Why Relying on the Political Process Is Not Just Insufficient But Dangerous...
And Why the Whole Trump/Pence Regime Has Got to Go:

On the Appointment of the Special Counsel to Investigate the Trump Campaign

May 21, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The Justice Department has named a special counsel to investigate possible ties between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia. The appointment has been met with a sense of expectation by millions of people outraged by the reactionary policies of the Trump/Pence regime—and a sense of relief by some of the powers that be. The special counsel, former head of the FBI Robert Mueller, has been portrayed in the media and by Democratic and Republican politicians as someone “above the fray” who will go where the evidence leads—and not bend to partisan pressure.

The media and politicians are telling people to trust in institutions they say will uncover wrongdoing and crimes. And this can lead people to pin hopes on the special counsel to rein in the Trump/Pence regime.

But the reality of the situation is much more serious—and what is needed in order to get rid of Trump and this fascist regime of horrors is something of a whole other order: a movement of people in their millions to drive out this regime.

Trump Doubles Down and Messages His Base to Get Ready to Fight

Trump has reacted to talk of congressional investigations and the appointment of the special counsel with vitriol, contempt, and fascist resolve that the ship will not go down. He has accused his foes of waging a witch hunt to bring down a presidency that was elected fair and square and that from day one has incurred the wrath of “out of touch elites.”

In his commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy, Trump told the cadets: in the face of adversity “you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight.” He is telling his supporters to get ready for a fight to the end. This is the orientation that has guided this fascist movement for decades. And now that it is in power, it is the orientation of holding on and carrying forward to implement its agenda and to remove roadblocks to doing so. As Vice President Mike Pence declared when the new fascist cabinet was filled: “Now is our time.”

Just four months in power, and the regime’s fascist program has already done enormous harm and poses dire threats to humanity and the planet: the terrorization and heartless arrest and deportation of immigrants; gag orders on health and family-planning workers in other countries receiving funds from the U.S. that prevent them from providing women with information about abortion; suppression of climate-change research and a fossil-fuel frenzy energy policy.

And the Trump/Pence regime has made it abundantly clear that it will not be bound by legal precedent, constitutional constraints, or procedural norms. The recent firing of FBI director James Comey—the incident that set off the current political firestorm—is an illustration.

The Special Counsel Doesn’t Begin to Solve the Real Problem: Fascism Is in Power

If we come to grips with the actual—the fascist—nature of this regime, we can begin to see how and why the Mueller investigation does not begin to solve the problem (and for all its “special-ness,” Trump still retains the legal authority and power to fire the special counsel).

Even if the Mueller investigation began pointing to criminal wrongdoing... even if other congressional investigations further opened the question of impeachment... even if the Democrats began mobilizing for deeper and wider examination of the regime—the brute fact remains: this regime is determined to implement its fascist program.

Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a close and early supporter of Trump, expressed the sense of mission of this regime when he said, “There is no next election. This is our last chance to save this great country.” It is a sentiment echoed by others in Trump’s cabal.

Again, these fascists are pressing ahead. But they have not fully consolidated power. So there is a window to act against this regime. But that could shut quickly.

The regime could rapidly move against “enemies” and suppress resistance, suspend the rule of law, and impose even more draconian law. It could manufacture an “incident” that provides a pretext to “crack down.” The Nazis did this in 1933. A fire destroyed the Reichstag (like the Capitol building in the U.S.). The Nazis blamed the communists but likely set the fire themselves and used the incident to tighten their grip on power.

The Trump/Pence regime is not above doing something like this. Or it could make a precipitous move towards war, impose “emergency measures” in the name of “security”—and introduce them as temporary, then reinstitute and extend them, and basically gut and/or eliminate formal democratic rights.

Every day this regime remains in power, it causes more harm. And the longer it stays in power and institutionalizes its rule—the more it will be able to attack and erode civil liberties and voting rights, pass new laws, strengthen its capacity to carry out repression, and undermine people’s ability to protest and resist.

This regime must be driven from power before it is too late.

Trump/Pence: They and the Whole Regime Must Go

The probe by Mueller will focus on the 2016 presidential campaign, both Russian meddling and any possible collusion with Russia by Trump operatives. Trump could conceivably be targeted and implicated. But the special counsel investigation will not take on the ruling fascist regime assembled since the election as a whole.

If Trump were to go, that could be a good thing—but not if the rest of the regime is left intact. This is not what humanity needs. It is not what we should be fighting for. We are facing a coherent fascist cabal.

Is Mike Pence better for his “governing experience”? No, we don’t need a more competent fascist. And Pence is more than just a henchman who knows the ways and halls of power. As addressed in correspondence from Andy Zee, Pence now politically leads a powerful Christian fascist movement permeating U.S. society.

Who is worse, Trump or Pence? Both are worse! And there’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a critical part of the fascist cabal who is aiming to rewrite law and step up the legal-police-penal onslaught against Black and Latino people and immigrants. There’s Betsy DeVos, a devout Christian fascist with plans to wreck and Christianize the educational system. There are other operatives too. This project, and its agenda, has been decades in the making. It has backing at the highest echelons of society; it is in different ways connected to a broad, mass social base for fascism; and is tied in with fascist networks within the military. (See Bob Avakian, The Coming Civil War and Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era.)

The fascist cabal, now in power, is working relentlessly towards the fascist transformation of U.S. society. This regime must be stopped, and we have limited time to do it.

For the Sake of Humanity, We Must Drive Out This Whole Regime

People are being told that their concerns about the Trump regime will be solved by the special counsel and investigation—and to let it do its work.

What in fact is needed is much harder... but actually much more realistic. What is required of those who cannot stomach the hatred spewed by this regime—its xenophobia, its racism, its misogyny, its disregard for truth and fact—and where it is taking society—is to get off the sidelines and get on to the stage of changing history. To resist the crimes and outrages of this regime and organize and mobilize towards acting in our millions to drive out a regime that is moving to establish a fascist order and that has its fingers on nuclear weapons.

As for the Democrats. They have their differences with the Republicans. They will mobilize some opposition. But they will not do what is fundamentally needed, which is to bring people in their millions into the streets to get rid of this regime. Why won’t the Democrats mobilize their broad base of support into the streets to confront this regime and its supporters—to drive out this regime? Because mobilizing progressive people and those who have been oppressed by the system carries the risk of destabilizing society and unraveling the system—and this is something they will not allow. They won’t allow it because the Democratic Party is a party of the ruling class.

When Barack Obama told Donald Trump and America after Trump’s victory that the contest between the two parties was like an “intramural scrimmage,” that “we’re all on the same team”—he was revealing something very basic. The Democratic Party is more concerned with maintaining the capitalist-imperialist system and the rule of the capitalist-imperialist class than with the interests of the people. (For analysis, see Bob Avakian, “The Pyramid of Power and the Struggle to Turn This Whole Thing Upside Down.”)

In this current political crisis, the Call to Action from Refuse Fascism takes on heightened urgency:

We must ORGANIZE: working with all our creativity and determination toward the time when millions of people can be moved to fill the streets of cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate—Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until the Trump/Pence Regime Is Driven from Power.

If this happens, then the whole political landscape would be dramatically transformed, every faction within the established power structure would be forced to respond—and all this could lead to a situation in which this fascist regime is driven from office.

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