Blatant racism and undisguised fascism are openly and officially celebrated—and people opposing this are threatened, attacked, hounded and sacked!

This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number 140.

Recently, the House of Representatives passed a resolution honoring “the life and legacy” of Charlie Kirk. Around the same time, the Trump/MAGA fascists held a “Nuremberg rally” to honor Kirk, with Trump in the role of Hitler. (The city of Nuremberg was the site of major rallies by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis who ruled Germany in the 1930s, and the first part of the 1940s during World War 2.)

To repeat what I said in my message 136: To be clear—and as we revcoms have made clear—the murder of Charlie Kirk was very wrong and should not in any way be justified, let alone cheered. In fact, this assassination has involved a lot of harm—including the way that the Trump/MAGA fascists have seized on this to even further ramp up attacks on their “enemies.”

At the same time, no one should be honoring “the life and legacy” of Charlie Kirk—any more than the “life and legacy” of leaders of the Ku Klux Klan or the slave-owning Confederacy should be honored. Kirk was a blatant racist—who, among other things, crudely attacked prominent Black people and declared that passing the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake.” In previous messages, I have pointed to just some of the truly horrendous positions that Kirk insisted on spewing forth. At revcom.us (and other sources on the internet), you can see this spelled out more fully: a long list of the truly horrific words and actions of Kirk himself, including his racism and misogyny (hatred of women) as well as literally murderous venom toward LGBT people, and his all-around anti-scientific fanaticism and promotion of white masculine Christian supremacy (commonly referred to now as “Christian nationalism”).

As I analyzed in a 2017 speech:

There is a direct line from the Confederacy to the fascists of today, and a direct connection between their white supremacy, their open disgust and hatred for LGBT people as well as women, their willful rejection of science and the scientific method, their raw “America First” jingoism and trumpeting of “the superiority of western civilization” and their bellicose wielding of military power, including their expressed willingness and blatant threats to use nuclear weapons, to destroy countries.

It is a glaring sign of how far things have gone, how perversely outrageous things have become, that even people who have clearly stated that the killing of Kirk was wrong, but have also pointed to Kirk’s own words and actions to demonstrate why he should not be honored, have been threatened and in a number of cases forced from their jobs and positions. This, too, is a “legacy” of Charlie Kirk—who made his name organizing students to compile professor watch lists and get teachers fired for teaching classes that were “transgressing” their Christian fascist lunatic dogma. Numerous professors have reported not only being harassed and hounded, but also threatened with death as well as rape, by fanatical followers of Kirk and his watch lists.

In case anyone still needs further proof that the Democratic Party, and its leadership in particular, will not, on its own initiative and its own terms, put up the kind of determined fight that needs to be waged against this aggressive Trump/MAGA fascism, here it is: not only did the Republicans in the House of Representatives vote for the resolution honoring “the life and legacy” of Charlie Kirk—so did a large majority of the Democrats, including Hakeem Jeffries, the “leader” of the House Democrats, and the prominent liberal Jamie Raskin.

The fact that the Democratic Party has once again demonstrated that, on its own initiative and on the basis of the “normal procedures” it is determined to uphold, it will not wage a serious fight against this fascism—this does not demonstrate that no serious fight can be waged against this fascism. What it does clearly demonstrate is that the decent people, in the millions and tens of millions, who deep in their hearts abhor this fascism, must seize the initiative themselves, rising with nonviolent but powerful determination to reset the terms, creating (as I have said before) a massive “political earthquake from below,” bringing about a profound political crisis such that the completely illegitimate nature of the Trump fascist regime stands out all the more sharply, provoking and motivating major shifts and realignments throughout society, including within the dominant and ruling institutions, such that this regime can no longer function and cannot remain in power.

This means rallying in even greater numbers than before in the October 18 “No Kings 2.0” demonstrations, called by Indivisible and others. And it means moving forward from there in massively carrying out the Call initiated by RefuseFascism.org for a nonviolent but powerful mobilization and convergence on Washington, DC, November 5, with the single unifying demand, of millions and tens of millions: The Trump fascist regime must go—now!

As important as mass demonstrations and other protests have been, and continue to be, this November 5 mobilization and convergence on DC represents the only real possibility of actually defeating and removing this fascist regime, before the regime forcibly and fully locks down any real possibility of effective opposition.

In my next message, I will get into this more fully, including the Big Questions: How could such a massive mobilization and convergence actually have a real possibility of succeeding in driving out the Trump fascist regime? And what if we fail?