Why Fascists Have Adopted A Suicidal Penguin as a Mascot
It Could Happen Here
Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts
4.0 • 6.5K Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2026
⏱️ 31 minutes
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Summary
Garrison explains why the online right are memeing about a penguin who fled its colony to march to its own death, and how this deranged penguin reflects fascism as a suicidal state.
Sources:
Paul Virilio, “The Suicidal State,” in J. DerDerian, ed. The Virilio Reader
https://files.libcom.org/files/A%20Thousand%20Plateaus.pdf
https://contactos.tome.press/welcome-to-the-suicidal-state/
https://jacobin.com/2024/10/death-drive-trump-freud-liberalism
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trumps-penguin-breaks-internet-sends-left-frenzy
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/penguin-walking-toward-mountain-nihilist-penguin
https://x.com/DOWResponse/status/2014869279850496358
https://x.com/HHSGov/status/2014772131242877320?s=20
https://x.com/policylaila/status/2015359679279337808
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/2015068422980182214
https://x.com/RepMikeCollins/status/1954555969515450790
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is an I-Heart podcast. |
| 0:02.5 | Guaranteed Human. |
| 0:05.9 | Cool Zone Media. |
| 0:10.0 | Welcome to It Could Happen here. |
| 0:12.4 | I'm Garrison Davis. |
| 0:14.0 | Admits attempts by President Trump to seize control of Greenland last month during the World Economic Forum, |
| 0:22.5 | administration officials started posting images of a penguin. On January 23rd, the White House shared an artificial image of |
| 0:29.6 | Trump walking hand and flipper alongside a penguin holding an American flag across a snowy tundra |
| 0:35.6 | towards mountains bearing the flag of Greenland. |
| 0:39.7 | The caption read, Embrace the Penguin. |
| 0:43.2 | The flags look like poorly photoshopped stock images, while the rest of the image appears to be |
| 0:49.1 | generated by AI. |
| 0:51.2 | Immediately, this post sparked ridicule across various online platforms, based on the fact |
| 0:56.2 | that there aren't any penguins in Greenland. Erm, penguins don't live in the northern hemisphere, |
| 1:04.0 | save for zoos and the Glamas Islands of Ecuador. So, ha ha, the foolish Trump has been |
| 1:09.8 | bested once again in the arena of facts and logic. |
| 1:14.4 | Except this White House penguin post was actually in reference to a TikTok meme that was currently |
| 1:22.1 | going super viral. In mid-January, remixed footage from Werner Herzog's Arctic documentary Encounters |
| 1:29.3 | at the end of the world, |
| 1:31.0 | featuring a lone penguin, |
| 1:32.4 | breaking off from the flock and marching |
| 1:34.5 | towards some icy mountains, |
... |
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