Recent searches
Search options
Administered by:
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:
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However, following a meeting between Trump and Brad Karp, the chair of Paul, Weiss, the administration abruptly rescinded the order.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.
Whelp, given the news that Columbia University has also surrendered to Trump's fascist demands to avoid retaliatory (and likely illegal) funding cuts, I guess this Vichy establishment thing is a whole ass beat now. Hiding behind the laughably dishonest idea of fighting a grossly distorted definition of "antisemitism" the regime is moving towards the standard authoritarian goal of controlling higher education institutes; it's first target, Columbia, has surrendered without offering even token resistance and as you can imagine, the decision was not popular with people who aren't sniveling collaborators:
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-columbia-demands
'Columbia Has Lost Something It May Never Regain': Outrage as the University Yields to Trump's Demands
"Columbia University received a wave of criticism on Friday after it agreed to a number of demands from the Trump administration as part of negotiations over $400 million in federal grants and contracts that the Trump administration had pulled due to the school's alleged "inaction in the face of persistent harassment of Jewish students."
The school agreed to a ban on masks and to appoint a senior vice provost with broad power to oversee both the department of Middle East, South Asian, and African Studied and the school's Center for Palestine Studies, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news. Also, Columbia has hired over 30 "special officers" who will have the ability to remove individuals from campus and arrest them, per the memo from the school announcing the update."
Although this article is short, and mostly focuses on (wholly deserved) criticism of Columbia University for caving completely to fascist intimidation, there's actually a lot to unpack about the larger situation here:
- as in the case of the Paul Weiss capitulation story, the greater evil here remains a fascist Trump regime engaging in what amounts to extortion, to further its attacks on protesters, civil rights activists, and higher education in America.
- while on the surface Columbia's concessions to the regime may appear small, they foundationally attack free speech rights on campus, and the academic freedom of the institute, to the point that I'm not even sure you can still call Columbia a university now. Allowing a Trump regime that defines opposing genocide as antisemitism, protest as terrorism, and criticizing the US government as a threat to national security, to influence a department's curriculum, helping it to identify students engaged in constitutionally-protected protests, and literally embedding a small police department's worth of goon squad murderpigs inside the facilities to more expediently violate the rights of protestors, are each in and of themselves damning examples of fascist collaboration that fundamentally invalidate everything Columbia claims it stands for.
- as I've mentioned elsewhere, it's important to understand that "Trump is not threatening to jail or deport anyone running these big law firms and prestigious universities. He's threatening them with funding cuts, lack of access to federal contracts, and harassment investigations." This in turn means that by collaborating with the Trump regime (based on fascist word games and lies that, by capitulating, Columbia itself is helping to transform into enforced reality) the administrators running Columbia, just like the law firm Paul Weiss above, are effectively declaring that there is a monetary cost above which they will happily collaborate with fascism to actively harm their own students and our larger society.
- I realize that $400M in government funding is a lot of money, but we're talking about a university with a $14.8B (with a b) endowment, and one of the wealthiest alumni and donor bases in America. I don't find the senior administrator quoted in this story's excuse that "the federal government had too many ways to take back money from the university" credible, and even if I did you're still saying there's a price point where you'll normalize authoritarianism and support the activates of a fascist regime against your own students. If the price of keeping grand ole Columbia in a "recognizable form" is helping a fascist government install a fascist dictatorship that *will* end in mass graves, then that price is too damn high.
- they literally didn't even *try* to take the Trump regime to court over this.
- since there was no court case, and no legal settlement, the Trump regime is not bound by anyone to cease its attacks on Columbia, or barred from issuing further demands. If tomorrow, Trump decides that the University has to open up a phrenology department, devote its resources to investigating "anti-white racism" on campus, and let one of Elon Musk's DOGE minions run all of its scientific research, he can simply threaten Columbia's funding again to get what he wants. The university now works for Trump; even if they don't realize it yet.
