WHEN IS ENOUGH, ENOUGH?

Updated 5:30 p.m., May 13, 2019 | revcom.us

 

When is enough enough?

We could begin this article by talking how, once again, America plunged yet deeper into full-out fascism in this past week. And it would be true. And all too many people would nod and go, “Yeah, that’s messed up,” and they would turn on Game of Thrones or the NBA playoffs or even one of the “woke” shows.

And that would be it. Another week of going deeper into fascism in the most dangerous powerful nation and military in human history. And it’s ho fucking hum, turn the page.

Yet the reality IS that the Trump/Pence regime DID take the country and the world deeper into fascism. Fascism. Fascism.

So, again—when is enough, enough?

Reflect on just these outrageous fascist moves that particularly stood out this past week.

• First, the fascist movement which Trump continues to shape and harden was on ugly display at his packed fascist rally in Panama City, Florida, where Trump goaded his thuggish followers to shout out for shooting immigrants at the border—to which he smiled and essentially lamented that he couldn’t order that. At the same time, the Trump/Pence regime stepped up attacks on immigrants, which will destroy families and lives.
• Second, ominously heightening the danger of war, Trump escalated his military and economic threats and provocations against Iran—while also heightening tensions with China, North Korea, and Venezuela. While each of these conflicts predate Trump, in the Trump/Pence regime’s fascist “America First” approach to the world, the danger of even more devastating war looms as the Trump/Pence regime shatters previous international agreements, and moves to aggressively set new terms as a bully unrestrained.
• And, dominating the headlines, the conflict within the ruling class—focused in Congress, dramatically sharpened up with Trump flagrantly flouting what have been governing norms of Congressional oversight of the president and the executive branch, telling his administration to defy all subpoenas to testify before Congress and refusing to turn over documents like his tax returns.

Each of these moves is part of a fascist agenda that the Trump/Pence regime as a whole is advancing step-by-step—or, to be more accurate, relentlessly, like a juggernaut. And, in response, the Democratic Party politicians carry on what amount to cheap theatrics. They huff and puff that Trump’s defiance is a Constitutional Crisis, but in actual practice they play a waiting game. They tell people to put all their eggs into the 2020 election. Nancy Pelosi opines that Trump is “self-impeaching”—whatever that means besides throwing smoke in people’s eyes to say that “you—and we in Congress—don’t have to stand on any principle, and mount any real resistance to Trump.”

Then she goes to the absurd in a comment that positively reeks of capitulation, musing that Trump probably won’t leave office unless he’s defeated in a landslide—besides being highly unlikely, Pelosi is objectively conceding in advance to what many already predict would be sharp and perhaps violent resistance to Trump losing in 2020. Trump himself hinted at this with talk about his silent support among the military, the police, and the “bikers for Trump.”

Step outside the obscene, the absurd, the psychotic, and the theatrics of Donald Trump and recognize that these characteristics are all part and parcel of how fascist leaders bust up the norms of bourgeois democracy. There is a method and program with very powerful backing that has developed over decades among a section of the U.S. ruling class towards firmly asserting the white supremacist, patriarchal Christian Nation as the shining light and enforcer around the world—and that to do that requires a fascist form of rule. No more multiculturalism, secularism, multilateralism. But white America uber alles.

As one sharp and ugly manifestation of this last week, the state of Alabama was in the final stages of passing a bill that not only makes all abortions illegal but would put doctors who do them in prison for up to 99 years. With the courts packed as they are now with fascists—many appointed by Trump/Pence—it grows increasingly likely that such bills will be upheld. This is a concentrated expression of the strategic alliance at the core of this fascism—Trump and his ability to break all the civil and governing norms with Mike Pence and the movement forged over decades of Christian fascism relentlessly hammering down a Handmaid’s Tale future. Trump, for his part, goes around the country at his rallies openly and vividly confounding abortion with committing infanticide on living children. For a deep understanding of the Christian fascist movement and why it has emerged at the core of U.S. governance, watch Bob Avakian’s film THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!... and get into his works “The Truth About Right-Wing Conspiracy…And Why Clinton and the Democrats Are No Answer” and The Coming Civil War and Polarization for Revolution in the Present Era.

