In future messages, as I indicated previously, I will be getting into important questions of revolutionary strategy and tactics, including the approach to elections under this system.

But first, it is necessary to bring out some important truth in relation to the recent felony convictions of Donald Trump. Coverage of this at revcom.us gets into this more fully. Here I am going focus on this crucial point: Nobody—and especially nobody who has actually been mistreated by this system—should allow themselves to be played for a sucker by Trump’s posing as a so-called “victim” (or, as he ridiculously claims, a “political prisoner”) of this system!

In the recent trial that ended with his 34 felony convictions, Trump got all kinds of special favorable treatment that no ordinary person would have gotten. Almost anybody else would have been thrown in jail during the trial if they kept on being “in contempt of court” the way Trump was many times.

As for Trump’s pitiful posture as a “victim of this system,” because he has been tried and convicted of multiple felonies: It should be obvious that not everyone who breaks the laws of this system, and gets caught and convicted, is somehow a fighter against oppression. The prisons in this country are full of Nazis and other white supremacists and fascist maniacs, who are small-scale versions of what Trump is aiming to be on a giant scale, with the full power of the U.S. government as his arsenal of oppression and terror.

Biden and the Democrats have fully backed Israel in the genocide it is perpetrating against the Palestinian people, which includes the slaughter of more than 15 thousand Palestinian children. At the same time, Trump and the Republicans are rabid supporters of this genocidal slaughter of Palestinians. And Trump has made clear that he would not hesitate to carry out massive violence against oppressed people, and people rising up against oppression and injustice, in this country.

With all this, there is the important question: Why do some people who should know better—and particularly people who have been badly messed over by this system—fall for this ridiculous act by Trump that he is standing up against persecution? Part of the answer is that some who fall for this actually like Trump’s “gangster pose.” And let’s say it like it is: On the part of some men, even some who have been badly messed over by this system, they like the fact that Trump is a big-time misogynistic, patriarchal male supremacist—a hater, oppressor and plunderer of women—which he brags about.

And then there is the dominant culture that is promoted by the ruling system in this country, including the dominant culture in Hip Hop—with its worship of money, along with blatant misogyny—which is an expression of the rotten “values” of this putrid system of capitalism-imperialism.

The fact that Trump goes around boasting about being a “billionaire” makes him a “hero” and “role model” for some people who have become so corrupted that they are out to make “big money” any way they can—not giving a damn about what is happening to the people whose bodies are being used and abused to create that wealth. (Notice how Snoop Dogg, who not long ago praised Trump, has now celebrated the fact that his wife, Shante, has opened a strip club! Celebrating women being sexually exploited and degraded—by a woman “owning” this exploitation and degradation—that is something that Trump could really get with! But it is something that should be sickening and revolting to everyone who hates oppression and degradation.)

To be clear, I am not blaming the millions of women (and girls) who are literally enslaved in international sex trafficking and all-around sexual exploitation, or those who are driven by desperation and see no way out except to be degraded in this way. But this is definitely nothing to celebrate—it is something that needs to be swept away, along with the whole system that thrives off this and countless other ways it treats people as if they were mindless bodies to be used and abused. For girls and women, for people overall, there is a whole different, much better way we could be living and relating to each other!

To be clear again, I am certainly not condemning everyone who is part of Hip Hop; and, even though it has been far too few, I am not ignoring those whose intent is to convey positive, even liberating messages through Hip Hop and those who have taken good stands publicly and forcefully—including a strong stand against the genocide Israel is perpetrating on the Palestinian people, with the full backing of the U.S. As I have called attention to before (in my article State of Emergency: Chains On People Who Desperately Need To Be Free, which is available at revom.us): Hip Hop “could be and should be a powerful voice for liberation.” But that is not what gets promoted. Instead, this creative art form has been perverted by the influence of this foul system of capitalism-imperialism, and the overall control of things by the ruling powers of this system.

In future messages, I am going to go broader and deeper in calling out the degradation that people have gotten caught up in—and if you don’t like me saying this, then you need to check where your own values are at. But right now it is important to focus on this fundamental point: The conflict between Trump and the Republicans on one side, and Biden and the Democrats on the other, is a fight over who should wield the power of this system, how that power should be exercised over the masses of people in this country, and how the American empire of brutal exploitation and massive destruction of people and the environment should be enforced worldwide.

The interests of the masses of people—in this country and worldwide—are in direct, fundamental opposition to both sides in that conflict within the ruling class. It is a revolution to overthrow this whole system, and bring something much better into being, that represents the real, fundamental interests of the masses of people. And that is what everybody who has been misused and abused by this system, and everyone who wants to see an end to injustice and oppression, needs to be actively working for—especially now, when (as I have gone into in these messages, especially numbers Eight through Eleven) this is a “rare time” when this revolution is not only urgently necessary but is possible.

Coming soon: Revolutionary strategy and tactics, and how that relates to elections under this system—in particular the election in 2020 and the upcoming election this year.