Meeting the LA Resistance Fighters of July 15
Part 2

by Michael Slate

July 30, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

It took courage to be among the hundreds who gathered at Hollywood and Highland, the site of the Trump Hollywood star, to rally and march against the fascist Trump/Pence regime on July 15 in Los Angeles. Trumpite fascists had threatened the marchers in advance—and they did come out to try to intimidate and silence the protesters, and physically assaulted at least two people.

Michelle Xai of Refuse Fascism Los Angeles, the young woman emceeing the rally, called out the fascists in a strong and spirited rap that got right to what was so important and urgent about the protest, and rallied the people forward:

We’re here on a mission to drive out this fascist regime. These people, what are they representing, what are they opposing? When Donald Trump says make America great again, what is he saying? He’s saying make America white again. He wants to go back to the days when there was a separation, when Black people had to use different bathrooms than white people, when they were treated as less than human. We say NO to that, and we are determined to drive out this fascist regime from power. And we are not going to sit back and wait and see. This fascist in the White House has already shown us what they’re gonna do. They’ve told us what they’re gonna do. And we are not gonna be those good Germans who just sat back when there was bodies all around them and just covered their eyes and pretended like it wasn’t happening. No! We are not gonna go back to those days!... We refuse these fucking ignorant fools trying to intimidate us. They came out here to protect a piece of concrete [the Trump star]. If it wasn’t so dangerous, it would be laughable. But these people are serious—this is how fascism consolidates, through these modern-day brown shirts going around and shutting up all opposition while the people in power continue to carry out these genocidal programs against the masses of people. We should not get distracted. We are on a mission to drive out this fascist regime from power, and we’re not gonna back down from that!

There was a moment where the fascists were chanting “USA, USA, USA,” and the crowd responded with “HUMANITY FIRST, HUMANITY FIRST!” The fascists turned strikingly silent, and the moment had a profound effect on everyone involved.

Who were the 400 resistance fighters doing the right thing, marching against the Trump/Pence regime? They represented a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds, and shared a sense of responsibility to humanity to drive out this fascist regime. Revolution correspondent Michael Slate caught up with a number of them, and shared notes on the scene, who was there, and why.

This is the second part of this series; we will add more in days to come, so stay tuned. See Part One here.

* * * * * * * *

The Trump/Pence Nazis kept sneaking people into the rally and were filming and recording speakers and some of the protesters. Adrianna, a middle-aged professional who heard about the rally on KPFK radio, said that she had to come to the protest. And she made sure she brought her husband and a few friends.

When I asked her to talk with me, she hesitated for a moment and then jumped into it. “I’m worried about not only the political situation here, but also the humanitarian situation in the U.S. I don’t even know where to begin. It’s just... we’re regressing to I don’t even know where to begin. It’s just we’re regressing to Make America Great Again. When was that? When we had slavery and women weren’t allowed to vote? This is such a retrograde moment and it doesn’t need to happen. I mean ultimately we are all after the same thing, I think. But all this bullshit is causing so much noise and we’re at the point where the government has been enabled through a variety of means and we have these boardrooms full of aging white men. I mean, look at it, health care, there’s two women involved in its defense... I mean how are people going to get representation? Anyway, it’s a sad state of affairs and I’m just sick of it. I’m not American but this is a global issue. We have to get this fucker out! We just have to get him out.”

I asked her if she thought the Trump/Pence regime was fascist. “Do I think Donald Trump is a fascist? I think one can label it things, but I think that no matter what one calls it, in practice I’m not really interested in naming a group because that’s another step backwards. I think we have to take on actually what’s done like behaviors and policies. And calling one another fascist—like they’re calling us fascist—and few people have a sense of the historical meaning of this term. I think we have a frightening situation globally. You know, this is the last moment we really have.”

Adrianna’s friends called to her to make sure she stayed together with them. Before she left, I asked her what she thought it would take to get Trump/Pence out of power. “My sense, observing various precedents and looking at it—be it the Ukraine—I mean, I dread to say it, but I think this is headed towards a violent clash. I think in many ways we are looking at the embers or the sparks of a kind of a civil war in America. Every day there is new shit coming out, right? And whatever momentum we make on one end, there’s an equal one happening on the other end where things are being rewritten, the public is forgetting.

“You know, like it should have ended at pussy grabber as far as I’m concerned. But there is kind of this collective amnesia that takes hold. Everyone has things at stake, you know? And you get into your sealed kind of life and so the system is geared against resistance. You know, everyone has their jobs, their families. I think what we need to do is organize and understand that if we all got on the same page. It’s kind of sad, kind of disappointing, but if all of these factions were organized in a way where we could literally just go to Washington and just take over the Mall, you know, like drill down, chain ourselves there, and take the hits... it’s now or never. Right, it’s now or never. And it’s just gonna get worse from here... so... when do you want to make the sacrifice? Now, or have sacrifices foisted upon you later on?

