It begins, as these things always do, with a memo. Not a law passed by Congress, not a court case argued in daylight, but a crisp, bureaucratic directive—parchment as performance art. On September 25, 2025, a senior official in Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche’s office, Aakash Singh, quietly sent word to at least seven U.S. Attorney’s offices—California, New York, Illinois, Michigan, Maryland, and a couple of others chosen not for coincidence but for clout: “prepare” potential investigations into the Open Society Foundations. Not indict. Not arrest. Just “prepare.” As if federal power were a crockpot meal you could leave simmering until the political appetite arrived.
The charges on the menu? A sampler platter straight from the authoritarian cookbook: material support for terrorism, arson, wire fraud, racketeering. If you were wondering whether someone simply dumped the RICO statute into a blender with Fox News B-roll, you’re correct. The Department of Justice wants us to believe that George Soros—the billionaire whose gravest crime to date has been funding libraries, voting rights groups, and the occasional Hungarian orchestra—might secretly be a Bond villain with a warehouse of Molotov cocktails.
And so we have arrived at the latest installment of “This Is What Modern Day Fascism Looks Like.”
The Paperwork Coup
The brilliance of fascism in 2025 is that it rarely shows up in jackboots anymore. It arrives in the neutral language of process. “Prepare potential investigations.” Nothing to see here, folks—just your government “routinely” exploring threats to public safety. No subpoenas yet, no raids, no indictments. Just the paperwork equivalent of a gun on the table: you may continue speaking, citizen, but remember who holds the filing cabinet.
The Open Society Foundations responded with weary dignity. They condemned terrorism, reaffirmed their commitment to lawful activity, and reminded anyone still listening that they have spent decades funding democratic movements, health care, and human rights. Which, of course, is precisely what makes them suspicious in a world where “democracy” is now rebranded as “leftist extremism.”
Enter the Chorus
As though on cue, President Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance emerged from their perpetual audition for Strongman’s Got Talent to clap along. Soros, they have reminded us for years, is the ur-villain of their movement: a man who has somehow engineered both globalist cabals and local D.A. elections, all while being Jewish enough to serve as dog-whistle and bullhorn simultaneously. Their renewed calls for scrutiny did not fall on deaf ears; they fell on ears desperate to please.
Thus the memo. Thus the performance. Thus the quiet transformation of the Justice Department from neutral arbiter to loyalty test.
The Timing “Coincidence”
Why now? Because the soil was freshly tilled. Recent high-profile acts of political violence—random enough to be chaotic, tragic enough to be useful—created the perfect storm. The White House needed to appear decisive. The base needed an enemy with a name. And the DOJ needed to remind everyone that independence is negotiable when careers are on the line.
That is the rhythm now: blood in the streets, followed by paperwork in the night. Fascism does not let crises go to waste; it treats them like coupons.
The First Amendment as Optional Add-On
What is the danger here? That’s the wrong question. The real danger is that asking the question at all makes you look naïve. Of course there is no evidence that the Open Society Foundations are funding arsonists. Of course wire fraud isn’t a natural outgrowth of literacy grants. The point is not to prove the case. The point is to make existing dissent feel provisional.
If you are a nonprofit, a journalist, an academic, or simply a critic with a Twitter login, you now live under a new condition: your work is legal until the state decides to “prepare” otherwise. The First Amendment has become the free trial version of a streaming service. Enjoy it while it lasts, but remember: cancellation is just one directive away.
DOJ Independence: A Museum Piece
Once upon a time, the Justice Department was imagined as something like the immune system of democracy—imperfect, yes, but oriented toward resisting infection. Today, it is a limb operated directly by the brain stem of the executive branch. Deputy Attorney General Blanche, already serving as Trump’s cleanup hitter in the DOJ, now presides over a staff that understands the choreography: legal rationale optional, political timing mandatory.
Aakash Singh did not need to invent this order from whole cloth. He only needed to translate what the White House has already broadcast. When Trump and Vance say “investigate Soros,” they are not making policy suggestions; they are announcing future headlines. The DOJ, ever eager to demonstrate fealty, merely sends the invitations.
