Elsewhere in this issue I report on an intensification of the U.S.-Israel genocide against Gaza. Now a fascist regime is coming to power that promises even worse genocide in Gaza. Worse than under the Democrats! And remember, despite their endless ritual of never-enforced “warnings” to Israel to dial down the genocide, the Democrats are all-in with Israel. 

Genocide with the Democrats, or with the fascists? How can anyone in good conscience accept these “choices”?! Or accept the legitimacy of the election of a fascist that resulted?!

In the lead-up to the election, revolutionary leader, author of the new communism Bob Avakian (BA) did a lot of analysis of what was actually represented in the election. In his social media message @BobAvakianOfficial REVOLUTION #101, he boiled it down to this:

When these are the “choices” offered by a system, it is time to recognize that this system is a thoroughly rotten, monstrously criminal, massively destructive, thoroughly outmoded system (long past the time when it can represent anything positive).

It is time to look seriously for solutions outside and beyond this system.

It is time for a revolution to overthrow and uproot this whole system and bring into being a fundamentally different and much better system.

There Was No Choice in this Election That Would Have Made Any Difference for the Better

Millions of people inside the U.S. are heartsick and outraged that this country is enabling a genocide in Gaza. Many looked to this election, in one way or another, as providing a channel to at least mitigate that. They were wrong.

Some people thought that a big reason Democrats were enabling Israel’s genocide was the influence of Republican megadonors in funding pro-Israel candidates in Democratic Party primary elections (the “Reject AIPAC” campaign). 

Some thought that voting for “uncommitted” delegates to the Democratic National Convention would compel the Democrats to impose a ceasefire, if only in order to attract enough votes to win the election. 

Some people even thought that maybe Trump, for his own reasons, might rein in Israel. 

But the reality is, support for Israel from the whole spectrum of ruling class politics is not a product of how people vote but the needs of this system. And no choice in this election would have made any real difference. 

The Democrats Did What the Democrats DO

Look at what the Democrats actually did. They refused to let any Palestinian say anything from the stage at their national convention, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of people voted for “uncommitted” delegates as a protest against the Biden-Harris administration’s support for Israel. 

The “Reject AIPAC” effort called on the Democratic Party to reject moves by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) to oust elected Democrats who criticized Israel. Harris refused do that and has close relations with AIPAC.

Biden and Harris refused to enforce any of their “warnings” to Israel and impose a ceasefire in Gaza, even when that might have made a significant difference in the vote in Michigan, which was considered one of the “swing” states that Harris had to carry in the election. 

When given a chance to differentiate herself from Genocide Joe, Kamala Harris said in an interview that “there is nothing that comes to mind” that she would do differently than Biden! 

And the Democrats stayed all-in on backing Israel, even though that likely left a big chunk of the “youth vote” alienated and on the sidelines in the election.

For the Democrats, maintaining this system of global exploitation and oppression, with Israel being a key link in that chain, is more important than even winning an election! 

Trump Is a Genocidal Fascist 

And if anyone thought that for whatever reason (like his differences with the Democrats over Ukraine or his reported personal beef with Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu) Trump would pull the plug on U.S. backing for Israel’s genocide, look what he has done already, even before he is in power!

Trump told Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza, with the implication that means do away with pretending to protect Palestinian civilians. And he has signaled how his regime will deal with the Palestinians by appointing Mike Huckabee to be ambassador to Israel. Huckabee is part of a religious cult that sees the existence of Israel with the borders promised in the Bible as necessary to bring about the second coming of Jesus and the violent destruction of most of humanity. He denies there is even such a thing as the Palestinian people!

Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank region of Palestine are essentially armed camps encircling and isolating Palestinian communities, cities, and farms and a people who have lived there for hundreds and hundreds of years. Many Israeli “settlers” are paramilitary terrorists. The settlements are illegal under international law as they were seized and occupied by Israel in war. On the eve of the first Trump administration, Huckabee visited one settlement (he has visited Israel more than 100 times!) and said: “There are certain words I refuse to use. There is no such thing as a West Bank. It's Judea and Samaria. There's no such thing as a settlement. They're communities. They're neighborhoods. They're cities. There's no such thing as an occupation… The Jews are the occupants.” 

