This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number 117.

A common feature of fascism, definitely including Trump/MAGA fascism, is that those who are actually in superior positions, those who are enforcing lawless tyrannical rule, strike a ridiculous and outrageous posture as guardians of the law and “protectors” of “victims.”

In their crazed racist and misogynist (woman-hating) distortion of reality, according to the Trump/MAGA fascists, it is white people who are discriminated against, men are victimized, and so on.

Trump himself plays the “victim,” while he tramples all over the law and the Constitution he has sworn to uphold. He continually whines that he has been “unfairly persecuted” because of moves to hold him accountable for the serious crimes he has committed, including his attempt to pull off a coup to remain in power after he lost the 2020 election.

What does it mean when these people pose as “victims” and “protectors of victims”? It means that they are moving to use the power of government to even more viciously and violently persecute those who, in reality, are actually discriminated against and oppressed, and those who stand with them and stand in the way of Trump/MAGA fascism.

Among other outrages, Trump and his fascist regime:

* has attempted to defy the Constitution and deny citizenship to people born in this country;

* has sent immigrants who have been convicted of no crime to a torture-chamber prison in El Salvador, denying them due process, while threatening to do the same to U.S. citizens; 

* has deported mothers with small children who are citizens;

* has arrested a judge in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and the mayor of Newark, New Jersey for “interfering” in the Trump regime’s persecution and unlawful deportation of immigrants—and then, while dropping the charges against the mayor, this regime has actually leveled criminal charges against a Congresswoman who was also there in Newark, carrying out her lawful Congressional oversight responsibilities at a detention center imprisoning immigrants.

This fascist regime has openly defied court orders, including from the Supreme Court, while Trump refuses to say that he must follow the Constitution and due process of law.

Trump has also issued an executive order to further “unleash” and militarize the police—and bring them more directly under the command of the Trump fascist regime—to carry out more unrestrained brutality and murder, and forceful repression of protest and dissent. (Already the police kill more than a thousand people every year. Since 1960, the police have killed more Black people than the thousands who were lynched during the whole time of “Jim Crow” segregation and Ku Klux Klan terror after the Civil War. But that is not enough for the Trump/MAGA fascists!)

All this, and more, is intended: to establish that there will be no limit or restraint on Trump’s fascist tyranny; to intimidate those who would oppose this; and to feed the sick striving of Trump’s fascist “base” for “vengeance” against people they regard as inferior and “illegitimate” and all those speaking out against very real injustice.

Also, in the upside-down view of the Trump/MAGA fascists, “Christians” are supposedly denied their rights. The reality is that Christianity has been and remains the dominant religion in this country. What these MAGA fascists are referring to is not Christian belief and practice in general—and not the many Christians who take stands against injustice while also respecting the religious beliefs (or the lack of religious beliefs) of others. No, what these Trump/MAGA fascists really are insisting on is the “right” of crusading white Christian fundamentalists to use the power of government to shove down everyone’s throats their anti-scientific dark ages religious lunacy, and all the terrible oppression it “justifies.” This white Christian fundamentalism is fanatically patriarchal and male supremacist as well as white supremacist and American supremacist—and it is the backbone and driving force of Trump/MAGA fascism.

Under the banner of attacking “wokeness” and DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), as I pointed out in my message number 116, the Trump fascist regime is openly moving to wipe out any mention of race (or gender) and the whole oppressive history of this country, as part of its determined drive to reverse even the partial gains that have been made, over the past 80 years, in the fight against this oppression.

Trump’s racism is so blatant and perverse that he openly sides with white racists from South Africa, who claim they are “persecuted” as a result of the end of apartheid, which for generations subjected the masses of African people there to horrific, murderous oppression for the benefit of a small white minority. Now that apartheid has been ended in South Africa, Trump welcomes, and gives special, favored treatment to some white South Africans as “refugees” into the U.S.—promoting the lie that these white South Africans are “victims” of “racist oppression”—at the same time as he is slandering and violently persecuting immigrants from non-white countries. Trump insists on defending, and restoring, monuments in this country to the Confederacy, which are monuments to slavery and white supremacy.

There is no “neutral”—and no sitting out the fight—to defeat this Trump/MAGA fascism.

While literally millions of people have taken to the streets to protest this fascism, there is an urgent need for many more—for all those who have every reason to oppose this fascism—to actively join in the struggle to defeat this fascism. In my message number 116, I spoke directly to why Black people should be among the front ranks in the fight to defeat Trump/MAGA fascism. Along with that, college students should already have mobilized massively to walk out and shut down college campuses throughout the country; and generally the younger generations need to be—as they have repeatedly been in past struggles against terrible injustice—a bold, driving force of the fight against the Trump fascist regime. Some prominent people, including some musicians and others in the arts, have spoken out against this fascism, but far too many have still remained silent—when influential people should be using their platforms to boldly call for and help to bring about even more massive mobilization against this fascist regime—demanding that it must be out, NOW!

Everyone who wants to see an end to oppression based on race, sex and gender—and an end to cruel, murderous oppression and lawless tyranny overall—needs to be actively involved, now and in an ongoing way, in the massive movement that is urgently needed to defeat this Trump/MAGA fascism—to create the conditions in the country where this fascist regime cannot govern, cannot remain in power, and cannot carry out the even worse horrors it is moving to violently enforce.