Vox Populi, Vox Dei. We're Talkin' Here!

[babylonsister]

Vox Populi, Vox Dei. We’re Talkin’ Here!
by Jaime O’Neill | September 19, 2025 - 5:32am

"The art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of the citizens to give to the other."
— Voltaire

All the masks are off, all the pretense gone. Anyone who couldn’t see that the goal had been full bore fascism all along and isn’t seeing it even now must own their intellectual laziness or amorality. Only a determined and deep-in- the-bone fascist could still be supporting Trump’s plain right-wing totalitarian agenda this far into that nightmare. From concentration camps in the swamps, to mass deportations, to excision of rights for women, blatant racism, class warfare, criminal cruelty against the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, and a steady diet of lies could still be creating warm-and-runny feelings in people who thrill to sight of a swastika or see the faces of Trump or Vance on what has become state-run media.

American fascists have been working toward this goal for a long time, but Trump and the gang have brought it to fruition. Ronald Reagan got rid of the Fairness Doctrine making it possible for an Australian fascist to reap billions based on selling lies. The Supreme Court ruled that there was no longer any need for civil rights protections for black folks as outlined in voting rights protections passed over 60 years ago. Environmental protections have been stripped away pursuant to Trump’s ignorant chants of “drill, baby, drill to throngs of MAGA numbnut Neanderthals, but to the delight of the insatiably greedy fossil fuel moguls. Free speech ain’t free now. You’d better own a newspaper or TV syndicate friendly to Trump if you want to speak your opinions or report the news. The news is only for fascists these days as popular entertainers like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel are fired by quisling media executives who quickly cave to pressure. Teachers and professors at our top universities are sold out by weak-kneed college administrations. They fold like gamblers to what they think is a guy holding a Royal Flush who imagines himself wearing a crown.

It’s an Orwellian world now, a place where war is peace and the U.S.A, U.S.A. donates copious amounts of arms and money to corrupt foreign oppressors if they ask nicely and if there’s a reward to come, something like turning Gaza into a playground sans Palestinians for good Americans who have turned avaricious, willing to turn a blind eye to a thousand assaults against democracy, decency, or diversity, equity, or inclusion.

More depredations are announced daily. All of our governmental agencies are headed by the worst we have, all of them dedicated to working against the aims of those agencies. Our tax dollars at work, tearing down the infrastructure of government. The Department of Defense (always a euphemism) is now renamed the War Department. The Department of Justice? Who can they still fool with that word? True justice, such as it ever was, is disappearing like mist. If you want it, you better bring cash. Lots of cash.

The E.P.A.? Get outta here. The Federal Bureau of Investigation under Kash Patel? Yeah, that’ll work, though who do we suppose will be under investigation now? J. Edgar Hoover, who was a fascist before it was made official, investigated Martin Luther King, aka "Martin Luther Coon" when Hoover knew there were no microphones or hostile reporters around. No such need to hide it anymore, as guys like Patel have shown. Our health care has been put under the supervision who makes a witch doctor look like a man of science. The wolves aren’t disguised as sheep anymore, and they’re gobbling up university presidents and heads of corporations without bothering to don sheepy outfits. Among the thousands of disappointments suffered by Americans who held the best of American values is the crushing revelation that when their money or power is threatened, the wooliest of the sheep will go along to get along. They did in Germany then and there and they’ve been doing it here and now with the alacrity of rats leaving a sinking ship (apologies to literal rats everywhere).

Consequently, it’s so long to Stephen Colbert. Jimmy Kimmel is out, too, along with his sidekick, Guillermo. Teachers are verboten to say the word “gay” anymore. And all that liberal stuff about inclusion, diversity and equity is out the window. If you persist in talking that stuff, you might expect a midnight roust at your front door. And if you think your principal or your college president is going to stand by you, I wouldn’t bet on it. They tend to throw in with the fuckers against the fuckees. The same is too often true of police chiefs, military brass, middle managers, and bosses of most every sort. They have families to think about, don’t ya know? Underlings are likely to be left to their fates if they know what’s good for ‘em. As the famous Yeats poem says so clearly. “The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” And full of shit, too, if you want to be able to distinguish between the two.

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