It should also be noted that the details above, do not reflect the full scope of the University of Columbia's capitulation to the Trump regime. As this March 14th, 2025 explainer from Al Jazeera notes, the University already announced it had targeted a number of students who participated in the occupation of Hamilton Hall as part of campus-wide anti-genocide protests for suspension, expulsion, or revoked their degrees:
Columbia expels, suspends students after government threats: What we know
"Then, on Thursday, Columbia announced that students involved in last year’s Hamilton Hall protest have received multiple-year suspensions or outright expulsions following the university’s investigations. The months-long process was carried out by the school’s University Judicial Board, and included hearings for each student involved.
“Columbia is committed to enforcing the University’s Rules and Policies and improving our disciplinary processes,” the university said.
Others who have since graduated will have their degrees revoked, it added. The names and precise number of students sanctioned by the judicial board were not revealed.
According to The Associated Press news agency, several other students have been notified by university officials that they are also under investigation for sharing social media posts in support of Palestinian people or joining “unauthorised” protests."
Although the precise number of students targeted for reprisal was unknown at the time of publication, other sources have since reported that 22 students or former students were affected; including Grant Miner, president of the Student Workers of Columbia (SWC) union, who was set to begin negotiations between SWC and Columbia and present demands to protect international and undocumented student workers, the very next day.
Finally, while apologists have pointed out that the disciplinary process behind Columbia's reprisals had been conducted over the course of the prior year, I personally think that excuse falls flat. Der Führer himself threatened that "American students will be permanently expelled, or depending on the crime, arrested" in a proclamation on Truth Social clearly targeting anti-genocide campus protestors; three days later the Trump regime issued its demands to Columbia, and three days after that ICE kidnapped former Columbia student and protest leader Mahmoud Khalil while university officials, who had been warned by Khalil that the Trump regime was targeting him, stood by and did nothing. Furthermore, given that until now the disciplinary body investigating student protestors at Columbia had only issued suspensions, I don't think you need to be Columbo to connect the dots and realize this is all part of the same surrender to and collaboration with fascism by the university here.
Of course, all of this still leaves the question of does Columbia actually "stand for" anything at all? This is after all the university that unleashed police violence against protestors on its own campus, punished professors who took a stand against genocide, and banned student groups protesting Israel's crimes against humanity in Gaza and the US government that underwrote them, long before Trump took office. There is a strong pro-Zionist bent to much of the school's administration, and at least one large alumni group celebrated Trump's original funding cuts. Although it's a little older now, and Columbia has since surrendered to Trump's control whether they realize it or not, this March 8th piece by Columbia alum Natasha Leonard, writing in the Intercept sums up a lot of the ways the university was already enacting a pro-genocide agenda that isn't all that different from Trump's.
https://theintercept.com/2025/03/08/columbia-trump-funding-gaza-israel/
Columbia Bent Over Backward to Appease Right-Wing, Pro-Israel Attacks — And Trump Still Cut Federal Funding
"Antisemitism is no doubt a legitimate concern in a country led by antisemites; the Trump administration and pro-Israel organizations’ concerns are anything but legitimate. So far, Columbia’s purported crackdown on antisemitism has included anti-Palestinian, Islamophobic repression, the consistent conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and a willingness to only prioritize the concerns of certain Jewish voices, while silencing the dissent of the dozens of anti-Zionist Jews on campus.
“This is not about antisemitism. It is about crushing dissent,” said Reinhold Martin, a Columbia historian of architecture and president of the university’s American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, chapter. “And for those who take the Trump administration’s actions at face value, remember Charlottesville.”
Martin was referring, of course, to the 2017 white supremacist gathering, where neo-Nazis marched with tiki torches chanting “Jews will not replace us,” a fascist murdered an antifascist counter-protester with his car, and Trump responded by calling participants “some very fine people.”
I chose this article in part because Leonard offers a Jewish perspective on the weaponization of antisemitism, by a regime full of confirmed antisemites, to support Israel's genocide in Gaza, while attacking academic freedom, protest rights, and the ability of international students legally studying in the United States to criticize the regime; her perspective is one the regime would prefer you not even know exists. The piece also offers a pretty good catalogue of the ways Columbia was already willing to violate the rights of its students, including but not limited to, unleashing horrifying police violence on entirely non-violent protestors occupying a building on campus. Crucially, Leonard also offers a structural critique about why the modern neoliberal university, and Columbia in particular, is ideologically more aligned with, and thus more susceptible to being control by a fascist regime like Trump's, than US universities have been in the past. It's a great article, and you really should read it all.
