In his November 7, 2020 victory speech, President-elect Biden promised to “marshal the forces of decency,” to “restore the soul of America,” and usher in “a time to heal” after four years of non-stop fascist assault by the Trump/Pence regime.

But the reality of 2021 has been just the opposite: fascist forces have renewed and escalated their drive for power at every level of society, setting the tone and terms of things, while the Democrats, and the millions of decent people who look to them for leadership, have largely been passive and on the defensive.

January 6 Attempted Coup

January 6 set terms for what was to come. Trump and a hardcore of fascist leaders¹ launched a violent coup d’état to illegally keep Trump in power by stopping the process of certification of Biden’s victory.²

Trump’s lunatic supporters, deranged by QANON conspiracies, Christian fundamentalism and virulent racism, were unleashed to attack the Capitol Building. Trump declared, “You’re the real people … And if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” A gallows was erected. Paramilitaries like the Proud Boys provided on-scene tactical leadership as hundreds of cops were beaten, walls scaled, windows smashed, the Capitol overrun. Political leaders were rushed to “safe rooms” as fascists called for their blood. Trump allies delayed deployment of the National Guard to clear the building for hours.

Power hung in the balance as certification was halted. Even when Congress reconvened, 147 Republicans supported the coup by voting not to certify Biden’s victory.³

In the end this coup failed, Biden’s election was certified, and he was inaugurated as president two weeks later. And in the immediate wake of the coup, many Republican leaders like Senator Mitch McConnell distanced themselves from the violence. Even prominent Trump sycophants like Lindsey Graham publicly condemned Trump. And privately (we are now learning through the release of then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows’ personal text traffic) even hardcore fascists like Fox News “personality” Laura Ingraham and Trump’s son Don Jr. were freaked out. But that phase passed very quickly; by the end of January, unquestioning support for Trump had become the hallmark of the entire Republican Party, with those who don’t toe the line largely being driven out of the party. (For more on this, see “The GOP Is Now Solidly United Behind—and Under the Leadership of—the Metastasizing Hard Core of Neo-Nazi Fascists.”)

As for the Democrats, who were the target of this straight-up illegal and violent attack, and who now control the executive branch (including the Department of Justice, FBI, etc.), BA calls attention to the “‘soft’ treatment” of the rioters by the new administration, “… the low level charges and lenient sentences being handed down in the court cases around this, as well as the fact that there has been no move to indict Trump and other top fascist political figures.”

In light of all this, it should be no surprise that the fascist offensive has only grown more aggressive since January 6.

“Stop the Steal”: A Hostile Takeover of the Election Process by Fascists

Bob Avakian has pointed out that the Republicans have become a fascist party, “… a party convinced that only it deserves to rule … refusing to accept the outcome of elections it does not win.” [See “This Is a Rare Time When Revolution Becomes Possible—Why That Is So and How to Seize on This Rare Opportunity.”] 

To the Republi-fascists, being solidly defeated in the 2020 election translated as “the election was stolen,” and gave rise to a full-court press use of their power in the Courts, Congress and state governments to change the rules so that they don’t lose again.

Dozens of court suits were filed, audits and recounts demanded and held in multiple states. These failed to uncover fraud, but succeeded in whipping their base into a frenzy about “election integrity.” As of August 2021, 66 percent of Republicans and 28 percent of independents—tens of millions of people!—believed that the 2020 election was “rigged and stolen.”

Since January 1, 19 states have passed 33 laws to make it harder to vote—especially for people of color. There are laws empowering “poll watchers” to surveil people as they vote⁴; laws that penalize election workers for helping disabled people vote; laws that criminalize distribution of food and water to people waiting on long lines.

Some proposed laws would allow state legislatures to override election results, or to take control of local election boards if they don’t like the results.

Election workers and officials who refused to go along with this have received death threats against themselves and their families. Some faced armed protesters at their homes. One-third of all election officials feel “unsafe” in their jobs!; many are leaving. And as vacancies open up, Republicans are making concerted efforts to fill them with Trump fanatics.

In July Biden spoke on this situation in Philadelphia, saying “We’re facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War” and proclaimed “We’ve got to act!” But since then he and the Democrats have done almost nothing, with Biden instead focusing overwhelmingly on his infrastructure bills, with the idea that dolloping out some funds and projects will “heal the nations divisions,” even as the entire Republican Party unites to disenfranchise Black people and others in the Democratic base! And to a very large extent, the “progressive movement” and other forces that take leadership from the Democrats have failed to even sound the alarm about this extremely serious situation.

Fascist Laws, Regulations and Mobs Are Enforcing What People Dare to Say, Read or Think

Alongside this hostile fascist takeover of the legal and organizational machinery of elections, legislatures, and courts, mobs are increasingly unleashed to forcibly impose key fascist “traditional values”—white supremacy, male domination, super-patriotism, Christian fundamentalism and anti-science lunacy—especially on school children.

