Tag Archives: fascism

Trump is a Vicious Cult Leader

1 Reply

For the past couple weeks, Donald Trump has been stirring up hatred for the Somali community with lies and fearmongering. And the result has been a surge in white supremacism.

This is what fascist regimes do best. While they are totally unequipped to govern, they use the rhetoric of scapegoating and demonization to distract from their complete ineptitude. It becomes the only policymaking that they are capable of.

As the American economy continues to decline and the US becomes more isolated, Trump and his regime are becoming more and more unhinged in their cruelty toward the most vulnerable and marginalized. And since fascism demands cultlike devotion, this cruelty runs through the entire society like a rancid effluence, poisoning everything in its path.

The American project was built upon racism, one which justified genocide, slavery and apartheid. And it has never reckoned with this in any meaningful way. So, the obvious outcome has been the current president.

Trump isn’t an anomaly, he is a prime example of America with its mask of civility finally ripped off. A narcissist who is convinced of his greatness, much like the many Americans who have been bamboozled into thinking they live in the greatest country on earth. An arrogant ignorance impervious to the reality of having no universal healthcare, few worker protections, crushing debt, poor education, crumbling infrastructure, rampant gun violence and rapidly rising economic inequality.

So, what can we expect in the coming months or even years? Trump is a vicious cult leader who is oblivious to the stench of his own rot. Even as his health (both physical and mental) declines, he cannot see through the elaborate web of lies he has woven around him. And the sycophants in his court will never tell the emperor he is has no clothes.

Cults rarely dissipate peacefully. In almost every case, they end up devolving into paranoia, conspiracy theories, delusion and violence as their blind obeisance to power backfires and the shoddy worldview they invested everything in breaks down under the weight of its own incompetence and madness.

Sometimes cults merely self destruct. But more often than not, they lash out on anyone within their orbit, with the most vulnerable being the first victims. Either way, what comes next will not be easy to endure, especially for communities like the Somali.

Kenn Orfanos, December 2025

The Condescension and Genocide Apologetics of Hillary Clinton

Leave a reply

Like a bad penny (actually, a penny soaked in blood), Hillary Clinton keeps showing up when virtually no one asked her to. Making the rounds, Clinton has pulled out one of the things that made her presidential campaign such a gleaming success: elitist condescension.

On one particular panel, Clinton bemoaned the increased sympathy Palestinians are receiving for being the victims of a US-backed, Israeli-led genocide. She was bewildered at young people who, for some reason, don’t like seeing children being blown up with US munitions or being starved to death through a carefully curated policy of annihilation. And that young Jews, in particular, don’t like it being done in their name.

She said:

“We have done a miserable job teaching young people history. I had so many conversations, and frankly, they often started as confrontations with students, not just at Columbia, but elsewhere. Where were they getting their information? They were getting it from social media. They were getting it most particularly from TikTok, which is governed by an algorithm until — at least up until now, still largely manipulated by the Chinese Communist Party.” – Hillary Clinton

Talking down to her constituents has been a hallmark of Clinton’s public persona since her early days of demonizing young Black men. Her and her husband, Epstein Island regular Bill “Bubba” Clinton, ruined countless lives with an excessively punitive and nakedly racist policy that targeted supposed “super predators.” A racist dog whistle that I am sure excited some of their white friends in Arkansas.

Clinton now joins her colleagues Van Jones and Sarah Hurwitz in the Hall of Genocidaires and their Sycophants. Like them, she isn’t outraged or even mildly upset by the “wall of carnage” we see every day in Gaza. To her, they are an optical problem. One that should be dealt with by some good ole fashioned American censorship.

Ironically, Clinton doesn’t seem to see the Israeli soldiers or politicians proudly posting their crimes online for the world to see. She is going to find it very hard to censor the criminals she supports when they simply refuse to shut-up about their atrocities.

Clinton’s “Chinese Communist Party” boogeyman is a particularly laughable remark, given that almost all of the mainstream media outlets in the US are now owned by a handful of corporations. But this is a desperate attempt to deflect from that, as well as the fact that they are no longer seen as the arbiter of truth. Turns out, you cannot keep lying or omitting facts to the public and not suffer some backlash.