Finally of course, the overarching content of Leonard's piece proves two points about Columbia's capitulation that I mentioned in this thread already; that the university could have fought back, it just didn't want to, and that appeasing the fascist Trump regime now won't stop them from demanding more later, just as appeasing GOP inquisitors on the hill, and a Biden administration funding and supporting Israel's genocide in Gaza was no guarantee Trump wouldn't seek to destroy or take control of Columbia in the future, as he has now indeed done. If they didn't have to surrender, and capitulating isn't guaranteed to stop the fascist assault on the university anyway, you have to at least wonder if a university administration that's largely pro-Zionist, and wholly contemptuous of both its staff, and students, simply wanted to do so for ideological reasons.
Well, this one hits closer to home than I'd like. The University of Michigan has become the latest extremely wealthy ($19.2B endowment as of June 30, 2024) US higher education institute to capitulate to Trump, and in doing so further the regime's efforts to enforce a white supremacist worldview on education in America.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/28/university-michigan-ends-dei-program
University of Michigan shutters its flagship diversity program
“The federal government is determined to dismantle and control higher education and to make our institutions more uniform, more inequitable, and more exclusive,” Rebekah Modrak, the chair of the faculty senate, wrote in an email to colleagues about the decision, according to the Detroit Free Press. “They are using the power of the government to engineer a sweeping culture change towards white supremacy. Unfortunately, University of Michigan leaders seem determined to comply and to collaborate in our own destruction.”
As someone intimately familiar with how UM operates, the administrator's decision to surrender completely in the face of Trump's threats to cut all federal funding is hardly surprising; although it is extremely disappointing. Michigan is in many ways the perfect model of the neoliberal (capitalist) university; it receives over a billion dollars a year in federal research funding, and the school had already cut back on its diversity initiatives in admissions and hiring in response to a 6-3 fascist high SCOTUS striking down Affirmative Action. As in the case with Columbia, I am fairly certain the school's wealthy alumni base, access to some of the finest lawyers in America, and massive endowment would have allowed it to fight Trump's extortion in court; and that decision would be largely supported by students, faculty, and even the (Democrat controlled) state government. Despite this, a conflict-adverse administration that has transformed UM into a money printing machine over the past couple of decades in particular, was never going to risk perhaps billions of dollars in funding; even if it means capitulating to fascism. While some may be inclined to forgive Michigan's leadership for their cowardice given those stakes, I will once again remind folks that if you don't stand for opposing extortion, fascism, and white supremacy, why should anyone believe you stand for anything at all?
Worse still, is that Michigan's rational for groveling before Trump's white nationalist agenda tries to have it both ways, while (not so) subtly reinforcing white supremacist propaganda and world views. The university touts the groundbreaking success of its expansive DEI programs; while simultaneously pretending they're unconcerned with ending these programs because racism is over or something, I guess. The administration also points to the myriad of fascist executive orders and threats issued by the Trump regime, but then offers up the excuse that "some in our campus community have voiced frustration that they did not feel included in DEI initiatives and that the programming fell short in fostering connections among diverse groups" - as if Trump's orders and Michigan's actions have anything at all to do with "fostering connections among diverse groups" or helping people the DEI initiative wasn't helping enough. Finally the UM administration promises to continue to foster "multiculturalism" and states it remains "steadfast in our dedication to academic freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of expression" - as if Trump can't threaten Michigan's funding again to cancel programs that foster "multiculturalism" (another word fascists use instead of slurs), or terms like "academic freedom" mean anything in light of the Faustian (non) bargain the University has struck here.
