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#collaborators

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Continued thread

Well, in for a penny, in for a pound as they say. A recent Popular Information report exposes 19 corporations also pulling back from supporting American Pride events, and since I decided to wade us into this I might as well help you fill out your boycott list going forward.

popular.info/p/pride-and-preju

19 companies pulling back their support for Pride

"For years, major corporations publicly celebrated the LGBTQ community. Corporations regularly highlighted the contributions of LGBTQ employees, facilitated LGBTQ resource groups, donated to pro-LGBTQ charities, and sponsored Pride Month parades each June. This was supposedly part of a principled commitment to inclusion, including the full spectrum of sexual orientations and gender identities.

But, in recent years, many Republicans, including President Trump, have decided that valuing diversity, including the LGBTQ community, constitutes discrimination against straight white men. Pride parades, fun events about accepting people for who they are, were rebranded by these Republicans as part of a nefarious scheme to indoctrinate children. Trump has issued several executive orders targeting the LGBTQ community and pressured corporations to end diversity, equality, and inclusion (DEI) activities.

The pressure campaign appears to be working. Numerous corporations that have previously presented themselves as champions of the LGBTQ community have pulled their support for Pride parades this month, a Popular Information investigation reveals."

So, I don't want to give the work Legum and the team have done here short shrift, and I'm sure these corporations all have a ton of reasons why they're not sniveling cowards submitting to Trump's fascist anti-DEI campaign, but I think we're all just here for the list of collaborators. So here it is:

Lowe's, Dyson, Nivea, Tiffany & Co., Capital One, UPS, Disney, DoorDash, Live Nation, Anheuser-Busch, Diageo, PepsiCo, Nissan, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Citi, Mastercard, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Deloitte.

I wish the CEOs and marketing managers of all these companies a very special "fuck you" and my sincerest hopes that they "rest in piss, you fucking coward collaborators."

Aight, I'm done. Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.

Popular Information · 19 companies pulling back their support for PrideBy Judd Legum
#Fascism#DEI#Trump

Diseased mind centrists got us here.

Their preemptive, insistent apathy is a form of passive collaboration. Nay, ACTIVE collaboration, because the modus operandum for centrists is to be LOUD AF, IMMEDIATELY about nazis getting punched, but being obtusely QUIET when nazis do the punching.

Fuck the Vichys.

Continued thread

The larger American establishment's ongoing surrender to Trump and his fascist regime is a story with many high-profile cowards, culprits, and collaborators. But given the frequently self-declared role of American media to speak truth to power, and protect our "democracy," I think it's entirely fair that corporate news outlets paving the way for Downmarket Mussolini to install a fascist dictatorship come in for extra vigorous criticism by honest observers who understand what they're doing. Take for example this recent piece for the Intercept by Natasha Leonard, examining how corporate media outlets reported the Department of Justice's outrageous plans to prosecute Democratic Congresswoman LaMonica McIver on wholly fabricated assault charges, after she attempted to conduct legal oversight on a privately-run ICE facility in her district.

theintercept.com/2025/05/20/tr

Trump Is Prosecuting a Congressional Democrat for Doing Her Job. The Media’s Response: No Big Deal.

“Democratic Rep. McIver charged with assault after skirmish at ICE center, New Jersey prosecutor says,” The Associated Press reported. “Rep. LaMonica McIver charged by DOJ over incident with ICE agents,” read the ABC News headline. “The Justice Department charged a New Jersey congresswoman with assaulting federal agents during a clash outside a Newark immigration detention center,” began the New York Times’s coverage.

All of these are technically accurate: Alina Habba, Trump’s sometime personal lawyer and the interim federal prosecutor for New Jersey, announced on X that the administration was charging the member of Congress with “assaulting, impeding and interfering with law enforcement” after an incident when McIver and two other House members went to view ICE’s privately run Delaney Hall detention facility.

News organizations should, however, have long ago stopped affording the Trump administration such credulous coverage. Even the most bare-bones, facts-only reporting here fails the basic task of truth-telling if it doesn’t lead by pointing out that these charges are manufactured, malicious, politically motivated attacks."

