Nazi Problems

Week of October 17-23, 2025

Welcome to TRACKING THE CRISIS, a weekly round-up from The Democracy Collaborative tracking the administrative, legislative, and other actions of the Trump Administration as well as the many forms of legal and movement response from across a broad range of social, political, and economic actors. TDC is providing this service for collective informational purposes, as a tool for understanding the times during a period of disorientingly rapid flux and change in the U.S. political economy. TDC should not be understood as endorsing or otherwise any of the specific content of the information round-up.

TRUMP TRACKER: Administration actions

• GOP’s ‘Nazi problem’ in spotlight as chat scandal deepens, Ingrassia nomination withdrawn. More details are emerging after last week’s revelation of racist and fascist rhetoric in Young Republicans’ Telegram chat logs by Politico, indicating that the ‘Nazi problem’ of open fascists in MAGA and the GOP goes deeper than JD Vance suggested when he downplayed the texts as “kids being kids.” This week, the Trump Administration withdrew its nomination of Paul Ingrassia to lead the Office of Special Counsel after Politico again published leaked texts in which Ingrassia admits to having a ‘Nazi streak’, suggested that all holidays commemorating Black people (for whom he used an Italian racial slur) should be “thrown in to the seventh circle of hell,” and defended his comments when fellow Republicans said he sounded ‘like a white nationalist’. In recent years, he had also called for Trump to use martial law to retain power after losing the 2020 elections, has been associated with anti-semitic extremists and organizations, defended Holocaust denier and white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes when Fuentes was kicked out of Charlie Kirk’s TPUSA organization for being too extreme, worked on the legal team for convicted sex trafficker, alleged rapist and antisemite Andrew Tate, and was recently accused of sexual harassment himself. The federal workers’ union AFGE also had warned against Ingrassia’s nomination for the federal whistleblowers’ watchdog office in July, after Ingrassia publicly referred to federal workers as “parasites” and “bugmen.”  On Monday, October 20, House Democrats called for Ingrassia’s immediate dismissal, calling him an “unqualified and dangerous nominee”; his nomination was withdrawn on Tuesday after at least five Republican Senators indicated they would not confirm him.
  
  The revelations, coming just days on the heels of the Republicans’ nearly unified chorus denouncing liberal No Kings protestors as “antifa(scist) terrorists,” have sparked debates among mainstream conservatives about the future of the GOP, given the extent to which overt antisemitism, white nationalism and fascism have been ‘normalized’ among young Republicans. In contrast to JD Vance’s unconcerned response last week, House Speaker Johnson appeared flustered when asked about the chats and quickly denounced the rhetoric, distancing himself from the culprits. While Trump denounces antiracist speech and DEI as ‘radical left terrorism’, numerous recent cases highlight the violent real-life consequences of extremist rhetoric on the far right, including a recent FBI investigation into the livestreamed suicide of a 13-year-old which led to identifying over 300 members of the online extremist group ‘764’ that preys upon vulnerable and mentally ill children with the intent to drive them toward self-harm or death. Such rhetoric continues to be met with toleration within the Trump Administration, where hate speech is frequently explained away. A Wired podcast discusses the exponential growth of the power and influence of far-right online influencers under Trump’s second term, as historians consider to what extent such escalation could lead to a civil war. Recent polls show public opinion is split down the middle on the question of whether the left or right bears more responsibility for political violence, underscoring how ‘ordinary’ Americans could unwittingly fall for manipulative media agendas and contribute to the normalization of far right narratives.

