Tomi Lahren is all over the news because of an incident where she was confronted by angry patrons at a bar in Minneapolis who called her out as a racist.
After the incident, Donald Trump tweeted she is “a truly outstanding and respected young woman!” Meaning: Tomi Lahren is a powerful megaphone for this regime and its fascist, white supremacist program. She has a regular audience of millions on Fox News, YouTube videos that reach far beyond the Fox News demographic, over a million followers on Twitter. She associates herself with pop culture and Black culture in order to engage with wider audiences while simultaneously promoting white supremacist theories aimed at invalidating and dehumanizing Black culture and Black people as a whole.
When she spoke at a venue outside Philadelphia last week, Refuse Fascism was there with the message that the Trump/Pence Regime needs to go, and take her with it.
From a Refuse Fascism activist |
![](https://refusefascism.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/tomi-protest-e1527129454271.jpg)
On a rainy Thursday night in Glenside, a quiet suburb of Philadelphia 50 people came together to confront fascism head on.
Tomi Lahren had come to Glenside to kick off her national speaking tour (which only has two stops scheduled so far – Glenside and Minneapolis). Refuse Fascism Philly joined together with local activists and others to mount a powerful opposition raising the demand that the Trump/Pence regime must go and exposing Tomi as a propagandist for the fascists in the White House.
Tomi Lahren would be inconsequential, if not for the Trump and Pence and and the logic of fascism which gives enormous power to lying, racist, sycophants. Her role is essential to the regime – an attack dog on twitter, someone who gives a youthful face to this movement and engages the masses in ways that the great majority of her colleagues simply can’t. Many people who hate this regime have never heard of her, and others often misogynistically dismiss her as ‘just another Fox News blonde,’ or as an opportunist building her brand and trying to get famous, or get attention. This leads a lot of people to dismiss, ignore, play down, and accommodate her. It leads people like Bill Maher and Trevor Noah and Charlemagne tha God to essentially promote her.
And she directs these attacks at the pillars of modern Black culture and icons of resistance: Jay z, beyonce, Colin kaepernick, John Legend, the Central American caravan, etc. “These loudmouth celebrities and ex-football players can’t stand it that after eight years we finally have a president that supports and respects the men and women in blue.” Her engagement with these mainstream audiences also emboldens the broader fascist movement by giving them a feeling of legitimacy, empowering them in popular culture to complement the way trump empowers them in policy and in ‘speaking their mind.’
This show was announced a couple months in advance and once people in the Philadelphia area heard about it, the news spread rapidly. There were thousands of comments on the Keswick Theater’s Facebook announcement of the show, the great majority calling on them to cancel the appearance. The Keswick is a notable concert venue in a very liberal suburban village, especially known for hosting alternative and counter-cultural acts, and many people in the area have strong positive associations with it’s decades of good music.
People called the theater non-stop to try to convince them to cancel the show. But it was out of the management’s hands. While it’s programming has remained pretty constant, the theater was bought a few years ago by AEG , the world’s largest owner of sports teams and sports events and the second largest owner of live music and entertainment events. People contacted artists who were coming to perform to tell them not to do business with fascist collaborators and Radiotopia even cancelled their upcoming tourdate at the Keswick in light of the venue hosting a fascist. Refuse Fascism Philly immediately jumped into the fray, announcing a protest, inviting everyone who was expressing their disgust at this event, and sending out press releases.
While a local church decided to call on people to come to an alternative event, and the local Democratic Committee called on people to patronize the local businesses that night and take up all the parking spots, Refuse Fascism took a clear stand: we are facing a fascist regime and the only way we can create a future worth living in is to bring millions into the streets in sustained, determined, mass protest disrupting business as usual and demanding Trump/Pence must go day after day until they’re gone. So this must become a flashpoint in building that movement. That means bringing people together in protest with the clear demand – the Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
Through the course of those weeks we got involved with a number of local groups that have sprouted up in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump most notably LEARN: the Local Emergency Action Response Network and we held a open meeting at the local library to talk about our vision for the day and how to make that a reality. An interview with a core Refuse Fascism organizer was published in the Philly VOICE in the days leading up to the event. We did street outreach in the neighborhood as well as in the city, and we put out targeted social media advertising, along with other social media outreach. LEARN also did outreach outside of big shows at the Keswick. The neighborhood and surrounding area were all talking about this – and no one knew what the day itself would look like.
All told, about 50 people showed up to protest. We decided on setting up directly across from the theater for a number of reasons but it made the contrast extraordinarily stark. On one side catcalling, jeering misogynists, screaming obscenities, mocking strawmen of their own making, making what they call jokes and intermittently chanting “USA, USA” and “Build the Wall” under Tomi Lahren’s name on the Marquee.
