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police state
Republicans Are Trying to Make Fascism Edgy and Hip
By declaring all opposition to themselves anti-fascism, MAGA isn’t leaving much mystery about their leanings.
Oct 23, 2025
For the last few weeks, Republican Party leadership has been carrying out a campaign to, essentially, classify the word “fascist” as hate speech against right-wingers. But while some Republicans shy away from the term, plenty of others, particularly among their base and their influencers, find it edgy and hip. Some have even begun to wear it as a badge of honor.
Most notably, last week, members of the Republican Youth—er, Young Republicans—were caught in a group chat declaring their love of Adolf Hitler and expressing fondness for his policy of mass extermination in gas chambers.
The incident caused some drama and led to some repercussions, but not as much as you might hope. Vice President JD Vance dismissed the story, saying, “Kids do stupid things, especially young boys… They tell edgy, offensive jokes. And I really don’t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a… very offensive, stupid joke is cause to ruin their lives.” By and large, that seems to be the tack most Republicans are taking, certainly from the top down.
Vance’s attempt to downplay the chats as just kids being edgy may work for some, but the truth is that many members of the chat were grown men well into their 30s, nearly Vance’s age, who occupied positions of political influence. Maybe they were joking, but it’s not clear where the irony or the punchlines were—and it’s a poor choice of comedic material if the party wants to shake the fascist label.
“Fascist” as Hate Speech
Ever since President Donald Trump’s takeover of the GOP, Republicans have struggled with this fascist comparison. Actually, the left has used the term to describe far-right policies since long before Trump, but Trump’s Mussolini-like mannerisms, dictatorial ambitions, and cult of personality have made the term feel like a natural fit and brought it into more common use, especially in his second term.
After the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September, Republicans like Trump and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) blamed the casual use of the word for inspiring Kirk’s murder and other acts of violence. Johnson said: “Calling people Nazis and fascists is not helpful… There are some deranged people in society, and when they see leaders using that kind of language… it spurs them on to action. We have to recognize that reality and address it appropriately.”
Simple compassion might, in fact, be regarded as an unlawful, anti-fascist, terrorist thoughtcrime.
It was also around this time that they began to escalate their campaign against “antifa,” characterizing it as a political organization and threatening to go after its organizers and funders. In truth, though, there is no formal group called antifa. Antifa is short for anti-fascism, and it exists only as an opposition to fascism. So Trump’s position of anti-anti-fascism, if you reduce the double negative, is simply fascism.
Maybe the most dramatic step so far in this anti-antifa campaign was Trump’s issuance of NSPM-7, a presidential memo that accuses people of using the word “fascist” as an excuse to “justify and encourage acts of violent revolution,” and further identifies “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality” as indicia of potential terroristic inclinations and activities.
One can only guess how the administration is defining these terms, but if their actions to date are anything to go by, simple compassion might, in fact, be regarded as an unlawful, anti-fascist, terrorist thoughtcrime, and anyone who holds such views can be subject to, at a minimum, investigation, surveillance, and harassment by law enforcement—all of which sounds like anti-anti-fascism, to be sure.
Fascism defined
At this point, it’s important to examine just what, exactly, fascism is. The term has certainly been abused in America. For many, “fascist” has just become shorthand for “someone I don’t like,” or, more specifically, “someone who’s making me do something I don’t want to do.” To wit: Speed limits are fascism. No-smoking signs are fascism. Mask mandates during a pandemic are fascism. Taxes are fascism. And so on.
Alas, few historians would describe such basic laws or civic norms as fascism. While the word doesn’t have any one universally agreed upon definition, and even self-identified fascist societies differ in significant ways, there are a few hallmarks that distinguish fascism from other philosophies. The more of these qualities a government or a society has, the more fascistic it is:
- The merger of state and corporate power. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who coined the term fascist, said this was the philosophy’s most defining tenet.
- Authoritarian rule. Power concentrated in a leader with a devoted cult of personality, in whom people see a living embodiment of the nation.
- Police state. A militarized society, including citizen militias and police suppression of protests, speech, and other forms of dissent.
- Propaganda. Rampant propaganda that is rife with lies, conspiracy, and dehumanizing language.
- Censorship. Dissent or open disagreement with official narratives and state policies may be outlawed and punished violently.
