The Fascist Assault

In 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court, in their Obergefell v. Hodges decision, ruled by a 5-4 vote that same-sex couples have the basic human right to marry. About two months later, Kim Davis, a county clerk in Kentucky, refused to issue marriage licenses to gay couples, claiming that doing so would violate her Christian beliefs. Davis later claimed immunity from two lawsuits filed by couples she had refused to marry, and that case worked its way to the Supreme Court. Last week, the Supreme Court turned down Davis’ appeal on technical grounds.

But on October 5, Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, both Christian fascists, issued a statement on the case that could pave the way for overturning Obergefell. Thomas wrote, and Alito signed, a statement denouncing the Obergefell decision, saying that it will have “ruinous consequences for religious liberty” if it is allowed to stand. Further, as Mat Staver, founder and chairman of the Christian fundamentalist and virulently anti-gay “Liberty Counsel,” accurately told the website Christian Broadcast News, with their statement, “Justices Thomas and Alito are inviting future challenges regarding Obergefell....”

The core of the argument by Thomas and Alito is that Obergefell has no basis in the Constitution and violates religious liberty protected by the First Amendment. Thomas and Alito present an utterly false image that because of Obergefell, religious people (meaning—Christians, especially fundamentalist Christians) are being persecuted because of their beliefs, and that “Davis may have been one of the first victims of this court’s cavalier treatment of religion in its Obergefell decision, but she will not be the last.”

Actually, Christian fascists on the Supreme Court and elsewhere are out to end or at least severely undermine basic rights of LGBTQ people. Kevin Jennings, CEO of Lambda Legal, an LGBTQ advocacy group, wrote that Thomas’ and Alito’s statement indicates that “The nightmare of a hostile Supreme Court majority is already here.... Overturning our right to legally marry the person we love and to protect our families would only be the beginning; none of the hard-fought rights that we have won in the courts are safe.”

The danger is imminent. Two of the justices who were in the majority at the time of Obergefell are no longer on the court, replaced by Christian fascists nominated by Donald Trump. Trump is pushing yet another Christian fascist, Amy Coney Barrett, for the Supreme Court. A case involving the right of same-sex couples to provide foster care to children is scheduled to come before the Supreme Court the day after the election.

It is an indictment of this society’s systematic and deeply embedded injustices that even the barest legal recognition of equality for LGBTQ people has been so long coming. Now the fascist Trump/Pence regime, which has stacked courts throughout the country with hateful gay-hating Christian fascists, is poised to institute even more open and legally enforced bigotry against LGBTQ people. It must be stopped.

LGBTQ protest at U.S. Supreme Court in October 2019. Photo: AP

Sources

Supreme Court Statement of Justice Thomas, Joined by Justice Alito, Supreme Court Opinion, October 5, 2020.

Justices Alito, Thomas Call for Overturning of Marriage Equality, the Advocate, October 5, 2020.

Liberty Counsel, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Justices Thomas and Alito Question Same-Sex Marriage Precedent, New York Times, October 5, 2020.

Two Supreme Court Justices Just Put Marriage Equality on the Chopping Block, Slate, October 5, 2020.

In late September, a federal prosecutor in Pennsylvania publicly claimed that nine allegedly discarded mail-in ballots had been found in a ditch. He announced an investigation, and claimed that seven of the nine votes were cast for Trump. How the envelopes allegedly holding the ballots were opened is unclear; by law no ballots can be opened until Election Day.

The prosecutor’s acts violated longstanding Department of Justice (DOJ) policy of not announcing the existence of an investigation into alleged “voter fraud” before an election’s results are finalized, to prevent tipping the outcome. But Trump and his campaign seized on these events. The Trump campaign’s deputy communications director said in a since deleted viral tweet that the allegations mean that “Democrats are trying to steal the election.”

This week, a report by the website Politico indicated that the DOJ, under Trump’s thug Attorney General William Barr, has determined that from now on, “federal investigators will be allowed to take public investigative steps before the polls close, even if those actions risk affecting the outcome of the election.” This is an open attempt to reinforce the regime’s utterly false allegation that the election is illegitimate if Trump loses.

As revcom.us has pointed out, it is the fascists who “already ARE stealing the elections and threatening violence to enforce it.” They are mobilizing an army of tens of thousands of goons and police to intimidate people, especially Black and Latinx people in “swing states,” at the polls; they have launched hundreds of lawsuits challenging all aspects of voting; they have discredited vote-by-mail during a pandemic.

In August, Trump blustered that his regime would mobilize “sheriffs, and we’re going to have law enforcement, and we’re going to have, hopefully, U.S. attorneys, and we’re going to have everybody and attorneys general” at the polls. In September, Barr agreed that federal police and U.S. attorneys could be sent to polling locations on Election Day if the president said it was in response to a “particular criminal threat.” Even that is not enough for Trump, who this past week snarled that Barr is not going after his Democratic Party opponents aggressively enough.

