A Beautiful Rising Confronts Ugly Assaults from Trump/Pence Fascist Regime and Its Nazi, White Supremacist Supporters

June 29, 2020 | revcom.us

 

Editors’ Note: As we go to press, fascist-in-chief Trump has reportedly deleted a tweet, which he earlier had posted, with a video from The Villages, a retirement community in Florida, in which a man driving a golf cart with Trump campaign posters is seen chanting “white power.” Trump thanked the “great people” shown in the video, referring to the community’s Trump supporters seen arguing with anti-Trump protesters. Trump’s continued and consistent backing is the context and driving impetus of Nazi, white supremacist thugs who have taken to terrorizing those righteously protesting police murder, the subject of this article.

Opposed sides are squaring off more and more sharply in this country.

On one side, millions of people have risen up with courage and determination to oppose and repudiate what has been a pillar of “America” from its foundation to the present day: the violent oppression and subjugation of Black people, what revcom.us has covered as the Beautiful Rising. However people understand this oppression, they are insisting that it must go—the police brutality, murders and cover-ups; the Confederate statues; the daily racist incidents; the rampant and blatant inequality throughout society—all of it is intolerable. And they are in many ways so far persevering in this demand.

In response, the leader of this fascist Trump/Pence regime is signaling and mobilizing the hard core of his racist, xenophobic, misogynist, and anti-science base to counterattack. Trump is describing the protesters as “terrorists” and “thugs” who are a threat to “our” way of life. He has labeled the uprising an antifa plot. He has openly signaled that his people should respond violently to this, including very specific references to people having arms, warning protesters in Minneapolis that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” a phrase that originated in the 1960s with a white supremacist police chief.

Along with the incredibly horrific and repressive violence unleashed in many cities by the official police forces against the protesters, fascist forces are mobilizing and responding to Trump’s calls to vilify and terrorize the protesters, especially in small towns and rural areas. They include many who are heavily armed or even organized into militias, and some who are outright and open advocates of genocide, along with other people who are vulnerable to being whipped up by the ignorance and racism that saturates white American “culture.”

Here are some key examples:

• Three cops in Wilmington, North Carolina, talked of preparing for civil war with one saying he couldn’t wait to start “slaughtering” Black people en masse. One cop said, “We are just going to go out and start slaughtering” Black people—using the word “nigger.” He went on to say, “I can’t wait. God, I can’t wait.” The same pig said he felt society needed a civil war to “wipe them off the fucking map.” While the cops were later fired for “misconduct,” it poses the question of how much more widespread the sentiment is among the police forces of the U.S. ¹
• June 14—hundreds of armed fascists threaten, assault protesters in Bethel, Ohio. Some 80 or so protesters gathered for a Black Lives Matter demonstration in this small town of some 2,800 residents. Bethel was deluged by some 700 “counter-protesters”—motorcycle gangs, pro-police reactionaries, “back the blue” groups—many of whom were armed with guns, clubs and baseball bats. Ten people were reportedly injured in assaults by these fascists.²
• Three former cops in Long Beach, California, threatened to assassinate activist and writer Shaun King in posts on a Facebook page for California law enforcement officers. They wrote things like “Toss this guy from a helicopter” and “Shaun King needs to be put down.” King says that although “I receive death threats daily,” these were much more serious: these were people “in a private group that had no idea I'd ever see them, using their real names and identities, openly plotting to kill me and organizing each other to execute it.”³
• June 15—a white supremacist militia member shot a protester in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where people gathered to tear down the statue of the genocidal conquistador Juan de Oñate, who massacred hundreds of Native Americans some 400 years ago. The racist thugs, some wearing military fatigues, were from the New Mexico Civil Guard. When protesters righteously prevented one of them from disrupting their effort to tear down the statue, he fired four shots, wounding one protester critically. Authorities later confiscated assault rifles, handguns, knives and hundreds of rounds of ammunition from these American Brownshirts.⁴
• There has been a rash of vehicular assaults on protesters in Portland, Oregon; Taylor, Michigan; Seattle, Washington; Lakeside, Virginia; Bakersfield, California; Denver, Colorado; and Gainesville, Florida. In Minneapolis, a man in a semi-trailer truck parted the crowd on an overpass when he drove towards them.
• The Guardian (“Protesters across US attacked by cars driven into crowds and men with guns,” June 9) also reports armed reactionaries menacing protesters in McAllen, Texas (with a running chainsaw); Upland, California; Chicago; Boise, Idaho; and Salt Lake City.

