Obama & Clinton Say "Get Over It," But Tens of Thousands Rebel in the Streets
Updated November 21, 2016 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
In the wake of the election of Donald Trump, key opinion makers in the mass (that is, the ruling class) media are portraying the incoming Trump regime as a legitimate “peaceful transition of power.” They say this is essential to what makes America “great.” Literally “normalizing” fascism.
But in the streets, on high school and college campuses, in large cities and small towns, in vigils and fierce confrontations, people are not accepting that this is just business as usual. People are refusing to accept the ominous implications of a fascist presidency. Many thousands have marched in New York City, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Oakland. In Portland, defiant protesters have taken the streets for four days straight in the face of police pepper spray and rubber bullets. People are refusing to accept Trump’s war on immigrants. They are refusing to accept his obscene celebration of prejudice, ignorance, and hate for those who don’t fit into the dominant American culture of white supremacy and patriarchy.
Thousands and thousands have marched on Trump Tower in New York and Chicago. Signs say “Love Trumps Hate.” Chants of “Not our president” and “Fuck Donald Trump!” disrupt business as usual. Freeways have been blocked in LA, Miami, Atlanta, and Iowa City. Hundreds of Phoenix high school students walked out of classes. They marched to the state capitol chanting “Who’s Donald Trump? Not our president!” and “Whose city? Our city!” Thousands of high school students in California, Colorado, and Washington and hundreds in Iowa have walked out in protest. Large and angry rallies against Trump broke out immediately on college campuses, especially on the West Coast but also at schools like the University of Pittsburgh, historically Black Fisk University in Tennessee, and the University of Texas in Austin. In Cincinnati, an anti-Trump march with a significant component of LGBT rights activists converged in the streets with people, mainly from the Black community, protesting the refusal of a jury to convict the pig who murdered Samuel DuBose.
Voices with influence, including clergy, and people in the art and entertainment communities are taking a stand and speaking out. Among those were, in NYC, Lady Gaga, Mark Ruffalo, and Cher, who joined protests late on election night at Trump Tower. Jennifer Lawrence tweeted “Let this be the fire you didn’t have before... If you are an immigrant, if you are a person of color, if you are LGBTQ+, if you are a woman—don’t be afraid, be loud!” And New York Daily News columnist Shaun King wrote, “No, we should not wait and see what a Trump administration does. We should organize our resistance right now.”
Students at American University in DC burned American flags, as did protesters in Atlanta where the New York Times reported that protesters “revis[ed] Mr. Trump’s campaign slogan [and] chanted ‘America was never great.’”
In Cleveland and Chicago, revolutionary communists—the revcoms—and some others have gone nose to nose with howling Trump supporters.
In the midst of all this, the message from revcom.us, “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America,” has been taken up widely by all kinds of people, and is playing a critical role. It needs to be spread much more widely.
Battle Lines Being Drawn... Big Questions Up...
Tens of thousands, now, are standing up. They are motivated both by a sense of the magnitude of what Trump’s ascension means, and refusing to accept the hate crimes already being committed in the wake of the election—like assaults on Muslim women and attacks on immigrants.
The response to the Trump election—in its size, determination, and breadth of people—is unprecedented in modern U.S. history, going back to the Civil War. This is very important and positive. It needs to both keep going and spread. At the same time, everybody needs to be figuring out both how this spreads and finds more organized expression.
And the sites of resistance must become scenes where people are seriously discussing and debating what gave rise to a Trump and how to get beyond the confines of a system that legitimates and dictates not only “choices” like this but values like this as well.
After Chicago Pigs Murder Unarmed Black Motorist on Way Home From Funeral...
People Stand Up Against Killer Cops and Neighborhood Trumpite Goons
November 9, 2016, Mount Greenwood in Chicago
For frequent updates on the coast-to-coast upsurge against the election of fascist Trump, click HERE.
Scroll down for the call to
ALL Revolutionaries, Students, Professors, and Others on Campuses
In the Name of Humanity,
We REFUSE To Accept a Fascist America
Rise Up... Get Into The Streets...
Unite With People Everywhere
to Build Up Resistance in
Every Way You Can
Don’t Stop: Don’t Conciliate...
Don’t Accommodate...Don’t Collaborate
Read more
Reproduce and Distribute Leaflets and Posters HERE
Other Voices on Trump and Resistance
Editor's note: Important voices are calling out the ominous implications of a Trump presidency from a range of viewpoints. And challenging people to confront what that means, and to resist. Here we link to some of those. (Updated 11/19/16)
To ALL Revolutionaries, Students, Professors, and Others on Campuses!
With the election of Trump, we confront a FASCIST America, No Less!
Read our call to you HERE
Let them not fool you—with Obama’s soothing and comforting talk of all of them being on the “same team” and the election being merely but an “intramural scrimmage,” some saying Trump is “softening” on his hatred and hated policies, and that he does not really intend carrying them through, and yet others saying “let’s give him a chance.” NO!
Revcoms Confront Trumpites on Cleveland Campus—And Minds Begin to Change...
After Chicago Pigs Murder Unarmed Black Motorist on Way Home From Funeral...
People Stand Up Against Killer Cops and Neighborhood Trumpite Goons
Download "We Refuse to Accept Racist White Supremacy in Mt. Greenwood FACT SHEET"
Report from the Streets of Los Angeles
From a correspondent:
On Friday, November 11, a protest of 3,000 people blocked the 101 Freeway that runs through the middle of LA, and marched through downtown. There were 200 arrests, in addition to hundreds of other arrests of protesters on Wednesday and Thursday. Other protests took place in cities and on campuses throughout Southern California.
On Saturday morning, well over 10,000 people from all over Southern California—shocked and outraged at the election of Donald Trump—came together at MacArthur Park, in the center of the Central American immigrant community, and marched to the Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles. It was the fourth day in a row that anti-Trump protesters had taken to the streets of LA. People came from many different sections of society with all kinds of homemade signs, together delivering a serious, determined, and powerful message that the election of Donald Trump is unacceptable, and that his fascist program against the people has to be opposed.
College and high school students were there from many different campuses where protests, marches, and walkouts had taken place in recent days. There was a powerful outpouring of women of all ages expressing, together with men, a visceral disgust at Trump’s vile and dangerous misogyny against women. And there were a large number of people from the LGBT community, whose lives are threatened by the Christian fascist program that Trump and Pence openly support. The marchers strongly expressed their support for immigrants, including by chanting “Immigrants are welcome here” while immigrants from Central America lined the streets.
The sense was palpable that the country has just entered a new and dangerous period. In this moment, the headline on the statement put out by revcom.us, and on hundreds of posters— “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept A Fascist America”—had a powerful impact on many, many people, and on the march as a whole. It expressed the seriousness and gravity of this historical moment, while raising people’s sights to see that they are acting in the interests of all humanity. Before and during the march, hundreds of people grabbed for the posters and donated generously to pay for them. Over $800 was raised in donations for these during the day.
A vibrant Revolution Club contingent led hundreds and hundreds of people throughout the day to pledge, in a call-and-response way, that they would not conciliate; they would not accommodate; and they would not collaborate; that they would act in the name of humanity. And thousands of copies of the statement “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE To Accept A Fascist America,” together with the brochure “HOW WE CAN WIN: How We Can Really Make Revolution,” were taken up by marchers and by immigrants who lined the streets.
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