But no boogeyman she summons will obscure her own criminality. The record is clear. Clinton supported the war on Iraq, a country that never attacked the US. She supported the far-right coup in Honduras, a regime responsible for attacking and murdering countless Indigenous, LGBTQ and environmental activists. She was instrumental in the destruction of Libya, plunging it into turmoil and the creation of a new slave trade in Northern Africa. And she helped to draw up one of the most recent blueprints for the oppression of the Palestinians and the cementing of the Israeli apartheid ethnostate.

In the end, Clinton will go down as one of the most loathsome figures in the American political class. A friend to Kissinger, a champion of far right regimes and military interventions that have decimated the Global South, a supporter of Israeli apartheid and apologist for its current genocide. She lost the presidency to a narcissistic fascist with the morals of a botfly when even a damp, salmonella-tinged, kitchen sponge could have run a better campaign. And now she is determined to inflict her intellectual brain rot years after most of us thought it impossible or even necessary.

Hillary Clinton and most of the political elite class have lost control of the narrative, but don’t expect any ‘come to Jesus’ moment. I am sad to say that it is extremely unlikely she is done with her yawn-inducing “I told you so” tours for a long time to come.

Kenn Orfanos, November 2025

Losing the Narrative: the Moral Panic over Social Media

Leave a reply

“People have to be atomized and segregated and alone. They’re not supposed to organize, because then they might be something beyond spectators of action. They might actually be participants if many people with limited resources could get together to enter the political arena. That’s really threatening.”
― Noam Chomsky, Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda

The story is to culture what the memory is to the individual. Like any story, memories can be inaccurate, clouded by biases or prejudices, and full of gaps or plot holes. But those memories also guide us. They inform how we interpret our world and interact with it. And we are living in a time where the dominant stories of who we are as a people are shifting in monumental ways.

Unsurprisingly, there has been a reactionary response to this. The old guard is threatened by a thinking public. For instance, the moral panic over the supposed dangers of social media is no different than the ones of the past. The ones that claimed comic books or television or jazz or hip hop or cannabis or pornography were destroying morality, breaking the family apart, or dumbing us down. This is what is behind the push for “age verification.” But it is not about protecting children, it is about censoring words and expressions that challenge power. And the younger generation is the biggest threat to that current arrangement of power.

Stories are what connect us. The ones we tell each other. The ones we tell ourselves. They give us meaning, especially when they are shared. To control this discourse is to control society itself. For many decades, the narrative was controlled by the wealthy and the powerful via the mainstream media. This is still largely true. But there have been seismic shifts that have deeply altered this pattern. Social media has been the most instrumental, in this regard.

None of this is to say social media is without problems. There are many. But most of them come from the billionaire class and Silicon Valley, who elevate some algorithms over others. It is they who flood the internet with AI slop and vapid celebrity gossip, while downgrading or disappearing content that is important, encourages curiosity and imagination, or persuades people to be more active in their world.

There is no doubt that the far right uses social media to peddle conspiracy theories and stoke racism and other social hatreds. The rise of MAGA is an example of this. But these voices were also amplified by the billionaire class, which sees division and divisive politics as a means to an end. And that end is social control.

Despite its copious flaws, social media has galvanized movements, from Black Lives Matter to the anti-genocide/pro-Palestine movement. This is a threat to the established classes that hold power. And it is why they seek to control and censor it like never before. They prefer spectators, not participants. Consumers, not citizens.

To many young people, the old narratives are dying. Racist tropes, the whitewashing of colonialism and genocide, misogyny, homophobic fearmongering, and pro-imperialist or capitalist slogans or puff pieces, are no longer satisfying. They fall flat when they witness masked ICE thugs smashing car windows or storming apartment buildings in the middle of the night, or see blown apart or starving children in Gaza, or hear the victims of Jeffrey Epstein and other powerful white men, or experience the exploding cost of living, from groceries to rent to healthcare. They see the monsters around them, and no spin will put those blinders back on.

Every current attempt to make the internet safer or more civil is a thinly veiled attempt to stifle dissent, critical thinking and free speech. It is why social media outlets like TikTok and Facebook are employing Zionists and former IDF soldiers to monitor “hate speech.” It is why the Trump regime has gone after various media outlets who defy his version of the truth. It is why politicians from both sides of the political aisle are pushing for more restrictive legislation.

