On August 12 last year, white supremacists marched with torches in Charlottesville VA, brutalizing scores of people, terrorizing black neighborhoods and chanting Nazi slogans like “Blood & Soil!” and “Hail Trump!” This modern day lynch-mob culminated in the murder of Heather Heyer, when a white supremacist drove a car into a group of protesters. These vicious thugs were then anointed by Trump, as “fine people.” These thugs were fulfilling his desire to return to the days when protesters were dragged out on stretchers. A year later on this anniversary these same Nazis planned to parade and gloat past Pennsylvania Avenue outside the house of their champion. But the people refused to accept this.
As RefuseFascism.org wrote in our initial report,
“On August 12, thousands of people rallied and marched in Washington, D.C., determined that the fascists who murdered Heather Heyer, an anti-fascist protester in Charlottesville, Virginia last year could not parade their racist terrorist hate in front of the White House while an overt white supremacist rules from inside the White House. They came from all walks of life, from many points of view, from all over D.C. and up and down the East Coast and Midwest. They had the courage to take a stand despite real risks. The world saw the fascists get surrounded, shut down, and forced to hide behind hundreds of police.”
Vicious white supremacy is the ideological glue of the Trump/Pence regime’s American Fascism. Since the brutality in Charlottesville, the world has witnessed an accelerating imposition of fascism, from the program of ethnic cleansing embodied in “Zero Tolerance” immigration policy to 5,000 overwhelmingly preventable deaths in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. From SCOTUS upholding the Muslim Ban to this regime killing tens of thousands of children in Yemen through bombs, starvation, and war. Now, with the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, the Supreme Court is on the verge of a fascist majority for generations. All while the regime continues shredding civil liberties, threatening nuclear war, and attacking the press. All this has emboldened and unleashed an epidemic of police being called on Black people for simply existing in public spaces and more hate crimes have been committed against people of color.
It is with this understanding that Refuse Fascism joined with the #ShutItDownDC Coalition and others in calling on everyone of conscience to counter-protest the white supremacist thugs converging on DC on August 12 and we brought in the demand: NO! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America! We spread a call to action and began making phone calls because everyone was needed to stop and drown out these nazi pukes and be part of building the unity and strength to drive out the whole regime.
The call from Refuse Fascism for people to confront these fascists said in part:
“Fascism rules by organized repression and terror by the government and by the mob. The Trump/Pence Regime is using the state to terrorize immigrants and cage children, to assail the media, to ban Muslims. They have instructed police to take the gloves off further killing and brutalizing people of color. Recently won LGBTQ rights are under assault. Women are poised to lose the right to abortion and even birth control. The Trump/Pence regime if left in power will effect a thoroughly reactionary restructuring of society. Nothing short of removing this entire regime will stop this nightmare. (From the Refuse Fascism Call to Action)”
Once we put out this call we immediately received dozens of sign-ups from people who wanted to join. Caravans were organized from Detroit, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Many people who recently have become involved with Refuse Fascism spent the weekend with us united in the mission to politically defeat the fascists outside and inside the White House.
Our crew came in waves with some coming on Friday and Saturday to reach people in different sections of D.C. to be in the streets stopping these thugs. Those who came to be part of the Refuse Fascism team spanned different states, generations, races, political views, and life-experiences. Everyone came with a fire in their belly to stop the white supremacists while for some the larger mission of RefuseFascism.org — working in all we do to get in position to drive out the whole regime through massive sustained protest — was organizing people to do was contentious and/or new.
One black woman from D.C. decided to volunteer the weekend with RefuseFascism.org because she doesn’t want her nieces and future generations to be fighting against white supremacy. There was a shared sense from volunteers that there was no other conscionable choice other than to be in D.C. confronting the white supremacists.
A black woman from Cleveland whose mother housed freedom riders shared that she came because “it was not right for neo-nazis to be given the permit to stand in front of the White House and spew hatred…I think we are all made in God’s image and that we should be coming together as one. I think fascism is alive and well inside the White House. It is time for us to stand against what they are doing to us.”
A young man with RefuseFascism.org from the Philadelphia suburbs felt it was critical that all different people come together to say white supremacy is not OK; that gatherings like this can’t be ignored. When you ignore fascism it doesn’t go away, it gets stronger. He said, ”being with Refuse Fascism was important because it is the only group with one unified goal to end this nightmare and a real way to achieve that goal that is attainable.” This understanding was echoed by many other participants.
Through working with Refuse Fascism organizers during orientations, readings and discussions of the Call to Action, exchanges during long car rides, outreach on Saturday and agitation on Sunday, volunteers new and old got deeper exposure to and understanding of the fascist regime which gave rise to this neo-Nazi horror show and the need to be taking up the struggle against the white supremacists in a way that was building towards the larger fight urgently needed to drive out the whole regime. At the heart of this work was wrangling with the plan to drive out the Trump/Pence regime laid out in our Call to Action and boldly spreading it in the midst of this struggle.
