San Jose, California: Righteous Protest vs Trump’s Fascist Rally

June 6, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

From members of the Revolution Club, San Francisco Bay Area:

The fascist Donald Trump, promoting bigotry and American chauvinism with every breath, exhaled his vile odor and released his supporters all over the San Jose Convention Center on Thursday, June 2. This was met with righteous anger from a youthful crowd of protestors from many backgrounds.

When the Revolution Club arrived on the scene, there were lines of Trump supporters but just a few scattered protesters with homemade anti-Trump signs. We gathered some of them up, including three Latina high school students who took turns carrying English and Spanish enlargements of the cover of Revolution newspaper with Trump with a KKK hood and Hitler mustache and the words “Mein Trumpf: A Thoroughly American Fascist Pig” throughout the protest. We brought out the Revolution Club banner “Time To Get Organized for an ACTUAL Revolution. Join the Revolution Club” and started passing out the Message from the Central Committee of the RCP (hundreds got out throughout the day).

For several hours, as Trump supporters filed into the rally, about 40-50 of us protested outside. The Revolution Club was doing agitation on the bullhorn, leading chants, and also encouraging the youth to speak out about why they had come. We were saying, “The fact that Trump is a legitimate political candidate in this system shows that the whole system is illegitimate.” And then the people spontaneously started chanting “The whole system is illegitimate.” We were doing agitation about the actual history of this country, driving home the message that America was NEVER great.

Soon, there were hundreds of people in the streets surrounding the convention center. Overwhelmingly, these were Latino high school and college students, including some from “street organizations,” who were joined by others from many different walks of life. There were union activists, teachers, Bernie supporters, and others of many nationalities. One small group held the sign: “Make America NATIVE Again.” There weren’t many organized groups, but a lot of individuals and groups of friends moved by their rage to be there.

One young white man said his mother was mad at him for going to protest, instead of attending to some academic obligation, but he told her, “Some things you have to do because they’re right. Some things just cannot stand. Trump coming here is one of them.” After he took his stand and gave this short speech, his mom came around, moved and proudly posting on Facebook that her son was doing the right thing that day by taking a stand against bigotry.

A group of Latina teenagers showed up in graduation caps and gowns. We asked, “Did you just graduate?” They said no, they are on their way, but they had to stop here first to protest Trump! Another young woman had a sign that said, “THIS IS WHAT HATE LEADS TO” with captioned pictures: of genocide of Native people, slavery, internment camps of Japanese, and other crimes of the U.S. One young man led a chant that was repeated throughout the protest: “1 2 3 4: Slavery, genocide, and war! 5 6 7 8: America was never great!”

At one point, people swarmed the entrance to the convention center after provocation from Trump supporters attending their Nazi rally. Dozens of police lined up around the entrance to push people back. The anger was palpable. People shouted in unison: FUCK TRUMP! During this time, the Revolution Club started agitating about the system that creates Trumps, that throws its police at the people who oppose his bigotry, and the call to get organized for an actual revolution. People were grabbing the Message out of our hands, either hearing what was said, or dashing through the chaotic scene and seeing the bold letters: TIME TO GET ORGANIZED FOR AN ACTUAL REVOLUTION. People’s eyes brightened, or they muttered “Fuck yes,” or smiled widely, as they took the Message and navigated the crowd. We also chanted: “How do we get out of this mess? Revolution, nothing less!” and it was taken up by the crowd, and was also repeated by others throughout the rest of the protest.

Back in the street, the protest stopped traffic. A lot of people in their cars honked and pumped fists, and some of them got out to join in. Trump supporters and protestors and police were all mixed up in the street, with dozens of police moving to circle the intersection and helicopters flying overhead as clashes between the Trump supporters and protesters broke out. In the face of taunting and the overall smug ignorance and arrogance of Trump and his supporters, the youth stood up bravely and justly. Trump supporters, fresh out of the rally where Trump had been whipping them up around racist hatred, paraded through the street, with their signs and T-shirts reading, “Make America Great Again” and “The Silent Majority Stands with Trump.” As part of the rebellion against Trump and the whole USA #1 chauvinism, protesters burned the “Make America Great Again” hats and American flags.

Occasionally someone would call out that anger is not the answer, to which they were challenged in good ways by a lot of different people. The anger of the protesters is justified. The whole existence of Trump, and this fascist rally in San Jose in particular, is a provocation. Immigrant workers and others are treated like dogs and worse every day, and now this chump comes through spewing his hatred with his Nazi parade. Damn right people are angry. One young man asked, “So that’s the solution? Anger?” Someone else responded, “It’s not everything, but it’s sure as hell part of it.”

At one point, as things were a bit dispersed, the Revolution Club marched in formation up the street, chanting “We are the revcoms, mighty, mighty revcoms” and mass distributing the Message from the RCP. A man with tattoos all over his face, who had also carried an enlargement of Trump in the KKK hood and Hitler mustache, marched and chanted with them, and young people came from all directions to take the message. When the Revolution Club called, “How do we get out this mess?” many others joined in: “Revolution, nothing less!”

We held speak-outs in the streets, where youths poured out their anger, spoke proudly and with love about their families who Trump is a champion of dehumanizing and criminalizing. A chant broke out, “Queers against Trump!” and the crowd took it up. Many young people wanted to vent, yell, “Fuck Trump!” and there was a lot of love expressed through that anger, for people who are routinely treated as less than human in this country and under this system: Latinos, gay people, women, Muslims, and others.

There were quick and sharp conversations about the problem and solution throughout the protest, and agitating condemning the whole system, challenging people to not rely on the Democrats and Bernie in particular, or any ruler offered up by this oppressive system, which is the problem, but to fight for revolution, a whole better world, and to get with the leadership of Bob Avakian now: Be an emancipator of humanity.

One Latino man who was stopped in his car asked who the revolutionaries were voting for. They said, “We don’t vote for this system, we’re working on overthrowing it,” and he was taken aback. He said he could not vote, and he couldn’t believe someone who could, would choose not to. He said, “If you don’t vote, it’s like you are giving up your voice.” We told him, “What we need to do is give up on this system and stop playing by its rules, and be part of a fight to change the world through revolution.”

Overall, this protest marked another wave in the unrest and rebellious mood of the people in response to the openly fascist program of the pig Trump. This resistance should grow exponentially, while more and more people come to see the source of all Trumps in capitalism-imperialism, and the solution in revolution—not for one group of people, but for everyone, here and around the world.

 

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