Within 12 hours of being installed as president, Donald Trump signed over forty Executive Orders. These Orders are a way for the president alone to make rapid, major changes in government policy and personnel, without having to pass or repeal any legislation.
Trump’s wave of directives amounts to a dramatic move to consolidate fascist rule in the U.S., and to do it in a way that is meant to stun and demoralize the tens of millions of people who oppose fascism. The Orders range from pardoning 1,600 fascists who were convicted of crimes related to Trump’s January 6, 2020 attempted coup; to denying the humanity and the very existence of transgender people; to barring the teaching of the truth about America’s ugly white supremacist history; to ending the admission of refugees into the U.S.; to laying the groundwork for detaining and deporting millions of people who have lived and worked in the U.S. for years and decades.
These Executive Orders can be challenged by lawsuits in court on various grounds. And there are already cases being filed. But the federal courts—and especially the Supreme Court—are dominated by fascists who agree with this fascist program. Even so, these lawsuits can play an important role in resisting Trump’s blitzkrieg assault, and can also provide sparks and openings for broad sections of society to surge into mass uncompromising resistance in a way that can make it impossible for the fascist program to be imposed.
As the revolutionary leader Bob Avakian has said @BobAvakianOfficial social media message REVOLUTION #111, "...It is not a time for turning inward and attempting to ‘take care of self’ as the juggernaut of Trump/MAGA fascism gains momentum and crushes masses of people. This is a time for reaching out to all the others who feel the same outrage at Trump/MAGA fascism—a time for collective action and self-sacrificing struggle for the greater good: the greater good of defeating this fascism.”
The articles in this series identify and explain some of the most serious of these atrocities-in-motion.
