Fascism in 21st-century America doesn’t march in goose step or wear jackboots. It often comes branded—with a corporate logo, a Terms of Service agreement, and a power-hungry, underpaid employee in a company-issued uniform, suddenly endowed with the authority to banish us for life from critical services.
Who actually makes these decisions is anyone’s guess. Americans are simply expected to accept them—like commandments handed down from above.
Gone are the days when corporations saw themselves as servants of the consumer. Today, they posture as moral arbiters—self-appointed guardians of speech, behavior, and virtue—operating with no democratic oversight and zero obligation to explain themselves. A docile corporate media embraces the silence, careful not to alienate the narcissistic CEOs who feed them scoops, hand out “exclusives,” and drop career tips like breadcrumbs.
During the Biden era, banks enthusiastically embraced “woke capitalism,” cutting off customers for political noncompliance and debanking entire legal industries they deemed ideologically impure—firearms, fossil fuels, anything that offended the sensibilities of the Democratic ruling class.
Social media companies gladly played along, enforcing pandemic orthodoxy with the same zeal as their media allies. They banned, throttled, and shadow banned anyone who questioned the wisdom of the FDA or CDC—no matter how credentialed or well-cited the critique.
At the height of the pandemic, LinkedIn removed two of my columns that questioned the Biden administration’s COVID policies—even though both cited respected medical journals and credentialed experts. To this day, I regularly see users complain that their posts were removed without explanation. Just gone, as Orwell predicted.
None of this should surprise anyone. LinkedIn once bent the knee to Beijing’s censors when it operated in China. Its parent company, Microsoft, has allegedly helped amplify Chinese government propaganda abroad.
Then there’s Equinox—the high-end fitness chain that markets elitism soaked in sweat. James O’Keefe, the guerrilla activist known for secretly filming influential people saying things they shouldn’t, claims he was permanently banned from every Equinox location without explanation. Listen to the Equinox employee informing O’Keefe of his banishment—she sounds like she’d be more at home working at the DMV.
Another woman on TikTok said she was banned from Equinox simply for falling out with gym staff.
Equinox’s God complex doesn’t end there. A few years ago, it launched a smug campaign refusing to allow new customers to join on January 1. Why? Because New Year’s resolutions were beneath its brand. That wasn’t fitness marketing. That was self-righteous corporate preening.
But no industry wields the ban hammer more ruthlessly than America’s monopolistic airlines. They provoke, mistreat, and humiliate passengers—and if anyone dares push back, they’re blacklisted for life. No hearing. No warning. No recourse—not even double secret probation. Just another passenger vanished by a gate agent devoid of empathy or a power-tripping flight attendant unable to tolerate a normal human response to corporate ineptitude, indifference, and inhumanity.
Michelle Couch-Friedman, a tireless travel advocate and founder of the website Consumer Rescue, recently revealed just how easy it is to land on an airline’s “No Fly” list. She serves as the travel ombudsperson at The Points Guy, and her reporting confirms what many of us suspected: these bans are as arbitrary as they are draconian.
Consider the story of Sarah R., a self-described mild-mannered stay-at-home mom with no history of legal trouble. One morning, boarding a flight from Chicago O’Hare to New Orleans on a whirlwind college tour, she was flagged by a gate agent who decided her rollaboard bag was too large and had to be gate-checked.
“I admit, I was aggravated,” Sarah recalled. “But I soon gave up and pushed my bag toward the agent. It rolled away and bumped into her. She yelled out like it was painful and then walked away. I apologized profusely to everyone still standing there. Then I got on the plane and sat down.”
Unfortunately for Sarah, the agent’s foot—bumped by the bag—had recently undergone surgery. United Airlines didn’t wait for nuance. Sarah was pulled from the flight and informed she was banned pending review by United’s supreme tribunal, officially known as the Passenger Incident Review Committee.
That committee—an Orwellian name if there ever was one—found her guilty and sentenced her to lifetime banishment.
Our review of the reported incident revealed that you exhibited disruptive behavior in the gate area when you intentionally kicked your luggage toward one of our employees, making unwanted physical contact with them,” United’s PIRC wrote. “Based on the severity of this incident, we believe that your presence onboard future United flights creates a threat to the safety of our employees and passengers. Consequently, we are permanently banning you from travel on United and United Express partner flights. If you attempt to board one of our aircraft, we will take appropriate measures to prevent your carriage.
