May 26 It is four months into the Trump/Pence Regime, and the enormous damage that this regime is doing to lives here and around the world is starkly posed to billions of people. Everyday, in a relentless barrage, there are new horrific measures taken, new outrages proposed. There has been significant opposition, but yet, in many ways, the regime is being normalized, accepted as an awful fact of life, even as millions remain profoundly upset and outraged with many in active opposition.
The Trump/Pence Regime has run into significant obstacles to implementing several aspects of their program and is the subject of investigation. This has influenced many of those opposed and resisting to hope that the normal channels of the system – whether through a process like impeachment, or the elections in 2018 or 2020 will remedy the situation. At the same time, it is still the case today that the Trump/Pence regime has not been able to implement a full out fascist program and effectively outlaw protest, even as they have put in place many draconian measures with more serious assaults on rights potentially imminent in the pipeline.
Since just before the Trump/Pence inauguration in January there have been periodic mass mobilizations of opposition to the regime, from the Women’s March to the Science and Climate Marches. Congressional Town Hall Meetings have become protests against the murderous plan to take health care away from millions of people. Sanctuary cities and places have been declared along with many other protests and actions.
Since mid December, RefuseFascism has been in the midst of all of this with the NO! In the Name of Humanity We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America signs and campaign and has organized contingents in the big protests and held countless smaller protests. We have organized teach-ins and forums and distributed hundreds of thousands of the only statement that identifies the Trump/Pence Regime as Fascist, that goes deeply and sharply into the grave danger to humanity if people normalize, accommodate, conciliate or collaborate with this fascist regime – saying straight up that waiting for the elections of 2018, 2020 is a disastrous course. RefuseFascism has put in front of the world that you can’t wait out fascism. It can become too late. The RefuseFascism Call to Action was published as a full-page ad in the New York Times and Washington Post before the inauguration. RefuseFascism has put before the world its objective to Drive Out the Trump/Pence Regime through mobilizing millions to take to the streets, day after day and night after night, demanding the ouster of the whole cabal.
In April, RefuseFascism launched 10 Days of Resistance, which focused on uniting with and influencing the April 22 Science March, the April 29 Climate March, and the May 1 actions for immigrants’ rights – as opportunities to both strengthen these protests and to make a major leap in the level of organization and impact of Refuse Fascism. The three major components of our plan were: 1) massive NO! Contingents in each of these protests; 2) an Emergency National Teach-In on Fascism in America; and 3) dramatic actions calling out the rising fascism of Trump/Pence on Holocaust Remembrance Day bringing forth the message of Never Again should people stand aside and not do everything in their power to stop a fascist regime from consolidating its grip on society.
No sooner were the 10 Days over then RefuseFascism recognized the need to jump into the Battle of Berkeley which became a focal point of struggle nationally when fascist intellectual point people, like Ann Coulter, defending the Trump regime while pushing it to move faster, were scheduled to speak on campus as part of the legitimating fascism and erasing centers of progressive thought such as Berkeley. RefuseFascism united with broad forces to prevent this and held an important program on the University of California campus.
Right after this, a pivotal national political crisis opened up with Trump’s firing of FBI Director James Comey and a subsequent string of events that raised the specter of the President and his administration obstructing justice. The RefuseFascism Advisory Board issued an important statement and we mobilized emergency protests and other actions around the country to respond.
In sum, RefuseFascism went from a month of intense organizing and struggle in April culminating in the 10 days, and then rolled right into the throes of struggle this month without being able to catch our breath and take the time to sum up the impact of our work, and objectively evaluate the positive progress and the very real shortfalls and shortcomings in organizing the movement that is needed to actually drive out the regime. And, now, in late May, the fascist social base that Trump whipped up during the Presidential campaign are on the move calling reactionary rallies from Virginia to NYC, and they have been doxxing the RefuseFascism list of signatories stating they intend to harass people.