They are losing control of the narrative, and they are terrified. This is why they have been buying up platforms and installing agents of propaganda at every level. But these measures are desperate attempts to put the toothpaste back in the bottle. It is too late and, on some level, they know this.

Now matter what bludgeon they chose, this generation is beyond their machinations and manipulations. They have seen too much. Whether the powerful understand it or not, they have lost. And their old myths are dead in all but name.

Kenn Orfanos, November 2025

Debra Messing and Liberal Zionism’s Inevitable Drift Toward Fascism

Leave a reply

There have been so many spectacular crash outs before and since Mamdani won NYC. But the most intriguing has to be Debra Messing. The former Will & Grace star posted endlessly to her Instagram yesterday. But Messing, who supported Hillary Clinton and has always identified herself as liberal, was sharing content from far right organizations like CPAC, Breitbart, and Newsmax. In fact, she shared at least 100 posts to her Instagram story in one day alone.

Among those shared was a blatantly Islamophobic post which argued that while Judaism and Christianity encourage honesty, Muslims are “commanded to lie if it means spreading Islam.” It went on to say: “He’s revealing their goal: Mass conversion. These two opposing civilizations cannot coexist.” It doesn’t get much more paranoid, genocidal and racist than that, folks.

She even went so far as to share Trump’s antisemitic post in which he wrote: “Any Jewish person that votes for Zohran Mamdani, a proven and self professed JEW HATER, is a stupid person!!!” Mamdani has always condemned antisemitism. But none of that matters to Trump or to Messing, apparently.

Since October 7th, 2023, Messing has been on a rampage. Her support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians became her only identity, going so far as to visit the genocidal apartheid state for photo ops with IDF soldiers.

Messing is a case study in the limitations of white feminism. When ones privilege is challenged in any way, the default is often to go to reactionary, racist or even fascist tactics of fearmongering and scapegoating. Messing’s transformation proves that Zionism, like all supremacist ideologies, always leads a person to the far-right.

It has been reported that Messing is currently on holiday in Tel Aviv, apparently finding solace from the melee in Manhattan by being even closer to an actual genocide taking place mere kilometres away.

Kenn Orfanos, November 2025

*photo is of Debra Messing, but not from this week.

Mamdani Wins NYC!

Leave a reply

Last night, I sat in front of my computer with tears in my eyes. They were tears of joy. I was born in New York. I lived the first 20+ years of my life there. So, even though I no longer live there or in the United States anymore, to see this city that I love do the right thing in these very dark times was deeply moving to say the least.

NYC voted for a man who stands outside the Democratic Party elite. A man who espouses values that align with most ordinary people. That living on this planet should not bankrupt a person. That healthcare and housing and education are human rights. That the wealthy should pay their fair share. That genocide is wrong and the criminals who commit these crimes should be arrested and tried.

Despite endless and baseless smears and racist taunts, much of which came from notorious misogynist and senior citizen-killer, Andrew Cuomo, Mamdani prevailed. Despite the efforts of celebrities like Debra Messing who spread horrendous Islamophobic lies, Mamdani prevailed (one wonders if she is okay today, or if she has fled to Tel Aviv on the first El Al flight out of Kennedy). Despite millions of dollars being spent by parasitic billionaires like Michael Bloomberg, Airbnb co-founder Joe Gebbia, Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton, and hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman, Mamdani prevailed. Despite threats from the fascist, wannabe king in the White House, Mamdani prevailed.

Will Mamdani be able to implement all of the policies he would like to? Probably not. NYC is still deeply capitalist. Its 1% are entrenched, have enormous influence and own much of the media. But despite their empty threats, they aren’t leaving New York after this historic victory. And this win sends a clear message to them that the people of this city are fed up with the soul crushing, life destroying status quo.

Mamdani quoted the late Eugene Debs in his victory speech. Debs, who was born in 1855 and died in 1926, was an American socialist, trade unionist and one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World. He ran five times for President under the Socialist Party of America. That Mamdani chose him is extraordinary for these times. His words go far beyond the sickening bromides and empty platitudes of most politicians.

Mamdani said:

”The sun may have set over our city this evening, but as Eugene Debs once said, “I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity.”

For as long as we can remember, the working people of New York have been told by the wealthy and the well-connected that power does not belong in their hands. Fingers bruised from lifting boxes on the warehouse floor, palms calloused from delivery bike handlebars, knuckles scarred with kitchen burns. These are not hands that have been allowed to hold power. And yet, over the last 12 months, you have dared to reach for something greater.

