📢 Freedom Over Fascism: How We Resist Authoritarianism—Together
🗽 Freedom over fascism means accountability, hope, and people power. Get the latest news, global warnings, and actions to resist authoritarianism.
Friends, I’m sharing a piece from our Freedom Over Fascism newsletter. We cover many issues across our other newsletters, and today I wanted to give you a glimpse of the conversations and reporting we’re sharing there. - Laurie
Freedom Over Fascism: This Week’s Authoritarianism Warnings
In this weeks Freedom Over Fascism roundup, we cover a federal judge exposing political intimidation, legal refugees being locked up in detention, and the actions readers can take now.
Freedom is not passive. It is a daily act of grassroots activism and advocacy — of speaking out, showing up, and holding leaders accountable to the will of the people. In a world where billionaires, extremists, and strongmen try to rewrite the rules, Freedom Over Fascism exists to remind us of a simple truth: power still belongs to the people — if we use it.
This week’s news is not a collection of isolated stories. It is a pattern. Each story is a thread in the same fabric — and that fabric has a name. We have to call it what it is. Fascism rising and the people rising up to defeat it.
🚨 Authoritarianism News Briefs
🛡️ Trump declares open season on legal refugees — ICE detention becomes indefinite imprisonment
The Department of Homeland Security issued a sweeping memo directing federal agents to arrest and indefinitely detain legal refugees who have not yet obtained a green card — upending decades of established policy in one bureaucratic stroke. Under the new directive, refugees who were welcomed to the United States after years of rigorous vetting can now be re-detained while their paperwork is processed, with no guarantee of release. A federal judge in Minnesota temporarily blocked the policy after finding that ICE agents were arresting refugees “without warrants or cause,” but the administration is pressing forward, as ICE detention nationwide has already surged to roughly 68,000 people — up 75% since Trump took office. Mother Jones
Why This Matters: The people being locked up are not criminals. They are families who fled war zones, survived years of vetting, and were promised safety by the United States government. Slamming the door on legal refugees — people who did everything right, who played by every rule — is not a security policy. It is cruelty dressed up in bureaucratic language. When a nation breaks faith with the most vulnerable people it invited in, it is not making itself safer. It is making itself something we should not recognize.
⚖️ Federal judge exposes Trump’s DOJ as a political shakedown machine — targeting Fed Chair Jerome Powell
In a blistering 27-page ruling unsealed this week, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg quashed grand jury subpoenas issued by Trump-appointed D.C. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro against Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. The judge found that the Justice Department produced “essentially zero evidence” of any crime, and that the subpoenas’ dominant purpose was to “harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign.” The investigation had been framed as a probe into cost overruns on the Fed’s headquarters renovation — but Judge Boasberg wrote that the real motive was unmistakable: Trump wanted lower interest rates, and Powell wouldn’t deliver them. Pirro immediately called the ruling “outrageous” and vowed to appeal. Mother Jones
Why This Matters: This is not a story about interest rates. This is a story about what happens when the Justice Department becomes the President’s personal weapon. An independent judiciary — a single federal judge willing to call a spade a spade — just stopped a political hit job in its tracks. But the DOJ is appealing. That means the effort to keep the Federal Reserve free from executive bullying is not over. When the rule of law serves the powerful instead of the people, everyone loses — and history shows us clearly where that road ends.
🪖 It’s a war with Iran — and no one in power wants to say so
Two weeks into U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran, the Trump administration and most of Congress are still refusing to call the conflict what it is: a war. Republicans are calling it an “operation,” an “intervention,” or “decisive action.” Some Democrats have echoed the same evasions, with a handful even supporting the strikes. The Intercept’s Séamus Malekafzali lays out the pattern in devastating detail: every reassurance offered — no ground troops, short timeline, limited objectives — is already unraveling. The estimated duration has stretched from four weeks to potentially eight or more, ground forces are back on the table, and Trump is now demanding Iran’s “unconditional surrender” while his administration considers seizing Iranian oil infrastructure. Americans killed in the fighting are already coming home. The Intercept
Why This Matters: We have been here before. “Short and sweet.” “No quagmire.” “Mission accomplished.” The American people were lied to about Iraq. They were lied to about Afghanistan. And now they are being handed a fresh set of euphemisms to swallow while a war without a plan, without a declaration, and without majority public support spirals outward. Calling it an “operation” does not bring our service members home safely. Calling it an “intervention” does not un-drop the bombs. The first act of accountability is refusing to let the people in power control the language. This is a war. We deserve to debate it as one.
🎮 The White House is selling a real war with SpongeBob memes — and calling the killing “fun”
As missiles struck Iran and American service members came home in flag-draped coffins, the official White House social media accounts were busy posting meme videos splicing real combat footage with clips from Grand Theft Auto, SpongeBob SquarePants, and sports video games. Pete Hegseth gave a war briefing set to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.” Trump told supporters at a Kentucky rally that one of his generals described sinking 54 Iranian ships as “a lot more fun” than capturing them. Experts and lawmakers across party lines called the content deeply disturbing — a deliberate effort to reduce the reality of death, displacement, and destruction to viral entertainment for a political base. Mother Jones
Why This Matters: Three million Iranians have been displaced.1 More than eleven billion dollars of American taxpayer money was spent in the war’s first six days alone. American troops are dying. And the official response from our government is a bowling pin meme. This is not spin. This is not clumsy messaging. This is a deliberate philosophy — one that treats human life as a prop in a content strategy, and war as a brand activation. When leaders stop being able to look at the cost of their decisions, they will keep making the worst ones. The meme is the message: power without conscience, and violence without accountability.
