Over 100 people showed up at a recent mass meeting of Refuse Fascism in New York, including students from Columbia, Fordham, CUNY and other schools. The diverse audience included people active in the Palestine movement and the struggle for immigrant rights.

People heard about it from flyers (in the week before the program, we got out over 20,000 throughout the city), as well as from posters, emails, texting, and social media. And some people were just looking for something like this and found it online. A number of them came in groups and brought friends with them. They came from all over the city, as well as New Jersey, Connecticut, even Rhode Island.

People donated generously, took stacks of materials, signed up to go to DC, and 23 new people were added to the Signal broadcast channel for street team/outreach.

Sunsara Taylor’s speech, as well as other speakers, were powerful and represented the breadth of those taking up the fight for November 5.

There were some informal discussions afterwards, but given it was a weeknight, most people cleared out pretty quickly. Most of my discussions afterward were brief because I was trying to make sure everyone got organized before they left. But I did talk a bit more to a couple of students and we made plans to do tabling/flyering at their school next Tuesday. A big theme with both of them was feeling like everyone is alone, doom scrolling and agonizing, and that as one of them said "the antidote to despair is action," and they were really excited to be at the meeting crossing the threshold to getting involved. A couple other students said the meeting made them feel "hopeful" and “inspired."

I want to note here the important role that members of the Refuse Fascism chapter here played in building for this meeting and on the day itself, stepping up and further solidifying as the "we" making this happen. 

A New Mood, Greater Receptivity

In building for the meeting, we really fought to get the flyers out in volume. There is a changed mood now since the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the way this was seized on by the fascists to clamp down on dissent and glorify what Kirk was about. All this was a big jolt for many youth (for whom Kirk was a big reference point and his horrific political positions well known), and there's now a much more politicized atmosphere, with widespread revulsion at the way all too many universities, Democratic politicians (see @BobAvakianOfficial message REVOLUTION #140), and media have gone along with the clampdown and glorification.

This has also been a big jolt for Black people, with many video clips of Kirk's open racism circulating widely. At the same time, there’s been the fascist takeover of DC and occupation of Black neighborhoods there, the militarized ICE assault and humiliation of Black and Brown people in an apartment building in Chicago, the call from Trump to use the cities as training grounds for the military, and even Hegseth’s new orders about beards and haircuts in the military, which was widely seen as an attack on Black people. The canceling of Jimmy Kimmel was a big jolt in the culture that reached many people who aren't even that political, and further emboldened people when Kimmel was brought back on air. And one thing after another keeps shaking people and screaming out: open fascist dictatorship, what are you gonna do about it? And a lot of the arguments people have for relying on elections basically collapse as soon as you say “really?"

The call for Nov. 5 is very strong, as is the call for the meeting (which we were getting out together). So we put a lot of effort in the last week into identifying key places to be where we could reach a lot of people with this, key sections of people, as well as key politicized crowds, and then firing on all cylinders to mobilize people to get out there, as well as to reach out to the organizations and prominent individuals (which as I said we were less successful at). Of course, it’s not just a matter of getting the word out there. There are also many political and ideological questions that do need to be struggled through, but I'm just saying that there is a section of people who are looking for something like this now, including a section who recognize that periodic “protest as usual” is not enough and that we need to do something BIG (which you can see in this statement from a Columbia student which I'm including below).

A Potentially Positive Atmosphere… IF You Struggle

Among students there's been a lot of disorientation in the wake of the crackdown on the Palestine movement, with a lot of the organized "left" on campus suspended, expelled, dropped out, or silenced. There's an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship, especially from international students. Many people have drawn the wrong conclusion that protest doesn't work. 

But there are also counter-currents to all this—some students thinking now IS the time to protest, some activists searching for more unity and less sectarianism, and even some international students refusing to self-censor and live in fear. Overall I would say that there's a very tense calm right now on campuses that could quickly change. Although it's a very different social stratum, it's worth noting how quickly the "Gen Z" protests exploded against corruption and inequality, first in Indonesia and Nepal, now Morocco, Madagascar, and Peru. (I'm not commenting here on the content of those protests, which I can't speak to. Just that students here have seen these all over social media.) Right now among the youth in this country, there’s much less "they're all the same-ism"(the idea that Trump is just more of the same) and much more recognition of the unique danger we face now (one viral TikTok from a Black youth said: I knew it was gonna be bad but I didn’t know it was gonna be this bad). 