The sad truth here is that out of nothing more than greed and cowardice, the University of Michigan has given Downmarket Mussolini and his white nationalist agenda a victory that will ring across the nation. The UM DEI program was expanded in part to counteract the rise of white nationalist politics during the first Trump presidency, it was a highly successful endeavor that was considered a model for other schools to copy nationally, and Michigan's commitment to diversity programs was genuine. If a northern liberal school with more money than god and every reason to fight back, won't take on the Trump regime's fascist agenda, who else is going to have the courage to do so?
And another white shoe DC law firm decides to capitulate to fascism rather than fight; even as their colleagues at other firms are successfully getting restraining orders to block Trump's strongarm tactics. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (typically shortened to just "Skadden") joins the firm Paul Weiss on the wall of infamy and cowardice, with a "deal" that's even more collaborationist with, again - fascists and a fascist agenda.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/skadden-arps-deal-trump
'Pathetic': Elite Law Firm Blasted for Striking Deal With Trump Administration
"The firm has agreed to provide at least $100 million in pro bono legal services to the federal government during his administration "and beyond," according to a Truth Social post from U.S. President Donald Trump. Also, the "firm will not engage in illegal" diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) "discrimination and preferences," according to the post, which also noted that the firm proactively reached out to the administration about an agreement.
Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump called the deal "essentially a settlement," according to Reuters.
"Pathetic when the richest and most powerful lawyers in America won't stand up for the profession that made them rich and powerful," wrote U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on X on Friday, reacting to earlier reporting that the firm was in discussions with the White House over a deal."
In addition to the $100M of pro bono work for the Trump regime, other outlets are reporting that Skadden has promised to offer fellowships to "conservative" (so, fascist, because conservative means fascist in this political environment) law graduates, and take cases for conservative causes - which I think we can safely parse to mean things like "reverse racism" lawsuits, and anti-gender discrimination cases that involve "protecting women" by persecuting trans women. Did I mention that Skadden took these steps preemptively, as in before Trump even issued an executive order targeting them?
As in the case of Paul Weiss, and various wealthy Universities in America, the simple truth is that these folks are choosing to actively collaborate with fascists, and reinforcing the twisted unreality imposed by a fascist regime, for nothing more than money. We have a term for people who help fascists, do fascism, for money - it's fascist collaborator, or simply just "fascist." Like all the others, Skadden thinks they're striking a deal to stop Der Führer's assault on their very lucrative enterprise; and like the others, they'll soon discover that they work for Trump now, and there's no amount of appeasement that will change that.
If you're wondering why the pundit class and the mainstream media organizations that employ them have been so tepid in their criticism of Trump, so unwilling to name the fascist beast and draw the logical conclusions the regime's actions imply, perhaps it's because they know they've been complicit in this fascist nightmare? As Joan Westenberg notes in this brilliant March 15th drag out piece, the normalization of the fascist ideology the Trump regime is running on now has many fathers in American society, and not all of them are folks who'd want to be known as supporters of MAGA fascism; but that's precisely the role they've served, for personal gain:
https://www.theindex.media/the-pundit-class-played-devils-advocate-now-the-devils-at-the-door/
The Pundit Class Played Devil’s Advocate. Now the Devil’s at the Door.
"A revolving door of New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post columnists made a career of platforming people who—either blatantly or through implication—argued that transgender people shouldn't exist. That democracy had "gone too far." They raged against "wokeism" because they couldn’t conceive of a world where it wouldn’t prevail. They bemoaned "cancel culture" not because they cared about free speech, but because they mistakenly believed the right-wing ideologues they dined with had been cast out for good.
In their intellectual stupor, they decided that the forces of social change were so overpowering and unstoppable that the world needed a voice to speak up against them in an infernal balancing act. And it felt daring, didn't it? To be the literary equivalent of the Cool Girl—not like those Other Girls who care about freedom, equity, history, and common sense.
They dressed themselves up as the beatniks of cultural commentary. They convinced themselves of their "underground" status. They basked in institutional protection, indulging in a self-congratulatory circle-jerk of mock dissent where the stakes were always someone else's problem. They positioned themselves as lone voices against an imagined tide of unthinking dogma, pretending that they were fighting against orthodoxy when, in reality, they were just reinforcing the status quo with a hipster filter. They weren't holding truth to power. They were selling a brand: rebellion without responsibility, provocation without principle, and the posture of dissent with none of the burden of consequence.