I've written a bit about both the (now dropped) charges against Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, and the pending charges against Congresswoman McIver so I won't rehash all the details here again; needless to say I agree wholeheartedly with Leonard's assertion that the charges against McIver are trumped up fascist nonsense, a clear case of attempted political intimidation, and part of a seemingly racist pattern of targeting its political opponents with the Justice Department, by the Trump administration. Furthermore, given that the incident that motivated interim U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Alina Habba to file assault charges that each carry a maximum sentence of eight years was captured entirely on video, I don't think it is at all reasonable to pretend the Trump regime might have a point, or that this is a "she said, they said" kind of issue. Yet as Leonard documents, that's exactly how subservient media reported not only the story of McIver's targeting, but also the attempted prosecution of Baraka as well.

Look folks, this isn't a question of partisan political coverage; I'm no friend of the Democratic Party, and based on the significant quantity of her writing I've read, I'd be willing to bet neither is Leonard. There is something fundamentally wrong, and actively dangerous, about a US corporate media complex that can watch a fascist, white nationalist, and openly nativist regime engage in a clear act of authoritarian political intimidation against its duly-elected political opposition, to protect a nightmare mass deportation scheme built on legal arguments you know are extremely dubious, and report it as a "clash" while accepting Alina Habba of all people's arguments at face value. This isn't bad journalism, this is paving the way for the fascist repression of Trump's political opponents in real time and whether its a result of cowardice, or open collaboration, is absolutely fucking irrelevant. The United States is speedrunning a descent into a fascist dictatorship run by a brainwormed septuagenarian racist and his openly white nationalist toady Stephen Miller, and these chucklefucks are out here pretending just maybe a Congresswoman should do a couple decades of hard time for bumping into an ICE murderpig while literally being prevented from doing her job; even though we have the entire interaction on fucking video.

If this is the kind of coverage corporate media outlets intend to provide during the second Trump administration, then Downmarket Mussolini doesn't need to suppress the media. After all, they're already happy to work for him and his fascist agenda right now, and Der Leader is rather busy tearing what passes for American democracy apart as we speak.

The Intercept · Trump Is Prosecuting a Congressional Democrat for Doing Her Job. The Media’s Response: No Big Deal.By Natasha Lennard

"Rep Malinowski outlines some real tangible steps Dems could take to disabuse would be Trump #collaborators from collaborating."
-S Stein

"Bukele, presents the clearest case because has crossed a line that few foreign dictators ever have: Not only is he relishing the support of an American president for human rights abuses💔in his own country;🚨he's engaging in a #conspiracy with that pres to subvert the rule of law in America itself."

#HumanRights #Deportations #USPol

thebulwark.com/p/make-it-painf

The Bulwark · Make It Painful to Collaborate with TrumpBy Tom Malinowski

David Hogg should make it an #antifa litmus test through show not tell ―and should extend it to the Senate because fuck Chuck Schumer

politico.com/news/2025/04/15/d

btw: this is for next year’s congressional midterm elections. this is Hogg’ double-dog dare to #GOP and their Democratic Party #fascist #collaborators in their most likely attempt to not hold federal elections next year.

@Remittancegirl @huntingdon Speaking of lawfirms having the courage to resist #Trump: there is now a #MAGA #Collaborators #Tracker, which also tracks #capitulators (those who knuckled under and complied under threat) and active #resisters:

maga-collaborators.net/

The lawfirms category shows dozens if not hundreds of resisters: apparently the majority, and a larger proportion than in any other category. By comparison, the corporations category shows only two resisters: Costco and Disney.

Those lawfirms will be needed after the end of the regime. #Nuremberg

www.maga-collaborators.netHome page - MAGA Collaborator Tracker
Continued thread

Speaking of cowardice, complicity, and paving the road for fascism, let us not forget that the Trump regime's enabling of an ongoing genocide by Israel in Gaza, their fascist kidnapping spree against student protestors, and their quest to control American universities under the guise of "fighting antisemitism" are built on the back of policies, and in particular ideological justifications, provided by a Democratic Party that picked supporting genocide, hunting down migrants, and building out a police state over winning "the most important election in American history."

theguardian.com/commentisfree/

Don’t just blame Trump – Democrats paved the way for this campus crackdown

"For instance, the reason Trump could plausibly refer to Gaza a “demolition site” is because, for more than a year prior to his re-election, his Democratic predecessor (urged on by Schumer and others) supplied unlimited weapons to Israel to carry out a campaign of destruction that has few modern equivalents – a campaign that was not just restricted to Gaza, but also extended to the West Bank, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon and Syria. Biden’s planned successor, Kamala Harris, and her surrogates repeatedly stressed to voters that these policies would continue largely unchanged under her watch.

