In a move that demonstrates mainstream Democrat politicians have learned absolutely nothing from helping to build a fascist police state panopticon, and the migrant carceral complex, before shitting themselves so hard they lost to a would-be dictator like Trump, Massachusetts Dems have quietly passed a trans student sports ban timebomb and are trying to sell it as a victory for protecting trans rights:

https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/massachusetts-house-dems-pass-bill

Massachusetts House Dems Pass Bill That Could Ban Trans Students From Sports; Senate Next

"On Wednesday, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a $1.3 billion budget bill that included a transgender sports ban—the first such measure to pass any legislative chamber in a blue state. Rather than voting to strike down the provision, Democrats advanced an amendment allowing the ban to go into effect only after its impacts are studied. Party leaders framed the move as a win for transgender rights, claiming the study would never materialize and the ban was effectively dead. But critics argue the provision puts transgender people at risk if political winds shift or future administrations decide to act on the study. Discussions suggest Democrats chose the procedural maneuver to shield members in swing districts from casting a vote in support of transgender rights."

Are you fucking kidding me? Let me see if I understand this correctly. In the middle of a state-sanctioned, anti-trans pogrom being conducted by fascists who have already declared that trans people don't exist, and openly admitted they're trying to drive trans people from public life, (two things that historically have preceded the direct extermination of marginalized groups), a solidly blue state government full of supposed "liberals" just passed an anti-trans law they promise not to actually enforce, because - they don't want to go on record standing up for the human rights of trans people as doing so is unpopular? Did I get that right? So the reason you decided to literally provide ideological support for an anti-trans pogrom is that you're cowards, and that makes it okay somehow? Quick question; if launching Chuck Schumer into the sun polled well, would you folks be afraid to oppose that on record too, or are you only cowards when we're talking about the human rights of trans people?

Look, if American liberals don't want me to point out that the war on trans rights (which aids a real as fuck anti-trans pogrom being conducted by the fascist right) is a bipartisan initiative, they need to start telling the political leaders they insist I *have* to vote for to stand up for trans people being targeted by a nazi moral panic with eliminationist characteristics; it's gotta be you folks, because it's clear as fucking day that the Democratic Party as a whole isn't listening to trans people like me.

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.

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."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0bVdiTDzQo

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.

I'm often leery of sharing stories like this because the point isn't, and cannot be, that anti-trans policies and the dehumanization of trans people in our society is bad, because it also affects cis people, particularly women, in horrifyingly negative ways. One of the primary reasons we've facing down a politically empowered fascist Trump regime, is that Americans as a society have already accepted the idea that some people don't matter, and aren't human enough for the full spectrum of human rights; even if the folks making those arguments rarely admit what they're actually arguing for in a big picture sense. As in the case of Muslims, migrants, student protestors and women who want to control their own bodies, our society's casual disregard for the human and civil rights of trans people has acted as a permission gate for the Trump regime's larger project to strip the rights of anyone they don't like, or who dares to speak out in dissent.

Despite my reservations about centering cis experiences when talking about the anti-trans pogrom however, the fact is that cis women *are* negatively affected by the war on trans existences in both a micro and macro sense; whether it's hate-fueled transinvestigators invading women's bathrooms to "protect women," or the way anti-trans propaganda serves as a stepping stone for larger patriarchal efforts to possess women's bodies, this is a very real consequence of a normalized anti-trans pogrom that dehumanizes, otherizes, and criminalizes trans people (particularly trans women.) Furthermore, as the story of Dani Davis, a Florida woman fired by Walmart for being tall enough to trigger abusive behavior from a raging transphobe, demonstrates - the reality is that a society that isn't prepared to stand up for the human rights of trans people, isn't likely to stand up for the human rights of women, or workers, either.

For more on that, let's turn to this short (14 minute) video by Mike Figueredo from THR:

The Humanist Report: Walmart Fires Cis Employee *BECAUSE* She Was Harassed by Transphobic Customer in Bathroom

"A Walmart employee named Dani Davis was accosted and threatened by a transphobic customer during her shift, and she was subsequently fired because of it. The customer followed her into the bathroom and accused her of being a man and yelled transphobic slurs at her. Days after she reported the incident to her supervisor, she was fired because she supposedly posed a “security risk” to others in the store. In this video we’ll talk about this disturbing story and discuss how transphobia harms ALL women; both trans and cis alike."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nauz7001Q0U

For an example (both good, and bad) of the type of analysis I'm talking about, take a look at this March 30th piece by Kenan Malik in The Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/30/just-like-mccarthy-trump-spreads-fear-everywhere-before-picking-off-his-targets

Just like McCarthy, Trump spreads fear everywhere before picking off his targets

"Seventy years on from McCarthyism, America seems to be entering such a moment. Over the past month, we have seen the mass deportation to a notorious foreign jail of hundreds of people declared to be illegal immigrants and gang members, without evidence or due process; the arrest, detention and threatened deportation of foreign students, including Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, Momodou Taal and Yunseo Chung, for protesting about the war in Gaza; the blacklisting of law firms representing clients of whom Donald Trump does not approve; the mass sackings of federal workers.

Fear works here in two ways. The targets of repression are groups about whom it is easier to create fear, and so easier to deprive of rights and due process. Doing so then creates a wider climate of fear in which people become less willing to speak out, and not just about Palestine. Already, “whole segments of American society [are] running scared”, as one observer put it.

Institutions such as universities, Schrecker concluded about the 1950s, “did not fight McCarthyism” but “contributed to it”, not only through dismissals and blacklists but also through accepting “the legitimacy of what the congressional committees and other official investigators were doing”, thereby conferring “respectability upon the most repressive elements” of the process.

It’s a process repeating itself today. Earlier this month, after cancelling $400m (£310m) in federal grants and contracts, Trump made a series of demands of Columbia University, including that it change its disciplinary rules, place the Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies department under “academic receivership” and adopt the contested International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism that its own lead drafter, Kenneth Stern, condemns as having been “weaponised” into “a blunt instrument to label anyone an antisemite” and to “go after pro-Palestinian speech”. Last week, Columbia capitulated."

On some levels, this is great analysis; Malik's examination of the role fear and "anticipatory obedience" had in both the Red Scare and the installation of Trump's would-be fascist dictatorship, is spot on. He's absolutely right to suggest that Trump's attempts to transform society and seize control of its institutions to shape them in his (fascist) vision is well in line with the effects of McCarthyism, and that the capitulation of the establishment was presaged by the exact same thing during the Red Scare. By that same measure however, do a quick page search for "fascism" or "dictatorship" and you won't find either word in this article. There's nothing wrong with giving readers a historical analogy to get a handle on what is happening in our society, but without the additional context of where this new (old) brand of Trumpian McCarthyism is going and what purpose it serves, all you're really accomplishing is telling readers to relax and remain calm because "we've been here before."

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."

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.

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?