- In-group vs. out-group. Hatred of “others,” especially immigrants, religious minorities, and the LGBTQ community, as well as any leftists and academics who support them.
- National and cultural mythology. Desire to preserve or attain “purity” of culture, language, or race and ethnicity, often through appeals to a mythical past.
- War. Jingoism and an aggressive foreign policy.
- Obsession with aesthetics. From architecture to attire, everything intends to give an air of magnificence, superiority, and national pride, no matter how superficial.
Any honest observer can see how much of the definition fits. Not all of it is unique to Trump, but he does tick more boxes than the average politician. Soon enough, though, simply pointing that out might land you in a heap of trouble. Unless, of course, Republicans shift gears and decide to embrace the term, as at least some of them are beginning to do.
Reclaiming Fascism as Something Edgy and Cool
Back in July, before Trump ratcheted up his campaign against antifa, Fox News comedian Greg Gutfeld went on a revealing rant about his feelings on the word Nazi and how it relates to him. Gutfeld said on his show: “The criticism doesn’t matter to us when you call us Nazis. Nazi this and Nazi that… We need to learn from the Blacks. The way they were able to remove the power from the n-word by using it. So from now on it’s, ‘What up, my Nazi?’”
Gutfeld’s show is intended as a comedy, though you might not recognize it as one. Still, it’s a peculiar joke to make, and frightening to consider who it might resonate with. And this attitude on the right is being more openly embraced: that fascism is hip or edgy and that all the progress made on freedoms and rights for gays, trans people, minorities, and women needs to be rolled back. For instance:
- The successful far-right influencer Matt Walsh calls himself a “theocratic fascist.” While Walsh has claimed it’s an ironic label used to troll his critics, if you pay any attention to what he says and compare it to what a “theocratic fascist” might say, you’ll find he fits the term quite comfortably.
- Another growing voice on the right, especially among the young, is Nick Fuentes, simply an unapologetic, loud and proud neo-Nazi who has dined with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.
- Trump’s recent nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul Ingrassia, recently had his text messages leaked where he espoused racist attitudes and said, “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time, I will admit it.” Ingrassia’s nomination has since been pulled, a relatively rare rebuke from this administration of that kind of conduct.
- A cadre of right-wing influencers have also been trying to sanitize, justify, and even push for the return of chattel slavery. Chief among these is Joshua Haymes, a former pastor who counted among his congregation Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Haymes recently said, “The institution of slavery is not inherently evil. It is not inherently evil to own another human being. It is very important that every Christian affirm what I just said.”
Republican influencers and the MAGA base are racing to the bottom, fast. It’s known as vice signaling: Each one trying to outdo the next in depravity to prove they are as un-woke and un-PC as possible, even if it reverts them back to plain-old KKK and neo-Nazi hatred and barbarism. It’s hard to say what abuse, constitutional violation, or act of violence they won’t enthusiastically push for, as long as it’s coming from the right side and being inflicted on an enemy. These aren’t ideas we have to debate. This is fascism, and civilized society already won the argument against it in World War II.
Fascism in the USA
Sadly, fascism is probably appealing to a lot of Americans, even if most are still hesitant to embrace the term. It’s in our national DNA. Our Jim Crow laws and citizenship standards even provided a model for Hitler’s antisemitic campaigns. There have always been bigoted, violent people in this country, and they appreciate a ruler who reflects them. And just as they were in the 1930s, the giant industrialists who shape our politics and society are all too happy to ally themselves with fascist forces, because they know a repressive state can protect their own power from being challenged.
But there are also strains of anti-fascism in our DNA. My grandpa, a veteran of World War II, was antifa, as were many members of the Greatest Generation. And it’s heartening to see older folks and veterans declare themselves antifa, even in the face of Trump’s threats. It should be a source of pride that we’ve overcome many of our bigotries and xenophobias. Despite all the loud fascist voices in right-wing media and social platforms, I still believe the vast majority of people believe in basic human rights for all. The No Kings protests on October 18 were a good showing of this solidarity.
As this administration goes further off the deep end—deploying the military against American citizens; sending masked Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents to terrorize poor and immigrant communities; profiling, detaining, and abusing people, including American citizens, on mere suspicion of being “illegal;” and disappearing people with no trial to God-knows-where—it’s no accident that they have declared anti-fascism their greatest enemy.
