Part 1: Profound Inequality, Brutal Oppression—and Crude Distortion of the Actual Foundation and Nature of this Country.
To begin, there is this critical analysis in my recent work HUMANITY ON THE BRINK: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness?:
Here it’s worth stepping back and reviewing the history of this country and the system in this country from the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution to today—to the thoroughly outmoded monstrosity of capitalism-imperialism. At the beginning of this country, at the initiation of the war of independence (which they like to call a revolutionary war), it was declared that “all men are created equal.” But the whole history of this country from that time forward has proven that it is definitely not the case within this country that there is equality for all. Even at the time when the Declaration of Independence and then the Constitution were written, there were huge numbers of slaves. There were Native Americans whose land was being stolen and who were being subjected to genocidal atrocity. There were women who basically had no rights, and certainly none equal to men. There was, in short, a system of exploitation which was given further impetus by breaking free of British colonialism.*
At the same time, I follow this important analysis with this observation:
The point is not that we should be nihilists—just thoughtlessly negating everything about the American Revolution and the founding documents of this country. As I’ve pointed to before, there are certain things in the U.S. Constitution, particularly in the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution), which can be learned from—and I have incorporated some of this into a fundamentally different framework in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America. The point is that, despite some positive elements at the time of the founding of this country, it was even then a system of vicious exploitation and literally murderous oppression; and all this had within it the seeds and elements of where it has gone—to a terrible place, with the system of capitalism-imperialism now.
As I will show through this series, in the Declaration of Independence in particular, and in the celebration of what it has served to establish, maintain and expand, there are indeed fundamental inventions and distortions of reality and history, in the service of very real and repeated atrocity.
In terms of the present time—with this country now being ruled by a fascist regime—it is worthwhile examining briefly a recent speech at the University of Texas (“Remarks on the 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence”) by Clarence Thomas, “Justice” of the U.S. Supreme Court.
In this speech, Thomas attempted to set a new world record for shameless hypocrisy.
He used the occasion to attack “progressivism” as the source of essentially all evils in the modern world—when, in a basic sense, the “progressives” he is attacking have been a significant force in fighting against discrimination and oppression of various kinds, including white supremacy—and it is Thomas, and the fascists he is part of, who have consistently, vehemently and viciously opposed, attacked, and worked to destroy things that have been gained through this fight.
In his speech, Thomas made a point of denouncing racism and segregation (invoking his own family’s experience with this) while he is in fact a crude instrument of the blatantly, aggressively racist Trump fascist regime.**
This is a fascist regime which is carrying out an all-sided attack against the changes that have been brought about as a result of the fight against white supremacy and segregation over the past 70 years and more—an attack which recently involved a decision by the Supreme Court that effectively gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act.***
This is a fascist regime which actively spreads, and brazenly acts on, the ridiculous and outrageous lie that the real victims of discrimination in this country are somehow white people—when the reality (ceaselessly demonstrated in everyday life, and through countless scientific studies and investigations) is that segregation, discrimination and overall racist oppression continue, and continue to have terrible consequences, for Black people and others who have suffered the systemic, and often murderous, racism of this system—in housing, education, employment, health care, with police, courts and prisons—in every part of society.
This is a fascist regime which is using its power to blackmail and bludgeon universities and other institutions into doing away with programs (generally under the heading of DEI) whose stated purpose is to counter the effects of actual discrimination and racism.
This is a fascist regime that is aggressively restoring monuments to the Confederacy and reviving the celebration of Confederate “heroes”—which are nothing but monuments to and celebrations of slavery and lynch-mob white supremacy.
This is a fascist regime headed by Donald Trump—a crude white supremacist, whose history of blatant racism goes back decades, including discrimination against Black people in housing owned by his family. (In a series written during the first Trump regime, Donald Trump— Genocidal Racist,**** I examined just some of the more outrageous expressions of this racism, up to that time. And, in this second version of the Trump fascist regime, this racism has become even more crudely and aggressively expressed, in word and deed.)
This is the fascist regime in which Clarence Thomas is not merely a willing servant but an active force, overall and specifically in his role on the Supreme Court—with its rulings backing and facilitating white supremacy, as well as male supremacy (including with the overturning of the right to abortion), assaults on LGBT rights, and other outrageous rulings, including attacks on immigrants and on the separation of church and state, in the service of white Christian nationalism/fascism.
As I pointed out in my social media message number 102: “there is a direct line from the pro-slavery Confederacy, at the time of the Civil War, to the fascism of today, with its determination to make America once again openly, aggressively white supremacist, male supremacist, and anti-LGBT people.” (At the time of the Civil War, which put an end to slavery, and for some time after that, the Republican Party was opposed to slavery and in favor of at least some basic rights for Black people. But that time is long gone: particularly since the 1960s, the Republican Party has become the party of blatant white supremacy, and over the decades since then it has become an overtly fascist party, with white patriarchal male supremacist Christian fundamentalism as its defining and driving force.*****)
As I have also emphasized: The Trump fascist regime came to power not through a military coup, or some other “extra-legal” means, but through the “normal processes” of this system—an election in 2016, and more recently in 2024. Among other important factors, this is an expression of the fact that (again from my social media message number 102):
This election brings out sharply that there really are “two countries” within this country.
This, in a real sense, is an extension of a fundamental division that has existed since the beginning of the so-called “United States” of America, with its foundation in slavery and genocide—a division which has never really been resolved throughout the history of this country—not through the Civil War in the 1860s, and not through changes that were brought about through the 1960s and in the years following....