• U.S. expands ‘drug boat’ strikes to Pacific Ocean, escalating confrontation with Latin American governments. On Wednesday, October 22, the Trump Administration announced two new military strikes on alleged ‘drug boats’ in the eastern Pacific off the coast of Ecuador, killing five, indicating a major expansion of Trump’s ‘non-international armed conflict’ against alleged narcotraffickers. These strikes bring the total number of boat attacks to nine, with a combined death toll of 37 people, including a Trinidadian national whose family asserts was simply traveling home after a stay in Venezuela. This week’s strikes left two survivors, including an Ecuadorian fisherman, who were briefly questioned before being returned to their respective countries. Two more U.S. bomber jets skirted Venezuelan airspace this week, raising the specter of full war as Trump said he will not seek Congressional authorization for future strikes, including land operations within Venezuela. While the strikes are still being sold as anti-drug operations, others see Trump beating the drums of war for regime change as Congressional Republicans have become more overtly supportive of offensives that could result in toppling Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. A former Trump official told Politico this week that while the United States is unprepared for a ground invasion, he believes Trump is pursuing a strategy intended to rattle Venezuelan elites such that they move to oust Maduro. A bipartisan group in the Senate is attempting to force a vote on legislation that would ban Trump from pursuing ground strikes in Venezuela, as even moderates who oppose Maduro are warning of ‘immense risk’ of regional destabilization should Trump take unilateral action.
  
  Dozens of Latin American leaders signed on to an open letter condemning Trump’s revival of ‘drug war’ tactics, saying “we have lived this nightmare before” and “will not allow history to repeat itself”; the letter also announced the formation of a hemisphere-wide coalition to defend the CELAC ‘Zone of Peace’ in the face of U.S. aggression against Venezuela. Colombian president Gustavo Petro accused Trump of murdering Colombian national Alejandro Carranza, who Petro said was a fisherman whose boat had broken down and was adrift at the time of the attack. Maduro on Thursday accused Trump of “fabricating a new war” in the region, and gave a rare English-language address to the international public denouncing Trump’s “crazy war” and calling for “peace, only peace.” Early on Friday, October 24, Trump deployed an aircraft carrier to the region in an escalation of his ‘gunboat diplomacy’; Maduro responded by disclosing that “5,000 Russian anti-aircraft missiles” have been installed in key defence positions. Maduro also launched an app for the Venezuelan public to report evidence of covert activity, and announced that international social movements throughout the world are forming “Simon Bolivar International Brigades” to assist in Venezuela’s defense should the United States attack the country directly. The Center for Economic and Political Research, which has long covered U.S. military interventions in Latin America, including the previous ‘drug wars’, announced a new blog to provide live updates tracking the escalation of U.S. aggression in the region.

• SNAP and Obamacare headed for a cliff as government shutdown drags on; Trump pays ICE, military while civilian federal workers go hungry. The government shutdown will extend into its fourth week after the Senate failed to pass a temporary funding bill for the twelfth time. The Senate remains deadlocked over dueling continuing resolution bills; and three attempts to pass temporary funding to pay federal workers failed largely along partisan lines, although cracks are emerging on both sides and individual Senators have initiated attempts to negotiate a bipartisan path toward a resolution. Pressure to reach a deal is mounting as furloughed government workers and federal benefit recipients face five critical ‘funding cliffs’ approaching over the next week. On Friday, October 24, furloughed federal workers will miss their first full paychecks, and air traffic controllers, who are currently working without pay, will miss a full paycheck on October 28 if the government is not reopened. Several critical services for veterans, such as case management and counseling, have already been paused at the VA as the October 31 deadline for military paychecks looms.
  
  The most impactful and anxiously watched deadline will be November 1, when SNAP will run out of food assistance funding in several states, potentially leaving millions of Americans to go hungry as food banks start facing pressure from both EBT recipients and unpaid federal workers who are struggling to put food on the table with a prolonged lapse in pay. The Trump Administration recently canceled funding for USDA research and reporting on food insecurity in the United States. November 1st also marks the first day of ACA marketplace open enrollment for healthcare coverage in 2026, potentially forcing up to 42 million Americans to pay nearly double on premiums to keep their current coverage. Last Friday, October 17, residents in about a dozen states got a first look at potential Obamacare premium increases for 2026 should ACA subsidies be allowed to expire. Families and older people in several states, including Maine, Nevada, Kentucky and Minnesota, may face annual premium increases ranging from $13,500 to $23,600 if the credits are not renewed; health policy researchers at KFF estimate that healthcare costs for millions of Americans will rise by 18 percent on average, illustrating the high stakes of the current shutdown battle. The White House warned that airport staffing shortages may begin causing significant flight disruptions as soon as next week, when air traffic controllers miss their first paycheck.
  
