On August 1, Donald Trump was indicted in Federal District Court in Washington, DC, on four counts in connection with his attempted coup on January 6, 2021. On that day in 2021, thousands of fascist Trump supporters broke into Congress, rampaging, threatening, beating and going so far as to erect gallows and try to hunt down Mike Pence, as well as Nancy Pelosi. These indictments come on top of two other criminal indictments and a fourth one rumored to be in the works.

Nothing even remotely close to this has ever happened in U.S. history before. No losing candidate had ever attempted to overturn the results, let alone through a coup. No leading presidential candidate—and in fact right now, according to polls, Trump is the leading candidate in the Republican Party for 2024 by an extremely wide margin—has ever been indicted in the run-up to an election, let alone four times, let alone on counts related to fomenting a coup.

And yet the sizeable hard-core fascist base of the Republican Party is so tightly tied to Trump that no serious Republican “rival” to Trump has done anything but defend him. Trump’s supporter Kari Lake, who nearly won the governorship of Arizona last November, recently threatened, “If you want to get to President Trump, you’re going to have to go through me, and you’re going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I’m going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA [National Rifle Association].” The indictment—which carries potential prison time for Trump—raises the stakes enormously and underlines the fact that Lake’s threat must be taken seriously indeed. These fascists aim to hammer down an even greater and more naked white supremacy, male supremacy and American chauvinism—and this must not be tolerated, or shrugged off, but actively fought.

But this truly unprecedented and dangerous development needs to be responded to NOT by attempting to (or hoping that the Democrats or the Department of Justice can) hold this system together as it has been up to now. Not only is that unrealistic, even more to the point it is undesirable—it is this system itself that has always been a horror for tens of millions of people in this country and literally billions around the world.  It is this system itself that produced Trump and the rest of these fascists.

A Rare Time When Revolution Is More Possible

In regard to the contradictions that this turn of events concentrates, Bob Avakian has said,

Things are not as they were in the past, and the reality is this: The profound divisions, within the ruling class, and in the society overall, cannot be smoothed over—they are only going to become deeper and sharper, more acute and antagonistic. Here is the fundamental truth that needs to be clearly and deeply understood: These divisions

cannot be resolved within the framework that has existed, and has held things together, for nearly 150 years, since shortly after the end of the Civil War which led to the abolition of slavery—they cannot be resolved on the basis of the capitalist “democracy” that has been the “normal” means of capitalist rule (dictatorship) for so long.

And:

This rare situation, with the deepening and sharpening conflicts among the ruling powers, and in the society overall, provides a stronger basis and greater openings to break the hold of this system over masses of people.

It is extremely important to deeply understand this:

As this situation develops, and the ruling class is more and more unable to rule in the old way, society and daily life for masses of people, from different parts of society, can become increasingly unsettled and chaotic, with frequent “disruptions” of the “normal” way things have been.

And as “the normal way” society has been ruled is failing to hold things together—and society is increasingly being ripped apart—this can shake people’s belief that “the way things have always been” is the only way things can be. It can make people more open to questioning—in a real sense it can force people to question—the way things have been, and whether they have to stay that way. And this is all the more likely to happen if the revolutionary forces are out among the people shining a light on the deeper reality of what is happening, and why, and bringing out that there IS an alternative to living this way.

This is a crucial part of how a revolutionary situation could be brought into being—a situation where it becomes possible to actually bring down this system.

On the other hand, “left to itself”—that is, if the current character and dynamics of all this remain on the same course they are now on—this situation, the divisions characterizing it, and the outcome resulting from it are almost certainly going to become even more terribly negative. So, all this must be radically changed, in what is a relatively brief, “compressed” period of time—not just weeks or months, but also not decades. If things have not already fully erupted before then, the scheduled presidential election of 2024 is very likely to be a critical focal point and turning point, through which the fascist Republicans will attempt to gain and lock down power over society, and put an end to any possibility of a future “transfer of power” away from them.

With the Republicans’ continuation of the Big Lie that the last (2020) presidential election was stolen from Trump, their moves to suppress votes, and their whole orientation that, in any case, with regard to the 2024 presidential election (assuming there is one), the only acceptable outcome is that they are declared and confirmed as the winner—all this has made clear that they will allow no “peaceful transfer of power” in government, unless it results in their coming to power. Growing numbers of fascist-oriented people in this country are prepared to use violence in pursuit of their perverse notion of “making America great again”—and the Republican leadership is ready to resort to this, if they cannot come to power otherwise. Already Republican elected officials, including members of Congress, are whipping up sentiments in favor of such violence and supporting fascist mobs who have engaged in this violence.

These words should be seriously engaged and deeply pondered. As should these, from WE ARE THE REVCOMS (REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNISTS):

Basing ourselves on the scientific method of the new communism, we actively apply the strategic approach of Fight the Power, and Transform the People, for Revolution: involving masses of people in rising up to resist the continuing crimes of this system, and defending people from attacks on their rights and their lives by racist, woman-hating and anti-LGBTQ thugs, in and out of government... winning people to the scientific understanding that we do not have to live this way—that this system of capitalism-imperialism is the root cause and fundamental source of all the unnecessary suffering that masses of people are subjected to, here and throughout the world, and poses a growing threat to the very existence of humanity through the accelerating destruction of the environment and increasing danger of nuclear war—and that we need to, and can, bring a whole different and much better system and world into being through revolution.

We will have more on this as things develop. Be sure to tune into The RNL—Revolution, Nothing Less!—Show on YouTube. For now, we end with the advice given by the great revolutionary leader, Mao Zedong,¹ to those who in a roughly similar situation wanted to “wait and see” what would happen: “Cast away illusions, prepare for struggle.”