Even before Trump had a chance to weigh in, Joe Biden immediately characterized the protests at Columbia as “antisemitic” and declared that “order must prevail” on college campuses. Democratic lawmakers put aggressive pressure on the former Columbia University president Minouche Shafik to crush the protests. She ultimately did so with the assistance of New York City’s Democratic mayor, Eric Adams (who justified his clampdown via evidence-free statements that the protests were driven primarily by “outside agitators”). Trump celebrated the pictures and videos of students getting roughed up by the NYPDand, upon Trump’s reclaiming the White House, the justice department interceded on behalf of Adams – making his criminal investigation go away in apparent exchange for the mayor adopting a more aggressive posture on immigration – a move that critics claim is a quid pro quo.

In a similar vein, it was Biden who enshrined the IHRA definition of antisemitism into federal guidance, despite the definition’s author repeatedly describing it as a “travesty” to use this definition to regulate speech and behavior. Building on Biden’s introduction, Trump is poised to sign a bill that would implement this same definition into federal anti-discrimination law – and in the meantime, he’s insisting Columbia and other schools adopt this definition in their own codes of conduct. NYU and Harvard have already taken this step, overriding concerns by civil rights and civil liberties organizations – from the ACLU, to Fire and the AAUP, to Israeli civil rights groups – who stressed that IHRA’s definition is extremely vague and provides strong leeway for institutional stakeholders to censor most critical discussion of Israel, Zionism or Judaism more broadly, by Jews and non-Jews alike."

Look, you can criticize me for playing "the blame game" all you like, but every goddamn thing Trump is doing surrounding the US-backed genocide in Gaza, including the domestic installation of fascist ideological policing, was and is facilitated by a Biden administration that was warned all of this - from Trump winning, to deploying War on Terror logic repression on anti-genocide protesters - was on the table if they didn't change course. If you want to know why only fourteen Democrats signed a letter decrying the fascist abduction of Mahmoud Khalil, and only thirty-four Democrat lawmakers signed the letter demanding the release of Rumeysa Ozturk (whose only "crime" appears to be have been writing an op-ed calling for her University to divest from Israel and condemn a genocide) you don't have to look any further than a mainstream Democratic Party leadership class that's fat on AIPAC donations and happily told you student protestors were violent antisemites who endorsed terrorist organizations, demanded colleges take action to suppress the protests, and justified a brutal police crackdown on... college kids who don't want their government to facilitate a genocide. It's kind of hard to criticize all that fascism when your donors love it and you directly made the arguments Trump is using to conduct it, after all.

The Guardian · Don’t just blame Trump – Democrats paved the way for this campus crackdownBy Musa al-Gharbi
#Fascism#Trump#Israel

So, some Georgetown #Law School students made a google sheet about which law firms are capitulating to #fascism in #America.

It's great information, but a bit unwieldy. So, I turned it into a website: maga-collaborators.net

Please use this site, boost, and share it. The more folks who do, the more incentive I have to improve on it!

www.maga-collaborators.netHome page - MAGA Collaborator Tracker
Replied in thread

@jaycee

It was a mistake, I think, to hang Mussolini from a lamppost. Perhaps it would have been a better example to future wannabe #fascist #dictators if we had watched Mussolini die slowly of old age in prison, getting weaker and more irrelevant every day.

That is my wish for #Trump: death by old age in prison, an example to others.

(Of course, I want every one of his present day #collaborators in prison as well, an example to future collaborators.)

