What if distraction IS the distraction?
Red Round-up Oct '25
Hello, and welcome to the follow-up to this month’s Myths & Recs, where I share what I’ve been digesting, plus insight or information I think will be relevant to my readers.
Last time we focused on Charlie Kirk and the enormously disproportionate attention he’s getting. This time we’re exploring the broader Red sphere, which covers power, conflict, and freedom.
Let’s dive in.
First off, some mini myth-busting:
If there was any doubt in anyone’s mind about the future of the American empire, let the rapidly advancing fascist dissolution of democracy be a wake-up call.
The biggest myth that’s being dashed in our faces over the last weeks and months is the myth of America itself. The American dream, American exceptionalism, liberal democracy as the end of history, all that and more are finally losing their legitimacy for people who used to buy into nationalist narratives.
In the face of imminent climate collapse, political grandstanding falls flat. I keep thinking about the premise of Game of Thrones (very frustrating show, but I survived five seasons of it). All these factions with their cunning leaders and intense interpersonal dramas were fighting over an iron throne while those on the fringes tried to tell them that winter is coming.
It’s the same for us now: tech titans promise us the Moon and Mars while they deliver slop, the culture war rages on while capital and work squeeze us dry, and political parties jockey for power while the power is going out. Millions are already climate refugees; soon it’ll be tens of millions as the seas continue to rise.
I hope that you and I are able to stay steady during the onslaught. What does that look like? It means knowing when to stop digesting news, and choose rest instead. It means using what we have (privilege, passions, connections, skills) to save what we can. It means not letting a day go by without our loved ones knowing how much we love them.
I hope it’s also clear to my readers that, if it seems my solutions sound like platitudes, it’s because I can’t exactly get detailed about fighting authoritarian systems on main. We should be doing that too. And we should be careful not to announce doing so in public.
And now for the round-up:
A Government Just Quietly Announced The Collapse of Civilization
A news update.
by Jessica at The Sentinel-Intelligence
A clear-eyed look at the coming water crisis, and how our governments are (not) preparing for it by implementing austerity measures, instead of going after Big Oil or pressing the brakes on data centers. We’ll likely be left with rolling brownouts, water shortages, and skyrocketing utility bills. Investing local — sustainable systems and resources, democratic decision-making — is our best bet.
What If The Epstein Files ARE The Distraction?
The files matter. But the greater crime may be unfolding under their cover.
by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez at Alisa Writes
Alisa explores the probability that Trump and his admin are planning ethnic cleansing and genocide on an unprecedented scale, using “distraction” rhetoric to distract from this project. The foundation is already in place; extermination already has a precedent; the pieces are already in motion.
I researched every attempt to stop fascism in history. The success rate is 0%.
Once they win elections, it’s already too late.
by Christopher Armitage at The Existential Republic
A frank look at the failure to control fascist movements from the top down, based on past experience. What stood out to me was the seemingly willful ignorance of conservatives who allowed fascists into power, thinking they would be able to manage them. It once again confirms that power itself is the problem. The existence of power structures that can be usurped by fascists is precisely what enables fascists to have such an asymmetrical effect on the global stage.
John Marks at The Listening Post makes an interesting rebuttal here: Fascists Can Fall to Elections A counterpoint to “I Researched Every Attempt to Stop Fascism. The Success Rate is 0%” Argentina, Chile, South Korea, Poland, East Germany, Serbia, Tunisia, and Ukraine prove fascists can fall.
Marks shows how ballots can break authoritarianism when backed by the full weight of popular movements and international pressure. He emphasizes that elections alone are not enough, but that they often serve as leverage, and as a point of contact, around which popular struggle converges. I’m curious to explore why that’s often the case, and whether we can broaden our horizons to imagine effective social struggle without electoral politics as the end goal.
The Left Should Consider Pritzker 28
He’s embraced progressive policies—and he can win
by Noah Berlatsky at Everything Is Horrible
Noah makes a good case for Pritzker as Democratic primary candidate ahead of the other current picks (especially Newsom), emphasizing his surprisingly progressive record and his mainstream place in the Democratic party (as opposed to outsiders like Sanders and Warren).
We should also decide what to do if there are no elections in three years. We should decide how to provide for each other regardless of who is in power in the White House. For all that I would love a Pritzker presidency instead of the nightmare we have now (and I agree that he compares well to the other Dem candidates at the moment), I think the past several years have made it quite clear that electoral politics cannot save us.