This is more than genocide enabling, this is genocide inciting. And it has been taken as such by the most hardcore and high-ranking Jewish-supremacist fascists in the Israeli government. They have declared that now is the time to openly annex the West Bank into Israel in defiance of international law and the existence of the Palestinian people there.

Under the Democrats, student protesters have been persecuted, faculty fired, protesters brutalized by police. The Democrats joined right in with the MAGA fascists to brand protest and dissent against Israel’s genocide in Gaza as “anti-Semitism.” 

Trump promises worse. Speaking to donors during the campaign, Trump declared, “Any student that protests, I throw them out of the country. You know, there are a lot of foreign students. As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.” And the election of Trump has ripped off the cellar door, setting loose a rabid social base of revenge-lusting, dark-ages racists, woman and LGBT haters, and immigrant haters. Zionist thugs are right at home and right in the mix with these MAGA Nazis.

It’s the SYSTEM

Again: there was nothing good that could have come out of this election for the Palestinian people (or for that matter, for humanity).

Why? In his social media message @BobAvakianOfficial REVOLUTION #7, Why is the U.S. supporting Israel's genocide of Palestinians (posted before Biden was pushed out and replaced by Harris), Bob Avakian (BA) poses, and answers, the essential question that is covered over by the way this system has operated and programmed people to “think”:

Why is Biden, and basically the entire government and ruling class of the U.S., supporting Israel in carrying out genocide against the Palestinian people, before the whole world? Here is the answer to that crucial question:

This is not because of “the power of the Jewish lobby”—or because of some ignorant, ridiculous and outrageous notion that “Jews are controlling everything.” It is because Israel plays a “special role” as a heavily armed bastion of support for U.S. imperialism in a strategically important part of the world (the “Middle East”). And Israel has been a key force in the commission of atrocities which have helped to maintain the oppressive rule of U.S. imperialism in many other parts of the world.

And BA goes on to say:

It’s the system! The system of capitalism-imperialism that Biden serves. The system he has to serve—the system that anybody and everybody has to serve if they want to hold office, and especially “high office,” like president, within this system. That is why Biden is doing what he’s doing—what all these politicians are doing—above and beyond their more narrow personal interests.

It’s the system! This system of capitalism-imperialism that embodies and enforces white supremacy, patriarchal male supremacy and other brutal oppression—this system resting on ruthless life-stealing exploitation of masses of people in this country and literally billions of people worldwide, including more than 150 million children—all enforced with massive violence and destruction, of people and the environment, posing a very real threat to the future and the existence of humanity.

This system that needs to be overthrown at the soonest possible time, through an actual revolution.

Casting Away Illusions Opens the Door to the REAL Solution

It won’t work to try to “use this system” to stop genocide in Gaza. Or for any meaningful change for the better. People tried that last election. I just surveyed the “result.” And I quoted BA to get to the heart of why that was the case and what needs to be done.

But there is a fundamental unity and positive synergy in fighting to stop the most egregious crimes of this system with a cutting edge of building a movement for revolution. Like THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity says: Fight the power, and transform the people, for revolution.

In his social media message @BobAvakianOfficial REVOLUTION #33, Bob Avakian points to powerful and inspiring elements of the uprisings of the 1960s that are extremely relevant to right now, and in particular extremely crucial to those determined to stop the genocide in Gaza, if we are to get to the root of where this horror comes from, and bring about real change. And in that social media message, BA breaks down what we revcoms are doing in this and other struggles:

In taking part, together with others, in protests and resistance against injustice and oppression, we have two basic objectives: To unite all who can be united, in the broadest possible way, on the most principled basis, in the struggle against this injustice and oppression. And to put forth, encourage broad discussion and debate around, and win as many people as possible to, our understanding of the fundamental cause of all this injustice and oppression and what is necessary to put an end to it, and uproot the basis for it: our scientific understanding that all these injustices, all this oppression, is fundamentally rooted in this system of capitalism-imperialism, and—while resistance against this is very important—it will require a revolution to overthrow this system, and bring into being a fundamentally different and truly emancipating system, in order to actually eliminate and uproot all this injustice and oppression.

Right now is the moment to start following BA’s social media messages. And spread them everywhere, including far and wide among those who have been active in struggling to stop Israel’s genocide and free Palestine.