They dined on the aesthetic of courage without ever taking a risk. And why not? The market for disaffected liberals playing footsie with fascists was lucrative and full of opportunities for highbrow grift."
To the surprise of perhaps nobody with a pulse, yet another Big Law firm has preemptively surrendered in advance to the Pork Reich's fascist agenda to avoid Trump's revenge for *checks notes* taking completely legitimate cases against him and his fascist allies - including "representing two Georgia election workers who sued his (Trump's) former attorney and adviser, Rudy Giuliani, for defamation."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-doug-emhoff-firm
'Absolutely Shameful': Critics Slam Latest Law Firm to Cave Amid Trump's Revenge Threats
"Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP proactively reached out to President Trump and his Administration, offering their decisive commitment to ending the Weaponization of the Justice System and the Legal Profession," Trump said on his Truth Social network. "The President is delivering on his promises of eradicating Partisan Lawfare in America, and restoring Liberty and Justice FOR ALL."
According to Trump, Willkie—whose partners include former Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff—will provide a total of at least $100 million in pro bono services to veterans, active duty U.S. troops, and Gold Star families; law enforcement and first responders; to "ensuring fairness in our justice system;" and combating antisemitism.
The firm also agreed to commit to "merit-based hiring" and refrain from "illegal" diversity, equity, and inclusion hiring, promotion, and retention. It must also "not deny representation to clients, such as members of politically disenfranchised groups... who have not historically received legal representation from major national law firms... because of the personal political views of individual lawyers."
Setting aside the fact that forcing the law firm run in part by Kamala Harris's husband to grovel and capitulate without a fight is a huge propaganda win for Der Führer, Trump's increasing control of Big Law is a much bigger story than folks outside of the legal world may realize. I think most people grasp that like virtually all of the stories about white shoe DC law firms agreeing to work for Trump, even if they don't realize that's what they've done yet, the story of Wilkie's preemptive surrender is primarily about cowardice, greed, and collaboration.
What I'm not sure a lot of people who aren't familiar with how civil rights law actually functions in America understand however, is that every time Trump forcibly recruits one of these DC firms, he's also knocking out a valuable plank of resistance to his authoritarian violations because there are literally only so many lawyers available to take civil rights cases, and those cases are typically done pro bono. While it would be nice to imagine a legal system not entirely dependent on lawsuits and rich lawyers engaging in a little reputation washing to protect the civil rights of folks persecuted by a fascist government, that is in fact the situation in the really real world we're living in. At the rate he's going so far, Trump is not only going to force all the best law firms in DC to work for the regime, but he's also going to drastically reduce the number of cases that can be brought against his government for even clear civil rights violations, simply because there won't be any lawyers left able to take those cases at rates targeted people can afford.
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."
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/26/universities-columbia-trump
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.
While a lot of the stories in this thread focus on the cowardice of institutional actors in either submitting to, or even assisting the fascist Trump regime in installing a Christian Nationalist dictatorship, when the history of this political moment is written, it will be noted that it was actually big companies in the US private sector that embraced the regime's white nationalist policy platforms first and in doing so, helped legitimate Trump's quest to rule as King of America. Unlike institutional actors in higher education, lawyers targeted for revenge by Der Führer, or bodies controlled by the (openly fascist) US government through funding, large corporations in the private sector required little if any incentive to adopt Trump's authoritarian "anti-DEI" policies; indeed, companies like Walmart, Paramount, and even Victoria's Secret practically fell all over themselves to align with the regime's agenda, essentially obeying in advance, before the administration had to apply any pressure at all.
Why would they do that? As this short essay in The Guardian lays bare, the truth is that they never really wanted to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion even before the rise of Trump - which is why the programs they installed after the twin motivating factors of the George Floyd protests against police violence, and the COVID pandemic, were never really designed to achieve those objectives in the first place.
