By Coco Das, contributing editor to RefuseFascism.org |
Download this message as a PDF and get it out wherever people are. Use it to wake people up, shake them up, and challenge them to confront the reality of what is going on, what Trump’s SOTU address really meant, that we are up against a fascist regime, and why we cannot rely on the Democrats to stop it.
Trump’s State of the Union address on February 5th was a disgusting display of white supremacist demonization of immigrants straight out of Hitler’s playbook, Christian fascist lies about abortion that went almost completely unchallenged in the news commentary, vicious “America First” chauvinism putting Iran, Venezuela, and the people of the world in its crosshairs, and a grim glimpse of our nightmare future if fascists are allowed to consolidate their power. This was a speech in which new groups of people were being recruited and won over to fascism, with great success. People who should be fiercely resisting the Trump regime instead played by the rules and got played:
- Those who celebrated Trump’s endorsement of the First Step Act as some kind of prison reform got played. Last night we saw the true aims of the First Step Act in full bloom, as a cynical mechanism to recruit new collaborators into the fascist program.
- Those who call everything Trump does a distraction and insist on talking only about healthcare for “hard-working Americans” got played. Trump talked plenty about healthcare, using a child recovering from cancer as a prop in a program where only the lives of certain Americans matter.
- Those who say “Of course we need border security, we just don’t need a wall,” got played. The obscene cataloguing of brutal crimes allegedly committed by “illegal” immigrants should have sent chills down the spines of everyone who claims to care about immigrants or have even a basic knowledge of Nazi Germany. This should have been the moment when these women in white should have turned their backs and walked out. But no, it was met at best with stony silence until the moment passed.
- Those celebrating the Women’s Wave got played. The Women’s Wave at the State of the Union was wave after wave of cheers and applause coming from the new, hip, radical Democratic representatives.
If you have a heart for humanity, as sickened and disgusted as you should have been by Trump making crude conciliatory gestures and then going in for his vicious attacks on immigrants, women, and the people of the world — you should be more disgusted by the response from the women in white who were supposed to represent the people most under attack by this regime. The color white was chosen as a tribute to the Suffragette movement, but it is also the color of surrender, and surrender they did. Despite a few eye rolls and grim expressions at the most hateful parts of Trump’s speech, quickly forgotten once he moved on, despite their crisp white outfits contrasting with the stiff suits of the GOP, despite “raising the roof” when Trump boasted about women entering Congress, and despite Nancy Pelosi’s supposed sarcastic applause, they did nothing to oppose Trump. Nothing to draw a line in the sand for the people who are under the boot of ICE, Homeland Security, the police, the prison system, the military, and all of the departments and institutions now guided and controlled by Trump’s fascist regime. They stood when they were supposed to stand and clapped when they were supposed to clap.
But, believe it or not, it got even worse than that. The lowest point of the night was this: when the women in white chanted “USA USA USA,” louder and more exuberantly than any of the Republican fascists in the room, that was the moment when Trump won. That ugly MAGA chant coming out of the mouths of those women as they celebrated America’s gangster power around the world, showed us what this #resistance is really about. It’s about maintaining American empire without all the ugly words. Let’s dress prettier and use prettier words and go bomb the shit out of some people. Let’s plunder the world’s resources and distribute the spoils among us. Fuck the rest of the world.
At Trump’s State of the Union, the women in white showed us that they are ready to do their job – to COLLABORATE with a fascist regime and lead their followers to do the same. This is what it is … not the “politics of resistance,” as Trump called it, but the politics of conciliation, the politics of complicity, the politics of collaboration.
If you found yourself fooled by this spectacle, if you were comforting yourself with some hope that this regime will be stopped by sarcastic clapping and eye rolls, snap out of it. It’s long past the time to dispense with the “leadership” of those who are leading you down a road to disaster. It is up to us to stop this catastrophe for humanity at the soonest possible time, thousands leading to millions in the streets, day after day, acting with courage and determination and refusing to go home until this cruel, illegitimate, fascist regime is removed from power.
Also see: February 5: Refuse Fascism Protests the State of the Union Address: IN THE NAME OF HUMANITY, THE TRUMP/PENCE REGIME MUST GO!