An unprecedented struggle has broken out in the Tennessee House of Representatives with fascist lawmakers expelling two young Black Democratic Party elected representatives: Justin Jones and Justin Pearson. On Thursday, April 6, they were officially stripped of their elected office through a vote of a majority Republi-fascist body.

Why? For taking part in a protest in the State House against gun violence just days after another horrific mass shooting a few miles away that left six people dead, including three nine-year-old children!

This is a dangerous example of how the fascist wing of the bourgeoisie (the rulers of this system) are moving quickly to hammer down their rule, shredding the “governing norms” of this system when they get in their way, enforcing extreme forms of repression and using their control of the courts and legislatures to do so.

Meanwhile, they are also preparing to wage a civil war to fully enforce this fascist future if needed. This is just part of why they froth at the mouth in opposition and rage at any hint of restrictions on their social base stocking up on weapons of war despite an epidemic of mass shootings in this country.

Backdrop: “You Ban Books, You Ban Drag, Kids Are Still in Body Bags”

A major protest in response to the mass shooting in Nashville took place on Monday, April 3. Thousands of high school and college students walked out of school and assembled at the State House—rallying outside and inside, packing the hallways and galleries. Chants included, “You Ban Books, You Ban Drag, Kids Are Still in Body Bags.” When Republi-fascist House Speaker Cameron Sexton refused to allow anyone to address the students’ demands on the floor, three state legislators—Pearson and Jones, joined by another legislator, Gloria Johnson—stepped to the front of the chamber to address the students. After having their mics cut off, Pearson and Jones used a bullhorn, and along with Johnson, joined students in chanting, “Enough is enough!” Pearson told the students, “Power to the people! The people who speak up, the people who agitate, power to you!”

What came to be known as “the Tennessee Three” were expelled by the Republi-fascist majority and the protesters were cleared out of the State House by state troopers. The protesters went from appealing to “their elected officials” to chanting “fascist, fascist!” Watch the videos and see the stunned, furious and determined looks on the faces of these youths who are seeing the norms they've been told to rely on shredded in front of their eyes. 

On Thursday, April 6, Jones and Pearson were officially expelled. The motion to also expel Johnson failed by a single vote. (Johnson, a white woman, said after that “It might have to do with the color of our skin.”) When this was announced, hundreds of students in the capitol gallery shouted “Shame on you!” and “Fuck you, fascists.” A giant banner was hung from the gallery reading, “Rural TN Against Fascist GOP.”

What will happen next is unknown. Many expect that the expelled legislators will be reappointed by authorities in the districts they were elected in, Memphis and Nashville. And if so, we don't know how the fascist majority will respond... nor how the masses of angry young people will respond. While legislatures are instruments of this system and as such are worse than useless, there is principle involved in the outrageous and illegal expulsion of these official representatives of mainly Black districts—and it will be important that people defend them or other such representatives against future illegal censorship and attack.

The Larger Fascist Assault

What's happening in Tennessee—the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan—is part of a larger fascist strategy. In the last few months, the Tennessee House of Representatives has been on a fascist rampage: passing anti-abortion laws, banning drag shows, passing vicious anti-trans laws, banning books and the teaching of the truth about genocidal American history. The open celebration of being armed-to-the-teeth is part of enforcing all this—with their organized social base of millions itching for a one-sided civil war. One of the fascist representatives, Andy Ogles, has posted holiday photos of his family, and even a photo of his toddler, armed with assault rifles. And the fascist majority in Tennessee has actively prevented any measure of gun control from even being discussed or debated.

On the other side of this, the Democrats have no answers to any of it. They preside over this same oppressive system while trying desperately to cling to the ruling norms that the fascists are actively shredding.

Organizing for an Actual Revolution: 7 Key Points concentrates the dynamics we're seeing play out in Tennessee:

The deepening divisions within this country now, from top to bottom, mean that those who have ruled in this country for so long (the capitalist-imperialist ruling class) can no longer rule, as a “unified force,” in the “normal” way that people have been conditioned to accept—with a system of government that has an outer shell of “democracy” to cover over the fact that it is an actual capitalist dictatorship at its core, relying fundamentally on the armed force of the institutions of “official violence,” the police and the military. Because of big changes in this country and the world overall, one part of the ruling class, represented by the Republican Party, has become fascist: they no longer believe in or feel bound by what have been the “norms” of “democratic” capitalist rule in this country. And the other section of the ruling class, represented by the Democratic Party, has no real answer to this—except trying to maintain the “normal way” that the oppressive rule of this system has been enforced for hundreds of years, while the fascists are determined to tear up those “norms” and rule through more openly and aggressively oppressive means, without the traditional disguise of supposed “democracy for all.”

We Need a Movement for a REAL Revolution, Not Speedbumps on the Way to the Death Camps

The young Democratic representative Justin Jones, who has stood up against repeated fascist attacks and now lost his elected position for it, said himself that “our role was to be a speedbump... our job was to be a voice of moral dissent, our job was to be a check on power.” Jones needs to be defended and people are right to fight for his office to be restored, but trying to be a speedbump on the road to the “Make America Great Again” death camps is NOT what anyone should be trying to do. Whatever Jones's intentions, channeling people into these terms and confines is actually greasing the skids for this fascism. What people need to do is stop laying down, confront what is really happening and why, and stop accepting the terms of this whole exploitative system.

In Something Terrible, Or Something Truly Emancipating: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility Of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed. A Necessary Foundation, A Basic Roadmap For This Revolution, the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian said:

Instead of being a tail on the Democratic donkey—with its attempt to keep this monstrous system going, and to deal with the growing fascist danger, by relying on the “normal procedures” of this system and doomed efforts to “heal the divisions” that are deepening every day—people need to work for the revolution that is urgently needed, and deal with the fascist danger as part of doing that.

Thousands of young people are standing up in Tennessee—they are shocked and bewildered that the rulers of this system are breaking the rules they were told to rely on. They are agonized and angry that these fascist rulers revel in their weaponry while they grow up with nightmares of school shootings, gun drills, and wanton violence. These young people—full of anger and determination—need to know why all this is happening. They need to understand the extreme danger we're facing—but they also need to know that there's a force—the revcoms—that recognize an opening that can be wrenched out of this danger for an actual revolution, for a future worth living in.

The mass alienation and antagonistic divisions, the violence that saturates America, with all the callous uncaring for human life—not just of kids killed here, but all over the world—all this can be transformed through this revolution. Overthrowing this system of capitalism-imperialism and bringing into being a system where people can come together to build a whole new economy based on meeting people's needs and becoming fit caretakers of the Earth, not parasitically feeding off the exploitation of the people of the world. The concrete framework for this is spelled out in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America authored by the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian.

These sharp clashing divides among the rulers, the tearing apart of this system and its ruling institutions, provides an opening for a real revolution. The aspirations of those thousands of youths in Tennessee and the many more thousands and millions of people across the country rooting for them... need to be radically diverted—from being a “speedbump,” or a voice of moral opposition on the rapidly hurtling road to fascism—to becoming a force for revolution, not just to oppose this fascist nightmare but to overthrow the whole system that has given rise to this and bring into being a radically different, emancipating system that can provide a future fit for our children... here and all over the world.