This Week in Fascism:

Sabotaging Elections—and Promoting White Supremacy, Storm Troopers, Muslim Haters, Violent Racist Mobs, Superstition, Immigration Restrictions, and Border Walls

August 3, 2020 | revcom.us

The fascist Trump/Pence regime has been moving rapidly, aggressively, and in many dimensions to develop and implement fascism. Below are some of the measures taken this past week alone.

Donald Trump

July 30, Threats to Postpone Elections. The president has no authority to change the legally established date for presidential elections—the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. But Trump has brazenly lied that the upcoming vote is being “rigged” against him. On Thursday, he tweeted the idea of postponing the vote. “With Universal Mail-in Voting (Not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

Other leaders of the fascist regime quickly echoed Trump’s call. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was asked in a Senate hearing if the president could delay the vote, and he responded, “[T]he Department of Justice, and others, will make that legal determination.” The Department of Justice is run by William Barr, a Christian fascist and a ferocious advocate of virtually unlimited executive (presidential) power for Trump.

Top Trump advisor Stephen Miller said on Fox “News” that mail-in ballots during a pandemic would be a “catastrophic problem” and made the completely unsubstantiated claim that millions of non-citizens would vote: “Here is a shocking thing for your audience to consider: nobody who mails in a ballot has their identity confirmed. Nobody checks to see if they’re even a U.S. citizen.” All this is part of what an article at revcom.us described as “systematic efforts by the fascist Trump/Pence regime and its supporters to undermine the integrity of upcoming elections in their favor. This is an extremely dangerous attack on democratic—and in the case of Black people, extremely hard fought—rights, and escalation toward fascist consolidation.”

People in Georgia wait in line to vote, June 9, 2020. Photo AP

July 30, Sabotaging Election by Mail. Trump doesn’t necessarily need to call off the election completely to suppress, sabotage, and cancel it for real. He has been ranting against the U.S. Postal Service for months. In recent weeks, he escalated this into a steady outpouring of tweets and comments that create what CNN calls “the groundwork for the doubt and suspicion he could cast on election results if counting mail-in ballots ultimately delays the declaration of a winner.” Trump has warned that voting by mail will end in a “CORRUPT ELECTION” that will “LEAD TO THE END OF OUR GREAT REPUBLICAN PARTY” and the “SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES.”

A Trump-appointed Postmaster General has actively undermined the functioning of the Postal Service exactly at a time when tens of millions of people are increasingly dependent on it, because of the spread of the coronavirus. Wendy Fields, the executive director of the Democracy Initiative, said to the New York Times, “We have an underfunded state and local election system and a deliberate slowdown in the Postal Service.... [Trump is] deliberately orchestrating [voter] suppression and using the post office as a tool to do it.”

With Federal Stormtroopers being pulled back for now, Portland cops resume the assault on protesters, August 1. (Photo: @PDocumentarians)

July 29, Federal Storm Troopers Pull Back in Portland (for now). Under an agreement reached between the Trump/Pence regime and the Democratic leadership of Portland and Oregon, the federal paramilitary force that had rampaged throughout Portland for several days withdrew from central Portland. However, on July 31, Chad Wolf, the acting Homeland Security secretary, told Fox “News” that federal “law enforcement officers that have been there over the past 60 days will remain in Portland until we are assured that the plan that has been put in place by the governor and Oregon State Police will be effective night after night.” He added an additional threat, saying Trump “continued to talk about” the option of sending the National Guard to Portland.

Federal agents were sent to Portland, Oregon, in July. Photo: Doug Brown, Oregon ACLU

July 29, Expanding “Operation LeGend.” “Operation LeGend” is a federal “anti-crime” initiative to send armed agents into cities with large Black and/or Latinx communities. It involves hundreds of federal pigs drawn from the FBI, ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives), and DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency). Two hundred have already been sent to Kansas City and 200 are slated for Chicago. Discussing Operation LeGend on July 23, Trump said, “We’ll go into all the cities, any of the cities,” with 50,000 to 75,000 federal agents.On July 29, William Barr announced that more are being deployed to Milwaukee, Detroit, and Cleveland, and a day later Barr announced that 35 federal agents were now deployed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Keeping Trump’s call for 50,000 to 75,000 agents in mind, these deployments are likely just a foot in the door, with more to follow. (See Revolution article and Revolution Club leaflet for more on Operation LeGend.)

Trump flew to Florida and spoke to scores of assembled pigs at the Tampa airport. Photo: AP

July 31, “Love Affair” with Police. Trump flew to Florida and spoke to scores of assembled pigs at the Tampa airport. He told them, “There’s a big love affair between us and law enforcement, and it’s especially great in Florida.” He said if Joe Biden and other Democratic Party politicians in the scheduled November elections win, “There will be no safety, no security, no peace, no justice, no one to protect you and no one to defend the American way of life.... American families will be at the mercy of the violent left wing mob that you’ve been watching on television”—meaning people in Portland and elsewhere righteously protesting police murder and brutality.

Projection of George Floyd in front of Confederate General Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Virginia, July 28. Photo: AP

July 29, Promoting White Supremacy, 1: Trump Pledges to Protect Robert E. Lee and Other Champions of Slavery. In a partially recorded conversation between Trump and James Inhofe, a leading Republican senator, about the possibility of changing the names of military bases named after Confederates, Trump prodded Inhofe, “We’re going to keep the name Robert E. Lee, right?” Inhofe responded, “Just trust me. I’ll make it happen.” Robert E. Lee was the head of the Confederate slaveowners’ military. A week earlier, Trump had tweeted, “I spoke to highly respected (Chairman) Senator @JimInfhoe, who has informed me that he WILL NOT be changing the names of our great Military Bases and Forts, places from which we won two World Wars (and more!). Like me, Jim is not a believer in ‘Cancel Culture’”

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This archival photo from the 1950s is what these fascist rulings are leading to, no more low-income housing for people of color.

