb to disease. Money is speech and corporations are people? How can that be? These two absurd concepts set the nation on the path to fascism.
Both Buckley and Bellotti, however, retained some minor restrictions on corporate spending: “Some conditions apply.” But spend the corporations could, and savagely they did. Over the rest of the 20th century, American corporations exercised their rights of free speech to dominate campaign finance, and their rights of petition to dominate congressional and executive branch lobbying. When the constant stream of corporate money became more influential in Washington than citizens’ episodic votes, democracy was displaced. Corporations succeeded in tilting the crafting of public policy to favor corporate interests over the American people’s well-being. (The nation’s physical infrastructure decayed, for example, while the defense corporations prospered.) Corporate oligarchy was the intermediate step between government by the people and fascism.
The minor restrictions on corporate spending were lifted by the next toxic decision, Citizens United v. FEC in 2010. The court declared corporate political spending could not be constitutionally constrained. “Some conditions [no longer] apply.”
The grip of corporate oligarchy tightened, expressed vividly in the first Trump administration’s slashing of corporate taxes. But at the end of those four years the transition to fascism appeared in dramatic fashion, when Trump refused to leave office, and his cult of personality stormed the Capitol.
Trump was subsequently indicted in two federal cases involving his presidency, for a total of 48 felonies. He denied everything and fought back, claiming his prosecution would handicap future presidents’ freedom of choice, especially in national security issues, if they feared prosecution when out of office. He took his case to SCOTUS.
The Roberts Court showed its propensity for accepting inane arguments. In Trump v. United States, July 1, 2024, the court declared immunity from prosecution for former presidents, if their violations of law were incidental to “official acts.”
No one is above the law, the Roberts Court proclaimed, except presidents.
Then a year later Trump v. CASA Inc. was the straw that broke democracy’s back.
SCOTUS v. DEMOCRACY brought us fascism and fashioned a dictator. The Supreme Court’s conservative majority continues as Trump’s compliant servant. Pam Bondi is his defense attorney. The sycophantic Republican Congress passed a law massively enriching the corporate and the wealthy at the direct expense of everyone else. No democracy on Earth would do that, ever.
And no country is a democracy if commanded by a single unaccountable man.
Trump can violate, has violated, is violating, will violate any law he chooses and face no universal injunctive interdiction. If he is sued for violating federal statutes and Pam Bondi fails with demonstrated vigor to dismiss the charges, his prosecution is postponed by Department of Justice policy until he is out of office. And once out of office Trump is immune.
But that may not happen. he may not leave office. If Trump can ignore the 14th Amendment in voiding birthright citizenship, he can ignore the 22nd and run for a third term. Or he might declare martial law and suspend elections altogether.
What will stop him? He’s 79. Maybe death. Anything else?
Angry, well informed, organized, and committed people are already protesting in the streets. That could stop him, but only if the movement grows larger.
Toppling Trump is by no means out of reach. Scholars Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan tell why in their book, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. Based on their rigorous research into historic conflicts, they offer a “rule of thumb.” An autocratic regime is in mortal peril when 3.5% of the people register civil resistance.
Doing the math we need a bit more than 12 million Americans to do this, and we may be about halfway home. An estimated 4-7 million individuals have joined in thousands of protests multiple times since Trump was inaugurated.
So, people, we have to get that many more into the streets. Full stop.
This article is drawn from a book the author is completing, The Triumph of Corporate Oligarchy: How It Defeated Democracy, Savaged a Thriving Nation, Normalized Fraudulent War, and Brought Forth Donald Trump.
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'Authoritarian Theater' Meets 'Pure F*cking Idiocracy' as Trump Promises White House UFC Match
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP," said one critic. "But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn. America F-Yeah!"
Jul 05, 2025
Critics of President Donald Trump's announcement of a planned Ultimate Fighting Championship event on White House grounds to celebrate the United States Semiquincentennial next year took to social media Friday to call the proposal something "straight out of 'Idiocracy'"—the comedy cult classic about a dumbed-down 26th-century America—and condemn what one detractor called "authoritarian theater."
"Every one of our national park battlefields and historic sites are going to have special events in honor of America 250," Trump said at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Thursday. "We're going to have a UFC fight—think of this—on the grounds of the White House."
Yearning for a time when every new day isn't exponentially dumber than the day before.
[image or embed]
— Dave Vetter (@davidrvetter.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:57 AM
While Octagon aficionados cheered the prospect of a 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue fight card, many observers couldn't help but notice parallels with the plot of Mike Judge's 2006 film "Idiocracy," a satirical skewering of issues including the erosion of White House decorum in a future when IQs have plummeted and a sports drink corporation owns the country, whose voters elect Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho, "five-time ultimate smackdown champion and porn superstar," as president.
"If anyone defends Trump saying there will be a UFC fight on the White House lawn never listen to them again," former Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois wrote on the social media site X Friday, adding that Trump's announcement was like the "plot to 'Idiocracy' with an equally stupid-ass president."
Another X user fumed: "This is what happens when a failed empire hits rock bottom and throws a party about it. UFC fight on the White House lawn to celebrate 250 years of what used to be a country with brains. This ain't strength, this is pure fucking Idiocracy. Straight out of Rome before it burned, give the mob a fight and some burgers while the world collapses around them.
Yet another social media critic joked that "'Idiocracy' was actually a documentary from the future, sent back in time as a warning to us all."
Some critics pointed to the decadeslong business ties between Trump and UFC President and CEO Dana White, who has donated at least $1 million to Trump's campaign coffers.
Others noted the "bread and circuses" vibes of Trump's proposed event, which some called a cynical ploy meant to distract from the devastating impact of policies like Friday's signing of a multi-trillion-dollar tax cut that will overwhelmingly benefit the rich and corporations, while ballooning the deficit and leaving millions of Americans without desperately needed health insurance coverage and food assistance.
"Americans, you won't have healthcare, Medicaid, public schools, nursing homes, rural hospitals, or SNAP. But, you'll get UFC fights on the White House lawn," New York Times opinion contributor Wajahat Ali wrote on Bluesky. "America, F-YEAH!"
Writing for The Guardian Saturday, Karim Zidan asserted: "Donald Trump's UFC stunt is more than a circus. It's authoritarian theater."
"It carries shades of fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini, particularly its obsession with masculinity, spectacle, and nationalism—but with a modern, American twist," he wrote. "Fascist Italy used rallies, parades, and sports events to project strength and unity."
"Similarly, Trump has relied on the UFC to project his tough-guy image, and to celebrate his brand of nationalistic masculinity," Zidan continued. "From name-dropping champions who endorse him to suggesting a tournament that would pit UFC fighters against illegal migrants, Trump has repeatedly found ways to make UFC-style machismo a part of his political brand."
"There was once a time when the U.S. could point to the authoritarian pageantry of regimes like Mussolini's Italy and claim at least some moral distance. That line is no longer visible," he added. "What was once soft power borrowed from strongmen is now being proudly performed on America's own front lawn."
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