The Charges as Rorschach
Let us pause on the absurdity of the charges themselves: material support to terrorism, arson, wire fraud, racketeering. They read less like a legal document and more like a late-night improv prompt: “Quick! Give me four crimes associated with chaos! Now make them all rhyme with Antifa!”
This is selective enforcement at its purest. Every political donor in America could be painted with one of these brushes if you stared long enough. Koch money? Climate arson. Silicon Valley? Wire fraud with a UX team. Trump’s PAC? Racketeering with gold-plated hats. The point is not that Soros is unique; the point is that Soros is targetable.
How Fascism Modernizes
Fascism in the old textbooks wore uniforms and raised flags. Fascism in 2025 prefers memo headers and the plausible deniability of routine. It doesn’t jail opposition outright; it jails the possibility of opposition. It doesn’t burn books; it labels foundations that fund libraries as suspect. It doesn’t need show trials; it has “preparatory investigations,” a phrase so bloodless you could almost forget it cuts.
The genius is in the staging. No one has to believe the charges will stick. They don’t need to. The chill in the air is the product.
The Audience at Home
The public, meanwhile, is reduced to an audience trained by decades of reality TV: suspense is the show. Will Soros be indicted? Won’t he? Tune in next week as federal prosecutors “weigh their options” like judges on American Idol. The ratings are good, the story arcs clear, and the villains already cast.
Selective enforcement becomes the plot twist that keeps the season alive. The Constitution, once the script, is now just the commercial break.
Why Soros, Why Now
The fixation on Soros is not new, but its utility is evergreen. He is rich enough to be envied, foreign enough to be distrusted, Jewish enough to be scapegoated, and philanthropic enough to be mocked. He embodies the contradiction that fuels fascist narrative: too powerful to ignore, too subversive to allow, too abstract to ever pin down. Investigating him is less about justice than about staging. He is the perfect MacGuffin—an object whose real function is to drive the plot forward.
The Precedent Set
Let us strip the satire for one paragraph: If the Department of Justice can investigate philanthropic networks for “material support to terrorism” based solely on political convenience, then every civic institution is at risk. Churches, universities, newspapers, even veterans’ groups—all could be reframed as nests of subversion with a single memo. The chilling effect is the point. When power itself becomes the charge, no defense is possible.
Now back to the satire: congratulations, America, you’ve just subscribed to Fascism+, the premium service where your rights are available in stunning HD until the next executive tantrum.
Structural Irony, Served Fresh
Consider the irony: an administration born in the language of freedom, now perfecting the art of repression. A Justice Department named for justice, weaponized against the concept. A president who cries witch hunt, commissioning his own inquisitions. A billionaire accused of arson by men whose own supporters set fire to the Capitol gift shop.
The comedy writes itself, except that it doesn’t feel like comedy anymore. It feels like a rerun we can’t switch off.
What Comes Next
Expect leaks. Expect ominous headlines about “sealed indictments” and “unnamed sources.” Expect op-eds reminding us that “no one is above the law,” as if that phrase still carries currency in a world where law is whatever the executive desires. Expect hearings, subpoenas, and maybe even a courtroom cameo. But above all, expect the normalization. What feels shocking today will feel procedural tomorrow. And that is the quietest victory fascism ever wins.
The Loyalty Test Dressed as Justice
Every authoritarian regime has its theater. In America 2025, the stage is not the rally but the memo. The costumes are not uniforms but business suits. The props are not torches but legal pads. And the plot is always the same: dissent is provisional, rights are revocable, and justice is whatever the executive says it is.
The DOJ’s directive against the Open Society Foundations is not about George Soros. It is not about terrorism. It is not about arson, racketeering, or fraud. It is about reminding every citizen that the paperwork is waiting, the file is open, and the law can be summoned not to protect you but to prepare your silence.
That is what modern-day fascism looks like: not the boot, not the lash, but the memo that tells you the file has already been opened in your name.