Maybe those 38-year-old kids in the Young Republicans chat were just joking about gas chambers and loving Hitler. But given everything else this administration is doing and everything their propagandists are saying, it falls a bit too close for comfort to, “It’s funny because it’s true.”
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Trump Antifa Order Seen as a Weapon to Attack Left-Wing Speech, Protests
"The order appears to be a green light to law enforcement and intelligence to spy on and investigate left-wing political speech," said one First Amendment advocate.
Sep 23, 2025
The executive order issued by US President Donald Trump Monday evening claimed a legal authority that the president doesn't have to designate the "antifa" movement as a "domestic terrorist organization," despite the fact that no central group exists to assign the designation to—but rights advocates said Trump's claims about antifa weren't the point of the order.
"This isn’t an attack on antifa," said Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Healthcare. "It’s an attack on our rights."
The executive order states that antifa, a portmanteau of the term "anti-fascist," will be designated a "domestic terrorist organization." The movement is comprised of autonomous individuals and loosely affiliated groups who oppose fascism, but has no central organizational structure or leaders. People associated with the movement mobilized in 2017 to oppose the white nationalist "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a nonviolent anti-racist protester, Heather Heyer, was killed by a white supremacist who rammed a car into a group of demonstrators.
In the order, the president pinned blame for a "pattern of political violence" on anti-fascist protesters and organizers and pledged that the executive branch will "utilize all applicable authorities to investigate, disrupt, and dismantle any and all illegal operations—especially those involving terrorist actions—conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa."
The order was written so broadly, said journalist Prem Thakker of Zeteo, that it suggests "someone recording masked agents snatching people off the streets, or asking these agents what they're doing, can be deemed a 'terrorist.'"
The president has ordered US citizens, he added, "to be anti-antifa."
With no central organization to assign the "domestic terrorist organization" to, said rights advocates, the executive order will likely be used to crack down on a wide range of left-wing protest activity and speech.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, was among those who noted that no US law or statute gives the president the authority "to designate anything as a 'domestic terrorist organization.'"
All 219 groups that have been designated as terrorist organizations, such as ISIS and al-Qaeda, are foreign entities, and the designation makes it possible for people who provide material support to those groups to be prosecuted by the federal government.
"This would appear to have no direct legal effect beyond acting as a statement of policy for the executive branch," said Reichlin-Melnick.
Chip Gibbons, policy director at the First Amendment advocacy group Defending Rights and Dissent, said that while the order "is without statutory basis, a close read of the language mirrors existing FBI powers, such as 'terrorist enterprise investigations' into 'anarchist extremists.'"
"The order appears to be a green light to law enforcement and intelligence to spy on and investigate left-wing political speech," said Gibbons. "Given the FBI’s current guidelines, which encourage preventative intelligence in the name of counterterrorism, the FBI will have no problem continuing its sordid history of preemptively investigating political speech under the pretext of thwarting terrorism.”
At The Conversation, Dafydd Townley, a University of Portsmouth teaching fellow, wrote that the classification of antifa "as a terrorist organization could have profound effects on the First Amendment rights of large numbers of law-abiding US citizens."
"It would be a serious danger to American democracy if US citizens were unable to voice their protest and exercise their right to free speech because of this classification," Townley wrote.
The designation was announced amid widespread public opposition to many of Trump's policies, including the deployment of federal troops to US cities to crack down on unhoused populations, immigrant communities, and what the president has claimed is a wave of violent crime—despite statistics showing crime is on the decline in all the cities he's targeted.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have already responded violently to people protesting raids and arrests of immigrant neighbors, including last week when an ICE agent was filmed throwing US congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh to the ground at a protest in the Chicago suburbs.
"This isn’t about 'antifa'—whatever that is," said journalist Erin Overbey on Tuesday. "Trump’s new executive order is written so that anyone protesting against the US government, ICE, or even top politicians can potentially be deemed a terrorist."
"It’s federal weaponization against free speech and the right to protest itself. Full stop," she said. "And it’s un-American as hell."
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Eleven Dead on the High Seas. Trump Is Testing the Waters For Illegal Military Rule in America
The recent massacre in the Caribbean was a step toward making America a police state under President-for-Life Trump.
Sep 15, 2025
Why is Donald Trump committing murder on the high seas?