American corporations didn’t want to diversify, anyway
"Within days of taking office, Donald Trump signed an executive order that would eliminate Johnson’s civil rights order. The order directed the office of federal contract compliance to stop “promoting diversity” and holding contractors responsible for “affirmative action”. To Smith, the administration’s early actions amount to “a blatant effort in order to not only uphold the white power structure, but to remove any government responsibility to uphold the rights of individuals of color, specifically Black people”. It is the fruit of a conservative movement that has been trying to reverse course ever since the government began taking seriously efforts to protect the rights of Americans regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.
In 2020, hundreds of private companies pledged to change their culture – to use their power and influence and, most importantly, money, to re-shape American society toward more just ends. Now, the three largest employers in the nation – Walmart, Amazon, and the federal government – have all rolled those policies back. Dozens of other corporations have turned back the clock on even pretending to care about equality in the workplace as well.
To businesses’ credit, they had a difficult task ahead of them in 2020. “They’re faced with putting a policy in place quickly that’s responsive and doesn’t sound like lip service to frustrated people,” Dawkins said. But in doing so, they made an admission: they had not been taking diversity seriously before – and the capitulation to the administration’s demands since has betrayed that truth. And they made clear their efforts were always lip service."
Look, I don't think it's really news that much of the American private sector's DEI initiatives were motivated more by *appearing* to oppose white supremacy and enforced social hierarchies in an increasingly Christian Nationalist political environment, than actually opposing those problems. This was pointed out long before Trump's second term, and obviously their actions since the regime was installed have demonstrated that critics were right to question the commitment of American corporations that directly profit from a white supremacist order that marks out certain groups of people for brutal exploitation. In that context then, it's important to understand that we are in fact not "all in this together" and a corporate sector that gladly donated to Trump's election campaigns must be understood as *active* partners in the installation of a Christian Nationalist dictatorship in America. The fact that they did so because they think it'll improve their bottom line is largely irrelevant; fascist collaboration is still fascist collaboration, regardless of the motives that inspire it.
I've been waiting for just over a week for the folks at TMR to clip this interview with former Skadden lawyer Rachel Cohen so I could share it here. Not only is Cohen's inside baseball perspective on the cowardice of Big Law firms groveling before Trump an interesting watch, but she's also one of the few people with knowledge of the situation willing to state what *I* feel is pretty obvious - that the Trump regime's war on Big Law is about trying to restrict the number of lawyers and firms that will bring totally legitimate cases against their fascist policies and activities, through a sheer question of numbers and resources.
The clip is only about 15 minutes long, but I guarantee you that Cohen here is spitting more truth than you'll find in all the articles about Big Law's capitalist cowardice and craven surrender in media sources like the Washington Post, the New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal. It's worth the watch:
The Majority Report: Trump's Revenge
"Sam and Emma are joined by Rachel Cohen, lawyer formerly of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, to discuss the country’s largest law firms bending the knee to Donald Trump."
Five more high profile #BigLaw legal firms have capitulated to Downmarket Mussolini's fascist threats in order to keep raking in federal contracts; even as 500 of their contemporaries in US law are actively proving that fighting the Trump regime is an option:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/11/trump-law-firms-pro-bono-deal
Trump says five more law firms agree to pro bono work to avoid punitive executive orders
"Donald Trump said on Friday that five major law firms reached agreements to together provide his administration $600m in pro bono legal work, among other terms, to avoid executive orders punishing them, a significant capitulation to the president as he attacks the legal profession.
The five firms – Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Allen Overy Shearman Sterling, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft – are among the most prestigious and recognized firms in the US.
Trump’s announcement on Friday on Truth Social means he has secured a total of $940m in pro bono work from some of the most powerful law firms in the US.
The orders come as Trump’s attack on the legal profession has divided the most prestigious firms in the US. More than 500 firms signed an amicus brief last week in support of a legal challenge to executive orders punishing the firm Perkins Coie. But many of the country’s biggest firms – including those that reached agreements announced on Friday – were conspicuously absent."