YET, in the face of all this—and it was all out there in front of anyone’s face who dared to open their eyes and see—the actual resistance of the people to all of this was virtually nil.

THE QUESTION IS SHARPLY POSED TO EVERYONE WHO KNOWS RIGHT FROM WRONG: AT WHAT POINT DO YOU SAY “ENOUGH!”?

At what point do you face the reality that this regime is on the offensive and will not allow itself to be stopped or deterred by what you have been taught are the “normal channels”? At what point do you relocate your sense of justice and humanity and say that just because it isn’t happening to you—yet—doesn’t mean it should not be resisted with actual action?

At what point do you face the reality, for which the past three years and every passing week provide mountains of evidence, that the Democratic Party cares more about preserving this system than it does about preventing and getting rid of fascism and everything that goes with that fascism? At what point do you come to grips with the fact that the Democratic Party will line up in lockstep—and right now is doing everything it can to line you up—for whatever wars this regime is either planning or will “stumble into”?

This regime has grown out of the capitalist-imperialist system of exploitation and oppression and the whole history of this country founded on slavery and genocide. Its ascendency to power is a response to the deep crisis that system now faces. This has taken very sharp expression in the sharp conflicts within the ruling class and is also reflected in the sharp polarization throughout the whole society, with the fascist social base enraged and determined, and with the other side upset, anguished, at times outraged, but largely passive and hoping the Democrats will save them.

What people must come to grips with is that the Democratic Party, like the outright fascists of the Republican Party, represent this system. As Bob Avakian says in his speech Why We Need A Revolution And How We Could Really Make Revolution: the Democratic Party and its functionaries are one of the two parties that actually rule this country, and as such can only be “instruments of this system of ruthless oppression; administrators and enforcers of a worldwide empire of exploitation and plunder, responsible for massive destruction and devastation of countries and people, and posing a very real, and growing, threat to the very existence of humanity, through environmental destruction or nuclear annihilation.” To see overwhelming evidence of how this is so, go here or here.

The accommodation of large sections of the people to what are already tremendous horrors is unconscionable. Decades ago, Bob Dylan posed the question: “...how many ears must one man have / Before he can hear people cry?” If all that this regime was doing was the internment of thousands of families on the border in detention camps—with policies that continue to see children and parents separated—that would be reason enough for people to take to the streets. But it’s far more and far worse than only that.

To make this plain and simple. What we face is consolidating fascism. And, electing the Democrats, or waiting for some normal process of this system to remove Trump and Pence—when the rule book to that system is steadily being shredded—is not only folly, but is bringing real horrors.

There is a way to drive out this fascist regime in the program of RefuseFascism.org, which is organizing now to be able to launch a movement as soon as possible of thousands of people taking to the streets across the country in nonviolent, yet sustained and continuing protests that don't stop until the demand “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” is met. The sharpening struggle within the ruling institutions (Congress, Courts, the media) can provide openings for the struggle from below, and also, if they are faced with a national political crisis caused by the determination of millions of people to stay in the streets in nonviolent political protest as has been done recently in countries like South Korea, Algeria, and others, then, there are forces within in the ruling institutions who could be compelled to act for their own interests to remove the regime.  

The stakes of whether or not this program is taken up are this: should the Trump/Pence regime succeed in consolidating its grip, in cementing a full-out fascist form of rule and program—and make no mistake, they are now on the offensive to do just that—it will make any form of progressive change, including an actual revolution to overthrow the system that gave rise to this fascism, immeasurably more difficult. In fact, every day that it remains in power puts the future of humanity in direct peril.

So, again: When Is Enough FINALLY Enough?