  As of October 21, the current shutdown officially became the second longest in history; Trump also presided over the longest, which spanned 35 days. As public opinion continues to pin the bulk of responsibility on the Republicans to end the shutdown, House Speaker Johnson finds himself in an increasingly awkward position as Trump (and presumably Vought) exploit the prolonged shutdown to make unilateral funding decisions targeting ‘Democratic priorities’ as a means of political retribution. Trump has already cancelled funding for infrastructure projects in several Democrat-led cities, and shuffled federal funds to pay security-oriented federal workers such as ICE agents while leaving civilian workers unpaid, raising questions not only around the legality of unilaterally redirecting Congressionally-appropriated funds, but also having effectively created two unequal ‘classes’ of federal workers based on his political priorities. Several of his decisions to ‘punish Democrat programs’ have blown back with greater impacts on the MAGA and GOP base; more than 100 Republican lawmakers signed a letter to Russ Vought and Scott Bessent imploring them to reverse the firings of all staff at the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, a program supporting small businesses that is highly popular in and beneficial to rural communities.

• Trump TACOs on San Francisco as the first of many legal battles raging over National Guard deployments reaches the Supreme Court. Trump’s attempts at military occupation of major Democratic-led cities has so far collided with a phalanx of legal challenges from state leaders, local governments, and civil rights groups, who have racked up a number of lower court rulings blocking Trump’s plans. On Monday, October 20, a three-judge federal appeals panel handed Trump a victory by overturning a ban on Trump’s National Guard deployment to Portland; hours after the decision, a Ninth Circuit judge filed an appeal for the ruling to be reconsidered by the full 29-member appeals court panel. Briefs filed by the State of Oregon and City of Portland backing the appeal cited the case’s high stakes for Constitutional civil liberties and challenged several claims in Trump’s narrative justifying the deployment, including repeated claims of widespread fires in Portland that were readily refuted by CNN reporters on the ground. In Washington D.C., a federal judge heard arguments in a suit filed by D.C.’s Attorney General challenging Trump’s deployment of 2,500 National Guard troops, claiming the military is acting as a “federally run police force” in the city.
  
  This week, Chicago’s challenge to Trump’s military deployment became the first of these cases to reach the Supreme Court, a precedent-setting event with potentially titanic stakes for the Posse Comitatus Act and the fate of all U.S. cities facing threats of occupation that Just Security has characterized as “the last defense against Trump’s police state.” Zeteo reviews the timeline of Trump’s war on Chicago and the swell of community resistance to militarized ICE raids. Trump also nearly followed through with his threat to send troops to San Francisco, prompting immediate challenges from city leaders as well as Governor Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta. After troops began staging on Tuesday, Trump abruptly called off the deployment, saying he had received several phone calls with personal appeals from ‘incredible tech business leaders’. A Wall Street Journal exclusive chronicles the discussions between Mayor Lurie, OpenAI head Sam Altman, Salesforce’s Marc Beinoff, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang that ultimately convinced Trump to back off an invasion of the city.

• Sanctions placed on Russian oil; Vance clashes with Netanyahu. Since enactment on October 8th, the Trump-mediated ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has moved forward tenuously, as outbursts of violence continue. While Hamas has released all remaining living Israeli hostages, Israel has faced outcry for continuing to hold certain notable Palestinian detainees, including Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti, known to many as “Palestine’s Mandela,” as well as head of Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya. Bodies of Palestinian prisoners released posthumously have been described as “mutilated,” showing signs of torture and extrajudicial execution, with the majority of the dead having been held in Israel’s infamous Sde Teiman detention facility; those living detainees released have also reported beatings and torture under Israeli custody. After an explosion in Rafah left two Israeli soldiers dead and another wounded, Israel responded with a bombardment of strikes that killed 44 civilians. Simultaneously, conflict has heightened in the West Bank, with an uptick in violence against Palestinians by both Israeli military forces and vigilante settlers, including the killing of 10-year-old Muhammad al-Hallaq by soldiers outside Hebron earlier this month.