Last week President Trump bragged that “On my Orders,” the Navy destroyed a speedboat with eleven people aboard, claiming that those slain were “Tren de Aragua Narco terrorists . . . transporting illegal narcotics, heading for the United States.”
The legal procedure for dealing with drug traffickers on the high seas is actually for the Navy or Coast Guard to stop and board the suspect vessel, confirm it is carrying illegal drugs, then arrest and prosecute those on board.
Instead, Trump treated what should have been an (alleged) criminal law enforcement matter as open warfare and, without any need, killed everyone aboard. Why? Because Trump wants the lethal use of military firepower on supposed foreign “bad guys” to serve as a model for militarizing American cities – in the name of stopping an imaginary crime wave.
One week after the Caribbean Sea attack, Trump and the Defense Department have yet to provide evidence the vessel was carrying drugs to America. But even if had been, summarily killing eleven civilians is still murder.
Killing eleven people in Venezuela was Donald Trump’s out-of-town tryout. Trump’s militarization of our cities, if not resisted, could lead to the termination of free elections in America.
Calling a criminal gang a “foreign terrorist organization” does not make it legal to slay alleged gang members without a trial – particularly when the gang has not been linked to acts of political terrorism, as confirmed by the fact that the Justice Department’s two indictments of gang members include no charges of terrorism.
Still less does tagging them “Narco terrorists” mean that the United States is in “armed conflict” with a gang, to which the laws of war might apply. Gangs aren’t enemy nations and they’re not fighting for a political ideology – they’re in it for the money. Suppressing them isn’t warfare. The Navy was not engaged in a naval battle with a speedboat.
A former State Department attorney specializing in counterterrorism, Brian Finucane, put it succinctly. “Outside of armed conflict, we have a word for the premeditated killing of people. That word is murder.”
Annie Shiel, the U.S. advocacy director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, confirmed the point. “Using lethal force in this way, outside of any recognizable armed conflict and without due process, is an extrajudicial execution, not an act of war.” Myriad legal experts confirm that obvious conclusion.
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to justify the slayings by asserting “interdiction doesn't work.” “What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth echoed the sentiment. “Anyone trafficking in those waters who we know is a deadly terrorist will face the same fate.”
But if our military is allowed to blow up people on unproven assertions of drug dealing, the same logic would justify the military engaging in summary executions of those they deem “bad guys” in the United States itself. Which is perhaps the point.
Drug trafficking is not a capital offense in the United States. The alleged crimes would not warrant execution even if Trump’s targets were found to be cartel drug smugglers..
In reality, there is little reason to credit Trump’s claims about who the people on board were and what they were doing.
- The U.S. Department of Justice brought two indictments against the Tren de Aragua gang this year, in April and August. Neither indictment alleges the gang brings drugs from Venezuela to the United States.
- The indictments actually suggest more disturbing possibilities: that most of those Trump ordered killed were victims of sex trafficking. The April indictment charged Tren de Aragua with “forcing young women trafficked from Venezuela into commercial sex work.”
- A former senior federal law enforcement official suggested that the vessel was on a human smuggling run, carrying refugees seeking to flee Venezuela.
Nonetheless, Trump prefers the drug smuggling story because it is part of his strategy to conflate immigration, crime and gangs to justify sending troops into American cities.
Trump’s claim that undocumented immigrants have brought rampant crime to America is false. Few of those Trump is deporting have committed a serious crime, and immigrants as a group are actually less likely to commit crimes than native born Americans. But Trump has repeated his phony charge hundreds of times, and it has had an impact.
Drug-running gangs enjoy little sympathy, and Trump expects few people to worry about whether the eleven individuals he ordered killed were drug traffickers or actually the gang’s victims. But if he gets away with having the Navy blow them up, he hopes Americans will come to see troops on our streets as acceptable, even desirable, since they are (purportedly) fighting the same drug dealing villains.
Trump himself drew the direct connection between his war powers as commander in chief and his claim that military force is the solution to crime in the U.S. when he recently threatened, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”
He will not immediately order unrestrained violence against alleged criminals (or opponents) as freely as he did in the Caribbean Sea off Venezuela. But he has begun the process of legitimizing law-free military “law enforcement,” first abroad and eventually in America.
Where will it end?
Trump has declared emergency after emergency, many of them focusing on his deportation agenda, and all of them stretching – and breaching – the lawful limits of presidential power. Trump has correctly concluded that if he is to swiftly deport millions of immigrants without considering their possible right to be here, his targets must be deprived of the due process of law which our Constitution guarantees to everyone in America.