Tonight, against all odds, we have grasped it. The future is in our hands. My friends, we have toppled a political dynasty.

I wish Andrew Cuomo only the best in private life, but let tonight be the final time I utter his name as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.

Now I know that many have heard our message only through the prism of misinformation. Tens of millions of dollars have been spent to redefine reality and to convince our neighbors that this new age is something that should frighten them. As has so often occurred, the billionaire class has sought to convince those making $30 an hour that their enemies are those earning $20 an hour. They want the people to fight amongst ourselves so that we remain distracted from the work of remaking a long-broken system. We refuse to let them dictate the rules of the game anymore. They can play by the same rules as the rest of us.

In this new age we make for ourselves, we will refuse to allow those who traffic in division and hate to pit us against one another. In this moment of political darkness, New York will be the light. Here we believe in standing up for those we love, whether you are an immigrant, a member of the trans community, one of the many Black women that Donald Trump has fired from a federal job, a single mom still waiting for the cost of groceries to go down, or anyone else with their back against the wall—your struggle is ours too.

Together, we will usher in a generation of change. And if we embrace this brave new course, rather than fleeing from it, we can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves. After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him. And if there is any way to terrify a despot, it is by dismantling the very conditions that allowed him to accumulate power.

And we must chart a new path as bold as the one we have already traveled. After all, the conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this.

Mamdani’s victory will undoubtedly be met with more threats or even actions by the fascist Trump regime. And the corporate beholden, Democratic Party elite will likely try to thwart any meaningful gains of this moment. But Mamdani’s win should be celebrated by every ordinary person today. Because even though we are in dark times, some light has managed to find its way through the cracks.

Be happy about that today, because we all deserve it.

Kenn Orfanos, November 2025

Trump’s Great Gatsby Redux is a Portent

Leave a reply

To say we live in an age of absurdity would be an understatement. But absurdity often accompanies sadism. Case in point: Trump throwing a “Great Gatsby” themed gala on the eve of 40+ million Americans losing their access to food. This is “Let them eat cake” on steroids.

To be sure, Trump has likely never read a book through cover to cover, with the possible exception of Mein Kampf translated into English and his own “The Art of the Deal.” So, the irony of holding a Great Gatsby themed party while millions of his citizens struggle or languish in near intolerable conditions will always be lost on him.

Gatsby, the main character, was a conman who was obsessed with the aristocracy. His nouveau riche credentials didn’t get him the status he craved in their circles, but he threw lavish parties in a mansion he built to display his ostentatious wealth to anyone he could dazzle.

That Trump cannot see such glaring irony is staggering, but not surprising. While he is a narcissist, he is also a proud illiterate and affirmed ignoramus. His dearth of curiosity is legendary. He is only attracted to glitter, gold and gilded mirrors. And he delights in the praise of the vapid courtiers who surround him.

As the nation teeters on economic ruin, Trump has ensconced himself in the illusion of prestige. He lacks the capacity for insight and grows ever more delusional by the day. This does not make him any less dangerous. On the contrary, as he grows even more unhinged by the day he becomes more erratic and paranoid. This is the real reason for the golden ballroom and the renovated bunker that will be rebuilt below.

Narcissism is a poison to its bearer. It promises satisfaction, but only guarantees loneliness and longing. It creates hungry ghosts, never able to sate the empty void within. Trump has cultivated his own narcissism for a lifetime. But no one can avoid the humbling veil of mortality.

Gatsby’s ignominious fate was met while he was floating in his pool. Trump appears to be aimlessly floating for disaster as well. The only problem is that he is taking the entire nation with him.

Kenn Orfanos, November 2025

Performative Protests Are Not Enough Against Fascism

Leave a reply

Trump’s crude response to the “No Kings” protest shouldn’t come as a surprise. Fascist regimes don’t care about protests. Every instance of dissent to their depravity is an opportunity for more mockery and cruelty. Never for introspection or reflection.

As with all fascist regimes, the Trump regime will not be persuaded by civility or appeals to their humanity. Simply put, they have neither. While yesterday’s event was impressive, admirable and perhaps helped some make lasting connections with other like minded people, they will have no real or tangible impact on policy.