This division into “two countries” can find no good resolution under this system. The election of an outright fascist, Donald Trump, as the head of this system is a powerful demonstration of this.
To return to Clarence Thomas, and his speech at the University of Texas, the core of his argument (and this is true of the Christian fascists generally) is the insistence that the rights of people come not from government, but from “god”—and the following well-known statement in the Declaration of Independence is invoked in support of this:
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.
This is wielded by these fascists as part of their drive to obliterate the separation of church and state and institute a theocracy as the ruling force in society—rule based explicitly on enforced religion, and specifically scripture as interpreted by these Christian fundamentalist fanatics.
In this series, beginning with the next part (2), I will examine further what is terribly wrong with all this, including how this pivotal and essential part of the Declaration of Independence—and this Declaration in its essence—in fact involves inventions and distortions of reality and history, which have been utilized in the service of real and repeated atrocity, and how there is now an urgent need to bring into being a radical, truly emancipating alternative to the system that was inspired by the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago, a system which has now become completely outmoded and poses an existential threat to humanity.
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FOOTNOTES:
* HUMANITY ON THE BRINK: A Forced March Into the Abyss, or Forging a Way Forward Out of the Madness? is available at revcom.us.
As for the actual nature and role of the U.S. Constitution, from the time of its adoption down to the present time, this is examined in some depth in my article U.S. Constitution: An Exploiters’ Vision of Freedom (also available at revcom.us). [back]
** There is a particularly disgusting dimension to the fact that someone like Clarence Thomas perverts his experience as a Black man in America into somehow a justification for the most extreme and grotesque expressions of white supremacy, as spewed forth and actively enforced by the Trump fascist regime, of which Thomas is an active advocate and instrument. This would be like someone utilizing their experience as a Jew in Germany in the 1930s to openly advocate for and aggressively act on behalf of Nazi fascism!
Unfortunately, while not a major phenomenon in the U.S. today, the instances of more or less prominent Black people openly embracing Trump/MAGA fascism is also not a completely isolated phenomenon. Someone like Nicki Minaj has recently come out openly in support of Trump (see my recent piece commenting on this at revcom.us); and there are some other Black “celebrities” who have done the same. For example, the rapper, actor and comedian Nick Cannon has also recently come out in support of Trump.
Some of the Black people who have gone over to supporting Trump/the Republican fascists have insisted that the reason they have done so is that the Democratic Party has long posed as the friend of Black people, and made promises to them, but has not made good on this. It is true that the Democratic Party is a ruling class party of this system—and this is a system which has the oppression of Black people, and other terrible oppression, built into it. But the Republican Party is a ruling class party of this system which does not even pretend to care about ending this oppression—and, particularly now that it has become an outright, all-out fascist party, it openly and aggressively promotes and enforces white supremacy, male supremacy, and other oppressive relations. (In another footnote [*****] below, I get further into significant changes in the Republican Party.)
The situation with these two ruling class political parties is as Malcolm X described it, only now even more extreme: one is a fox, and the other is a wolf—one says they’re for you, and the other one says they’re against you—but they’re actually both against you. It should be obvious that to jump from the one that claims to be against oppression (the Democrats) to one that openly proclaims it is going to enforce extreme forms of that oppression (the Republicans) will not contribute to ending that oppression. Taking this kind of position (supporting Trump and the Republican fascists on the basis that the Democrats have failed Black people) is, to say the least, lacking in imagination—or, better put, it is lacking in any scientific understanding of the real problem: the murderously oppressive system which both the Democrats and the Republicans are part of and work to enforce. Beyond that, in some cases, this jumping to support Trump and the Republican fascists, especially now that they are the ruling party, reflects a sense that doing so will put you in a better position to get in on the “goodies” of this system—in particular the “spoils” that come from this system’s ruthless plunder of countries, and super-exploitation of masses of people, including 150 million children, particularly in the Third World of Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. [back]
*** Analysis of the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act and important questions related to this is contained in the article at revcom.us: “The Fascist Rush To Rig The 2026 Election: Decimating The Black Vote and Terrorizing Election Workers.” [back]
**** The 10-part series, Donald Trump—Genocidal Racist, is available in BA’s Collected Works at revcom.us, specifically in “Bob Avakian: Writings in 2020–A Momentous Year.” [back]
***** My 2017 speech THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity—We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America, A Better World IS Possible includes this important analysis:
The Republican Party has been moving in a fascist direction since the late 1960s, with further leaps since then to becoming more and more openly fascist.
In running for President in 1968, Richard Nixon adopted what has been called the “southern strategy,” which the Republican Party has followed ever since. This is a direct appeal to white supremacy—to the racism of white people, particularly (though not only) in the southern states, who are enraged that Black people are not “staying in their place.”
The Republican Party is not “the Party of Lincoln”—as it sometimes demagogically claims to be—it has become much more the Party of the Confederacy.
With Ronald Reagan, the Republican Party took another leap on the road of fascism. Reagan very deliberately began his campaign for president in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi, where in 1964, three civil rights workers were kidnapped and brutally murdered by white supremacists. There, in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Reagan proclaimed his support for “states' rights,” which, particularly in the South, have long been code words for white supremacist lynch-mobism.
And after George W. Bush took things still further in a fascist direction, the Trump/Pence regime has made the leap into all-out fascism.
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.
In this light, it can also be seen how the moves by Republican-dominated legislatures across the South to gerrymander voting districts (specifically eliminating districts with heavy Black populations) is in a real sense another application of the Republicans’ “southern strategy” to enforce and benefit from white supremacy. [back]
