Must-Reads and the Fascist Fantasies We Refuse to Live In
"It is up to us, as everyday people, to decide who we are, and who we are to each other, in the face of these attacks."
Greetings friends,
If you're here for the must-reads, you'll find them right up top. If you're here for my thoughts on Trump's AI-slop declaration of war on Chicago, scroll down.
Must-Reads
- Exclusive: Leak Confirms Chicago Military Action by Ken Klippenstein. “The request specifically seeks ‘support infrastructure,’ including highway access, fuel, and ‘other logistical nodes…’ with the military staging out of the Great Lakes Naval Station in North Chicago, some 30 miles from downtown.
- How Are You Supposed To Get The COVID Vaccine Now? An Explainer by Sabrina Imbler. “As someone who is under 65 years old and wants a COVID-19 vaccine, I set out to understand how available they really are. You will never guess what I found!”
- The DC Night Patrols Are Showing Cities How to Fight Trump’s Occupation by Dave Zirin and Chuck Modiano. “Armed only with cell phones, medical kits, and the confidence to assert their dwindling rights, groups of local residents trail and record Trump’s occupation forces. They’re known as the night patrols.”
- Jeanine Pirro Is Facing an Unprecedented Humiliation by Mark Joseph Stern. “Over the past few weeks, something extraordinary has unfolded in the District of Columbia: Grand juries have refused to indict at least five individuals facing prosecution by the Trump administration.”
- Federal Judge Said Trump Can’t Be National Police Chief. Will His Word Be Final? by Marjorie Cohn. “Donald Trump appears fixated on ‘creating a national police force with the President as its chief,’ U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer wrote, holding that Trump’s deployment of federal troops to Los Angeles to enforce the immigration laws was illegal.”
- The Baby Died. Whose Fault Is It? by Emi Nietfeld. “The case of Bi and her surrogate shows how, in an environment with little regulation and extreme inequality, the miracle of life can mutate into a death sentence.”
- The World Has Failed to Stop Israel. Our Only Choices Now: Leave or Die by Shahad Ali. “The Israeli army is moving forward with its plan, and it seems nothing can stop it from erasing Gaza City, massacring its people, and displacing us.”
- AI Startup Flock Thinks It Can Eliminate All Crime In America by Thomas Brewster. “[Garrett] Langley offers a prediction: In less than 10 years, Flock’s cameras, airborne and fixed, will eradicate almost all crime in the U.S.”
- One of the Last, Best Hopes for Saving the Open Web and a Free Press is Dead by Brian Merchant. “The problem is very obviously not that Google has a stranglehold on innovation—it clearly does not—but that it wields unchecked power over the digital marketplace.”
- 'We Are All DC ': Tens of Thousands March to White House (Common Dreams). “The heart of Washington, D.C., pulsed with defiance on Saturday as tens of thousands of demonstrators surged down 16th Street toward the White House. It was the city’s first major organized protest since President Donald Trump declared a state of emergency and unleashed federal troops onto its streets.”
ICYMI
This week on Movement Memos, I spoke with Andrea Ritchie about the role of criminalization in authoritarian and fascist regimes, and why “we need more outlaws” and less fetishization of “law and order.” You can listen to Movement Memos wherever you get your podcasts. If you need a transcript, you can find that here.
Kilgore, Trump, and the Theater of Domination
On Saturday, Donald Trump just posted an AI-generated war poster of himself. In the image Trump is wearing the trademark hat of the character Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore—the secondary antagonist in the movie Apocalypse Now, played by Robert Duvall. In the film, Kilgore is a ruthless, thrill-seeking warmonger who treats carnage as a backdrop for recreation. Trump’s AI slop propaganda included imagery of helicopters flying over Chicago, flames rising from the city, and the words “I love the smell of deportations in the morning”—a riff on Kilgore’s line, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” The post also included the captioned threats, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR” and “ChipocalypseNow,” along with some helicopter emojis.
As I sent the image to friends, each of them quickly moved to confirm it was real, even though I already had. Despite the absurdity of these times, no one wanted to believe what they were seeing: a sitting president declaring war on our city, and comparing Chicago to a napalmed village during the Vietnam War.
With this image, Trump is attempting to blur the line between reality and his fascist, annihilatory fantasies of control and domination. To him we are targets, victims, and enemies whose communities should be leveled for their defiance.