July 29, Promoting White Supremacy, 2: Trump Ends Fair Housing Provisions. In a series of tweets and a talk in Midland, Texas, Trump boasted that he had ended a fair housing rule from Obama’s presidency that was meant to curtail housing discrimination. He said, “You know the suburbs, people fight all of their lives to get into the suburbs and have a beautiful home. There will be no more low-income housing forced into the suburbs.... It’s been going on for years. I’ve seen conflict for years. It’s been hell for suburbia.” He had tweeted earlier in the day that (white) suburbanites would “no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood.” Trump’s appeal to white suburbanites openly echoes a battle cry of white supremacy dating back to the nakedly segregationist George Wallace.

Homeless man living in a shelter in Florida, spared eviction for the moment. Photo: AP

July 31, Deaths from COVID-19 in U.S. Reach 150,000. U.S. coronavirus infections reached an all-time high, with 1.9 million new cases reported in July, more than double the number reported in June. Deaths from COVID across the U.S. in July totaled 25,259, up by 3,700 from June. People of color continue to be impacted disproportionately. The Washington Post reported that “in recent weeks, Hispanics and Native Americans have made up an increasing proportion of covid-19 deaths. The disease now accounts for nearly 20 percent of all deaths among those groups, higher than any other race or ethnicity.” Meanwhile, Trump and his son Donald Jr. promoted anti-science superstition and videos of quack right-wing doctors, and attacked science and those promoting it. Trump and Pence are responsible for the unnecessary deaths of tens of thousands of people from COVID-19.

Tony Tata on Fox News in 2015.

July 29, Pushing a Muslim Hater for Top Pentagon Position. Trump nominated retired U.S. Army general and Fox “News” commentator Anthony Tata to be the third-highest official in the Pentagon. Tata has repeatedly said and tweeted such statements as “Islam fuels more terror in the modern day than any other religion or ideology,” and “it’s in the Koran, the Islam ‘version of the Bible’. Followers must do as Mohammed preached. It’s that simple. The many jihadists I’ve seen were devout Muslims doing their Islamic duty.” He called Barack Obama a “Muslim” and a “terrorist leader.” The hearing for Tata was postponed by Senate Republicans on July 30, supposedly because time was running out as July ended.

A small group of people protesting the “unconstitutional occupation of American cities” in Portland and elsewhere were assaulted and beaten by a mob of Trump supporters who waved U.S. and Confederate flags and chanted “Blue Lives Matter.” Photo: AP

July 26, MAGA Thugs Assault Demonstrators in Tyler, Texas. A small group of people protesting the “unconstitutional occupation of American cities” in Portland and elsewhere were assaulted and beaten by a mob of Trump supporters who waved U.S. and Confederate flags and chanted “Blue Lives Matter.” Many of the assailants were heavily armed. According to a press release by protesters, Ryan Miller, an organizer of the protest and campaign manager of a Democratic congressional candidate opposing the fascist Louie Gohmert, was “attacked by at least four [fascists], some of whom were armed, and sustained blows to the head and other parts of his body, as well as a large gash under his eye. The incident occurred as officers from the Tyler Police Department drove around the square idly, waving at the Blue Lives Matter counter-protesters who had come to support [Gohmert].”

DACA students protest at ICE headquarters in Arizona after the Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in June in a very limited decision. Photo: AP

July 28, Fascist Regime Announces New Restrictions on DACA, Threatens to End It Altogether. Homeland Security head Chad Wolf issued a memo announcing new restrictions on the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA has enabled about 650,000 undocumented young immigrants, who were brought to the U.S. at an early age, to temporarily live and work in the U.S. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from now on will “Reject all initial requests for DACA and associated applications for Employment Authorization Documents,” and “Reject new and pending requests for advanced parole absent exceptional circumstances.” Also, in direct violation of a court order, DHS changed the time in which people can renew their “deferred action” of deportation to one year from the current two.

Wolf concluded his memo with a threat of further attacks: “As the Department continues looking at the policy and considers future action, the fact remains that Congress should act on this matter. There are important policy reasons that may warrant the full rescission [cancellation] of the DACA policy.”

Saguaro Cactus destroyed to allow wall construction to continue. Photo: Los Angeles Times/Brian van der Brug

July 31, Supreme Court Allows Border Wall Construction to Continue. By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court denied a request from the Sierra Club which would have prevented the government from completing several sections of the border wall that is a cornerstone of the Trump/Pence regime’s anti-immigrant program. In doing so, it overcame rulings of lower courts that would have stopped the regime from spending any more money on the wall that was supposedly intended for other purposes. As the Sierra Club said, the Court’s ruling handed Trump “a complete victory despite having lost in every court.”

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An Impending Disaster and an Urgent Challenge

The above is some of the damage done by the fascist Trump/Pence regime—in one week! The consequences to humanity and the planet if this regime remains in power worsen daily, and will be disastrous if it isn’t stopped.

As we have written, “All this underscores the urgency of confronting the fascist nature, program and danger of the Trump/Pence regime and of building mass political resistance to drive out the Trump/Pence regime from power, #OutNow, as struggles that strengthen and are mutually reinforcing with the Beautiful Rising against police murder and racism.”

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