Mobilized by Trump’s “Antifa” Lies

Trump has repeatedly attacked protests against police terror and murder as basically a terrorist plot by “antifa.” These attacks have been systematically spread by fascist websites and social media accounts, which have concocted rumors of protesters coming to small white towns to burn them down and loot—one of these, eventually traced back to the white supremacist, fascist Evropa group, claimed antifa would “move into residential areas” and “white” neighborhoods and “take what’s ours.” This has tapped into deep veins of racism and white supremacy especially in small-town America and caused armed white mobs to form. “Towns from Washington state to Indiana have seen armed groups begin patrolling the streets after rumors spread on social media about an antifa invasion,” reports NBC. Below are a few examples:

• On May 31, about 200 protesters came to downtown Klamath Falls, Oregon, to protest the killing of George Floyd. Rumors were spread that “antifa warriors” were on the way “to burn everything and to kill white people.” Protesters faced off with hundreds of “their mostly white neighbors ... wearing military fatigues and bulletproof vests, with blue bands tied around their arms. Most everyone seemed to be carrying something: flags, baseball bats, hammers and axes. But mostly, they carried guns.... They said they came with shotguns, rifles and pistols to protect their downtown businesses from outsiders.”⁵
• On June 2, in Coquille, a small town in Oregon, a small group who planned a protest were met by some 200 armed locals including sheriff’s deputies, whipped by rumors spread by local law enforcement and the U.S. military of an antifa rampage.⁶
• On June 3, “In Forks, Wash., which is overwhelmingly white, a mixed-race family from Spokane that was camping in the area was assumed to be part of a rumored antifa protest. Local people aggressively confronted the family—a mom, dad, 16-year-old daughter, and grandmother—and accused the visitors of being part of antifa. The family’s vehicle was tailed by four cars of vigilantes, some armed, and then trees were felled across the road to keep the visitors from leaving their campsite.”⁷ Four high school students rescued them by cutting the logs with a chainsaw.

Going Up Against the Fascist Attacks

The intensifying mobilization of these fascist forces is extremely serious. These fascist forces on the ground are not just backward blowhards mouthing off—they are a reactionary counter-revolutionary force in formation, intent on readying for civil war, what they often see as a “race war,” with horrific consequences for humanity. They are encouraged and backed by the fascist regime heading up the world’s top-dog capitalist-imperialist power.

In the face of this real and dangerous threat, it is a wonderful thing that so many people are continuing to stand up and be in the streets across the country, including in the strongholds of these forces. It is righteous and inspiring that people have consistently refused to be either provoked or intimidated but have stood their ground with conviction and courage.

Look at what happened, for example, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when Trump flew into town for his first campaign rally. The day before, Trump had threatened a violent crackdown on anyone protesting his fascist rally. As expected, the Trump rally drew an ugly, reactionary crowd of thousands. But a righteous and defiant protest outside the arena in Tulsa against Trump and his fascist mob captured the world’s attention.⁸ They were joined in chorus by many others in cities across the country as people took to the streets once again demanding an end to police murder of Black people and systemic racism, and denouncing Trump and his regime.

In Tulsa and in other protests across the country during these weeks, Refuse Fascism has been right in the mix with their bright orange banners, signs, and stickers demanding “Trump/Pence OUT NOW!” And the Revolution Club and the National Tour to Organize for an ACTUAL Revolution are bringing the message of “Revolution—Nothing Less!” and spreading the word about the leadership for this actual revolution we have in Bob Avakian, BA.

In this context, while the overall uprising against police murder and white supremacy needs to continue and grow, especially in the face of these vicious counterattacks, the following orientation from Bob Avakian, from Why We Need An Actual Revolution And How We Can Really Make Revolution, assumes heightened importance as a very urgently needed orientation:

If this regime is able to further consolidate its power and more fully implement its horrific agenda, the prospects for revolution could then be greatly set back and the conscious revolutionary forces decimated—or completely destroyed—at least for a time. On the other hand, if a mass movement is built to drive out this regime, and if the revolutionaries work to build this movement from the perspective of how it relates to the revolution that is needed as the fundamental solution, then the situation in society (and the world) will become much more favorable for the fight against injustice and oppression, and crucial advances can be made toward the overthrow of the whole system. To a significant degree now, the conflict between the sections of society upholding this fascism and those opposing it, from various different perspectives, is shaping the terrain on which the struggle for revolution must be carried out; this conflict is likely to intensify, and could erupt further in violent confrontation, and in any case it would be a significant factor in the context of an all-out struggle between revolution and counter-revolution.

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1. “3 North Carolina police officers fired after conversation about 'slaughtering' Black people and the need for a second Civil War,” The Hill, June 24, 2020 [back]

2. “Bikers And Second Amendment Groups Crashed A Black Lives Matter Protest In A Small Town And Violence Broke Out,” BuzzFeed News, June 15, 2020  [back]

3. “Former Long Beach Officers Write Death Threats Against BLM Activist Shaun King,” NBC Los Angeles, June 25, 2020  [back]

4. “Man Is Shot at Protest Over Statue of New Mexico’s Conquistador,” New York Times, June 15, 2020  [back]

5. “In Klamath Falls, Oregon, victory declared over antifa, which never showed up,” NBC News, June 6, 2020 [back]

6. “When Antifa Hysteria Sweeps America,” Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, June 17,2020  [back]

7. Kristof  [back]

8. “A Beautiful Rising,” Revcom, updated June 29, 2020  [back]

There have been a rash of vehicular assaults on protesters, as here in Denver Coloado.

An armed man watches over a memorial service for George Floyd at Person Field in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, June 7. (Photo: AP)

In protests across the country RefuseFascism demanded “Trump/Pence OUT NOW!” The Revolution Club and the National Tour to Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution bought the message “Revolution—Nothing Less!” and the leadership of Bob Avakian, BA, for this actual revolution.