In Episode 265 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg examines Trump's ultimatum to Ukraine to hand over a large share of its wealth in strategic minerals such as lithium in exchange for continued US military aid—and whether a race with China for control of the lithium and rare earth elements needed for Elon Musk's industrial interests might also be the agenda behind the Trump regime's annexationist designs on Greenland. Trump is meanwhile opening Native American lands in Nevada to lithium exploitation, while Musk's Tesla has sought to grab a share of Bolivia's lithium reserves—now also coveted by China.

In Episode 264 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg interviews Kim of New York City's Chinatown Cantonese Toisan group about her efforts to promote Cantonese and Toisan language and culture. Indigenous to China's Guangdong province, these tongues are spoken by millions in a global diaspora. Thanks to the efforts of State Sen. Iwen Chu, Feb. 12 is now Taishan (Toisan) Day in New York state, commemorating the day in 1499, during the Ming Dynasty, that Toisan County was officially created—and honoring the contributions of Toisan immigrants, most notably in the dangerous work of building the Transcontinental Railroad. It was a Toisan man born in San Francisco, Wong Kim Ark, who won the 1898 Supreme Court case that established birthright citizenship as a constitutional right. Yet in China, Cantonese and Toisan are relegated to the status of fangyan (regional dialects) and officially discouraged in favor of Mandarin—leading to protests in provincial capital Guangzhou in 2010. Even in the US, the children's book Coolies, about the Cantonese railroad workers, has been banned from public libraries by local forces of intolerance. Through exhibits, social gatherings and a weekly language class, Kim works to keep Cantonese and Toisan heritage and pride alive in the New York metropolitan area.

In Episode 263 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg deconstructs the moves by the unconstitutional Trump regime to consolidate a dictatorship over the United States—attempting to seize autocratic control over the bureaucracy, and (in a case of fascist pseudo-anti-fascism) weaponizing concern with anti-Semitism to suppress free speech while institutionalizing indifference to (and consciously enflaming) all other forms of racism. And this as Elon Musk (a private-sector oligarch given extra-legal power over government functions) tells a rally of the Nazi-adjacent Alternative für Deutschland that Germany has "too much of a focus on past guilt." It took Hitler mere weeks to establish a dictatorship after coming to power, whereas with Mussolini it took some three years. We shall soon find out how long it will take in the United States—unless the country can find the wherewithal to resist.

In Episode 262 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg contrasts the intransigent resistance to the attempted power-grab by would-be right-wing strongman Yoon Suk Yeol in South Korea (and Robert Fico in Slovakia) with the craven capitulation to the consolidating Trump regime in the US—despite the unconstitutionality of his very presidency, the fascist stench from his team of oligarchs, and despite the emergence of evidence that points to actual hacking of the vote to effect his victory.

In Episode 261 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges that Donald Trump is an illegitimate president under the 14th Amendment, and that any propaganda exploitation of the Gaza ceasefire to sell his fascist agenda to progressives must be rejected. All political signs indicate that his white-supremacist rule will ultimately mean a disaster for the Palestinians, and it is imperative that progressives do not take the pseudo-peacenik bait—but, on the contrary, urgently mobilize to build resistance to MAGA-fascism. 

Mere days before Donald Trump is to be inaugurated, Bill Weinberg continues to raise the demand for nullification of his election on 14th Amendment grounds. As Congress certified his victory last week, a demonstration calling for this was held in Washington, organized by podcaster (and former Trump campaign worker) Jessica Denson. But the centrist establishment—including Kamala Harris, who presided over the certification—is utterly capitulating to the fascist takeover of the country. In vivid contrast, protesters courageously take to the streets and politicians refuse cooperation to defend democracy from authoritarian power-grabs in South Korea, Georgia, Romania, Slovakia and Mozambique. In Episode 260, the CounterVortex podcast urges a last-ditch line of defense: pressure on Chief Justice John Roberts to refuse to administer the oath of office.

Mere days before Congress is to certify the Electoral College votes, a movement has finally emerged to have Donald Trump disqualified from office under the Insurrection Clause of the 14th Amendment. A "14th Now March" in Washington is raising the demand, and is being promoted by the podcast and vlog Lights On with Jessica Denson. The idea has also been discussed on The Legal Breakdown with Brian Tyler Cohen and Glenn Kirschner, Legal AF with Ben Meiselas, The Romano Report with Mark Romano, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. Constitutional law scholars Evan Davis and David Schulte make the case in an editorial for The Hill, "Congress has the power to block Trump from taking office, but lawmakers must act now." Several elected officials have been barred from office under the Insurrection Clause since ratification of the 14th Amendment in 1868, but applying it to a former president who led an insurrection is the ultimate test of American democracy. In Episode 259 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg urges that this constitutional mechanism be used, and Trump's victory be nullified.

Three weeks after the fall of the Bashar Assad dictatorship, the only fighting in Syria remains between Arab and Kurdish militias—holding grim potential for destabilization of the democratic revolution. Kurds had been persecuted and even denied citizenship under the Assad regime, but the invasion of their autonomous territory of Rojava by the Turkish-backed rebels of the Syrian National Army (SNA) drove them into a paradoxical tactical alliance with the dictatorship. The tragic situation in Burma's Rakhine state mirrors this disturbing reality. The Muslim Rohingya people had been persecuted, denied citizenship and finally targeted in a campaign of genocide by the military, but are now facing attacks by the Buddhist-supremacist rebels of the Arakan Army—driving some Rohingya into a paradoxical tactical alliance with the military junta. In Episode 258 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers this comparison in the hope that the peoples of Burma can unite across religious lines to defeat the junta, and that Syrians can find a way toward co-existence in the new revolutionary order and avoid ethnic war.