These events essentially serve as valves to let off steam or for funneling public rage into managed and watered down safe spaces, such as the Democratic Party, which offers no real resistance to the current arrangement of power.

Fascist regimes aren’t voted out. History has shown that the only way they end is through a coordinated mass movement that disrupts and grinds society and the very machinery of power to a halt, a war or military coup, or the death of the fascist leader, which can take decades.

This is not to crush the hopes of those who participated. On the contrary, those ordinary people who rallied did so because they understand something is terribly wrong and that they needed to do something. For many, this was their first time protesting. And that is commendable. But false hope is as dangerous as despair because it can often lead to complacency.

White, heterosexual American liberals have never had to face the terror of state violence before. This is new terrain. But they can learn from Black Americans who led the way with bus boycotts and bridge shutdowns. Or Queer Americans who shutdown entire cities with riots against police brutality. Or the movement against the Vietnam War. Or, more recently, the anti-genocide encampments on university campuses.

Hope lies in the copious examples of courage from marginalized and oppressed groups. Begin there.

Kenn Orfanos, October 2025

*The attached photo is Trump’s response to the protests, which is self explanatory.

There is no greater threat to democracy or human decency than fascism.

1 Reply

Following an unprecedented mandatory meeting of US military commanders, the Trump regime’s attack on Chicago was another test. Sending 300 ICE agents to abduct immigrants, including children, by rappelling from Blackhawk helicopters onto an apartment building in the middle of the night was a clear message of state terror.

Borrowing from other fascist regimes throughout history, Trump and his minions are seeking absolute control over the republic through intimidation, threats and ruthless domination. And they continue to demonstrate that they can do this with virtually no opposition from any established political entity.

The Democratic Party has proven ineffective and unwilling to meet this moment with the resolve needed to thwart a complete takeover and dismantling of what is left of American democracy. And the judiciary, lacking any enforcement, appears unable to keep up with this rapid descent into fascist dystopia.

The American mainstream media, tasked with the role of watchdog, has been all but silent on the war the Trump regime is waging. Preferring to comply in advance and self-censor, instead of risking costly lawsuits by challenging the regime. This should not come as a surprise since these outlets have traded their journalistic integrity and credibility for ratings and profits long ago.

The regime now has its own army. ICE has a budget that dwarfs the US Marines. Its masked thugs seem to enjoy impunity, attacking civilians without provocation, firing rubber bullets into crowds, and shooting at the media. Its campaign of terror is only just beginning.

And speaking of terror, the regime is quickly acting on its threat of labeling anyone who disagrees or dissents from their policies or actions as domestic terrorists. This is the kind of thought policing that all fascist regimes resort to when challenged by a public that is not adequately complying with its dictates.

The regime will try to cast a wide net, ruthlessly persecuting and prosecuting all individuals, organizations and agencies they deem to be “radical leftists.” And that net will include anyone who is not Maga. Anyone who protests US support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Anyone who supports gay and transgender youth. Anyone who teaches science, talks about climate change or opposes the destruction of the environment. Anyone who challenges racist or misogynistic policies. Anyone who advocates for the unhoused or the rights of the mentally ill. Anyone who is not a white, heteronormative, evangelical or fundamentalist Christian. And this will include going after the liberals who have long attacked the left and progressives themselves.

At a time when most Americans are struggling with crushing debt and rising costs, the regime will not address the needs of the people. Instead, it will attempt to silence critics, criminalize the poor and use marginalized communities as scapegoats for all the suffering that is yet to come. This is not a prophetic declaration. It is a prediction based on mountains of evidence from every other fascist regime in history.

There is no greater threat to democracy or human decency than fascism. It is a poison to any society. And once administered, it is breathtakingly difficult to extract. For years, this brew of nationalism, oligarchic tyranny, racism and social animus has been allowed to simmer. And with the fascists now in power, it is reaching a rapid boil.

None of this is to discourage complacency or defeatism. In fact, the stakes have never been higher. Americans still have some freedoms left to them. And challenging this nightmare is paramount to reducing its cruelty and harm. But for many, especially those who are not white, Christian or who do not conform to the regime’s accepted optics, escaping is the only viable option.

