On Thursday, May 2, 30 to 40 or so pro-Palestinian protesters who gathered in the Quad on the campus of the University of Mississippi were set upon by a large mob of mostly male, white, racist, MAGA “counter-protesters.” These goons were waving American flags and screaming sexual threats at the women protesters. As a Black woman protester defiantly approached them, they began screaming “lock her up” and one of these racist morons jumped up and down and hooted like a monkey. 

But that’s not the half of it! This despicable attack at UM was then celebrated by top fascists. Trump posted a video of the thugs shouting “We want Trump” and captioned it “Thank you Ole Miss [affectionate nickname for University of Mississippi]—MAGA.” Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves posted a video of the reactionaries singing the national anthem and captioned it “Warms my heart. I love Mississippi!” Georgia Congressman Collins tweeted the video of the mob and wrote “Ole Miss taking care of business.”

“Thank you Ole Miss”!?!? How about “FUCK YOU, Ole Miss,” and all you top-dog fascists supporting “Ole Miss.” But let’s take a minute to look deeper into the video that Trump posted.

You could see in this video a replay of an ugly scene that has been repeated over and over again in the wretched history of this country that is founded on slavery and continues to be woven through with white supremacy: a mob of white people turned into howling, racist thugs who have cast aside every shred of their humanity. Yesterday it was lynch mobs; today it was this scene; and tomorrow?

You could see in the applause of Trump and his fascist followers the way in which the never-went-away-and-now-coming-back-like-a-rapidly-growing-cancer racism gets fused with “USA Number One” and the championing of Israel, an armed bastion crucial to U.S. domination of the world and itself a society founded on and saturated with genocidal racism. 

You could see in this video the bankruptcy of those Black entertainers and others who have endorsed Trump. To modern-day minstrels like Snoop Dogg and Sexxy Redd who have stuck their heads up Donald Trump's ass: “How is the view now?”

Finally you could see the truth of what the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has said about how:

Everything will very likely be coming to a head and coming up for grabs this year, 2024, with the presidential election this year a sharp focus of the fight between the dominating ruling class parties—Democrats and Republicans—a fight that is very likely to break all out of the bounds of the “normal way” they exercise power over the people, and keep their whole murderous system going.

This kind of deep division—and especially this bitter antagonism among the powers-that-be—has not been seen in this country since the time of the Civil War way back in the 1860s.

When you look at this and see the ugly heart of American racism fused with the same shit all around the world—how could you NOT want to end it? And how could you not want to engage what Bob Avakian says about how we could end that, bring in a whole better world, and seize the time to do that not in some far off-time… but in this time.