By Coco Das – Refuse Fascism
This article was written and released in late 2017. We are reposting now because the central argument is still true and should be re-considered in the context of recent events. While the Trump/Pence regime has faced more challenges, including an impeachment through which Donald Trump could have been removed from office, the masses of people have not yet stepped outside the normal channels to flood the streets in sustained, non-violent mass protest demanding that the regime must go. Countless examples – in Egypt, South Korea, Armenia, Sudan, Algeria, Puerto Rico, and more – have shown that a movement of people from below can create a political crisis that succeeds in driving out tyrannical regimes. The latest vengeance-fueled actions of the Trump/Pence regime confirms a pattern: every crisis this regime makes it through has put it on a firmer footing to consolidate its fascist rule.Since the middle of October, Refuse Fascism also launched the #OUTNOW! movement, modeling week after week protests and then day after day protests in D.C. during the Senate impeachment trial. Certain flashpoints, such as the House and Senate votes on impeachment and acquittal, as well as the 2020 women’s march, did bring thousands into the streets for a few hours. But the overall dynamic remains that the millions who hate this regime are sitting back and waiting for this catastrophe to resolve itself through the elections or the separation of powers, even as they’ve watched how inadequate these have been for stopping this regime. In the meantime, the regime is going even more viciously after immigrants and refugees, stacking a record number of judges into the courts, eroding the rights of women and LGBT people, gutting the rule of law, pouring gasoline on the climate crisis, emboldening armed white supremacists, and succeeding in implementing its nightmare vision of society.We invite everyone who recognizes the need for sustained mass non-violent protest, and everyone who sees the danger the Trump/Pence regime poses to humanity, to join with us in this struggle. Nothing short of driving this regime from power at the soonest possible time will resolve the crisis humanity faces. What kind of crisis will we bring to stop a regime that must be stopped?
How many of us wish we were going into 2018 without Trump and Pence in the White House?
In its first year, the Trump/Pence regime has proven its resilience, bouncing back from crisis after crisis, shock after shock. The regime has withstood protests, petitions, legal challenges, mockery, twitter storms, and a potentially damning investigation.
But they have not yet faced their biggest challenge, a challenge that could actually stop fascism in its tracks and drive out the whole regime. They have not faced a critical mass of people in the streets day after day declaring them illegitimate and demanding their removal.
Yes, this regime with its eyes on cementing white supremacist, Christian theocratic rule and its finger on the nuclear trigger is still in power. But the potential remains for millions of people to stand on the right side of history, clogging the streets and disrupting business as usual, refusing to allow them to destroy humanity in our name. Over and over again we have seen how swiftly the determined power of the people in the streets can cause a political crisis that forces tyrants to step down. What happens after is not the right question. What happens after is unknown, but what this regime is doing now, and what it plans to do as quickly as possible, is a known horror.
What the Trump/Pence regime has survived thus far is the turbulence it promised, a turbulence necessary for tearing up the existing norms and bringing about a qualitative change in how society is governed. This turbulence will give birth to a new order, the order of fascism, where everyone in society knows their place and doesn’t dare step out of it.
Our movement, aimed at mobilizing the millions of people who can stop this, has faced its own challenges this year, from fascist lies and threats to media white-outs to dismissive shrugs from forces that could play a crucial role in leading us out of this mess but have chosen a different road, a road that leads to accommodation and conciliation even despite their best intentions. Going outside of the normal channels to drive out a fascist regime, in the name of humanity is not an easy path, but it is the right path. As long as fascists remain in the executive branch, with the freedom that gives them to shape the law of the land, the terms we must work with are set by them, and what becomes the norm is the unconscionable.
This opening talk of the Refuse Fascism December conference carefully analyzes the past year of the Trump/Pence regime, as well as the achievements and shortcomings of the movement to drive them out. All of us looking at this reality together, discussing and debating in the spirit of unity, and acting on our shared understanding is crucial to building a sustained political movement that can deal with the crisis at hand. Now is not the time to withdraw and retreat. Now is the time to engage and commit.
There is a world of possibility in the word “yet.” As we move into a new year, whether it is with despair, disbelief, or even some hope that the end of this administration is near, let’s remember that this regime has not yet faced its biggest challenge, a crisis brought about by the people refusing to accept its rule, voting with their feet in the streets, and becoming, en masse, ungovernable.
The power of “yet” is a future still unwritten.