Americans have long ignored the warning signs. They have long swallowed the bromide that “it can’t happen here.” But it has happened there. Over and over and over again. To Black and Brown people. To women. To immigrants. To Indigenous people. To queer communities. To the poor. And to the Global South that American imperialism has ruthlessly targeted for nearly 250 years. The difference now is that maw of brutality is much, much wider.

But at every moment of fascism’s rise, there has been resistance. It is not invincible, although fascists would like us to think so. The most powerful tool we have is our shared humanity. And this is why they want to rob us of that. Never forget that behind the bravado of every fascist is a cowardly bully, trembling in fear at the power of solidarity.

Kenn Orfanos, October 2025

We Are All Gaza Now

Leave a reply

Perhaps the greatest paradox of our times is the illusion of distance. We can now see and hear what is happening on the other side of the planet in mere seconds. But even though this has dispelled the myth of a small world, the screens we all carry around in pockets and purses give us the veneer of separation.

Gaza is the best example of this. The two year long genocide has been the first livestreamed one in history. We have witnessed both the horror and suffering of the Palestinians every single day, but also the depravity and sadism of the perpetrators. In addition to this, there is the staggering normalization and mendacity from Western media and political leaders.

What Gaza has showed us is that our leaders, almost all of them, are capable of committing or justifying the most unimaginable crimes. And if they are capable of that, they can also turn that toward us.

This is demonstrable in the actions and threats of the Trump regime in the United States. Like the Biden administration, it has supported, funded and defended Israel as it commits an obvious genocide. And now, the fascist regime is turning its sights unto its domestic population.

The recent meeting of generals and other military brass by Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump, was a loyalty test. The goal was to get the military to align with the fascist policies of the regime. Whether or not it was successful is debatable. The duo, who looked more like used car salesmen than statesmen, managed to insult almost half of them with racist comments and body shaming. Certainly, many of the commanders looked visibly disgusted or, at the very least, disturbed by the spectacle.

But the regime is seeking to quell the rising tide of unrest rising within the US. With an economy that is strangling more and more people, a distaste for the repression of civil liberties, and increasing disgust of ICE thuggery, Trump and his cultish team see their only option as being the unmerciful hammer of state violence or in its threat. And it has several progressive or liberal cities in mind for carrying out its plans. In deed, Trump’s next war will be on the so-called “enemy from within.”

To many white Americans, the idea that they could suffer a similar fate as the Palestinians is absurd. They have been inured by the racist illusion of privilege for so long that they cannot fathom their own government trapping them and relentlessly attacking them until they either die or submit. But this toxic mythology may lead to complacency in the face of an increasingly belligerent fascist regime.

Even today, there are political operatives and media figures openly talking about locking up people with autism or who are transgender, gunning down unarmed protestors in the street, or euthanizing the unhoused. This type of language is insidious. It has the effect of normalizing future atrocities by making such ideas mainstream or socially acceptable. And when they are repeated over and over again, they numb our response.

To be sure, the prospect for becoming Gaza is likely many years down the line for most white Americans. But any cursory glance at American history should dispel the erroneous notion that “it can’t happen here.” In fact, the US has used far worse tactics of destruction on the Global South for well over a century. We know what it is capable of. And domestically, the US has ruthlessly crushed people of colour many times over. One glaring example was the bombing of a city block by police in Philadelphia in 1985.

As the Trump regime ramps up its attacks on dissent, labeling anyone who disagrees with its policies as terrorists, it would be unwise to underestimate how far it will go to hold on to power. Fascist regimes never give up power willingly. The idea of voting them out is ahistorical and dangerous. They are either brought down by coups, military actions or civil war, or they lumber on for decades, rotting a society until the last fascist in power dies.

Since the beginning, Trump and his minions have told us what they want to do. They may couch it in jokes that are in bad taste or in outright proclamations. But fascists aren’t very good at nuance or in hiding their true intentions. The regime seizes on any opportunity it can to advance its objectives. The death of a racist podcaster. A mass shooting. Its own ‘Reichstag fire’ is whatever incident it can weaponize.

The last two years have shown us how far Western leaders can go. It may seem like half a world away, but we live in a very different world now. That perceived distance from us is an illusion. And one of the most difficult things to come to grips with is that our leaders either do not care or worse, they have a taste for doing things we once thought unthinkable. Thus, it would be supremely unwise to ignore the glaring fact that we can all suffer a similar fate by a political and media class that see most of us as either expendable, a useful scapegoat, or as an impediment their mission. In essence, we are all Gaza now.