On August 12, you saw thousands of people displaying profound courage. People traveled to this protest from across the country and headed to the protest full of uncertainty. They came out to Lafayette Square, some even with their young children, not knowing if they would be beat by neo-nazis, attacked by the police, or become the next Heather Heyer. One young man with RefuseFascism.org confessed, “I was nervous on the van ride down. I didn’t know if people were going to get beaten up. I didn’t know whether we were going get hit by a car.” This was a risk people accepted because sitting back while those who want to bring back the Confederacy celebrate in front of the house of their leader, an open white supremacist who calls immigrants “animals” was not an option.
A major asset in building people’s understanding of the fascist regime we face and the determination to go out and bring people into the movement to drive this regime from power was teaming up with the Revolution Club. While Revolution Club members boldly brought to people that this system can not be reformed it must be overthrown they demonstrated having wide arms for all those joining in the struggle to end the nightmare that is the Trump/Pence regime. The revolutionary perspective that the Club brought as well as the courage of several of their leaders who had been in Charlottesville and one of whom was sent to the hospital after being assaulted by Nazis and came back in the face of that, strengthened the resolve of many Refuse Fascism volunteers.
The Revolution Club’s participation in orientations and in the streets fostered greater courage and conviction, opened people up to a deeper understanding of the roots of what we are facing now and why relying on the normal institutions of this system is not a winning strategy. Over the weekend many in Refuse Fascism were introduced to and some took up enthusiastically what was being argued for by the Club in terms of an actual revolution as the real solution. Together, we struggled for many people to come together from very different perspectives to drive out the regime.
During the protest one volunteer from D.C. was struck by the conviction people showed, “People kept coming to join us. The crowd kept growing despite overcast sky, the rain. Seniors who have been fighting good fight for years refused to stay aside and they marched and they stood in rain. I thought that was awesome. People were determined and set to show resistance.” She went on to say that RefuseFascism.org was unique because we were “able to mobilize a diverse grouping of people to come from outside Washington to get people to travel at their own expense and stay with strangers. To stand up for generations that are not even born yet. To motivate people and diminish fear.”
Once RefuseFascism.org found out the fascists (not the ones in the White House) were in the city early, we gathered our crew which was doing outreach at the main rally organized by the #ShutItDownDC coalition and mobilized hundreds to take to the streets and shut them down. We began marching chanting, “No, No, No, No, No! In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse A Fascist America!”
Many felt one moment which optimized the pure beauty of the day and will stay with them was when the RefuseFascism.org march converged with the Black Lives Matter march. One volunteer explained it as, “two separate groups there for same reasons to say NO to white supremacists. I was in the front holding the banner and everyone just erupted in a big party; we are here because we care for each other, nazis were there because they had collective hate.” It was extremely significant how people throughout the day joined together from different groups with different missions, and many who were not with a group moved by their conviction, and from all different backgrounds to stand together against this vicious white supremacy. This diversity along with an unwavering fierce and defiant spirit must be cultivated in order to launch non-violent but sustained resistance capable of stopping a regime that imperils humanity and the planet itself.
It was critical that RefuseFascism.org was there and that we mobilized to get dozens to represent with NO! shirts and be part of raising the demand that the Trump/Pence Regime must go. We filled a void. As people were saying “Nazis Go Home” we were able to unite with that and lead people in insisting that the whole regime must be driven from power.
Thousands were invited into this movement to drive out the Trump/Pence Regime, to get the Call to Action and study the RefuseFascism.org Indictments of The Trump/Pence Regime. Many people learned about this movement for the first time. People were involved on the spot and given an opportunity to join by getting stickers, signs, carrying a banner, passing out copies of the Call, donating, taking up chants, and joining in the pledge. Our agitation connected the fascists on the front lawn to those inside and urged people to join the struggle to drive out the fascist regime.
Masses of people must cast aside delusions that there will be a solution to the peril we face absent mass resistance geared towards removing this whole illegitimate regime. It was a weekend that was transformational especially for young people who have never done anything like this before. A young man who had never done a counter-protest before said, “not doing politics by proxy was liberating. I am taking the future into my own hands. I’m not going to just go into a voting booth and forget about it for four years.”
A college student who is majoring in political science who we met days earlier at a protest of a Trump rally in Pennsylvania shared that her thinking about how we can stop the Trump/Pence regime was changed from thinking that the Democrats are the answer to thinking that the people are. She didn’t know before we challenged her that the “blue wave” isn’t going to stop them. But after digging into the Call to Action and through discussions with RefuseFascism.org members she feels and is telling her friends that, “just voting in people won’t solve it. We need to step up like they have done in other countries like South Korea.” This weekend was the type of weekend that changes you, how you see yourself and your responsibility to the larger world.
Surrounding and shutting down the white supremacists was really a model of the power of the people, of what happens when people get out of their comfort zones and act for the seven billion on the planet. There is a way out of this nightmare but not nearly enough people know about it or have been won over to act on it. Now is the time to organize for when we can launch non-violent but sustained protests in cities across the country — protests on a scale that cannot be ignored. Protests that don’t stop until the demand that the Trump/Pence regime be removed from power is met. All of us who joined together in D.C. have a big role to play in mobilizing thousands in the next weeks to be part of propelling the movement forward to drive out the regime.