Our Fascist Idiocracy: August 7, 2025

Schwarzenegger goes MAGA. Since he left office in disgrace in 2011, former California Gubernator Arnold Schwarzenegger has been on a campaign to reinvent himself as a political moderate. While he may have fooled people in other states, Californians have had good reason to be skeptical. But now, at least for the moment, Arnold has revealed his true political self. He has come out against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s efforts to help save American democracy from fascism. He announced plans to campaign against a partisan gerrymandering plan Newsom plans to place on the November ballot. “He calls gerrymandering evil, and he means that. He thinks it’s truly evil for politicians to take power from people,” said a Schwarzenegger spokesperson.

Are Trump’s plan for LA Olympics modeled on Hitler’s 1936 Olympics? Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler made the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics a showcase for fascism and his own self-aggrandizement. That seems to have inspired Donald Trump to take control of the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles – starting with plans to militarize the Games by deploying the National Guard. The risk to the Games is that with an internationally reviled racist despot in charge, foreigners and normal Americans will stay away in droves.

Making Healthcare Racist Again. RFK Jr. has taken a Trumpian Sharpie to the government’s healthcare operations. As Health and Human Services secretary, he’s purging experts, pushing junk science and reviving his racist claim that Black Americans need fewer vaccines based on a load of pseudoscience, not public health studies. Medical groups are suing, pediatricians are protesting and MAGA-controlled Senate hearings have turned combative over his racialized vaccine rhetoric. Kennedy cites “studies.” But there is no science, just dangerous fiction dressed as reform.

A loss for taxpayers; another win for corporate America. Trump just
axed the IRS Direct File program—a free, public tax-filing tool that threatened the profits of private software giants
. Backed by industry lobbyists, the move kills a service that could’ve saved Americans $11 billion annually and delivered billions more in tax credits to low-income families. “It’s not about efficiency,” said Americans for Tax Fairness. “It’s about Trump and his billionaire allies making the system worse to pad the pockets of a predatory industry.”

Russia, Russia, Russia. Trump’s allies tried to rev up patriotism—and stalled out in Soviet nostalgia. The GOP’s official X account posted a MAGA-themed tribute to American cars, only to feature a Lada 2105, a relic of Russian manufacturing. The caption praised Trump’s “One Big Beautiful bill,” but eagle-eyed users—and X’s AI tools—quickly ID’d the vehicle as anything but American. “So close!” mocked Sen. Tina Smith. Rep. Swalwell added, “Don’t point out it’s Russian-made.” Too late. The internet already did.