Aphorirsms Against Fascism
by Marc Batko, 8/24/2025
- One-man rule or one-man circus is like the doors not opening on a train.
- One-man rule is like burning the books.
- One-man rule is like closing schools.
- Do we fix the leak or abandon the house?
- Trump is the civilization break, the biggest leak in modern history wrecking the US economy and the global china shop with arbitrary tariffs on the world.
- Capitulation and fear of Trump upends separation of powers, checks and balances, due process and habeas corpus.
- Trump cut cancer research, children’s research, FEMA, Medicaid, SNAP, Pell grants, and housing assistance.
- Trump admitted human trafficking.
- The FBI deleted every mention of Trump in the Epstein files.
- There are more women who accused Trump of abuse than there are trans athletes at the professional level.
- Victims are ignored and all systemic or structural injustice is called fake news.
- J D Vance wrote most of Project 2025.
- Project 2025 sends us back thousands of years or to the 11th century.
- Wake up America! Enlightenment is not indoctrination!
- Let the children lead!
- The Trump administration has gone too far. Its obsession with mass deportation comes from the authoritarian playbook! Caregivers who care for children and the elderly and workers in hospital and grocery stores are abducted by ICE!
- Weaponizing the Department of Justice and demonizing immigrants is misanthropic and violates human rights.
- Enlisting the Marines in Los Angeles and D.C. was counter-productive and reflects a police state mentality. Trump wants to provoke violence to justify his state of emergency. The constitutional state is worlds away from the security or emergency state.
- Trump has 34 felony convictions. His experience is limited to banking and insurance fraud downgrading and upgrading his properties to gain tax advantages!
- Scapegoating immigrants for political advantages is part of the authoritarian playbook. Fear immobilizes and and destroys democracy and participation.
- Democratic values, rights and ideals are threatened by abuse of power and authority.
22. Paralyzed-polarized systems and censoring criticism, alternatives, and blocked traditions ensure rigidity and block the thirst or knowledge and willingness to learn.
23 Under Trump and Musk, waste, fraud and abuse identified in nursing homes, Medicaid and social security, not in the war machine or the financial markets!
24 Blaming individuals for laziness gets the system off the hook.
25 The dollar has lost 10% of its value during the first seven months of 2025. China is selling $300 billion of its Treasury bonds.
26 Trump’s role is to distract. Democrats pretend problems don’t exist. Republicans pretend the US has the same power it had in 1945.
27 In the 1960s, corporate taxation amounted to 40% of federal revenue. Today, it is 5-6%. Regions, cities and states are strapped and must choose between food and housing assistance.
28 Majority rule must be balanced by minority protection (Loni Gunier).
29 The system is rigged to protect the super-rich. The minority – capital – must be protected from the majority (James Madison).
30 In the neoliberal myth, CEOs are called “job creators” and workers “cost factors.” Today, CEOs earn 350 times the pay of median workers. The CEO of Starbucks earns 6000 times the lowest-paid worker.
31 Trump can be characterized by nonstop lies, obscenities, threats and insults. The bully and the wrestler are his role models. As with Ayn Rand, selfishness is the only operating virtue.
32 Biden, Harris, and Trump never uttered one word about the declining US empire.
33 In her book “Bright-sided,” Barbara Ehrenreich warned about the tendency to repress or sugarcoat all negativity. In his book “Escape from Freedom,” Erich Fromm said people surrender their freedom and personal development for the myth of the strong man. In his book “One-dimensional Man,” Herbert Marcuse said false needs, false consciousness and alienation block liberation and enlightened existence. In his book “Manufacturing Consent,” Noam Chomsky explained that corporate media filter news and information so people swallow myths, prejudices and stereotypes and never hear about alternatives or foreign news.
34 Trumps blames, punishes and claims he can do little.
35 Trump’s threats are called promises as in the $200 million ballroom, the golden dome, corporate welfare and tax gifts.
36 The domination of the US after 1945 was symbolized in the dollar as the global currency. Now countries are diversifying and the Chinese Yuan is increasingly used for oil and trade transactions.
37 The US went off the gold standard in 1974 under Nixon to pay for the Vietnam War. By the end of the 20th century, the US moved production to Mexico and then Asia.
38 The development in China, Brazil and India meant the US dollar wasn’t necessary. The Us could be bypassed as new supply chains were formed. The Chinese and Indians found ways to surpass the US.
39 The war in Ukraine has accelerated the BRICS alliance. The 50% tariff on India accelerates the decline of the dollar and the attractiveness of Chinese partnership.
40 China is racing ahead in mining rare earths to finished products.
41 All Europe committed suicide in World War II. The US was the only unscathed power and remained the hegemon until China rose in the 2000s.
42 The collapse of the dollar and the death of Europe are manifest in 2025. Europe must use its size, wealth, and expertise to carve out an independent path. Currently, the only role for Europe is to spend money for weapons in Ukraine. Is Germany an outpost for America?
43 The US is declaring a trade war on the whole world to resist the inevitable transition to a multi-polar world with many centers of power. We are going to see serious signs of inflation, recession, and even depression.
44 Trump’s base is more and more divided on health care and his draconian immigration policy. Trump is disintegrating. What issues and programs have domestic consequences?
45 Putting a fool in a palace doesn’t make him or her wise; it turns the palace into a circus. Turkish proverb
46. Problems don’t disappear when they are ignored. Housing, taxation, and bank security were the first pillars of neoliberalism to collapse. Paralyzed and polarized political systems are as reliable as Trump’s erratic tariffs and resemble millionaires’ clubs and court jesters.
47 Following the playbook of the scaremonger, Trump has irrationally and maliciously attacked judges, journalists, [protestors, universities, professors, past presidents and political critics with nonstop lies, obscenities, threats and insults. Trump uses Hitler words – vermin (for the left), killers, and invaders (for immigrants). Trump cannot read and lacks any empathy, self-criticism and love for life. Pretending to be a strong man, Trump is weak and recklessly dangerous. Trump is a pathological paranoid and pathological liar (30,000 lies uttered in his first term were listed by the Washington Post. God help us!
48 Trump has replaced the rule of law with tantrums and separation of powers and checks and balances with executive orders.. He has dismantled whole departments (Education, EPA, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and the IRS.
49 Ordering tariffs on the whole world has endangered American credibility. Tariffs were misused politically to punish Brazil, India, Canada, Laos, Japan, China and South Korea. The new BRICS reality, the ascent of China and the multi-polar world must be accepted along with the decline of US predatory capitalism and the US dollar. Tariffs are pushing Japan to BRICS.
50. Outwardly we fall apart but inwardly we are renewed. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. The tax collector who only said “God, be merciful on me, a sinner!” went home justified, not the Pharisee who boasted of his self-righteousness in Jesus’ famous parable!