Frankly, I'm tired of repeating myself so I'll keep this brief. These firms are all kissing the fascist toad in the White House's ring because standing up to him, even when the law is on their side, risks too much of their ability to make money and that's more important to them than the law, or any sort of moral obligation to oppose fascism from those in a position to do so. Like every other Big Law firm before them, these folks have traded away their independence and integrity without any guarantee whatsoever that this represents the end of Downmarket Mussolini's demands; which means, even if they don't realize it, all of these law firms work for Trump now. Maybe these bigshot lawyers honestly believe, as former Skadden lawyer Rachel Cohen reported in the interview I shared above, that they can outsmart the regime, but that presupposes the Trump administration is playing by a set of rules - which is an idea that is wholly discredited by the blatantly unconstitutional executive orders and threats from the White House that brought us to this moment in the first place.
Finally I would encourage folks not to dismiss the almost 1 billion dollars in promises for pro bono services to the regime and causes Trump himself supports, that Der Leader has extracted here. Downmarket Mussolini is forcibly recruiting massive law firms to help him conduct an assault on our civil rights and the American legal system itself, and when he says the firms have agreed they “will not deny representation to clients, such as members of politically disenfranchised groups and Government Officials, employees, and advisors” he's making that explicitly clear. I mean let's cut the bullshit here, this is a regime that has argued that white people, and fundamentalist Christians are "politically disenfranchised groups" in fucking writing, so I don't think it's hard to imagine what kind of cases Trump is going to deploy his new minions to argue on behalf of his fascist, white nationalist regime. Trump just bought himself an army of lawyers to do fascism with, and it didn't cost him anything more than the paper his unconstitutional executive orders were printed on.
Well, if you were expecting the cybersecurity industry to respond any better to Trump using government access to target one of its firms, than Big Law did, I suspect you're going to be disappointed:
Cybersecurity industry falls silent as Trump turns ire on SentinelOne
"Krebs' speech was followed by applause then, but Reuters found little sign of industry support for Krebs or SentinelOne as they face Trump now.
Katie Moussouris, founder of Luta Security, said she doubted the industry would publicly back SentinelOne given the White House's actions.
"I don't think it's feasible for cybersecurity companies to have a broader response on this," she said. "The risk is just too high."
Reuters contacted 33 of the largest U.S. cybersecurity companies, including tech companies and professional services firms with large cybersecurity practices, and three industry groups, for comment on Trump's action against SentinelOne.
Only one offered comment on Trump's action. The rest declined, did not respond or did not answer questions."
We kind of touched on this story already in another thread, but the short version is that Trump is using federal security clearances to damage a company called SentinelOne, for employing Chris Krebs - a former Trump official who balked at supporting Der Leader's "big lie" that the 2020 election is stolen. This is petty revenge, and a warning shot to everyone else in the industry that Trump can come after them if they displease him; but it's also about making the conspiracy theory that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election part of official regime policy and punishing anyone who disputes that with the full force of the DoJ and federal government.
On one hand, this isn't as big a story as Trump conscripting DC's biggest law firms via executive order, or the Yarvinite quest to have the regime literally seize control of higher education institutions via false claims about fighting antisemitism. What it is however, is a demonstration that Trump's success in those endeavors so far has emboldened him to extend his reach, and provided him with a successful model for how to use his power as POTUS to enforced ideological conformity, and assert direct control over portions of the private sector. As long as everyone stays silent, surrenders, or worse: openly collaborates, there's really no reason to believe he's going to stop doing this any time soon.
While its certainly true that part of why so much of the US mainstream establishment, particularly in the private sector, is willing to collaborate openly with the fascist Trump regime is because they prefer fascism to sharing, it's also true that there are clear material benefits to legitimizing and supporting the Trumpenreich regime. In what reasonable people would describe as "open corruption," Federal Election Commission data shows that the administration has dropped or frozen federal enforcement cases against "at least 17 corporations that donated to the president's inaugural fund."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-corporations-inauguration
'See How This Works?': Trump Drops Cases Against Corporations That Funded His Inauguration
"Public Citizen found that corporations facing federal investigations or enforcement lawsuits donated a combined $50 million to President Donald Trump's inaugural committee. Trump raised a record sum of $239 million for his second inauguration, the new FEC filings show.
