It is no wonder that Trump has a portrait of Andrew Jackson prominently displayed in the White House. There is almost a perfect fit between the two: Jackson, who was president about 200 years ago, was a vicious slave-owner who also uprooted large numbers of Native Americans from land they owned in the southeast of the U.S. and forced them onto a “trail of tears” death march toward far-away Oklahoma, during which thousands, including many children and old people, died terrible deaths.

But, along with their genocidal racism, there is also another very important parallel between Jackson and Trump. Jackson openly defied the Supreme Court when it ruled that it was illegal for him to carry out this “Indian removal.” Trump’s strategy now is not to defy but to load up the Supreme Court with extreme right-wing and outright fascist judges, so the Court will rule in his favor on crucial questions, including the upcoming election. Like Jackson before him, Trump is defying the law and the Constitution. He is suppressing votes, falsely denouncing perfectly legal voting as “fraud,” organizing and unleashing fascist thugs to intimidate and attack people opposed to Trump, and preparing an army of lawyers to contest results that show him to be the loser in the election—precisely in order to have the possibility of the election being decided by a Supreme Court that Trump has loaded with judges who will rule in his favor, regardless of the actual vote.

This is why, even as “the polls show” that Biden is now well ahead of Trump, including in “key battleground states”—and even if, despite all Trump’s moves to intimidate and suppress votes against him, the actual vote count goes to Biden—simply relying on the vote and waiting for November will very likely lead to disaster. It is a powerful reason why it is crucial to take up now the call from RefuseFascism.org—taking to the streets in sustained non-violent mobilization, and staying in the streets, in greater and greater numbers, demanding Trump/Pence OUT NOW!

*Donald Trump-GENOCIDAL RACIST, by Bob Avakian, is available—as a series of articles, and to download as a pamphlet—at revcom.us.  [back]