The Skinny: Trump’s Fascist Panopticon Expands
Author’s note: in addition to my work here on NIDC, I also blog about fascism and current affairs on the Fediverse; click here to check it out. Want more? Click here to subscribe to NIDC today.
The Eye Always Watches
As the Trump regime churned towards the end of its first hundred days, the profile of the fascist panopticon being deployed against immigrants and protesters began to take shape, and The Skinny was there to break it down for our readers. As always you can follow the links below to check out these stories on my Fediverse blog, or simply read them in their entirety on page two by using the navigation buttons at the bottom of this article.
April 10th – 12th, 2025
Trump Regime Demands Migrant Social Media Handles
“Ultimately I think it’s very easy for the mainstream discourse to ignore these fascist panopticon policies individually, especially given how little Americans still drunk on white supremacist ideology care what happens to migrants under a fascist mass deportation campaign. Taken together however, these orders prove that the Trump administration is clearly constructing a digital surveillance web that can easily be adapted to any targeted group as the regime’s fascist agenda progresses; which means that some day soon, even the most racist people in our society might wish they’d cared more about Trump’s version of the panopticon while his regime was still building it out.”
Propaganda, Antisemitism, and the Panopticon
“I don’t think anyone with a functioning brain needs to be told that a Trumpenreich regime full of literal fucking nazis, does not at all care about fighting antisemitism. What it does care about is protecting its investment in a MENA region client state it uses to ensure American dominance of fossil fuel availability, and the US-funded genocide of Palestinians that state, Israel, is conducting in Gaza. Furthermore, the Pork Reich is also very concerned with creating ideological justification to unleash its Gestapo (ICE) on foreign students and Muslims in general, as part of a Christian Nationalist agenda to establish America as a white ethnostate.”
The Pork Reich Is Tracing Dark History
“If you look at the overarching theme of the Trump regime’s employment of AI technology, mass surveillance, and the integration of government data into ICE databases, it becomes clear that we’re looking at systemic, logistically organized fascist repression that looks the Nazis under Hitler. You might say I can’t prove the administration is working towards an eliminationist program targeting migrants, but I’d respond that mass deportations have historically been part of the process of genocide, bullets in the head are cheaper than airplane flights, and the very same systemic fascism this regime is now admitting is necessary for its deportation regime to function, can just as easily be purposed for mass executions when the time comes.”
Spite and Supremacy: the IRS and ICE cut a deal
“Although every expansion of the regime’s ability to hunt down migrants is an important stepping stone to a white nationalist dictatorship, this policy is particularly cruel and shortsighted. For starters, it deprives the US government of tax revenue because an overwhelming number of undocumented people do in fact pay their taxes. More importantly however the US government and the IRS encouraged migrants to do so for decades, under the promise that this information won’t be used to target and deport them. In one single agreement signed by two members of the Trumpenreich, the US government has simultaneously harmed us all and forced more migrants underground, while breaking our promise to undocumented people who otherwise would have stayed below the radar.”
Trump Regime Admits to Ideological Policing in Khalil Case
“The Trump regime has already ignored multiple court orders forbidding its fascist activities, and the government is openly asserting the right to target, detain, and deport, again, a legal permanent resident of the United States, who is married to an American citizen, for purely ideological reasons. That assertion may not survive a judge’s ruling in this particular case, but with a 6-3 fascist high Supreme Court in its pocket it feels like it’s only a matter of time before the regime wins one of these arguments before a more sympathetic judge – and then there is no predicting how far the new American Nazi movement will go to crush dissent and ideological opposition to its authoritarian rule.”
Papers Please: Our New Apartheid Reality
“The reality is that no matter what the rules say, this is a white nationalist government that has falsely argued migrants don’t have any protected rights, and have already begun the process of revoking legal status for thousands of people lawfully residing in the United States; while brazenly deploying deportation to engage in fascist ideological policing to target its enemies. This is a regime that hates migrants, does not care if they “follow the rules,” is willing to play legal Calvinball to deport anyone who isn’t white and a natural born citizen, and has overwhelmingly targeted immigrants following the legal process to remain in the US as a sort of “low hanging fruit” to easily generate big numbers of deportations and brag about to Trump’s deeply racist base of support.”
The GOP is Purposely Installing Fascism Too
“Even if the bill doesn’t pass the Senate however, I think it’s pretty instructional to look at the overarching theme of the fascist GOP’s arguments for running it through the House. To justify the bill, House Republicans have constructed a vast conspiracy theory whereby even conservative judges who disagree with Trump are working with an undefined “radical left” to undermine the country; this is “if you’re not with us, you’re against” us logic and as author Jason Stanley noted in his excellent book How Fascism Works, fascism functions by transforming everything into the politics of “us versus them.”
When The Regime Says You’re Already Dead
“This is about a lot more than collecting Social Security benefits in your late 60’s; in modern American society you typically need a Social Security number to open a bank account, get a credit card, rent an apartment, obtain health insurance, access car loans, and so forth, so when Dudek says they’re trying to “exterminate” the “financial lives” of targeted immigrants, he’s only partially employing a metaphor here; the opponents of the plan calling this “digital murder” are absolutely right to do so. This is definitely going to destroy lives and get people killed.”
– Nina Illingworth
Anarcho-syndicalist writer, critic and analyst.
You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, and on Mastodon.
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