On the other side were a small choir singing songs of protest against racism and hatred, people holding gorgeous banners that read “Trump/Pence Must Go!” “No Pussy Grabbing, No Patriarchy, No Fascist USA,” “This Nightmare Must End” and signs that read “make racists afraid again,” No! In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America,” “Hate has no home here,” “Humanity First,” “Beloved Community,” and “We love people from the world, not just the US.”
We had folks read the Refuse Fascism Call to Action, ending it with a powerful call and response that developed into chanting “Trump/Pence must GO!” A poet, Sharia Wallace, performed, her steady voice rising above the hateful chants of USA coming from across the street:
“…We all nurture our desires,
Breasts filled with expectations,
We nurse our legacy, birth of a nation.
Babes believe what stories we contrive,
Fairy tales of justice that blanket the burden to stay alive
Hands up don’t shoot, unless you’re nba- swish,
Hands up don’t shoot- unless you have a death wish-
a long list- of injustices
We’re on the wrong route/ ask Rosa what bus this is-
Peaceful protest is now what a ruckus is,
They forget the water hose and the Supreme Court justices
Voted against Segregation…”
We played music from Beyonce’s Lemonade, as Tomi has attacked Beyonce repeatedly as part of her frontal assault on Black life. A lot of the young folks in the crowd especially responded to “Sorry.” We had folks speak to “what is Fascism” and an organizer break down who exactly is Tomi Lahren and why are we out here.
Another organizer spoke powerfully to the eight things that people can do right now to build towards the launch of this movement and powerfully called on people to reach deep into their pockets and give. People joined into the “No” chant rising their voices to say “We Refuse a fascist America!” They also joined in a call and response: What do we do when immigrants are under attack” “Standup fight back,” changing the word immigrant to other groups of people that Trump has targeted.
The most popular chant of the night seemed to be “No Trump, No KKK, No fascist USA, sometimes replacing “KKK” with “Tomi.” Tomi went in through the front entrance to rally her troops and, over the visceral chants of “Shame, Shame,” to push the false narrative of the free speech of fascists being under attack, something which has politically paralyzed so many good people. We spoke to this from the mic as well, taking the lead from Sunsara Taylor’s talk at Berkeley last year.
The group was mainly local residents with a few folks who came out from the city, maybe about 75% white people, with a wide spread of ages. People left with materials, taking stacks of copies of the Call to Action and loads of stickers. Everyone was invited to an upcoming screening of Bob Avakian’s film, “THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO! In The Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America: A Better World IS Possible!” While people came from a rich diversity of perspectives, and this area is heavily associated with the “Hate has no home here” slogan, the overwhelming message of the evening, emanating from almost everyone, was centered around the demand that Trump/Pence must go and take Tomi with them. This was something our chapter struggled amongst ourselves over and it was something that we struggled with the masses over in the whole build up to this event through our presentation at the meeting, through our press releases and our interview in the paper, through our flyers and social media graphics. And it was something that came through, not because we hogged the mic or because we spoke or chanted louder but because Refuse Fascism has a demand and a plan that can truly unite all who must be united to make a future that all of these people want and because we had the tough conversations and set the terms on that basis.
One thing that stood out throughout the night was the gratefulness of so many people for Refuse Fascism to do what we did. One text from a new father who couldn’t make it summed up a lot of what we heard from people: he said we would spread the word about the event and then said “Keep it up so our children will know equality and true freedom.”
But this also brings home the responsibility that we have, not only to do this work on this level, but to bring so many more people into taking conscious ownership of this demand and this movement and lead others into action.
It must be said that the local media made a mockery of themselves in the aftermath of this event, especially the CBS segment entitled “Protesters Scream Outside Tomi Lahren’s Appearance At Keswick Theatre.” They also decided to focus on some graffiti that was painted on the theater the night before. Philly.com ran 350 words on that petty vandalism which was cleaned up within an hour, while not mentioning the protest once.
Even the follow-up article from the writer who published an interview with our organizer was a puff piece for the folks who came out to see Tomi, humanizing them way more than even the one on one interview did for us and quoting them extensively without even talking about who any of the protesters were. This movement is fighting an uphill battle in this regard, with many news outlets openly siding with the regime, many more bending over backwards to accommodate and collaborate with them, and still more pinning all their hopes on Mueller and the blue wave and consequently viewing Refuse Fascism as rocking the boat and even possibly ruining their chances. It is truly disgraceful, but the only way we can change it is by taking action in a way that demands notice, and setting the terms as sharply as possible.
Refuse Fascism has a singular demand that can unite millions in an unprecedented moment. If fascism becomes consolidated in this country, with the most powerful military the world has ever seen, our chances of creating a radically better world will plummet. Right now, through actions like this we are concretely building towards the moment when millions can be brought into the streets to end this nightmare and start to make a future worth fighting for. Join us!