Every day brings news of multiple ways in which the Trump regime is moving with increasing speed and intensity on all fronts, with the goal of fully consolidating fascist rule over the whole country. In addition to what we cover elsewhere in this issue (see here and here), the following are three ways this is happening.

This makes it all the more clear and urgent for millions to take up the call from RefuseFascism.org, and open to all: “The Time Has Come For… The Fall of the Trump Fascism Regime—Beginning November 5, 2025—Washington DC.”

Federal Government Shutdown in Sixth Day and Counting

Today (October 6) is Day 6 of the government shutdown, triggered by the failure of the House of Representatives to pass a budget bill. This shutdown reflects a very sharp—though one-sided—fight between the MAGA fascists who control Congress as a whole, and the Democratic minority. 

The Democratic Party leadership had come under heavy criticism in recent months for its pitiful lack of resistance to the fascist takeover, including a new budget that slashes social programs, cuts taxes for the wealthiest people, and massively funds the fascist thug-enforcers know as ICE. So now the Democrats are demanding that the regime renegotiate the trillion dollars in cuts to the Medicaid healthcare program. These cuts are expected to lead to a doubling of health care premiums for millions of poor and working class people, likely leading to many losing insurance altogether. 

The Democrats are completely justified in their opposition to this heartless and outright murderous cruelty. But it should be noted that the Democratic Party leadership continues to avoid taking on the equally (or worse) murderous fascist attacks on immigrants, on transgender people, on women’s right to abortion, and so on. And even more, the Democratic Party is not addressing the reality that the Trump regime will—by legal or illegal means—continue to prevail over any resistance to their rule and their program, as long as they are allowed to remain in power. 

Yet, even with that, this government shutdown could spin out of control of either side in unexpected ways. Right now, Trump and his fellow fascists are gloating about the fact that this shutdown provides them an “opening” to permanently layoff (i.e., fire) hundreds of thousands of people working in what the fascists deem “non-essential services”—things like pre-school programs, food-assistance for the growing ranks of the hungry, maintenance of museums and national parks, medical research, staffing of Social Security offices, and so on. Meanwhile, the brutal ICE raids and military occupations of major cities are considered “essential,” and continue while truly life-or-death essential services stall or grind to a halt, and an estimated 750,000 people—so far—go without paychecks.¹ All this occurs against a backdrop in which each day seems to top the one before for vicious, outrageous and often violent fascist attacks. The combination of all this with the government being totally shut down concentrates a huge contradiction, one that could be politically explosive.

To add insult to injury, the regime is turning these now-dysfunctional federal offices into a platform for partisan attacks on the Democrats. Go to the website of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (https://HUD.gov) and you will get this message (as of October 6): “The Radical Left in Congress shut down the government. HUD will use available resources to help Americans in need.” Try and call Social Security—you may get something similar. Some furloughed employees have even reported that their personal emails have been altered without their permission to include similar messaging! This viciousness increases the potential political explosiveness.

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Trump Tells Congress He's Declared War on International Drug Cartels

Last week Trump sent a confidential memo to select members of Congress saying his regime now considers members of drug cartels to be “unlawful combatants” with whom the United States is engaged in “non-international armed conflict.” In other words, Trump has declared that drug smuggling is equivalent to an armed attack on the U.S., justifying the use of military force in response. 

With this declaration of “war” against cartels, Trump is claiming extraordinary powers. According to the U.S. Constitution, only Congress has the right to authorize the use of military force or declare war, while presidents can only take unilateral actions in matters of the country’s immediate self-defense.

Less than a day after Trump's declaration became public, the U.S. military carried out another bombing of a speedboat in international waters off the coast of Venezuela, about 1,000 miles away from U.S. shores. This is the fourth attack and destruction of similar boats in that area in the past month, killing a total of 21 people onboard. As with the previous attacks, “War” Secretary Hegseth again alleged “the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics—headed to America to poison our people."

The Trump regime has not presented a shred of evidence to back up their claims—and there’s no reason to believe anything these sick liars spew out. Even if it turned out the boats were actually carrying drugs, so what?! Drug trafficking is a crime, but it is not punishable by death, even if you are convicted in a fair trial, much less “assumed” to be guilty based on your presence on a boat. The U.S. attacks on these boats are grievous crimes under American and international law. 

Now with the new “memo,” Trump can deny the killing of 21 people in international waters was cold-blooded murder—they were just acts of “warfare” against “unlawful combatants.” 

Is Attacking Venezuela Itself Next?

Following Trump's new self-anointed wartime powers, NBC News reported on Friday that the Trump administration has ordered the U.S. military to plan for strikes against drug cartel-related targets inside Venezuela. No decision as to whether, or when the strikes would take place has been made public. But the Trump regime may be preparing to launch a blatant war of imperialist aggression against Venezuela.

For months, the Trump regime has been ramping up threats against Venezuela and its president, Nicholas Maduro. In July Trump declared the Venezuelan drug cartel Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization, and claimed that Maduro was its leader. Trump’s Secretary of State Rubio threatened, “We're not going to have a cartel, operating or masquerading as a government, operating in our own hemisphere.” The U.S. military has amassed at least eight warships, a nuclear-powered submarine, several surveillance planes, and over 4,500 Marines and sailors in the southern Caribbean Sea. 

The Trump regime’s propaganda and demonization directed at Maduro has escalated, and fears that the U.S. may attack Venezuela itself in some fashion have loomed larger and larger. Venezuela says that it is mobilizing its own military defense forces around the country. 

As we wrote previously, Trump’s focus on destroying speedboats and murdering passengers in the Caribbean Sea has to be understood in part as preparation for possible major moves against Venezuela: “All this is supposedly to ‘crackdown’ on cartels. But rather obviously, the target is Venezuela and the Maduro government, with the utterly lawless attack on the speedboats signaling that more murderous lawlessness is in store.” 

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As We Go to Press, Clash Over Trump’s National Guard Deployment in Portland, Oregon

On Saturday, October 4, a district court judge in Oregon issued an order blocking Trump from deploying the National Guard in Portland, at least for now. Portland is a Democratic-led “sanctuary city.” Trump had falsely described Portland as a “war zone” as justification for mobilizing National Guard troops as part of ICE operations there. In fact, there are handfuls of people engaging in peaceful political protest outside the ICE headquarters, who have consistently been met with vicious repression.

In response to the court ruling blocking Trump's move, he is sending 300 California National Guard troops to Portland!  This is against the wishes of both the California and Oregon governors. There has been no official announcement from the White House about this deployment. But California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Sunday that he had learned that the National Guard troops from California were on their way to Oregon. 

Newsom said in a statement that this was a “breathtaking abuse of law and power” and said the state will fight this deployment in the courts. The statement went on to say:

The Trump Administration is unapologetically attacking the rule of law itself and putting into action their dangerous words—ignoring court orders and treating judges, even those appointed by the President himself, as political opponents.

This isn’t about public safety, it’s about power. The commander-in-chief is using the U.S. military as a political weapon against American citizens. We will take this fight to court, but the public cannot stay silent in the face of such reckless and authoritarian conduct by the President of the United States.