This Is Fascism. You Don’t Get to Look Away.

Texas Republicans want to rig the maps. Trump deployed the military on civilians. The media tells you to stay home. The fascism isn’t coming, it’s already here.

I told you last week. “Rumors and redistricting? Expect us.”

This week, the New York Times confirmed that Donald Trump is pressuring Governor Greg Abbott to call a special session to redraw the maps in the middle of the decade. To rig all 38 congressional districts red before the 2026 midterms.

Call it what it is. Authoritarianism in real time.

And they’re not even hiding it.

The Texas Tribune followed up with details. Republican members of Congress from Texas met in DC this week to discuss redrawing the lines. They admitted it. Out loud. In front of reporters. Here’s the link.

They are trying to steal Texas. Again.

To lock it down before voters can hold them accountable in 2026. Before they lose their grip. Before their lies catch up with them. Before the rest of the country sees what we’ve seen for years.

These men only believe in power.

Redistricting is voter suppression in plain sight.

Mid-decade redistricting is not normal. It is a direct assault on representative democracy. We redraw maps every ten years after the Census. That’s the rule. But Republicans don’t care about rules. Not when they’re scared.

This move is about silencing voters they think will hold them accountable. They can’t win on ideas. They can’t run on vouchers, book bans, and THC raids and expect applause. So they draw lines. More lines. Sharper lines. Deeper cuts.

Because gerrymandering is the only thing keeping their majority alive.

And the worst part? It keeps working.

Turnout in the 2024 election in Texas was 49.65%. Not even half. That’s how they get away with this. That’s how they rule. They don’t have a majority. They have apathy. And because of them, the voters have Republican fatigue.

And before anyone starts pointing fingers at Democrats in the Legislature, let me stop you there. Yes, Democrats walked out in 2021 to stop the first wave of voter suppression bills. They fled the state, risked arrest, and stalled the session. And how did Republicans respond?

They rewrote the rules. Any Democrat who breaks quorum is subject to a $500 fine per day, arrest by state troopers, and even expulsion from the Texas House. You can read it yourself in the rules manual, page 37.

No, Democrats can’t just “walk out again.” If they do, Republicans will strip them of their seats and redraw the lines without them.

That’s not democracy. That’s a hostage situation.

Parallel authoritarianism in the California crackdown.

While Republicans scheme to silence our votes in Texas, they’re unleashing state violence on peaceful protesters in California.

A few days ago, Donald Trump deployed National Guard troops and US Marines against Americans demonstrating in defense of immigrant rights and basic human dignity.

Governor Greg Abbott’s response?

“Excellent. An organized assault has been waged against federal law enforcement officials. It’s time to put an end to it, and allow fed officials to fully enforce the laws of the United States.”

Excellent?

He called military force against civilians excellent.

Let that sink in.

Over the last few days, I’ve watched hours of livestreams from California, on-the-ground footage, not network-filtered spin. I’ve watched law enforcement tackle kids, shoot rubber bullets at journalists, and fire into crowds. I’ve seen people holding signs and praying get trampled and pepper-sprayed by cops.

This isn’t 2020.

It’s darker.

In 2020, the violence came from police lashing out in the streets. Now, it comes from the top. From the Commander-in-Chief. From the Pentagon. From the Governors cheering it on.

It’s a coordinated attack.

As Aimé Césaire warned in Discourse on Colonialism:

“Fascism is colonialism turned inward.”

That’s what we’re witnessing. The empire is turning its weapons on its own people. ICE raids in our cities. Troops in our streets. Propaganda on our screens.

This is the blueprint. The mask is off. The line is crossed.

And if we don’t call it what it is, it will only get worse. It’s fascism, plain and simple.

Propaganda and the disinformation flood.

Everywhere I look, I see the same thing happening. Peaceful people brutalized, then called criminals.

ICE agents aren’t just targeting “dangerous offenders.” They’re pulling babies off the breasts of nursing mothers. They’re snatching abuelas from bakery counters and construction sites. People who’ve lived here for decades. They’re arresting legal immigrants who show up to their visa appointments, then calling them “illegals” on Fox News.

And the right-wing media? They lie.

They tell their audiences these are gang members, criminals, threats to America. Just like they lied about the civil rights movement in 2020. Just like they always do.

I used to try to fight it line by line. I once wrote a whole article debunking a vile piece of propaganda from The Epoch Times about the 2020 protests. It was packed with deliberate misinformation, out-of-context footage, fake quotes, and flat-out lies. And I tore it apart.

But I don’t do that anymore because you can’t outrun the firehose.

