A critical juncture... July 15, 2017 nationwide protests to demand:
The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America
by Andy Zee
June 19, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
“The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go.” Millions of people feel this, bone deep. Yet, for all the sound and fury in the media, for all the righteous protest, for all the real legal obstacles and jeopardy that Trump and his cohorts are in, the regime treacherously careens on—instituting one draconian measure after another—as belligerent as day one. And yet, even as people feel besieged by the breathless and dizzying spin of “Breaking News,” the Democratic Party and their “independent” supporters tell people that it is going to be a long haul—until at least the 2018 congressional election—even for impeachment because not one Republican has seriously broken from Trump. And, some say, people should just work for the 2020 election because impeachment will bring in Pence, who is as bad as Trump.
This is not acceptable. This regime must go, and soon. We must break out of the terms of thinking and acting through the normal “way things work” of the system. Too much is at stake. The damage that the Trump/Pence regime has already done to destroy lives and the environment is far worse than people know. Should the regime be able to fully consolidate their fascist vision and program, this will have dire impact on the whole world, potentially nothing short of catastrophe. This must be a summer of struggle, with July 15 a crucial focal point that brings together the resistance in powerful protest in cities across the country to forcefully demand: “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go. In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.”
A Crucial Juncture... A Time to Act
The country is at a crucial juncture. The following four factors argue that this summer, going into the early fall, is the time when we can and must act on this demand. First, are the deadly measures the regime has already taken against immigrants, Muslims, women, Black and Latino youth in the inner cities, and the environment—each of which they have said are just first steps. Second, the regime has already subverted, and plans to further subvert, the rule of law, the separation of church and state, the right to dissent, and traditional “checks and balances”—all measures that break with and discard the form of bourgeois democracy. And, even as they have not succeeded in fully tearing up all democratic rights, that is their agenda. Third, the serious investigations and legal cases mounting against the regime increasingly compel them to act like cornered rats—lashing out in dangerous ways and most importantly to ram ahead with implementing their full fascist program, even as they have not yet succeeded in doing so, providing a window now for determined action. And, fourth, taking the first three factors fully into account, this summer is the time when the movements of opposition can still, and urgently need to, take a leap and demand that the whole regime must go... or else, the initiative that the people gained in the first five months of the regime could be lost and the opportunity to stop the consolidation of fascism squandered.
For these basic reasons, RefuseFascism.org has called for mass protests in cities and towns across the country on Saturday, July 15, 2017. The demand that “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” can unify the people and the diverse streams of resistance that have acted against the regime. This demand gives expression to people’s outrage simmering beneath the surface—anger that is now suppressed as people are reduced to being spectators: watching hearings and reading blogs or working for the “long haul” while the meat grinder of the Trump/Pence fascist regime tears through immigrant communities, rips away health care and basic food support, destroys the planet and threatens and wages even more war. There are many organizations with different programs for fighting against the many-pronged attacks of the Trump/Pence regime, and there are different visions and programs for how to achieve a better future. All of this should be aired, debated, and struggled over, but if we don’t stop the consolidation of fascism by organizing together to demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go, all of our struggles could be crushed. Already, massive fines and long prison terms for even basic protest are being put into place across the country... fascist thugs are mobilizing... with fascism, it can become too late.
Do not make a potentially fatal mistake; this regime is fascist. Argue if you must that this is authoritarianism, or “proto” or “neo” fascism, but does that give you solace and a reason to not drive it out? If so, that is unacceptable. All the more so because this regime is hell-bent on imposing fascism: with all the arrogance and ignorance, the Bible taken literally and the flag, the racist genocide and misogyny that is the true face of Make America Great Again. Yes, there are differences from German fascism in the 1930s, but two important points: one, there are striking parallels to the rise of fascism in the ’30s. And, second, and at the heart of the matter, the essential character of fascism is present: a qualitative change in how society is governed—through essentially open terror and the elimination of basic democratic rights. Only in the U.S. today, Donald Trump has nuclear weapons and the most powerful military in world history under his command.
Immigrant communities are already living under a new frightening terror. Some immigrants’ rights leaders who have been fighting against deportations for years have said that everything that they have done in the past is not workable now under the Trump/Pence regime. The Trump/Pence regime has put forward and is implementing a program of the most vicious imposition of poverty, punishment, patriarchy, racism—unleashing the police against Black and Brown communities and all who dissent, and imposing and re-imposing reactionary “traditional values” against women and LGBTQ persons. We won’t go back. To go forward, we must drive these fascists out.
July 15—A Leap and a Gathering Wave of Struggle
To all who are confronting members of Congress over their vicious cutting of essential health care for millions, keep on them, but now is the time to also be raising the demand that the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! And, now is the time for you to be part of organizing for July 15.
July 15, in cities across the country, “The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go” must be spoken, shouted, and acted on with fiercely creative determination. People have marched for women, for science, for the climate, for immigrants, for Black lives, for LGBTQ pride. Now the resistance must pull together to drive this regime from power.
July 15 must be a day when every person, every group—religious, community, service, political organization—all who feel the tremendous threat to humanity posed by the Trump/Pence regime—stand together showing the whole world that people here are determined that this regime must go... not in two years or four, but now.
July 15 can and needs to be a leap to more sustained struggle through the rest of the summer, aiming for the time, early this fall, 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.”
July 15 must not be just “one-off” demonstrations, but mark a new and gathering wave of struggle, taking as its model through the summer how ACT UP in the 1990s, through determined, creative action, changed the thinking of millions of people about AIDS and forced the powers that be to meet their demands.
Demanding that a regime be removed from power is bigger than that, but as a result of the struggle in the 1960s, combined with sharp contradictions that the U.S. ruling class faced internationally and domestically, Vice President Agnew was removed from office, followed by President Nixon being prevailed upon to resign. Removing Trump and Pence will not go down in the exact same way. But it is possible. The only way for this to happen in a way favorable to the people is through resolute struggle that puts forward a firm demand from below—recalling the struggle that ousted the president of South Korea this past winter, or the struggles of the Arab Spring that ousted regimes. Are there differences here? Yes, but if we act with courage and conviction, overcoming fear and uncertainty, waging unrelenting struggle in cities and towns across the country, not only will the eyes of the world be on our actions, but then, too, every faction of the powers that be will have to respond to us—to our demand, that Trump and Pence must go!
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