According to Education Week, “Twenty-nine states have introduced bills or taken other steps that would restrict teaching critical race theory or limit how teachers can discuss racism and sexism … Thirteen states have enacted these bans, either through legislation or other avenues.”⁵

School boards in Virginia, Kansas, Tennessee have been compiling books to ban from school libraries. Works by renowned Black writers like Toni Morrison, Ta-Nehisi Coates and playwright August Wilson have been banned. Books dealing with the experiences of gay or transgender people have also been targeted. In Virginia board members even argued for book-burning! Teachers have had their jobs threatened for such crimes as having a Black Lives Matter banner in the classroom, or approving a yearbook cover with the words “science is real, Black lives matter, no human is illegal, love is love.”

Public meetings dealing with combating the COVID-19 pandemic are regularly targeted by fascist mobs. After a school board meeting in Williamson County, Tennessee, protesters surrounded a doctor who had testified in favor of students wearing masks, shouting, “You’re a child abuser,” “We know who you are,” and “You’ll never be allowed in public again.” A Board of Education (BOE) member in Ohio received a letter saying “We are coming after you and all the members on the ... BoE.”

In late September the National School Boards Association (NSBA) wrote the federal government detailing multiple threats and disruptions in many states which it likened to “domestic terrorism and hate crimes,” and called for federal intervention. (Watch this CNN YouTube to understand why!) But by late October, pushback from conservative school boards and fascist congressmen led NSBA to apologize for the “language” used in the letter.

And this reached new and ominous heights on November 19, when Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted on murder and all other counts in the vigilante shooting of three Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This entire trial, including the conduct of the judge and most of the press coverage, constituted a normalization of fascist mob violence, punctuated by Rittenhouse’s visit to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago a few days later. (For more, see “Kenosha: White Vigilante Kyle Rittenhouse Acquitted on All Charges in Murder of Two Protesters” at revcom.us.)

Mounting Danger

The more ground is conceded to these fascists, the more aggressive they become—that is reality. To get a sense of this, consider the “signals” sent by the Supreme Court, which now has a 5-4 majority of hardcore fascists. When they met to discuss a Mississippi law that bans almost all abortions after 15 weeks, their appetite to ban abortion entirely was very obvious. One “justice,” Amy Coney Barrett, even suggested that women who don’t want to be parents should remain pregnant, deliver their babies, and—if both mother and child survived—give the child away. What a perfect encapsulation of the fascist vision of women as breeders! (For more, see Interview with Dahlia Lithwick: “We’re Not Going Back ‘Before Roe,’ We’re Headed Somewhere Worse.” at revcom.us.)

Another warning sign—on December 17, the Washington Post published an Opinion piece by three retired U.S. Army generals (“3 retired generals: The military must prepare now for a 2024 insurrection”) warning of the likelihood of another coup. If that happens, they warn of “The potential for a total breakdown of the chain of command along partisan lines—from the top of the chain to squad level” with “rogue units organizing among themselves to support … competing commanders in chief.” The fact that former high-level military leaders see this as a major danger should shatter the complacency and willful denialism that still paralyzes far too many people.

Conclusion

2021: With Trump out, the fascists no longer controlled the White House, but they still have tremendous power within the ruling structures of the U.S., and are leading a movement of tens of millions of increasingly deranged followers, which is meeting little effective opposition from the Democratic Party, or from the millions of decent people who look to the Democrats for leadership. Fascists are on a tear, not just to “regain control of Congress” or the White House, as some think, but to establish, clamp down, and lock in fascist power at every level and in every corner of society.

What has accelerated and come into sharper relief through the last year is what Bob Avakian described in THIS IS A RARE TIME WHEN REVOLUTION BECOMES POSSIBLE—WHY THAT IS SO, AND HOW TO SEIZE ON THIS RARE OPPORTUNITY:

The Republicans have become a fascist party—a party based on open and aggressive white supremacy, male supremacy, and other oppressive relations—a party convinced that only it deserves to rule, moving to manipulate elections and suppress votes in order to gain and hold onto power, refusing to accept the outcome of elections it does not win, determined to gut and pervert “the rule of law,” trample on people’s rights, and adopt what amounts to an undisguised capitalist dictatorship, ready to use violence not only against masses of people but also against its rivals in the ruling class.

These Republicans have mobilized a significant section of people who believe, with an intense, irrational passion, that white supremacy, male supremacy, and other oppressive relations (as well as unrestrained plunder of the environment) must be firmly upheld and enforced. They have been driven to a state of vicious insanity, embracing all kinds of lunatic conspiracy theories, along with a crazed Christian fundamentalism, as a response to the threat they see to their entitled (or “god-ordained”) position and their insistence that further concessions to the struggle against oppression will destroy what has “made America great.”

These divisions have already become deeply rooted in the major institutions of this country, including the military, and they will increasingly become sharper and burst out into the open, as things continue to sharpen up in society overall and within the ruling class.

These deep divisions, this intensifying conflict, cannot be overcome—all this cannot be “put back together”—on the terms, and in the way, that the country has, up to now, been held together under the rule of a more or less unified capitalist class.

For more, read THIS IS A RARE TIME WHEN REVOLUTION BECOMES POSSIBLE—WHY THAT IS SO, AND HOW TO SEIZE ON THIS RARE OPPORTUNITY.