In his social media message Revolution #113, the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian said: 

This regime is moving with crazed speed to deny and eliminate basic rights for everyone who does not conform to their fascist rule, and to forcibly use the powers of government against anyone they regard as “enemies”—terrorizing/disappearing/ torturing and silencing any opposition. 

At one and the same time, they insist that they are above the law, and that Trump is the law.

They recognize no authority beyond their own raw exercise of power. 

This is fascism. And people need to understand this—or they cannot and will not act, in their millions and millions, in the way they need to, to defeat this fascism.

A Tsunami of Fascist Attacks

What we are confronting right now is a tsunami of attacks raining down daily. 

Big law firms: In the past, major law firms have provided important free legal assistance to oppose fascist moves like the Muslim ban or suing to stop Trump's attempts to steal the 2020 election. One by one, Trump is targeting these law firms. And too many have capitulated, pledging $940 million (and counting) in free legal services to whatever fascist cause Trump assigns them. And perhaps more important, every lawyer and law firm now fears “getting on the wrong side” of this regime by defending the "wrong person" or saying the "wrong thing."

Judges are under increasing attack, with Trump and other MAGA fascists calling them “radical left lunatics,” “Trump-haters” and more. This has likely contributed to threats against judges doubling between 2021 and 2024. Esther Salas, a federal judge whose son was shot dead in her house in 2020, recently reported that at least four other judges have received “prank” pizza deliveries that supposedly come from her dead son! Salas spelled out what the message is: “You want to end up like Judge Salas’ child? You want to end up like Judge Salas?” How can this not be on the mind of every judge hearing a case involving the fascist regime in some way?

Universities: Sites of learning where free speech, critical thinking, and the teaching of the actual history of this country are supposedly protected and encouraged are being defunded and silenced. The federal government has cut, or threatened to cut, hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for research and other projects, demanding that universities crack down heavily on protests, fire pro-Palestinian professors, and even put university curriculum in some departments under the “supervision” of the federal government. Extremely prominent schools like Columbia, UPENN, Stanford, Cornell and Harvard have been targeted. So far, the administration at Columbia has capitulated, while others are trying to maneuver their way out of the situation with “concessions” without completely giving in to Trump, but most are so far not openly defying Trump in the ways needed.

Foreign students: This has gone hand in hand with truly shocking attacks on foreign students who either took part in, were sympathetic to, or were in some way suspected of participating in protests against the genocide in Gaza. Students who are here completely legally have been abducted by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in plain clothes, in the street or at their apartments, hustled into cars and then planes, and finally entombed in ICE prisons in places like Louisiana and Texas, far from their own families, communities and legal support, and very close to some of the most reactionary courts in the country. On top of these terrifying abductions, the U.S. State Department has begun canceling the student visas of students who are in good standing at their schools, based on unspecified sympathies or ideas that “run counter” to U.S. interests… or sometimes for traffic tickets or other minor brushes with the law. And they are doing this without even notifying the students that their visas have become invalid, which makes their presence in the country automatically “unlawful.” So far, at least 800 visas have been canceled.

State laws: A wave of laws aimed at punishing legal forms of protest have been proposed—at least 41 such laws in 22 states just since the start of 2025. One law would impose up to twenty years in prison for “disrupting” the operation of a gas pipeline. And just last month, the environmental organization Greenpeace was ordered to pay $667 million to the company that built the Standing Rock oil pipeline, which was fiercely but nonviolently opposed by the Native peoples whose land it was built on, leading to more than a year of protest, which Greenpeace supported.

Immigrants: Hundreds of immigrants (mainly from Venezuela) have been forcibly deported to El Salvador’s nightmare CECOT prison, from which, the president of El Salvador brags no one ever leaves! CECOT is essentially a torture chamber. Men are packed 100 to a cell and are in their cells for 23.5 hours a day with no privacy, no furniture, no mattresses, no pillows, no reading material besides the Bible, and no ability to get mail or communicate with lawyers or family.

Now this hellhole has been designated for immigrants in the U.S. So far this is for Venezuelan and Salvadoran immigrants—though Trump is also publicly toying with the idea of sending U.S. citizens there. Heads shaved, stripped half naked, hundreds of immigrants have so far received this sentence of a living death from the Trump fascist regime without the regime having to show any evidence, provide criminal trials, or enable these migrants to defend themselves.

And for what? First the regime said they were members of the Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan street gang. Then it turned out that many or most had been “identified as gang members” on the basis of things like—this is literally true!—having a Michael Jordan t-shirt, or a tattoo of a soccer club, or even an “autism awareness” tattoo. So then the regime claimed that they were still dangerous criminals, but thorough investigations by a number of news outlets showed that about 90 percent of them had no U.S. criminal record, and most had no criminal record anywhere. One Salvadoran man who fled to the U.S. originally to escape from the MS 13 gang in El Salvador, and who had an existing court order barring the U.S. from sending him back there, is now among the people at CECOT—whose population certainly includes many MS 13 members. The U.S. admits it sent him there “inadvertently,” and in defiance of major court rulings claims that that it has no way to get him back!

The Shredding of Due Process

What we've laid out here paints a picture of an all-sided fascist attack on due process and the rule of law.

Due process means simply that no one (citizen, visa-holder, or undocumented) can be deprived of life, liberty or property without a chance to present their case in court. Rule of law means that you can only be punished for violating an actual law, in opposition to arbitrary authority, and that no one is above the law.

Without due process, and without rule of law, any cop or ICE agent, any government official, can accuse you of something and determine some punishment for it. THAT is a society in which everyone lives in fear, where everyone has to “watch what they say,” where the regime goes unchallenged for fear that “you may be next.”

THAT is what the MAGA fascist Trump regime is setting in place, and rapidly. 

What Is Needed

There has been some inspiring, creative and brave resistance to this. This is an important beginning and it must quickly grow.

Over a million people took to the streets on April 5 to stand against the Trump MAGA regime. And there have been other protests against attacks on public education and science, the deportation of immigrants, the attacks on federal workers and more. Importantly, the presidents of Princeton and Wesleyan universities have taken public stands against these fascist attacks and making clear they will not capitulate. Young lawyers have publicly quit their firms protesting the capitulation of the major law firms they worked for. College graduates have torn up their diplomas protesting campus complicity.

But we will not defeat this fascism fighting it attack by attack. This will keep us fighting rearguard battles while the regime advances and overwhelms the resistance.

What is needed, what is possible, is something more, something different, something which actually builds from what has started and grows to reach into every corner of society, drawing forward millions acting in sustained mass protest such that Trump is not able to govern and implement his fascist program.

Here we want to conclude with the words of Bob Avakian, at the end of social media message Revolution #114: 

All the many different streams of protest need to be joined together, and rapidly draw in many, many more—to become a massive wave of millions and millions demanding, insisting, determined to make this demand a reality: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go!