There are too many lies. Too many outlets. Too many bots, blogs, anchors, and algorithms, all pumping out disinformation faster than any human can keep up with. And maybe that’s the point.

As Steve Bannon said, their strategy is to “flood the zone with shit.”

And it works.

Because the goal isn’t to convince you, they’re not trying to win a debate. The goal is to overwhelm the truth, to drown it under so much noise that people give up, tune out, and stop believing anything.

As Hannah Arendt wrote in The Origins of Totalitarianism:

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of man who can fabricate it.”

Well, here’s the truth:

They’re lying to you.

Greg Abbott. Donald Trump. The pundits. The influencers. The “journalists” are pushing government press releases as fact. They are deliberately manufacturing an alternate reality and using it to justify violence.

And I know they know, because I hear from them.

My inboxes are full. Emails. Messages. Comments from people accusing me of “protecting criminals” or “cutting off kids’ dicks.” It’s deranged. It’s exhausting. It’s the product of people being fed a steady diet of hate, fear, and propaganda until they can no longer see reality at all.

And that’s the danger. Not just that they believe the lies, but that they act on them.

Don’t forget who helped them.

While we’re on the topic, and because I started this article with a New York Times reference. Let me tell you when I canceled my subscription to the New York Times.

I’d been a subscriber for years. Through the Trump years. Through the pandemic. Through every round of “both sides” spin and “let’s hear what the white nationalists have to say” op-eds.

But the final straw came on July 4th, 2024, when they published an article by Matthew Walther titled: “Why I Don’t Vote. And Maybe You Shouldn’t Either.”

On Independence Day. In the middle of an election year. In a state where turnout hadn’t cracked 50% since Jesus was a teenager.

The article was smug. It was cynical. It was the intellectual version of throwing your ballot in the trash and patting yourself on the back for being too clever to care.

They told people not to vote. And look.

The turnout in Texas in 2024 was 49.65%. And the Times, with its smug centrist nihilism, helped pave the way.

Because voter suppression isn’t just long lines and purged rolls, it’s disillusionment by design. It’s the message that voting doesn’t matter. That power won’t change hands. That it’s all rigged, so why bother?

That message doesn’t help the left. It helps fascists. Every time.

The math won’t add up unless we stay home.

Let’s talk numbers. The fantasy that Republicans can redraw Texas into 38 red congressional districts is just a fantasy.

To make a district redder, it has to be whiter. And Texas? Texas isn’t that white anymore.

Over the last two decades, the state’s growth has been overwhelmingly driven by people of color, Black, Latino, and Asian communities who are younger, more urban, and increasingly fed up. The 2020 Census confirmed 95% of Texas’ population growth came from nonwhite residents.

That’s why the current gerrymander looks like a drunk geometry teacher drew it on a bender. The only way Republicans have held power this long is by slicing and dicing communities, splitting neighborhoods down highways and school zones to create artificial white majorities.

But there’s only so much pie left to cut.

And if they try to redraw the entire map, they’ll be forced to stretch those white GOP districts thinner and thinner, risking internal blowback, legal challenges, and eventually a backlash.

No, I don’t think they can lock down 38 red seats. Not without breaking the law or triggering a civil rights lawsuit. But they might try anyway.

Because cheating is all they have left.

They’re not interested in building a coalition. They don’t want to earn your vote. They want to redraw you out of existence.

But they only win if we let them. If we stay home. If we believe the lies. If we give up.

Because the one variable they can still count on is turnout. And until more than half of us show up, they don’t have to win the majority.

This is fascism.

Let’s stop pretending.

This is what fascism looks like.

Redrawing maps to cancel out voters.

Sending troops to attack peaceful protests.

Flooding the media with lies.

Weaponizing fear.

Silencing dissent.

Punishing truth.

And if it feels familiar, it’s because it is. We’ve seen this before, in books, in classrooms, in family stories whispered across generations. The rise is never loud at first. It builds slowly, denial by denial, until it’s suddenly too late.

“A fascist is one whose lust for money or power is combined with such an intensity of intolerance toward those of other races, parties, classes, religions, cultures… as to make him ruthless in his use of deceit or violence to attain his ends.”
— Henry Wallace, 1944

You don’t have to wear a uniform or shout in the streets to resist. But you do have to name what’s happening. And you do have to act.

Fascism doesn’t rise on its own. It’s enabled by silence, by cynicism, by comfort.

If you’ve ever wondered what you would’ve done in 1933 Germany… You’re doing it now.

Choose wisely.

There will be dozens of protests across Texas on Saturday. Find the one nearest you.

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