In styling himself as Kilgore, Trump finally got something right. Kilgore is a villain high on his own supply. He is a figure of colonial bravado—a man who bombs a Viet Cong–held village to make way for a surfing expedition. The character’s nihilism, bombast, and utter disregard for human life are utterly Trumpian. Trump’s use of AI to create this image is also fitting, given that both fascism and AI exist in opposition to the human imagination.
Putting aside the inadvertent acknowledgement of Trump’s unhinged and villainous politics, we should understand this image as an act of psychological warfare. It is meant to terrorize the people of our city, and residents of other Democratically governed cities that Trump has threatened with occupation. Trump’s theatrics of annihilation are disorienting, racist, and enraging. I was certainly reeling for a moment after seeing the post, as I wondered just how far Trump would go to harm officials he views as enemies, and my migrant neighbors, who he depicts as invaders who must be expelled—or worse.
But after feeling shaken for a moment, I got back to work. While I couldn’t join the protesters outside Great Lakes Naval Station, or the evening march in downtown Chicago, due to a still-healing ankle injury, I spent the day in workshops I had organized to help activists and organizers prepare for what’s ahead. We talked about how to meaningfully gather our neighbors at people’s movement assemblies, and about looking out for each other amid unsafe conditions. While Trump sought to panic and demoralize us, we instead sharpened our thinking and doubled down on our commitments to each other.
The best way to resist terror is to stay grounded, orient ourselves, and take decisive action. This is a time to remember our values and clarify our commitments. Grab a pen and outline these things by hand, if it helps. What beliefs are you holding onto right now about justice, and what we owe each other? What commitments are you willing to make in defense of those beliefs, and in defense of other people? What are you willing to fight for? What does that mean to you? Will you resist the normalization of military occupation and the violence of federal raids on our neighborhoods, or will you shuffle aimlessly through the march of fascism?
While taking action often means stepping into uncertainty, remember, this is not lonely work. In Chicago, many groups in our communities are mapping local resources and communicating with each other about how to protect vulnerable people. Yesterday’s Mexican Independence Day Parade in Pilsen was well supported by teams of volunteers monitoring for ICE activity. Chicagoans are not going to lay down in the face of Trump’s AI slop propaganda, or yield to his attacks on our neighbors. We are turning to each other and making plans to care for and protect each other. Our city is marching and shouting and refusing to submit. Those are the real images coming out of Chicago right now.
Reality is pushing back.
It remains to be seen whether Trump will activate the National Guard in Chicago. As I have mentioned on social media, I think it’s quite possible he will attempt to cultivate an excuse to do so, but a recent court decision that declared his actions in L.A. illegal may be complicating his plans. Amid his hedging about sending the National Guard to Chicago, he has mentioned targeting New Orleans—a proposal that local residents have denounced, and that people of conscience everywhere must oppose.
Trump wants to normalize the federal occupation of U.S. cities. Chicago is an important target for Trump because of our city’s diversity, Black Democratic leadership, and role as a lightning rod for racist, right-wing propaganda about urban violence. As a sanctuary city, Chicago has defied his directives both in policy and in practice. On the ground, organizers have repeatedly disrupted ICE operations with Know Your Rights trainings, coordinated responses, and a deep culture of collective protection. He wants to break us—and our mayor, and our governor.
So far, Chicago’s mayor, Brandon Johnson, and the governor of Illinois, J.B. Pritzker, have held the line, but Chicago’s strength is in its people. This is true of every city, because it is the people whose raw political will must quicken, rather than dissipate, in the face of fascist onslaughts.
It is up to us, as everyday people, to decide who we are, and who we are to each other, in the face of these attacks. Trump wants to crowd out empathy with fear. He wants us to see his violence as inevitable and inescapable. He wins when we recoil and retreat from one another—a job that was half done from the start in this alienated, fractured society. So, I say, let this moment shake us out of our screen-fixed daze. Let it crack open our silos. Let us pour into the streets and pour our hearts to each other. Let’s find the will to listen, even when it’s hard, and to hold fast, even when we’re afraid. If we reach for each other, and strengthen our bonds and our networks of care and protection, we will not be conquered—we will be stronger for this moment.
Whatever happens next, hold onto empathy, hold onto each other, and when you meet a stranger who seems uncertain or afraid amid the struggle, tell them, “I’m glad you’re here. We can do this.” Because we have to do this, and we can’t do it alone.
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