By Corey Hill
We’re running out of metaphors to describe the escalating threat of the Trump regime. The house has been on fire for some time now, multiple lines in the sand crossed, red lights and alarms are going off every hour of every day.
So let me just bundle them all together and say the time is now to take to the streets to oppose the rapidly escalating fascism emanating from the criminal cabal occupying the White House. It’s still not too late, even at this hour, to join the struggle, and to win. But we have to act decisively.
The next play from the Trump regime has been revealed on the streets of Portland: unidentified federal agents in full paramilitary garb trundling protestors off the street into unmarked vans. Ostensibly there to protect federal property, these camouflaged goons have beaten and gassed protestors, thrown detainees into rented vans and threatened to shoot anyone who tried to follow.
The Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, said he doesn’t care whether cities want the forces there or not. Guess what, the cities don’t want them there. Neither do most Americans.
And now, Donald Trump announces plans to roll out the feds all over the United States, starting next with Chicago. America’s very own Gestapo is here, answerable only to the flailing Fascist in Chief. Every good dictator needs a secret police force, and Trump appears to have gotten one more item on the authoritarian wishlist.
How long are we supposed to endure the lawlessness? How long are we supposed to endure the criminal indifference that has left so much wreckage and loss?
The escalation of state violence, the rapidity with which resources can be mobilized for repression, stands in stark contrast to the brazen, callous indifference of the Trump Administration’s COVID-19 response. They aren’t separate issues, however; they are the sides of the same coin, the blatant disregard for anything other than the interests of the ruling clique and the iron fist smashing any who dare oppose.
How many more of our family members, our fathers, sisters, aunts, uncles, children, must suffer and die needlessly because the Trump administration is criminally nonresponsive to the COVID pandemic? At what volume of death and despair does ‘vote him out in November’ become far too meek a demand? Is it 200,000 dead? Two million?
When the thugs come to throw you into a van, will there be anyone left to stop them?
Where is your line in the sand? How long can you sit quietly in a house on fire? How many red lights and alarms go off before we rise up?
The end game is clear. The Trump regime’s last specious claims to the consent of the governed are crumbling before our eyes. Trump’s poll numbers are tanking, even die hard supporters are losing faith, and the cumulative toll of criminality, incompetence, racism, and authoritarianism is opening the eyes of millions of Americans.
This is precisely why the danger is greatest. The dead-end bastards of Trump/Pence have every incentive in the world to go down swinging, and the Nazis, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and other grab bag of mouth-foaming heavily armed deplorables in his most extreme base are more than happy to join the fray.
There is no one coming to save us. Except for us.
Though it may not seem it, we have the power. Those who support rule of law, true freedom of expression, dignity and health and racial justice — this group outnumbers the hateful and the spiteful by a wide margin. Throughout the history of the United States, and the entire world, the sheer force of grassroots mobilization has always driven real change, from the suffrage movement to the Civil Rights movement to ending the war in Vietnam.
That power has been obscured. We’ve been told that our range of expression is narrow. We vote, we call our members of Congress, maybe show up to a protest every now and again, and that’s it. That’s not it, not by half.
Hell, it won’t be easy. It takes guts and it takes courage and it takes putting our bodies on the line. Not everyone can participate in the same way, and that’s fine. Everyone can do something. Let’s take the example from the crowds in Portland, who aren’t backing down one inch. If Trump and Pence and Wolf and Lindsey Graham thought their jackbooted enforcers would cow the righteous calls for justice, they have another thing coming.
All throughout the nation, Refuse Fascism is organizing with one goal: to oppose the Trump Pence regime. We’re organizing protests and growing a sustained, coordinated, non-violent campaign to end the cruelty, violence, and chaos of 45’s Presidency – by getting him and his fascism-enabling V.P. out of the White House. Not in November. Now.
There are more of us. And together, we cannot be stopped.
Now let’s get out there and show these fascist motherfuckers we mean business.