By Coco Das
The nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court is a concentration of why Refuse Fascism has been saying since the beginning that the Trump/Pence fascist regime must be driven from power. I say this not to lament that it is too late, or that the confirmation of Kavanaugh is a done deal, but to ask how much longer we are willing to wait. Any judge that is nominated and confirmed under the authority of this regime will create a pro-fascist majority on the Supreme Court, one that upholds and advances the fascist program and makes it the law of the land. On the one hand, whether Kavanaugh himself is confirmed, as opposed to another Trump appointee, matters little. On the other hand, Kavanaugh is a particularly grotesque, abhorrent, and perfect specimen of this Christian fascist movement and its march into the highest levels of government.
During the confirmation hearings, it came out that Kavanaugh would not answer whether a president has the power to pardon himself. He called birth control “abortion-inducing” drugs. He walked away from the father of a Parkland shooting victim trying to shake his hand. Day after day during these hearings, people watching through the media were being fed the message that this judge has not been properly vetted, all while his record and views on whether he would advance the fascist agenda of this regime – on women, on immigrants, on police brutality and mass incarceration, on Christian theocracy, on traditional democratic rights – have been not only well-documented but confirmed through his own answers (or refusal to answer) during the hearings. The Refuse Fascism call to action states, “Nothing short of removing this whole illegitimate regime from power will stop this nightmare.” Kavanaugh is one example of why this is true. He will be a rubber stamp on the policies of this regime and eliminate one channel that the people have used, especially in the past few decades, to guarantee their rights.
As the hearings came to a close, there were a slew of headlines stating that Kavanaugh is likely to be confirmed. Likely to be confirmed. What was the message this was trying to convey? That despite all the righteous resistance of people disrupting the hearings, despite all the tweets about how much is at stake with this appointment, despite the most valiant efforts of the Democrats to be the voice of opposition, within the normal channels of our system, there is nothing to be done. We are stuck with a majority pro-fascist supreme court that will determine the law of the land for a generation to come and we’ll just have to live with that.
The people who write these headlines can’t, or won’t, imagine another way, but WE can. People coming together in the name of humanity can imagine and act in ways that transform the whole landscape and culture of the way things are normally done. This is what happened in the 60’s, not just here in the U.S. but all over the world. People acting against tremendous odds changed the trajectory of many things that the ruling powers considered “a done deal.” The right to abortion that is so much on the line right now was won in this way, by the women’s movement rising up and demanding it in a way that the powers-that-be could not ignore.
The truth is, the people have never lost this power. We are just out of practice. We’ve gone to sleep, but millions are waking up again, and these millions need to get out into the streets to disrupt business as usual, creating such a political crisis that the whole world is watching and the ruling powers must resolve in a way that satisfies, even partially, the demands of the people.
The time is ripe for us to flood the streets and demand that this regime step down from power. The attacks on immigrants as a battering ram of this genocidal fascist program have continued to escalate. Concentration camps to detain immigrant children indefinitely are being expanded and U.S. citizens are being denied passports. At the same time, the challenges to the legitimacy of this regime are piling up. As Andy Zee said in a talk to Refuse Fascism organizers, “There has been coincidence and perhaps coordination in the events of the last week, beginning with the McCain funeral and running through Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s book; the Kavanaugh Supreme Court nominee hearings; and the New York Times Anonymous Op-ed piece, reportedly from a Trump regime insider who claims to be working to prevent Trump from wreaking havoc. And now, Obama hitting the campaign trail speaking out against the danger of Trump and directing people to vote for the Democrats in the midterms. What all of this should tell us is that the split in the ruling class over the danger of Trump in particular, but in actuality reflecting a larger divide over the direction that the regime as a whole is taking, has burst forth in even sharper ways.” People are asking themselves, What is this danger to humanity still doing at the seat of power?
Now imagine adding to this mix a critical mass of people refusing to go home until the demand that this regime be removed from power is met. This is the one crisis this regime has not yet faced, and this is the crisis that has driven out many tyrannical regimes around the world. This moment cries out for all of us step out of our comfort zones, seize our power, and act.
It’s true and millions of us know it. Trump is unhinged, and his whole regime is a danger to humanity. This Saturday, ALL OUT FOR MASS PROTEST in cities around the country. Find out when and where, and make this a growing movement that continues day after day, week after week. This regime must go, and we must not wait to act.