“If we had millions of people it would happen. You know, it’s just... it’s a mixture of apathy, other responsibilities, and general confusion; there’s a lot of antagonistic forces. The web is saturated with complete bullshit and people don’t have the critical capacity to kind of evaluate it as such. And that’s largely because Fox News is the watched broadcast in the U.S. How do you react against that? How do you demote the forces that have been able to sell to the level where they essentially control so many communicative outlets?

“You can probably tell I’m somewhat disheartened. They need to be removed. But, I hate to say it, but having followed this whole process really closely and kind of understanding the signals for the emergence of a totalitarian and so deeply embedded system, the only thing we can really do is we have to come together. It sounds cliché and perhaps it is, but it’s now or never. And it’s getting increasingly difficult. So I think people are gonna have to say we’re gonna take the hits. We’re gonna have to get maybe hurt, right? For a long game, kind of an end goal of dislodging this because it’s just sick. It’s a sick thing to watch.”

* * * * * * * *

When I left Adrianna and started walking through the crowd again, I felt a tug on my shoulder. I turned around to see a Latino man in his mid-20s. Mario told me he had been listening to my conversation with Adrianna and really wanted to talk with me. He said he feels doubly downpressed by Trump—he’s Latino and he’s gay. “What brought me here is this regime. You see, I don’t celebrate it to begin with. Racism has been disguised and among other things, judgments and prejudices against minorities. Minorities fighting minorities—this is the shit that Trump has awoken. I mean it was never absent to begin with, but it’s energized. And that has to stop! Our world has to come together. We are the future....

“Are we gonna live in an era where it’s just dark? Where it’s just the rich are getting richer and the poor keep dying? No! If we have resources and we have people that are willing and involving the government and involving science and other organizations, why oppose that for your own country? We need to move forward. This country is dying.”

When I asked Mario if there was something in particular that this regime had done that motivated him to be here, he looked at me like I was crazy. “To be completely honest with you, there is more than one thing that he has done. Among others, this ridiculous health care reform. My mother is going to lose coverage. My mother has a terminal illness. My mother worked for 20 years, owned a business, lost everything in the recession, came back on her feet. Everything she has left is her coverage. If you take that away from her, that’s it, you basically took away everything. It’s like you took all of her. Honestly, it’s just not fair for someone like my mother, who came to this country to fight for her children, to raise her children without a father because the father was this abusive person, dealing with drugs and what have you. You know people like that, like my mother and other women, are gonna lose their health care and their rights. It’s just not right. It’s inhumane; we are literally sending people to their deaths. And I don’t sit right with that. I don’t know how people sleep at night with that thought.

“Among other things, it is obviously the targeting of the LGBT community. I mean we have been fighting this fight for, I believe, more than one decade. That’s enough, that’s enough! I think the picture is pretty clear, we’re not going anywhere. So yeah, those particular things I must say. Also, the targeting of people of color. That also has got to stop. That infuriates me.”

Mario had heard me ask Adrianna if the Trump/Pence regime was fascist, and he wanted to speak on that. “I do believe that the Trump/Pence regime is a fascist regime. And like I said, it’s been around, it’s just energized right now and we must fight back. People need to understand this. This is our reality, this is not superstition. This is not some illusion. It’s happening right in front of us and we need to fight back. Everything that they’re doing, we need to be observing very closely. We need to keep our eyes on them. This is haunting. We can’t just let it happen. We need to stay on top of it. People need to wake the fuck up. It’s happening to someone in their family and they don’t even know it.”

* * * * * * * *

I stepped into a small corner store to get some water. When I came out, an older Black woman was on the sidewalk urging people to stop and be part of the rally. She had picked up a flyer about the demonstration and said that it had said everything she was thinking. She said that she was retired and living on a fixed income, and once she read about this demonstration she just had to be here.

She explained what compelled her to be there. “The fact that people are getting together. You can’t just sit back and yell at the TV, you’ve got to get out here and be part of this. And say we gotta get rid of this person that’s in the White House that is pulling down our government, our democracy and just destroying our country with all of his terrible scandals and all of his nothing ever happening policies and the environment and everything. So that’s why I’m here.

“It’s the Trump/Pence regime that is trying to undo our health care system. That’s gonna kill everybody in our country. And also our environment, he’s trying to destroy our environment. And then the education system—he’s just an awful person and so that’s why I’m here. He’s a fascist, he’s an awful person, that’s what I think. What’s it going to take to get rid of the Trump/Pence regime? People coming together. You’ve got to get your butt out and vote. There’s the Republican machine that’s trying to keep him in there so they can push all their stupid policies. And you gotta get him out of there. How are you gonna do that? You have to all get together and work at doing it with a unified front so that you can get together and fight this man and his policies and the Republicans minions that he has there fighting with him and all their crookedness and their scandals.”

I asked her if she thought it important that I wasn’t just talking about Trump but about the Trump/Pence regime. She was quick to answer. “Absolutely! This is my thing. I can’t never see why if the president goes, then the vice-president comes in next. They came in as a package, they should go out as a package. That was my thing.”

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