But there is also much more need for ideological struggle to break people out of not just despair, but wallowing in despair, which is a form of capitulation and ultimately complicity. There IS something we can do! Protest on October 18 for No Kings Day and most crucially on November 5 and beyond. There is a strategy, which the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian gets into in REVOLUTION #141, “The Time Is Urgently Upon Us Now—To Drive Out The Trump Fascist Regime!” about how this regime could be removed. We have to point out that there are bigger things happening in the world than your classes/grades/career, and that stopping fascism is actually more important. A number of students have told us that they can see the importance of what we’re calling for, but they’ve worked really hard to be where they are and have a lot riding on their academic careers, and they’re trying to figure out how to “balance” these things. But it just needs to be bluntly said that taking off work/school for Nov. 5 and facing possible repression IS a sacrifice, but people’s lives are being sacrificed every day under this fascist regime and the sacrifice will be much, much greater if we/you fail to act. And at the end of the day, you have to look in the mirror and ask yourself, what would I have done if I was in Germany in 1933.

Among the broad progressive (mainly white) people in Brooklyn, there is still too much thumbs up, "I'm good," “I'm doing my part," but this is less pronounced than before, with less smug self-satisfaction, and more serious confrontation with reality and searching for answers. Some people who would pass by thinking "yea I want trump out too, thumbs up" would do a double take and come back for the flyer when I emphasized that we're not just spreading awareness, we're making a plan, this is an organizing meeting. Others would come back for the flyer when I made the simple moral point that there is no neutral in the face of fascism. At Washington Square Park I would ask anyone who didn’t want the flyers “are you for or against fascism?” Most would say “against.” Then I would reply, “So what are you gonna do about it? Here's the plan.” At which point most would then take the flyer. But again, I think most of the people who actually showed up to the meeting were not the ones who had to think hard about this and be strongly compelled, but were more the ones who wanted the flyer. 

Probably the demographic who gravitated to the Refuse Fascism message the most is Black women, and Black people overall are much more receptive now. But there is a gap from that to actually taking action and showing up, which we need to learn more about and actively work on.

You Can’t “Trump-Proof” Your City

Here in NYC, the mayoral campaign to elect Zohran Mamdani and local politics have a big pull. People ask “why go to DC,” which is another point that is addressed in REVOLUTION #141 from Bob Avakian. There is a positive aspect to some of the aspirations bound up in the way people are gravitating to this campaign. As this develops, the defense of Mamdani against continued threats from Trump and possible attempts to take over New York or even to try to deport Mamdani could become important flashpoints, drawing people into struggle against the regime. At the same time, there have also been some illusions bound up in this, including the idea that we can "survive" fascism by defending people locally, "Trump-proofing" New York City, and relying on the courts. 

But this "Trump-proofing" won't work. Look at the troops and ICE terror that ravaged LA. Look at Chicago right now. Any local policies or temporary court decisions will be swallowed up by the tidal wave of fascism at the federal level, with its blatant disregard for the rule of law and unaccountable paramilitary gestapo forces, backed by the illegitimate Supreme Court which has already ruled that ICE’s racial profiling is perfectly fine. This reality is hard for people to reckon with because it requires breaking out of “politics as usual” and the illusion of “painless progress," but it is the glaring reality nonetheless and so people can get it.

One local politician I talked to was able to recognize the need to go from defense to political offense to drive out the regime. But then there was the question of whether this person was willing to put their neck out in support of Nov. 5 when few other organizations and prominent individuals were openly on board yet (even as we are working to change that). Here again, even as we bring to bear the breadth/unity that IS beginning to take shape around Nov. 5, it is necessary to continually bring people back to the stakes of what we are facing (and the fact that if everyone takes a wait-and-see approach we are finished), the fact that this mobilization represents the only way to really stop the horrors of this regime, the courage that is required of us in this moment, and the special responsibility (and opportunity) that people with platforms have to help open the floodgates so that the tens of millions of people who hate this fascism can rise to do what urgently needs to be done.