"Corporations facing federal lawsuits and investigations aren't giving millions to Trump's inauguration out of the kindness of their hearts," said Public Citizen researcher Rick Claypool. "They are trying to buy good will. And when you're a corporation under investigation or facing prosecution, that means the government dropping enforcement actions against you. In some cases, it may even mean receiving pardons in cases in which guilty pleas have already been entered, or retractions of settlements already entered into."
Bank of America, Capital One, Coinbase, DuPont, and JPMorgan are among the corporations that donated to Trump's inauguration and subsequently had federal enforcement cases dismissed.
Public Citizen noted that Google, which donated $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee, could benefit from the Trump Justice Department's decision during an ongoing antitrust case to scrap part of a "proposed breakup plan requiring Google to sell off AI businesses."
As the article notes, dropped federal enforcement cases against corporations that paid millions to kiss the ring at the Klepto Kaiser's inauguration isn't the only way large corporate actors like Apple, Google, and Coinbase have directly benefited from fascist collaboration. Apple in particular must be delighted with Trump's decision to exempt most of its imports from his absurd tariffs; which seems like a ridiculously good return on its investment of a million dollars for Der Leader's inauguration. Finally, while I personally don't care that much about the regime's decision to monetize the Easter Egg Roll by accepting corporate sponsors, it does speak to the crass levels of greed and corruption the administration and its lawless president are willing to engage in.
On some level I understand that right now it's hard to care that much about bog standard open corruption between the Trump regime and corporate actors happy to normalize and facilitate fascism for five points a share. The Pork Reich is snatching protestors off the street, fighting a war that doesn't exist against a gang that isn't invading us while trafficking migrants to a torture prison in El Salvador, and Elon Musk is firing thousands of federal workers in a scheme to pay for billionaire tax cuts that will absolutely get people killed. There's a lot going on, and "rich capitalists are doing something terrible for their own financial benefit" almost doesn't rate as "news" in an environment like the one we're living in.
The fact is however, it's precisely because of all the other evil fascist shit is going on that private sector collaboration with the Trump regime is such an important story. As I've explained elsewhere: fascism costs American society a horrifying toll both financially and in terms of human suffering, but the installation and operation of a fascist regime can be quite profitable for some. These companies, many of whom also contribute to Republican election funds and political action committees, absolutely know what Trump is and what he means to do because Downmarket Mussolini and his minions say the quiet parts out loud on the regular. They just don't give a fuck, and are happy to help a fascist government normalize its authoritarian activities and odious ideology by touting the support they receive from respected American corporations; as long as doing so pays off on their bottom line.
There are many reasons for the rise of a successful fascist movement in an America that has always embraced what today we recognize as fascist ideology; trying to pin it down to one specific factor is a fool's errand. But if and when the history of this era is written, I'm willing to bet that rampant greed and a ruling class that lusts for power over the rest of us will rank pretty highly on the list of contributing factors to this political moment.
Archived: https://archive.ph/tXEjr
@AnarchoNinaAnalyzes Thank you for making the point about what all that "pro bono" work is going to be.
The words "pro bono" generally conjur up imagined scenes of lawyers heroically winning cases on behalf of widows and orphans, but yeah... nah, it's not gunna be that.
All of this is beyond chilling.
@MelissaBenyon Yeah; it's been a bad two weeks for folks telling me "it won't be as bad as you think."
It's every bit as bad as I thought it would be and we're not even 3 months in.
@AnarchoNinaAnalyzes Right? I still get people telling me I'm over-reacting, even as my hypothetical scenarios appear in the rearview mirror.
@AnarchoNinaAnalyzes so what exactly makes a law firm “prestigious”? from the sound of this i’d think that it’s purely a measure of the amount of money they make; which would make their behaviour not too surprising
@bri_seven Kinda; money and resources - which in turn, theoretically, attracts the biggest lawyers and the most talented grads; although like everywhere else in American society, there's nepotism and buddy circles involved.
Craven fucking quislings.
This was an insane amount of writing, research and spoons on your part, and I am really grateful for it. Thank you.