Kenn Orfanos, October 2025

From Goebbels to Miller, the Milestones of Fascist Ideology

Leave a reply

There are moments in history that serve as milestones. Points in the timeline of human experience that help to identify when events shifted so much so that the course of everything after was forever altered. These points cannot be predicted, but they can be anticipated when other factors come together in a manner that echo other times or are considered reliable indicators of the consequence of actions.

Such is the case of the murder of Charlie Kirk. It will undoubtedly serve as a milestone in the timeline of American fascism. A point in history that indicated the final demolition of societal norms and the ascendancy of fascism accelerated. This isn’t necessarily about that moment when Kirk was shot. But it is about every moment that has followed.

The recent memorial service for the fascist ideologue was one of those moments. For all intents and purposes, it was a rally. An unprecedented opportunity to see exactly what the Trump regime and its cultish fanbase Maga, think of the majority of Americans. And a chance to catch a glimpse of its roadmap for humanity.

Trump’s eulogy wasn’t a surprise in regard to its rambling, tangential nonsense and thinly veiled threats. In this speech, Kirk’s vile life was but a footnote to Trump’s epic narcissism. In fact, Trump’s only ideological principle is narcissistic self-aggrandizement. In many ways, it was humorous because it appears like the Vaudeville act of a cartoon villain, only lacking a mustache to be twirled.

But Stephen Miller’s tirade, although drenched in melodramatic buffoonery, was far more chilling. Echoing Joseph Goebbels from a speech the Nazi propagandist gave in 1932 for the murder of a Nazi militant, Miller lashed out at the so-called “enemies” of America: “Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello… Our ancestors built the cities… the art and architecture… the industry.”

“To the enemy, I say this: You are nothing. You can build nothing. You can create nothing.”

His use of lineage is telling. He ignored every other civilization, choosing to elevate European history alone. The Maya, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Chinese, the Indus, the Australian Aboriginals. None of them matter or even exist in Miller’s timeline.

This is the lynchpin of all supremacist ideologies. The invocation of mythic beginnings in some imagined grandeur that is above all others. The descendants of this lineage are not only the creators of civilization. They are civilization itself.

In addition to this, Miller dehumanizes his opponents and anyone who does not fit into his white nationalist narrative of revisionist history as “nothing.” To him, descendants of the enslaved, the indentured, the immigrant, especially if they are Black, Brown or Asian, have no birthright to the nation, despite being the ones who actually built the infrastructure of the American Empire.

“The day that Charlie died, the angels wept, but those tears had been turned into fire in our hearts, and that fire burns with a righteous fury that our enemies cannot comprehend or understand,” Miller threatened. His use of spiritual imagery was no accident. Fascists view the world in black and white. There is no nuance, no grey areas, no room for questioning. It is a world full of angels and demons. One where an invisible war rages between the forces of darkness and light. Miller seized on this framing in order to tap into the ever-present angst present in the Maga base. An uneasiness that is pervasive within all fascist movements.

Miller told the crowd of nearly 100,000 cheering mourners that they are “on the side of God.” And this is something most of them fervently believe. It is what enables them to shut down rationality and reason when it comes to a failing economy and a reduction of their civil liberties. It is what allows them to ignore human suffering, even that of children, in their support and defense of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Being on “God’s side” gives Maga the unfettered right to attack, oppress or annihilate anyone who differs from them, because “they” are the “enemy” of God.

Without a doubt, Miller knows exactly what he is doing. He is a student of history. And he has meticulously curated this persona and image of himself. In truth, he appears to be relishing in the fact that so many are comparing him to the infamous Goebbels. But anyone who takes history seriously should not take any of this lightly. Miller is the architect of the Trump regime’s mass deportations and ICE thuggery.

Miller declared: “We are the storm.” In 1932, Goebbels proclaimed “Der Sturm bricht los” which means, “The storm breaks loose.” And we know what followed. A storm of fascist fear, brutality, terror, murder and destruction was unleashed in Germany that would end with the near total devastation of Europe and the annihilation of millions of people. That Miller chose to echo this man knowing the horrendous years that followed that speech is bone-chilling. And if this is not reason for alarm, I don’t know what is.

Kenn Orfanos, September 2025