  
  Tempers have flared between the United States and Israel following a visit by several top U.S. officials this week. Despite Trump’s avowal that the United States will cease aid if Israel annexes the West Bank, a bill to apply Israeli law to the territory – a move many describe as tantamount to annexation – won preliminary approval in the Knesset during the visit; Vice President JD Vance decried this move as a “stupid political stunt,” and an “insult,” while Trump dismissed it outright, saying “Israel isn’t gonna do anything in the West Bank.” This comes immediately after Vance made repeated public assurances that Israel is not a “vassal state” of the United States and stated his optimism that the ceasefire will hold, with a warning that Hamas would be “obliterated” were it to violate the agreement. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reaffirmed that American ambassadors and other state department officials will play a key role in maintaining the ceasefire, while calls for him to push for the release of 16-year-old U.S. citizen Mohammed Ibrahim, held in Israel without trial for 8 months, went unacknowledged. These tensions have given rise to growing concerns over the strength of relations between the two powers behind the scenes. 

  
  Meanwhile, Trump and Putin continue to square off, with Trump cancelling plans for proposed peace talks in Budapest and imposing new sanctions on two of Russia’s largest oil companies. Putin responded to these moves by calling them “unfriendly acts,” stating that the sanctions are serious, but not enough to stop Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Despite Zelenskyy’s request to the EU for long-range missiles, Trump has said he is not ready to provide Ukraine with Tomahawks; Putin has promised a “painful response” if the EU follows a proposal to use frozen Russian assets to fund a massive loan to Kyiv.

MOVEMENT TRACKER

• Seven million people hit the streets for ‘No Kings’ protests in all 50 states and 18 countries; Chicago Mayor calls for general strike in rally speech. Organizers for the second ‘No Kings’ nationwide Day of Action on Saturday, October 18 report that nearly 7 million people turned out to attend over 2,500 protest actions throughout the United States as well as in 18 countries worldwide. Harvard’s Crowd Counting Consortium noted that this may possibly have been the most geographically diverse protest action in U.S. history as ‘No Kings’ protests reached deeper into Trump country. Their data shows that as of August 2025, the ‘median protest county’ in the United States cast more votes for Trump than Harris in the 2024 elections. Most protests featured mostly liberal themes with a carnival-like atmosphere; around the country, protestors donned inflatable animal costumes inspired by the ‘Portland Frog’ who went viral with his antics at the city’s anti-ICE protests. The Marshall Project discusses how the animal costume trend draws upon the long history of using ‘tactical frivolity’ as a way to counter the right’s alarmist claims characterizing grassroots opposition as ‘terrorists.’ Other U.S. cities under threat of military occupation emerged as leading voices pushing beyond official ‘No Kings’ messaging to call for more decisive action; federal workers furloughed during the shutdown also spoke out at rallies across the country. Speaking in front of over 250,000 people gathered in the Chicago Loop, Mayor Brandon Johnson, a former organizer with the Chicago Teachers’ Union, invoked the ancestors before dramatically upping the ante by calling for a general strike; thus reviving the idea of the radical tactic that has brought down authoritarian governments around the world to millions of people in the United States, where, despite a vibrant tradition of labor militancy and historic citywide general strikes, there has never been a true general strike in U.S. history.

