🛑 This Week In Fascism: From Utah to Florida, The Authoritarian Pipeline Is Flowing Fast

By The Mayor of Funkytown — Political Writer, Resistance Organizer, and Chronicler of the American Slide into Authoritarianism

“Fascism is not in itself a new order of society. It is the future refusing to be born.”
— Aneurin Bevan

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🧑‍⚖️ Rewriting Rape Laws: Utah Politician Shields His 18-Year-Old Relative by Changing the Law

When 18-year-old Tyler Weiler—the relative of Utah state senator Todd Weiler—was charged with multiple counts of unlawful sexual activity with a 13-year-old girl, most people expected accountability.

Instead, Senator Weiler rewrote the law.

The charges were serious: first-degree felonies, each carrying potential sentences of up to life in prison under Utah’s strict statutory rape laws. But soon after Tyler’s arrest, Sen. Weiler began lobbying for a “reform” to those laws.

The result? Senate Bill 170, which:

• Reduces the severity of charges in cases involving “consensual” sex between minors and adults up to age 21,

• Allows more leniency for those within a five-year age gap,

• Gives judges discretion to downgrade felonies to misdemeanors if they believe the sex was “non-coercive.”

Now, instead of facing a mandatory lifetime sex offender registration and a potential life sentence, Tyler Weiler could walk away with no registry requirement and possibly a plea deal that keeps him out of prison entirely.

Let’s be crystal clear:
A sitting lawmaker changed the law to retroactively benefit his own family, gutting statutory protections for children. And the state let him do it.

Authoritarianism isn’t always jackboots and marches. Sometimes it’s a suit-and-tie legislator quietly gutting child protection laws to make sure his people don’t suffer consequences.

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👁️ Trump’s DOJ Plans to Target Climate, Racial Justice, and Antifa Organizers

Internal DOJ memos leaked this week show Trump’s Justice Department is planning to expand “domestic extremism” surveillance—but not against the groups you might expect.

No mention of white supremacists. No tracking Proud Boys.
Instead, the FBI and DHS have been instructed to monitor:

• Environmental protestors (especially anti-pipeline activists),

• BLM chapters,

• Indigenous sovereignty movements,

• And Antifa-adjacent organizing hubs.

The framework mirrors the post-9/11 “counterterror” dragnet—but with even fewer safeguards.

In fact, Trump’s DOJ is pushing to strip back Obama-era protections that prohibited surveillance of political protest unless there was credible evidence of violence. Now? Just associating with the “wrong” protest could put you on a federal watchlist.

This is the kind of mass political surveillance that defined fascist regimes from Mussolini to Pinochet. And the U.S. is hurtling toward it—again.

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📚 Texas Creates Book-Banning Superstructure

Texas didn’t just ban books. They built an entire infrastructure to make it permanent.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) recently launched the Statewide Prohibited Content Registry, a searchable database where school boards, parent groups, and “education watchdogs” can submit titles they want banned.

Here’s how it works:

• Any group can submit a challenge.

• If the local school removes the book, it’s automatically flagged statewide.

• Other districts are pressured to follow suit or face penalties for “exposing minors to obscene content.”

Books already flagged include:

• Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

• The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

• All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson

• Stamped by Ibram X. Kendi

And it’s spreading. Oklahoma, Florida, and Alabama are considering copycat registries.

This isn’t just a culture war. It’s a centralized censorship mechanism, giving fascist-adjacent groups the power to erase entire perspectives from public education. Think Index Librorum Prohibitorum, but sponsored by the GOP.

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💀 Missouri’s Miscarriage Bill Criminalizes Grief

Missouri’s House Bill 2831 takes the GOP’s war on reproductive autonomy into full-blown dystopia.

The bill, introduced by Republican Rep. Darryl Kendrick, requires:

• Anyone who miscarries to report the event to a law enforcement agency or hospital within 24 hours,

• A full medical and criminal investigation into the circumstances of the miscarriage,

• Potential civil fines or criminal charges if reporting is delayed or incomplete.

It gets worse. The bill also mandates:

• A state-issued death certificate for every miscarriage, no matter how early,

• The collection of tissue samples for evidentiary purposes in case of suspected “induced abortion,”

• That all “remains” be cremated or buried—with costs borne by the patient.

Doctors, nurses, and midwives could also face felony charges for failing to report a patient’s miscarriage fast enough.

This is not health policy. This is surveillance, shaming, and state violence directed at pregnant people. This is forced birth ideology fused with fascist governance.

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🥷 Florida Sheriff Deputizes Armed Election Vigilantes

Palm Beach County Sheriff Rick Bradshaw, with ties to far-right militia groups, has launched what he calls the “Election Integrity Civilian Patrol”—an armed volunteer force that will “guard polling places” in “urban zones with high risk of election fraud.”

What that actually means:

• White men with guns standing outside polling places in Black and brown neighborhoods,

• No training requirements,

• No de-escalation procedures,

• Direct communication with local police—giving them quasi-legal enforcement powers.

This is a voter suppression militia, baked into law enforcement, and blessed by the state.

The program is being quietly promoted by the Heritage Foundation and Turning Point USA, both of which are pushing for national expansion by 2026.

The goal is obvious: use intimidation to shrink the electorate, discourage marginalized voters, and ensure future Trump victories.

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🚨 The Pattern Is the Point

Each of these stories is horrifying on its own. But together, they show a coordinated pattern of fascist escalation:

✅ Rewriting laws to protect the powerful
✅ Targeting dissent with surveillance
✅ Controlling public knowledge through censorship
✅ Criminalizing the bodies and grief of women
✅ Undermining elections with armed intimidation

This is what fascism looks like in slow motion. One law, one sheriff, one book ban at a time.

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✊ What You Can Do Right Now

• Donate to the ACLU of Utah: They're already prepping lawsuits against SB170.

• Support Reproaction or Plan C Pills: They’re fighting Missouri’s war on miscarriage.

• Buy banned books and donate them to local libraries and mutual aid groups.

• Organize poll protection efforts in swing states.

• Call fascism what it is. Loudly. Don’t let the media soften it.

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