Then there’s Bill B., a longtime Executive Platinum with American Airlines—a level reserved for the most loyal, high-mileage rollers.
Bill’s tale? He wasn’t cleared for standby on an earlier flight, so he hit the airport bar while waiting for his confirmed flight. That flight, not surprisingly, was delayed for hours. Bill lost track of how much he drank. When he finally made it to the gate and learned his flight was cancelled, he snapped.
“I just got mad and started yelling at them and the cops grabbed me from behind and arrested me,” Bill told Couch-Friedman. “I made no threats to anyone. My behavior was the result of being up all night, with no food in me and then the alcohol.”
Bill was arrested for public intoxication and removed from the airport. Soon after, he received a letter from American’s corporate enforcement squad informing him he was permanently banned from American Airlines and all its codeshare partners.
“I’ve never had a problem before in my life. I’m a veteran and an upstanding citizen,” Bill told Couch-Friedman. “I would be happy to agree never to drink again at the airport or on a flight if AA would lift the ban.”
One might think Executive Platinum status would afford some leniency. But maybe Bill should be grateful—had his status been lower, he might’ve been sentenced to hard labor or capital punishment. After all, American is headquartered in Texas.
As for the customer-facing personnel who provoke otherwise mild-mannered people into hostility, they too often radiate the warmth and flexibility of a DMV clerk—or that Equinox staffer who zealously informed James O’Keefe he was permanently exiled.
Still unsure who deserves sympathy? Watch the accompanying video of two former Frontier Airlines gate agents taunting a passenger who missed his flight after struggling with a malfunctioning kiosk. Even by the low standards of U.S. commercial aviation, their mockery set a new bar.
Frontier fired the two women after the video went viral—but here’s the kicker: they didn’t even work for Frontier. They were employed by an outsourcing firm, a detail that perfectly encapsulates how little concern—or control—the airline has over its own customer experience.
While the Frontier agents may have been especially cruel, they weren’t unimaginable. I’ve encountered gate agents so hostile and robotic that I had to summon serious self-control to avoid unleashing a few choice vulgarities. And I get it—these workers are underpaid and pressured to treat boarding like cattle herding. But that doesn’t excuse abuse. Airlines should be required to either improve their dismal working conditions or invest heavily in attracting and training personnel with the temperament to manage them.
I’m often reminded of Tiffany Gomas—sadly immortalized on the internet as “the crazy plane lady.” She went viral after having a meltdown on a Dallas-to-Orlando American Airlines flight, shouting about someone in the back of the plane “not being real” and demanding to deboard.
Turns out, Gomas had been rebooked, gave up her aisle seat for a middle one, and then had a tense exchange with a passenger who kept declaring she was a licensed attorney. Gomas later issued a heartfelt apology video, taking full responsibility. She came across as sincere and grounded—someone who cracked under pressure, not someone dangerous.
American Airlines banned her for life.
Gomas lived in suburban Dallas, where American maintains a near-monopoly. The ban effectively placed her under a regional travel lockdown. To add insult to injury, American later notified her that her frequent flyer miles were about to expire.
My view: flying coach on a U.S. airline should require certification. I imagine a screening process involving an MRI machine: however long you can endure being inside it, that’s how long you’re allowed to fly on a commercial flight. But first, you must arrive two hours early, endure delays caused by “maintenance issues,” and be forced to interact with indifferent frontline employees recruited from Starbucks.
What frustrates me most is the docility that’s overtaken American consumers. Scott Kirby, Ed Bastian, Robert Isom, and Bob Jordan—the CEOs of United, Delta, American, and Southwest—should be forced to experience the very “frontier justice” their companies routinely impose. Thanks to bipartisan political negligence, these men operate regional monopolies so powerful, they can get away with banning even their most loyal customers—and nobody blinks.
My dream? For restaurants to refuse them entry. For contractors to walk off their job sites. For auto dealers to deny them their luxury leases. For artists to refuse their commissions.
If these men can ban ordinary citizens for life—with themselves as judge, jury, and executioner—maybe it’s time the public returned the favor.