• State and municipal leaders step into the breach amid federal cuts, government shutdown. As the Trump Administration increasingly wields the threat of military occupation and unleashes ICE raids against communities in mostly Democratic states and cities, mayors and governors are increasingly leaning into using the power of state and local policy in ways that can enable legal resistance to federal government incursions and support communities impacted by Trump Administration actions. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has emerged as a leading figure in city-based resistance to the Trump regime, followed up on his September executive order outlining the city’s plan for community defence with the unveiling of the 2026 “Protecting Chicago Budget,” described by one alderman as one of the most progressive city budgets they had ever seen. Johnson’s budget proposal includes imposing higher taxes on large corporations and tech companies, luxury items and social media in a bid to raise over $500 million in new revenue to support Chicago residents facing impacts from funding freezes and other changes at the federal level. It also places constraints on the police budget, uses local funds to bolster community healthcare programs, and other measures to fill anticipated gaps in social program funding due to ‘federal clawbacks and grant terminations’. The budget proposal closely aligns with the “People’s Budget” developed by the People’s Unity Platform, a coalition of local community organizations that have been holding a series of neighborhood roundtables to gather grassroots input on budget priorities. While the budget still faces many challenges from business leaders and the political mainstream, it can be a model for other municipalities wrestling with fiscal resistance to the Trump administration. This week, NYC mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani declared his intention, if elected, to extend New York City’s sanctuary laws to protect transgender residents.
  
  California is becoming another leading model for local and state resistance to the Trump agenda. Governor Newsom, who gained viral notoriety for trolling Trump on social media, wielded state power in order deploy the California National Guard throughout the state to assist local food banks, in stark contrast to Trump’s use of the Guard to enact military occupations of U.S. cities. In Los Angeles, the County Board of Supervisors declared a local ‘state of emergency’ to give the County power to provide financial support to undocumented immigrants who are avoiding work or other economic activities in fear of ICE raids and are struggling to make ends meet as a result. Small grants for rent, food, bills and other types of support will be made available within the next two months via a low-barrier online application portal for LA County residents. In California, a coalition of healthcare workers, unions, and economists launched a ballot initiative campaign to put the “Billionaire Tax Act” on the 2026 ballot, which proposes to levy a 5% tax on the roughly 200 billionaires living in California in order to offset anticipated shortfalls in healthcare funding due to federal Medicaid cuts. Earlier this month, Newsom also signed landmark, first-of-its-kind legislation to regulate AI and provide guidelines for safe use of the technology. Newsom also joined 14 other states to form The Governors’ Public Healthcare Alliance, bringing together existing interstate alliances on the East and West coasts in order to facilitate cross-state collaboration on public health as HHS under RFK Jr. has compromised the ability of the federal government to issue science-based public health recommendations and vaccine schedules.

• Leading Jewish notables call for UN sanctions on Israel as more Democrats turn away from AIPAC. Hundreds of prominent Jewish figures around the world have called for sanctions on Israel over what they describe as an “unconscionable” genocide in Gaza. The letter, titled “Jews Demand Action,” has been signed by nearly 500 people to date, including former Knesset Speaker and interim Israeli President Avraham Burg, former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy, Canadian writer Naomi Klein, and American author Peter Beinart. They also call on world leaders to hold Israel as well as themselves accountable on justice for Palestine, urging them to uphold International Court of Justice (ICJ) and International Criminal Court rulings, avoid complicity in international law violations by halting arms transfers and imposing targeted sanctions, ensure adequate humanitarian aid to Gaza, and reject false claims of antisemitism against those advocating for peace and justice. The call for accountability and action comes as growing numbers of Democratic politicians, including moderates, pledge to reject donations from AIPAC, a stance which was considered unthinkable among the party mainstream just a few years ago. The New York Times outlines how the phenomenon is indicative of a broader shift within Congress to distance themselves from Israeli influence, as more mainstream Democrats signal their willingness to back legislation ending U.S. military aid to Israel.

• Upcoming Protests and Resistance Actions.

  • Investigative journalists at ProPublica are seeking to interview doctors, nurses, and frontline healthcare providers who have recently left their positions at the VA as a result of DOGE cuts and federal buyout offers. People interested in talking about their experiences and sharing insights can contact Propublica journalists at the following Signal handles: TopherSanders.02 or vcoleman91.99 

  • Hundreds of small, locally organized protest actions are ongoing across the country, including sustained weekly actions, freeway banner drops, community conversations and more. Two websites are attempting to aggregate a directory of these actions; The Big List of Protests provides a running calendar of actions that are happening practically every day, and the Resist List website and Bluesky account relays info on local Indivisible actions and organizing trainings as well as various conversations on movement strategy.