So we face a situation where we must sum up “on the march” while we are fighting forward. Time must be carved out for summing up in the midst of meeting and defeating the attacks of the fascists as part of building for the time when millions can be mobilized to drive out the regime. Without stepping back and making an accurate assessment of how the political situation developed and changed, our impact on it, the impact of other forces and where things are at now in stopping this regime, we will not fight forward as effectively as we must.
Our Orientation to summing up our experience:
We want to be discussing with people who are a part of RefuseFascism, as well as more broadly, the challenge of how to expand the ranks and heighten the impact of RefuseFascism, exponentially, in this period, including the problems in doing so. As a pivotal part of this, we recognize that what RF is calling for is hard—it requires that people “get out of their comfort zone” and act out of the established political channels. The RefuseFascism Call to Action challenges a lot of illusions that people have, and that many want, including rather stubbornly, to cling to, about this country, its character and history and its “democratic institutions.”
What RefuseFascism is calling for is harder than protest and “resistance” which remains within those established channels and “norms” and doesn’t require breaking with those illusions.
RefuseFascism does not dismiss or denigrate other acts of protest and resistance. Much of the protest that broad numbers of people have taken up has been important and righteous, and RefuseFascism is committed to working for such protest to be built even more powerfully. The point, as we have also stressed, is that it is not enough, that things have to build toward what is commensurate with what is actually happening: a fascist regime is in power and is moving to ram through its fascist program, which actually poses an existential threat to humanity (nuclear war threats, climate change denial and corresponding actions by this regime) and in any case will be disastrous for humanity, but this regime has not yet fully consolidated its hold on things and has not yet crushed the opposition to it, of various kinds, and the urgent response to this situation must not just be different acts of resistance and mobilization of opposition, as important and positive as that can be, for that can ultimately be absorbed and/or outright suppressed by this regime; the point is precisely to move millions and millions of people to get and stay in the streets, to drive out this regime through massive political mobilization, before the regime has fully consolidated its grip on things and has gutted and crushed the opposition.
This reality—what the stakes are and what is demanded because of that, but also what is holding masses of people back from actually doing this—is what we need to openly put on the table and dig into, and struggle over, as we sum up and fight forward both with those who are drawn toward RefuseFascism, as well as masses of people more broadly. To build the type of struggle and organize the movement necessary to lead it, will require discussing these points repeatedly, deepening our own and the peoples’ understanding more broadly.
But—and this is also very important—this needs to be done in the context of uniting with people who are opposing and resisting, while boldly spreading the message (Call to Action) of RefuseFascism and actively developing, on an ongoing basis, the ways for people to act that are meaningful and “impactful” in themselves, but most of all build toward the basis for mobilizing the millions and millions who must be mobilized to drive out this fascist regime, while there is still the possibility to do so, a possibility which may not last that much longer.
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This orientation should be discussed in its own right. We would like to hear from you, your assessment of what we have done and where we are at – chapters and individuals should feel free to write.
One important proposal to assist in summation is for people to watch the National Teach-In videos, which dig into the fascism we face and what to do about it in a profound way. And discuss this in light of the orientation above.
Some questions to provoke thinking:
* What do you think about the point that what we are calling for is hard – it is outside the normal political and even protest channels and requires people to get out of their comfort zone, and yet, because of what we face, it is also the necessary way forward?
* For those who are throwing in with RefuseFascism, why? For those who are drawn to our message but still staying in their “comfort zone” why? What do you think we need to do to break more people out of their “comfort zone” and into mass independent political resistance?
* What questions do you have about how we can succeed in driving the regime out?
* What ideas do you have for “actively developing, on an ongoing basis, the ways for people to act that are meaningful and “impactful” in themselves, but most of all build toward the basis for mobilizing the millions and millions who must be mobilized to drive out this fascist regime, while there is still the possibility to do so, a possibility which may not last that much longer”?
* What did you learn from the Teach-In?
We look forward to hearing from you – your thinking in summation, and your thoughts about fighting forward.