But eliminating due process rights does not enjoy broad popular support, and Trump’s deportation efforts have repeatedly been stymied by the courts. Enter the concocted “Narco terrorist” boat incident. In Trump’s narrative – never mind truth or evidence – the U.S. Navy eliminates “bad guys” on the high seas without bothersome legal process.
It’s political theater. But not just theater.
The legal theories are those Trump’s Justice Department has asserted with little success in federal court: First, that Trump is entitled to use the military for “law enforcement” because we are being “invaded.” Second, that alleged gang members can be summarily deported and imprisoned (and now killed) because we are “at war” with cartels. Trump may not be able to persuade the courts that these outlandish legal theories are correct, but he can act on them with impunity in the waters off Venezuela, by ordering the Navy to dole out death.
Trump’s ultimate end is plain enough: unlimited power.
Donald Trump was the only president in the life of the Republic to refuse to surrender office after losing an election. Donald Trump was the only president to unleash an insurrection to try to hold onto office. And now, having lawfully returned to power, he has not concealed his desire to remain after his current term ends.
During the 2024 campaign, Trump promised his followers that if he was elected, things would be “fixed so good” that “in four years, you don't have to vote again.” And, after predicting his election to a second four-year term, Trump told another audience “we’re probably entitled to another four after that.”
Trump has said he is “not joking.” “A lot of people want me to do it,” he told NBC News this Spring. “There are methods which you could do it.”
What method does Trump have in mind? Here are some ways Trump could use the military to unconstitutionally retain power:
Arrest or detain voters. Recall Trump’s baseless assertion that undocumented immigrants are voting en masse in American elections. With the military placed in key cities as a “crime fighting” force, Trump could use the soldiers and his masked ICE agents to remove Hispanics and other “suspect” voters from polling places, on the claim the soldiers are “ensuring election integrity.” Troops at polling places arresting people would certainly also frighten others away from the polls.
Seize voting machines. In 2020 Trump explored having Homeland Security or the Defense Department take control of voting machines in swing states. Attorney General Robert Barr reportedly shot down the suggestion.
But loyal sycophants Attorney General Pam Bondi or “War” Department Secretary Hegseth might well direct their departments to obey Trump’s orders to confiscate voting machines – and later report Trump’s amazing, landslide electoral victory.
Cancel elections because of an “emergency.” Donald Trump is the master of emergencies. He might manufacture one to justify suspending elections.
Trump claimed a handful of disruptive protests against ICE raids in Los Angeles constituted a “rebellion,” requiring a military response. And he falsely asserted crime was “totally out of control in the District of Columbia” to rationalize the troop takeover of the nation’s capital. Now he threatens to send troops into Chicago, Baltimore and other cities that tend to vote Democratic.
As Trump prepares to rig the 2028 election as best he can, millions of Americans will take to the streets against his illegal candidacy. Trump has little tolerance for the constitutional right to assemble and protest. In June 2025 he warned: “For those people who want to protest, they’re going to be met with very big force.” During the widespread peaceful demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Trump asked his Defense Secretary about protestors near the White House. “Can't you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
The Defense Secretary at the time did not grant Trump’s wish. But loyalist Hegseth is not likely to oppose any Trump suggestion.
A president who whipped up a mob to seize the Capitol in January 2021 could mobilize right-wing militias and MAGA forces for political violence before an election, and Trump might assert that elections had to be suspended until “order” was (someday) restored. Troops would enforce “calm” as the election was dismantled.
These scenarios only seem far-fetched because we still find it difficult to contemplate an American president engaging in naked, lethal dictatorial action.
Killing eleven people in Venezuela was Donald Trump’s out-of-town tryout. Trump’s militarization of our cities, if not resisted, could lead to the termination of free elections in America.
Mobilizing for the next election is not enough. The danger is now and we must resist now. We must withhold our cooperation from Trump’s authoritarian moves, refuse to obey in advance, pressure the institutions we are associated with to stand up for our constitutional democracy, and peacefully take to the streets to demonstrate the scope of the resistance. It is not too late. But if democracy is to be rescued, we must be the rescuers ourselves.
Don’t just blow your horn. Get out of the car and join the protest.
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