In the past two months—especially in the face of his mounting indictments and trials—Trump has escalated threats of violence against his “enemies,” both in rival sections of the ruling class1 and among the masses of people, especially Black people.
This is not new. In early 2020, Bob Avakian authored a 10-part series (“Donald Trump—GENOCIDAL RACIST”) that amassed a ton of evidence of this. But Trump’s attacks on Black people are getting more open, frequent and violent.
Here are a few examples.
Trump Marks Anniversary of Racist Mass Murder with Photo Op at Store that Markets Guns to Racists
On August 26, 2023, a young white supremacist shot three Black people dead, then killed himself at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville, Florida.2 He carried a pistol, and an assault rifle with a painted-on Nazi swastika. Etched on it was the name of the store he got it from: Palmetto State Armory.
On the one-month anniversary of these murders, an older and vastly more powerful white supremacist, Donald Trump, posted a video of himself visiting a Palmetto State Armory store and posing with a special “Trump 45th” edition Glock handgun depicting his likeness.
Palmetto openly pitches itself to white supremacists. In 2009, Republican Congressman Joe Wilson shouted “You Lie” at the U.S.’s first and only Black President (Obama) during a major speech. Wilson’s son is a partner in the company that owns Palmetto. Palmetto soon featured a gun with “You lie” etched on it!
Other Palmetto weapons feature slogans and imagery of the “boogaloo” movement whose objective is “a race war and the ultimate extermination of nonwhites and ‘undesirable racial elements among the remaining White population.” (italics added)
As Issac Baily of the Charlotte Observer put it, “Trump’s visit to Palmetto State Armory wasn’t a dog whistle. It was a call to act, much like his ‘stand back, stand by’ command to the Proud Boys months before the violent attack on the Capitol in Washington, D.C.”
Trump Calls for Summary Execution of Shoplifters
For months, news media and politicians have been whipping up hysteria about cities like San Francisco being “ruined” by a combination of Black youths shoplifting at department stores, homeless people living in encampments, and desperate immigrants seeking a way to survive in American cities. GIFs of groups of youths in hoodies flash-mob looting stores have become a staple of news shows.3
Trump jumped into this in a big way, and in an October 3 speech to California Republicans, he offered a “solution”: “We will immediately stop all of the pillaging and theft. Very simply: If you rob a store, you can fully expect to be shot as you are leaving that store.”
This got a resounding and lengthy roar of cheering approval from the crowd.
Now, the reality is that most shoplifters are white (under 10 percent are Black).4 But facts are irrelevant to what Trump is doing. Given the pervasive racism in this country, Trump knows he can count on his base “understanding” that “thief” means Black youth. And from there he is empowering racist pigs, security guards, or any other racist with a gun to on-the-spot execute any of these youths suspected of crime—even petty, nonviolent crime. We already regularly see young Black people shot down by cops or “civilians” for things like jogging in white neighborhoods, and Black children killed for playing with toy guns. Where is Trump’s “plan” going to take things?
Trump’s Racist Insults Against Black Judges and Other Officials
As noted earlier (see footnote #1), Trump has been threatening his ruling class opponents and rivals with increasing intensity, and that includes plenty of white people.
But there is a special venom and purpose to his attacks on Black officials. He declared that New York Attorney General Leticia James5 is “corrupt and racist,” “rogue,” “out of control.” He glares at her angrily in the courtroom and has told reporters “You ought to go after” her. He claimed that Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis6 was involved in a sexual affair with “a Gang Member of a group she is prosecuting.” He alleged that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan7 is “highly partisan” and “very biased and unfair.” In addition, he has described Washington, DC and Atlanta, Georgia—cities with majority Black populations and political establishments—as “very corrupt.”
The two threads running through these unfounded charges are a) that Black officials are incapable of treating white men (like Trump) fairly and should not be allowed to handle their cases, and b) all Black people—even those with decades in the legal system who are highly respected—are essentially “criminals,” “corrupt,” etc. and should not have any authority over white people.
Extreme Dangers… and Potential to Wrench Something Truly Emancipating
All this is extremely dangerous. As Bob Avakian (BA) points out, when Trump or other fascists “blatant racism”
that is not just a matter of their “personal opinion” or “personal bias.” It is an open declaration of the intent to make that racism, and everything that is bound up with it, official government policy, with the forceful backing of the full power of the state (the police, armed forces, courts, prisons, and so on), as well as racist “militias” and other armed fascist goons (the modern-day equivalents of the Ku Klux Klan and the lynch mobs of the era of open, “legalized” segregation and “second class status” for Black people).8
But in the same work where he brings this out, BA also emphasizes that this extreme situation, with the rulers of this system at each other’s throats, and with the old norms and nostrums—that once seemed to “justify” and “hold together” the unjust order which we suffered under—coming apart or being revealed as bullshit
holds the potential for something truly emancipating—an actual revolution to overthrow this system, in this most powerful capitalist-imperialist country, and bring into being a radically different and far better system—a potential which has the possibility to become a reality.
This will not happen automatically; it requires revolutionaries to fully confront the seriousness of what is happening and challenge thousands of others to do the same:
getting out the message broadly among the people, shining a light on the deeper reality of what is happening and why, bringing out that there IS an alternative to living this way, and struggling with people to break with all their wrong ways of thinking and get with the revolution.
Things are rapidly coming to a head, here and around the world, and two very different potential futures confront humanity.
As part of building up the forces for revolution to wrench out a positive future, the revcoms are Fighting the Power, and Transforming the People, for Revolution:
involving masses of people in rising up to resist the continuing crimes of this system, and defending people from attacks on their rights and their lives by racist, woman-hating and anti-LGBTQ thugs, in and out of government... winning people to the scientific understanding that we do not have to live this way—that this system of capitalism-imperialism is the root cause and fundamental source of all the unnecessary suffering that masses of people are subjected to, here and throughout the world, and poses a growing threat to the very existence of humanity through the accelerating destruction of the environment and increasing danger of nuclear war—and that we need to, and can, bring a whole different and much better system and world into being through revolution.
As we began this article: What Are YOU Going To Do?
