Trump’s Speech to Pig Chiefs...

A Blueprint For Full-Out Fascist Repression Of Oppressed Communities

Originally published November 1, 2019; Updated November 4, 2019 | revcom.us

If you want to know what full-out fascism could look like, especially in the “inner city”—if you want a sense of how much worse, qualitatively worse, it could be—then you need to learn what Trump said in his speech this week to the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago. To capture some of the “highlights”:

* Trump recounted at great length his story of the motorcycle cop who told Trump that he could solve the shootings going on among the masses in one day. According to Trump, this cop said, “we know the names of all the bad guys.” Think about the implications. This would mean a massive sweep of people for no other reason than the cops think they are “bad.” Because cops are trained to think that all Black and Latino people are “bad,” this would almost certainly mean a massive lockdown of every majority Black or Latino neighborhood in Chicago.

Now the repression is already extremely heavy in these neighborhoods, but if you think this will just be more of the same you’re mistaken. To draw an analogy, India has for decades viciously repressed the people of the area of Kashmir, with murder, torture, and false imprisonment. But after he was re-elected, the fascist Indian Prime Minister Modi took this to another level. Overnight and without warning, Modi cut off all cell phone and internet communication in Kashmir, closed all the schools, called a curfew, and has kept it that way for months, occupying the area with a massive number of troops. That is how fascists like Modi—and his supporter Trump—do it when they “solve the problem in one day.” And don’t tell yourself “it can’t happen here.”¹

* Trump announced a new program called “The Surge,” to be headed by Attorney General William Barr. The name of this program is designed to call up echoes of the U.S. military offensives in Iraq in 2007 and Afghanistan in 2012, which were also called surges. By labeling it “The Surge” Trump is clearly signaling that this will be analogous to what U.S. troops do when establishing an occupation in hostile provinces in nations that they have invaded, which always includes massive killing, wounding, and brutalizing of civilians as “collateral damage.” And very important: He is equating the masses of Black and Latino people in these neighborhoods with “the enemy” in time of war.

In line with this, Trump announced that $600 million in military equipment would be given to police departments. Again, military equipment—to be used against who? In what areas?

* Trump announced a new commission to make recommendations on how police handle homeless and mentally ill people. These two populations are already at extreme risk of brutalization and murder by police; if you don’t think so, go on YouTube and you can see video after video showing incidents in which a professional or even a regular human being could have de-escalated or helped someone who was having a breakdown, and where cops instead killed the person. But if you think that Donald Trump is going to construct a program to make police more helpful to these populations—providing them with needed social services and using de-escalation techniques when they’re stressed out, instead of brutalizing and even murdering people—you have not been paying attention.

* Trump reiterated his determination to further militarize the border, slandered immigrants in general, and bragged about the stepped-up repression that his administration has unleashed. He attacked those who oppose him as “far-left activists who want to erase America’s border and nullify our federal laws.” And then called on the pig chiefs to repress these “activists,” saying, “We can’t let that happen.”

* He bragged about how he has stocked the judiciary with judges sympathetic to his views. And in fact, Trump has filled the judiciary with judges faster than either Bush or Obama, choosing them for their reactionary views and their youth (which makes it much more probable they will serve a long time).

An Escalation of an Already Horrific Situation

To be clear, the situation in U.S. cities is already one in which police run rampant, with pigs in New York City for example, killing six people in five weeks. The situation is already one in which mass incarceration targeting Black, Latino, and Native people in particular continues to grind on. Already one in which the police, in short, are an arm of dictatorship over the masses and over the oppressed peoples in particular, as well as those who stand up against the system. Chicago under Police Chief Eddie Johnson continues to witness the brutalization and murder of masses by police. See:

The Revolution Club in Chicago continues to be repressed by that same police force. See—

Cops refuse to let Black youth gather in the downtown area (sometimes arresting them, sometimes loading them on locked trains heading to the ghetto neighborhoods, and always harassing them) and the city itself has embarked on new initiatives intensifying all this. Indeed, as this is being written the police are attempting to silence Refuse Fascism’s scheduled demonstration in downtown Chicago’s “free speech area” on November 2.

But all this is not nearly enough for Trump. A major part of Trump’s speech was an attack on Chicago police chief Eddie Johnson for not “doing enough” to clamp down on the masses. Johnson had said he would not attend because of Trump’s racist attacks on Black people. Rather than contest Johnson’s charge, Trump said that Johnson should “change his values.” Trump’s conflict with Eddie Johnson is not over whether to embark on a major escalation but a) whether the society should be openly organized on a white supremacist basis or whether there should be a “multicultural” ethos which gives some recognition to oppressed nationalities (and other “minority” groups) and even “diversifies” ruling-class institutions and structures, while preserving the essential content of white supremacist and male supremacist relations that are indispensable to the system’s functioning; and b) whether to take this to a full-out leap to fascism, where the masses of people have absolutely no rights whatsoever and where Black, Latino, Native American, and other oppressed nationalities are targeted for a “fast” genocide. If Trump is able to consolidate his grip and move his agenda forward—and again, remember what happened with Modi in India—this will be immeasurably and qualitatively worse, for the lives of millions of people right now and for the prospects of revolution itself. His speech to the police chiefs and his continued agitation to pigs in general is not only to encourage them in the brutality they already carry out but to mobilize them in support of the leap to fascism he is trying to effect.

To be clear: it is very good that several thousand people came out to the streets to oppose Trump’s appearance. But people also need to pay attention to what came out of his mouth. He is telling you where he will take things. And to prevent that will require not just coming out once, but turning out repeatedly, beginning now week after week, building from the thousands to the millions, in massive, sustained, nonviolent demonstrations, designed to drive the whole regime from power, as has been done and is being done right now in other countries around the world.

1. Kashmir is a majority-Muslim state that joined the majority-Hindu Indian union in the context of a degree of mutually-agreed upon regional autonomy. In recent years, as Hindu fascism has ascended in India, so have low-level rebellion and insurgencies in Kashmir for independence (some influenced by Islamic fundamentalism and given backing by Pakistan). In the context of low-level skirmishes between insurgents and an occupying force of the Indian army which has historically committed tremendous human rights violations, Modi, a full-fledged Hindu fascist ruler, moved “decisively” after his re-election, justifying this as crackdown on “terrorism”: completely revoking Kashmir’s autonomy, however limited it was, and locking the whole state down, with complete denial of basic democratic rights and civil liberties for the people of Kashmir, arresting mainstream political leaders, completely shutting communications, schools, etc. [back]

Trump and Modi at the United Nations in New York. Photo: AP

Trump and Modi in Houston. Photo: AP

Pigs Cheering Trump at International Association of Chiefs of Police meeting in Chicago. Photo: IACP