💔 Why These Stories Matter
These stories are not abstract. They land on real people — and on the foundations of democracy itself.
A family from Afghanistan or Somalia who spent years being vetted, who was welcomed to America, who rebuilt their life here — that family is now waking up to the possibility of being dragged from their home by ICE agents and locked in a detention facility indefinitely. Not because they broke a law. Because this administration has decided that cruelty is a feature, not a bug. When we detain the people we invited in, we are not protecting America. We are betraying it.
When a federal judge has to write 27 pages explaining that the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve Chair for the sole purpose of pressuring him to lower interest rates — that is not politics as usual. That is the weaponization of the law. The judge’s words are unambiguous: the government offered “no evidence whatsoever that Powell committed any crime other than displeasing the President.” Every American who depends on an independent justice system — which is every American — should feel the chill of that sentence.
And in Iran, a war that no one will name is growing larger by the day. Every reassurance has already been broken. No ground troops — until ground troops were put back on the table. Short timeline — now stretching toward months. Limited objectives — now including regime change and demands for unconditional surrender. This is not a surprise. This is the pattern. The same lies were told about Iraq. The same euphemisms were deployed. The same people who promised it would be quick are now shrugging at the cost.
What the memes make plain — what the “fun” language reveals — is the moral rot at the center of this project. Authoritarianism doesn’t just seize power. It degrades the capacity to feel the weight of that power. When war becomes content, when refugees become detention statistics, when the justice system becomes a loyalty instrument — the people in charge have stopped seeing the rest of us as human beings.
That is the pattern. Cruelty as policy. Impunity as strategy. Dehumanization as entertainment. People Power is the wall that stops this slide toward authoritarianism.
Why the Grassroots Resistance Can’t Wait
Your Power in Action: What You Can Do Today
The movement for freedom over fascism, progress, and power to the people starts here.
⚡ Take action: Tell Congress to subpoena Hegseth about the Iran school attack
👉 Take action: Tell Congress to stop Trump from sending American troops into Iran — and vote no on the draft
🔊 Take action: Call your senator (202) 224-3121 and tell them to vote no on Mullin for DHS
📢 Take action: Tell state AGs to block the Warner-Paramount mega-merger
📋 Take action: Tell Congress to stop Trump’s illegal war in Iran
🎬 Take action: Tell your Secretary of State: No ICE at the polls
🚨 Take action: Speak out now to help stop the next Great Recession before it starts
🗳️ Bonus action: Register to vote, vote in every election, and help your community do the same. Reproductive freedom is won and lost at the ballot box.
👑 Bonus action: Sign up for the next national No Kings Day of Action and show up in solidarity with everyone whose rights are under attack.
📢 What You Can Do Today
When we organize, speak out, vote, and demand accountability, we disrupt this pattern. We remind those in power that legitimacy flows from the people — and that freedom cannot survive without collective action.
🛡️ Defend refugees and immigrants — Contact your representatives and demand an end to the indefinite detention of legal refugees. The people this government invited in deserve our protection, not our cages.
⚖️ Defend judicial independence — Stand with every judge, attorney, and institution willing to call political interference what it is. When the DOJ becomes a loyalty enforcement arm, speak out loudly and clearly.
🪖 Demand a real debate on war — Contact your representatives and insist they invoke the War Powers Act. No President should be able to launch and expand a war without Congressional authorization and an honest public debate.
🎮 Reject the memeification of violence — Push back on propaganda that trivializes war and dehumanizes its victims. Share the real stories. Say the real numbers. Name the real cost.
💚 Build people power — Organize. Show up. Bring your neighbors. Every new person in this movement is one more voice that no billionaire can buy.
Billionaire-backed elites are scheming to suppress our voices, strip away our rights, and rule over us. But progress is more than an idea — it is a movement. By standing up, speaking out, and demanding dignity, opportunity, and justice for all, we build an America that truly lives up to its promise.
Power has always belonged to the people. It always will — unless we hand it over to the greedy and corrupt leaders who are counting on our silence. We won’t. We will keep speaking out, showing up, and building power — toward progress, toward justice, toward a world where everyone can thrive. Power to the people.
Together, we can champion our rights, freedoms, and democracy, hold our leaders accountable to the people’s will, and inspire voters to make a meaningful difference.
Laurie Woodward Garcia (paid with hugs and kisses, not bought by special interests) Leader, People Power United
People Power United | In this community, we will always speak out against racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, misogyny, sexism, ageism, ableism, sizeism, elitism, transphobia, misogynoir, and bigotry!
This is our moment to rise, resist, and reclaim our rights, freedoms, rule of law, and democracy. Millions of Americans are already refusing to back down — in the streets, at the ballot box, and in their communities.
Every movement that was ever won started with people who refused to quit. We are those people.
The future is not lost. It is being built — by us, right now.