Thinking Ahead to the Fully Military Takeover of Cities
A new executive order gives Trump his army.
by Hamilton Nolan at How Things Work
This executive order is meant to create a standing military force that will go wherever Donald Trump tells them to go and do what he tells them to do. It is meant to smooth over any bureaucratic, legalistic, or technical objections to this sort of dictatorial use of force. It is meant to see to it that Donald Trump can point to any city and say “Send in the troops” and have that happen, notwithstanding the opposition of any governors or mayors or disgruntled military officers or stray courts.
Hamilton admits he doesn’t have answers, but some ideas (like a garbage strike organized by municipal city workers) have lots of potential. The key, as he emphasizes at the end, is that all of us take this threat seriously, whether we’re personally there or not. Because our city could be next.
How Pretexts Work
A manufactured crisis unfolds.
by Hamilton Nolan at How Things Work
A helpful illustration of what’s really going on behind the ridiculous excuses the Trump administration uses for its actions.
Why you might not know that 2024 was America’s safest year since the 1960s
by Judd Legum and Rebecca Crosby at Popular Information
Popular Information does an excellent job of getting the facts right and making them accessible to the public. The administration’s insistence on a crime wave is state propaganda, pure and simple. They’re lying to us in order to get what they want.
Today is the anniversary of the worst memo in history
by Robert Reich
A clarion call to get big money out of politics. Reich connects the dots between what happened in 1971 and Trump’s ascendance today. Essential context for anyone trying to understand how we got here.
My Favorite Thing About Christian Nationalism Is That It’s Doomed to Fail
What happens when the various denominations start attacking each other the way they do other religions?
by Khalil Greene at History Can’t Hide
Drawing on the gruesome history of religious violence in this country, Khalil shows how the current truce between conservative factions is likely to be short-lived.
These theological differences run much deeper than foreign policy… When Christian Nationalists succeed in restricting the religious freedoms of Muslims, Hindus, Atheists, and Jews, what’s left? The centuries-old grudges between Christian sects.
How the FBI Killed Billie Holiday for Singing About Lynching
Federal agents used the drug war as a weapon to silence the most powerful anti-racism song of its time, and murdered the woman who dared to sing it.
by Khalil Greene at History Can’t Hide
These modern tactics of silencing dissent through bureaucratic warfare trace back in part to a 23-year-old Black woman who walked onto a stage in Greenwich Village in 1939, singing “Southern trees bear a strange fruit, blood on the leaves and blood at the root.” The 20-year campaign to destroy Billie Holiday pioneered the use of drug enforcement as cover for political persecution, a strategy that would later target civil rights leaders, anti-war activists, and countless others.
Because of recent events (Charlie Kirk, Luigi Mangione), it stood out to me that Anslinger, one of the architects of the war on drugs, celebrated Holiday’s death — one which was caused in part by forced medical neglect. President JFK went on to honor Anslinger for his work.
Henrietta Lacks’ Stolen Cells Built Modern Medicine While She Died in Poverty
In 1951, doctors took a Black woman’s cells without consent, created the foundation of modern medicine, and her descendants spent 70 years fighting for recognition.
by Khalil Greene at History Can’t Hide
In January 1951, Henrietta Lacks felt a persistent lump in her cervix. By October, she was dead from cervical cancer at age 31. But her cells lived on, stolen without her knowledge and transformed into the most important biological material in medical history. Those cells enabled the polio vaccine, cancer treatments, AIDS research, and countless other breakthroughs that generated billions in profits. Her family learned about it 25 years later from a magazine article.
Not to Be Woke But Slavery Was Bad
I can’t believe I need to write this.
by Liz Plank at Airplane Mode
In response to the Trump administration declaring the Smithsonian “the last remaining segment of WOKE,” Liz dredges up some receipts that show, yes, slavery was worse than we remember.
For instance, slavery was so horrific that it had a smell. You could smell the boats at a distance… Survivors described suffocation so thick they thought they would drown in air… Once in America, the nightmare got even worse*…* People were burned alive for trying to escape. Lynchings in America were not just murders but public festivals… Terror was turned into a keepsake, proof that racial violence was not shameful but celebrated.
The Truth About Musk, From His Biographer
A viral Bluesky thread introduced tens of thousands around the world to a first glimpse of a forthcoming biography of Elon Musk. Here—in a single essay—is some of what the world just learned.
by Seth Abramson at PROOF
Seth’s incredibly prolific and meticulous documentation of the life and lies of the world’s richest man comes at a time when truth and fiction are sometimes hard to parse. This post is an overview and introduction to his longer work (but is still very long in itself!). I thought I knew enough about Musk; turns out I didn’t know the half of it.
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