In news from the quivering bowels of Vichy America, a major liberal law firm has agreed to work for fascists and stop hiring so many women, brown people, or members of the LGBTQ community to placate an aggrieved, would-be dictator and keep raking in those sweet government contracts:

truthout.org/articles/trump-re

Trump-Targeted Law Firm Caves, Vows $40M in Legal Support to Right-Wing Causes

"President Donald Trump withdrew an executive order targeting a major Democratic-leaning law firm after the firm agreed to provide $40 million in pro bono legal services in support of his administration’s far right initiatives.

“This is unbelievably shameful from Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP,” Molly Coleman, executive director at People’s Parity Project, said on LinkedIn. “I’m embarrassed to have any association with this firm that failed to find the courage the moment requires.”

Recently, the White House has escalated attacks on law firms whose attorneys have been involved in legal efforts opposing Trump. Just last week, Trump signed an executive order attempting to revoke security clearances from Paul, Weiss attorneys, restrict the firm’s access to federal buildings, and terminate any of its government contracts. The order reportedly prompted at least one client to sever ties with the firm.

However, following a meeting between Trump and Brad Karp, the chair of Paul, Weiss, the administration abruptly rescinded the order. “We look forward to an engaged and constructive relationship with the President and his Administration,” Karp said in a statement."

So, let's make sure we all understand what's going on here. Trump is brazenly and almost certainly illegally, shaking down a powerful law firm that has literally worked on cases opposing him in the past, and is known from their commitment to diverse hiring practices, and instead of fighting back, or even just taking the loss of government money on the chin, they've decided to *check notes* concede that a former partner who worked on cases against Trump was engaged in "wrongdoing," work pro-bono for the fascist regime, and capitulate to the fascist "war on DEI" - an idea whose ever-expanding meaning appears to be "restore mandated white supremacy in America."

Are you kidding me? Does the larger liberal establishment in the United States have anything resembling a spine to share between them? More importantly, if Americans trapped inside the increasingly ominous, fascist nightmare that is Trump 2.0 can't count on a high profile law firm in the *business* of protecting civil rights and taking on the government, to even stand up for the firm's *own* rights, how can they have faith that anyone in position to defend their rights in a legal capacity, is going to step up to the plate for them? The answer of course, is that they can't.

Folks, you'll get no argument from me if you say that the greater evil in this story is a fascist president who would be king, using the authority of his office to gain revenge on law firms that helped charge him for real crimes, he absolutely committed. As the extorted settlement proves, this too is part of Trump's plot to take complete control of America as a dictator. This isn't legal, and as a federal judge's restraining order in a similar case involving the Trump-targeted firm Perkins Coie demonstrates, complete surrender was not the only option Paul Weiss and its chair Brad Karp had here. By that same measure you can't win if you don't fight, and when losing means capitulating to fascism, a law firm full of civil rights lawyers has a goddamn *responsibility* to resist.

“It is a sad day for the legal industry. Paul, Weiss, didn’t just bend a knee, it set a new standard for shameful capitulation. This is a stain on the firm, every one of its partners, and the entire legal profession,” Marc Elias, founder of Democracy Docket, said on Bluesky."

Friends, I've been talking about and writing about the rise of fascism for over a decade now. And I'm not bragging, because I wish I had been wrong about the signs I was reading around me, but I have largely been right when I insisted we were all heading for a moment like this. Furthermore, I have repeatedly warned that a liberal establishment (no, not you; your leaders, your media, your "liberal" capitalist employers) which would always have the option of simply collaborating with the fascist order, wasn't going to save us from fascist predation. There is no cavalry; the opposition party, the courts, and the lawyers aren't going to stop this. At the rate things are going, I have no idea how long I'll still be able to tell you that we are the cavalry, and the only way this nightmare ends is if we use our bodies en masse to shut down the fascist order and the profits that motivate the guys paying for all this; but it's the truth. If you can do it to Tesla, you can do it to any of them.

Truthout · Trump Rescinds Order Targeting Law Firm After It Offers Pro Bono for Right-Wing Causes“This is a stain on the firm, every one of its partners, and the entire legal profession,” the founder of Democracy Docket said.
Replied in thread

@AJ_andrew69

It won't be enough to investigate Trump and his #fascist #collaborators, although that's an urgently needed start. We need a permanent team of prosecutors who find and prosecute cases where the defendants are attacking democracy and the rule of law. And that team must have priority when allocating resources and when scheduling trials.