We are writing less than 24 hours after the incident in the lobby of the Washington, DC Hilton Hotel during the annual White House Correspondents' dinner with Donald Trump and key members of his cabinet in attendance, and will update as necessary. A person, reported as Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California, is alleged to have raced through the lobby of the Washington, DC, Hilton with weapons and fired shots at the Secret Service and other police forces, reportedly hitting one Secret Service agent. Allen was quickly subdued before getting close to the doors to the ballroom where the correspondents’ dinner was taking place. No one inside the dinner was hurt, Trump was not injured, and the agent who was reportedly hit by Allen’s gunfire was totally protected by his bulletproof vest. 

Point One: 

At the time we are writing, there is no fully verified accounting of what the objective or motivation of the alleged suspect Cole Tomas Allen was. The right-wing, fascist tabloid, The New York Post, published what is purported to be a letter that Allen wrote to his family expressing a desire to act to address the tremendous harm Trump is doing to the people and fabric of this country. 

Whether or not Allen’s letter is verified as written by him, the actions attributed to him do not in any way contribute to any positive change. And certainly what he is alleged to have done has nothing to do with an emancipating transformation of society, which can only be brought about through a revolution, involving millions of people and aiming to sweep away this whole system and replace its relations and institutions of exploitation and oppression, and its putrid culture, with ones that are liberating and uplifting.

But even without knowing the actual facts of what Allen is alleged to have intended to do or what his motivation was, and even as there were no injuries, this is, nevertheless, a major incident which is already and will continue to have serious implications and consequences in this country and in the world as a whole. The fascist core around Trump in particular has begun to use this for political advantage at a time when Trump is widely perceived to be in political trouble. Already calls to strengthen the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and other notorious systems of repression are being made, as well as groundless attacks on their Democratic rivals as being somehow to blame for this.

This incident—and even the initial reaction to it—is a profound marker of the madness and sharp polarization at all levels of U.S. society at this moment. Speculation, disinformation, political manipulation of the incident are spreading like a toxic wildfire. This does tremendous harm. Anyone who is serious about wanting, let alone being part of acting for positive change, should refrain from making and spreading such public speculation. 

The dangers concentrated in this incident have to be taken very seriously. 

Point Two: The Trump Fascist Regime Must Go Now! 

• Both the sharp divide in this country and the dangers concentrated in the current moment reflect and concentrate that the system of capitalism-imperialism is running up against its limits. Elsewhere on revcom.us we go into the many ways this situation is sharpening, the underlying causes of this, and the avenues through which people can take effective political action. The fact that this system has now brought forward a fascist regime and that this regime continues a genocidal war and amps up its threats and actions against dissenters, makes the need to drive it out through massive, nonviolent political action all the more imperative. (See “Fascists Escalate Repressive Moves: ‘Justice’ Department Indicts Southern Poverty Law Center And Right-Wing Congressman Aims to Ban ‘Advocates of Socialism, Communism’ and Other Beliefs From U.S.,” “MAGA Fascists Target Hundreds of Organizations for Standing with Immigrants” and “Defend the No Kings Coalition from Fascist Attack.”)
• This incident will continue to intensify the divide within the U.S., as well as the attacks on the masses of people here and around the world, which even now pose an existential danger to humanity. There is no living with this fascism—and more fundamentally there is no living under a system that is waging genocidal wars—especially when there is a whole other way we could be living. Get into WE NEED AND WE DEMAND: A WHOLE NEW WAY TO LIVE, A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT SYSTEM.

In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept A Fascist America! Trump Must Go NOW! 

This Whole System Is Rotten And Illegitimate! We need a whole new way to live, a fundamentally different system. We need and we demand: REVOLUTION!