Skip to main content

Dispatches From the Culture Wars – March 11, 2025

Filling in for services under attack

‘Helping people before, during, and after (this democratic) disaster,’ says the #AltGov Fema account on Bluesky. Composite, Guardian Design/Bluesky
  1. #AltGov!
  2. Mahmoud Khalil Case: State Terror
  3. Standing Fast
  4. Fight for Trans Rights
  5. Migrants and Citizens Defy ICE
  6. Idaho: Sieg Heiling CEO Gets Heave-ho
  7. Confronting Counterrevolution
  8. Identity Politics Left and Right
  9. Pipeline Company Sues Greenpeace
  10. Curriculum for Reading Dangerously

 

#AltGov!

By Timothy Pratt
The Guardian

After seeing Elon Musk’s X post  about an email that would soon land in the inboxes of 2.3 million federal employees asking them to list five things they did the week before, a clandestine network of employees and contractors at dozens of federal agencies began talking on an encrypted app about how to respond. Within hours, the network had agreed on a recommended response.

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

Mahmoud Khalil Case: State Terror

By Ben Burg-is
MSNBC

Trump’s open and unabashed declaration that he won’t “tolerate” protests he dislikes and that he’ll use arrests and deportations to intimidate protesters into silence crosses a new frontier in authoritarianism. But we didn’t go from 0 to 60 when he was elected. 

Standing Fast

By Liam Archacki 
The Daily Beast

The tiny government agency that blocked a group of DOGE staffers from entering its offices on Wednesday isn’t giving up the fight, even as Elon Musk’s foot soldiers race to access their systems.The young, backpack-wearing men were turned away empty-handed on Wednesday after staff at the U.S. African Development Foundation refused to let them into the office following a tense standoff.

Fight for Trans Rights

By Sara Youngblood Gregory
Yes!

Grassroots organizers are steeling themselves to protect their communities from anti-trans policies and rhetoric. Local groups—specifically those led by and with trans people—are uniquely poised to help trans people weather the storm and challenge the policies and attitudes that harm them in the first place.

Migrants and Citizens Defy ICE

 • We Need Solidarity, Not Panic   By Lewis Raven Wallace, Truthout

 • LA   By Andrew Lopez and Alejandra Molina, LAist

 • What Churches Need to Know   By Heather Kimmel, United Church of Christ

 • Safeguarding Medical Institutions   By Tamar Sarai, Prism

 • Migrants’ Narratives   By Sonali Kolhatkar and Manuel Vicente, Yes!
 

Idaho: Sieg Heiling CEO Gets Heave-ho

KTVB

Tom Hill, the chief executive of Idaho-based Engineered Stuctures, Inc., stepped down from the construction company after a video of him giving two straight-arm salutes and thumping his chest while on stage during an annual company event went viral last week.

Confronting Counterrevolution

MAGA and Beyond   By Jérôme Gygax, CounterPunch

Dems in Denial   By Erica Etelson, Jacobin
 

Identity Politics Left and Right

By Ash Sarkar
The Guardian

The right is mobilising a kind of identity politics of their own: in talking about the white working class, anger about economic inequalities is redirected into racial grievance. It’s not wealth taxes, investment in education, or strengthening collective bargaining that will help the white working class: it’s getting minorities to shut up about injustice. 

Pipeline Company Sues Greenpeace

By Cody Bloomfield
Truthout

Energy Transfer Partners is seeking the last word — and $300 million in damages — on points of political contention between the pipeline company and the Standing Rock Lakota/Dakota people.

Curriculum for Reading Dangerously

New York Public Library

How has censorship affected U.S. society over the course of the 20th century? Drawing from The New York Public Library's collections, this curriculum guide is intended to be paired with Banned: Censorship and the Freedom to Read, an online exhibition exploring the history and broad impact of censorship.