New York Times opinion writer David French began a recent column (“This Is Not a Drill,” February 1) with: “It’s only February, and the November elections are already in peril.” He asks readers to imagine the scene in this country a few days before the November mid-terms: word of ICE carrying out operations near polling stations cause many voters to stay away… citizens with Latin-, African- or Asian-sounding names are purged from voter rolls… the FBI raids state election offices, and Republican officials take over running of elections in some Democrat-led cities, based on Trump’s accusations about “fraudulent elections”… and more. As French rightly notes, nothing about this all-too-real scenario on the elections is “far-fetched,” and some of it is already happening. 

But in the second paragraph of his column, French goes way off track on facts when he writes: “When I think back to the days and weeks before Jan. 6, 2021, one thing that’s clear is that many of us suffered from a failure of imagination. We knew President Trump’s lies and conspiracy mongering were dangerous, but it’s hard to think of a single person who predicted that a MAGA mob would storm the Capitol.”

Not “a single person”? Definitely not true! Revolutionary leader Bob Avakian (BA) clearly warned that Trump was not going to accept a defeat and could mobilize MAGA mobs to try to overturn election results. Take, for example, this from a September 2020 article by BA:

Another thing that must not be forgotten is that Trump has not only justified and supported but openly encouraged violence by armed white supremacist storm troopers (what he calls “Second Amendment people”). He has supported police violently attacking protesters and utilized armed forces of the government to attack and suppress protests, in Washington, D.C., in Portland and other cities. There is already plenty of evidence—and more evidence comes out all the time—that (assuming the election is actually held) regardless of the actual outcome of the election, Trump will declare himself the winner and use whatever means he can, including violence, to stay in power.

As BA noted, various “fanatical backers of this regime, in and out of government, have called on its supporters to arm themselves in preparation for the election.” And, very importantly: “It would be a very grave mistake to fail to take seriously what is being openly proclaimed by Trump and his fascist supporters.” BA didn’t “predict” the exact form this would take—the storming of the Capitol by Trump’s fascist mob on January 6—but the coup attempt was precisely the kind of thing BA was warning about when he said Trump would “use whatever means he can, including violence, to stay in power.”

If this prescient alarm were pointed out to French, he might (lamely) say, “I never heard of Bob Avakian…” Well, that is a big problem—it is unacceptable that supposedly “knowledgeable” people like French and others opposed to Trump are ignorant of, or even consciously turn away from, the work that BA has done, and continues to do, over many decades on fascism (see “Bob Avakian’s Work on Fascism: 1996-2025”), let alone attempting to bring about an emancipating society. 

As for his work analyzing the source of and sounding the alarm on fascism, BA noted last fall:

Over the past 30 years, I have analyzed how the Republican Party has been moving in a fascist direction since the 1960s, with further leaps since then to becoming more and more openly fascist. And now, with the “second coming” of the Trump regime, this fascism is on an unrestrained rampage.

It would have been far better—we would very possibly not be faced with the terrible situation we are now forced to confront—if this analysis, sounding the alarm about very real fascism, had not been so often ignored, or met with stubborn resistance and cheap accusations of being dishonestly “alarmist.” In a number of critical situations over the past decades, those of us who have recognized this developing fascism for what it is, have called for massive mobilization to defeat it—but, although some responded to this call, the millions who should have taken it up did not do so. So, now, here we are. And, while we should not “live” in the past, we definitely should learn from it. 
(From social media message REVOLUTION #141—“The Time Is Urgently Upon Us Now—To Drive Out The Trump Fascist Regime!”)

Along with sounding the alarm, BA has deeply and repeatedly gone into how this fascism emerged out of the history of this country and the system of capitalism-imperialism that rules over us—as he says, there is a “direct line” from the Confederacy to the Trump/MAGA fascists. Over the past 30 years, he has scientifically analyzed the trajectory of this fascism. As Lenin once said, "Miraculous prophecy is a fairy tale. But scientific prophecy is a fact.”

And Avakian has done much more. He has laid bare—both on a high theoretical level as well as with penetrating exposures—how this entire system, whether in its normal “democratic face” or now in its openly fascist one has, by its very nature, led to horror after horror for people here and around the world… and how only an actual revolution can lead to finally ending the immense and needless suffering caused by this system. He has shown that we are now in a rare time when revolution in this country, the most powerful and destructive empire in history, is more possible. And he is the author of the Constitution for a New Socialist Republic in North America, a sweeping vision, firm foundation, and concrete plan for a radically different and much better system—one, incidentally, with far greater provision for dissent and far stronger protection of the rights of the individual than the U.S. Constitution.

The world is at a crossroads—humanity is face-to-face with existential dangers of global climate catastrophe and increasing threat of all-out nuclear war… even as the new communism brought forward by Bob Avakian has opened up a whole new framework for human emancipation. The hour is late—it is way past time for all those agonizing about where humanity is headed to have the integrity and courage to look into Bob Avakian’s work with open hearts and minds.