As Refuse Fascism has written, “Fascism is not just a gross combination of horrific reactionary policies. It is a qualitative change in how society is governed....” The open entry of the Trump/Pence regime’s DOJ into the election, and its reinforcement of the regime’s lies about a “stolen election,” are brazen and aggressive moves to use it as a battering ram to help carry out both the theft of the elections, and violence to enforce that theft.

In the face of all these threats, people across the country need to turn out in massive numbers to vote this regime from power. They also need to participate in and help spread Nonviolent Protests that Continue Day After Day from Now Through the Elections United by the Demand: Trump/Pence OUTNOW!

Fairfax, Virginia, September 19, 2020. MAGA crowd gathered where early voters had to pass to vote, shouting “Four more years” and waving their flags, and of course, not wearing masks or social distancing, putting waiting voters in jeopardy.

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Sources:

DOJ announcement on Pennsylvania ballot investigation baffles election experts, Politico, September 24, 2020.

Voting lawsuits pile up across US as election approaches, Associated Press, September 30, 2020.

Justice Dept. Discloses Pa. Ballot Inquiry, Prompting Fears of Politicization, New York Times, September 24, 2020.

Barr justifies Trump’s suggestion about sending feds to polling places, Politico, September 2, 2020,

DOJ Frees Federal Prosecutors to Take Steps That Could Interfere With Elections, Weakening Longstanding Policy, ProPublica, October 7, 2020.

In July, a Supreme Court ruling called McGirt v. Oklahoma determined that territories of five Native American tribes in Oklahoma remain as established by earlier treaties, and that Native American people accused of crimes within the boundaries of those reservations can’t be prosecuted by state or local authorities. The ruling was widely mischaracterized. For example, a USA Today article had the headline “Supreme Court Says Eastern Oklahoma Remains Native American Territory.” In fact, the Native peoples in Oklahoma (and the rest of the U.S.) do not have sovereignty (full political and economic control) over their territories.

A couple of weeks after the ruling, J. Kevin Stitt, Oklahoma’s Christian fascist governor, sent a letter to the head of the “Environmental Protection Agency” (more accurately, the Ecocidal Pollution Agency, or EPA), Andrew Wheeler. Stitt requested that Oklahoma have explicit authority to administer virtually all EPA programs within the state’s extensive Indian reservations.

Among the specific programs for which Stitt requested state oversight and regulation:

• “Underground Injection Control,” which is the EPA’s fracking permission system. Fracking is a highly destructive form of removing oil and gas from shale rock; it is a major contributor to climate change and often leaves behind contaminated water and land.

• Hazardous waste dumping on tribal lands—this includes chemicals like mercury, formaldehyde, lead, asbestos, pesticide chemicals, PCBs, and hundreds of others.

• Mega-farms and industrial-size livestock operations that produce enormous amounts of waste.

On October 1, Wheeler responded in a letter that gave a green light to Oklahoma’s full-bore ravaging of the Indian territories. Its opening paragraph ends, “EPA hereby approves Oklahoma’s request.” As an article on the Young Turks website said, “The EPA has now granted the State of Oklahoma the same authority it had before McGirt on environmental issues....”

Casey Camp-Horinek, Environmental Ambassador and Elder and Hereditary Drumkeeper of the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, made the following bitterly poignant statement about this development: “After over 500 years of oppression, lies, genocide, ecocide, and broken treaties, we should have expected the EPA ruling in favor of racist Governor Stitt of Oklahoma, yet it still stings. Under the Trump administration, destroying all environmental protection has been ramped up to give the fossil fuel industry life support as it takes its last dying breath. Who suffers the results? Everyone and everything! Who benefits? Trump and his cronies, climate change deniers like Governor Stitt, Senators Inhofe and Lankford, who are financially supported by big oil and gas. I am convinced that we must fight back against this underhanded ruling. In the courts, on the frontlines and in the international courts, LIFE itself is at stake.”

Centuries of oppression of Native Americans and wanton destruction of the environment have intensified horribly during the years of Trump/Pence rule, and they will bring these nightmares to entirely new depths if they succeed in fully consolidating their fascist regime.

Sources:

EPA grants Stitt request for state oversight on tribal lands, Washington Post, October 5, 2020.

EPA Grants Oklahoma Control Over Tribal Lands, TYT.com, October 5, 2020.

Approval of Oklahoma Request, U.S. EPA, October 1, 2020.

Indigenous Leaders Furious After EPA Grants Oklahoma Control Over Sovereign Tribal Lands, Eco Watch, October 6, 2020.

Supreme Court Rules That About Half Of Oklahoma Is Native American Land, NPR, July 9, 2020.

Native Americans won an unusual legal victory at the Supreme Court. Congress could undo it, Washington Post, July 29, 2020.

The Trump Administration Is Reversing 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List, New York Times, July 15, 2020.

For the second time in 10 weeks, heavily armed U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents raided the immigrant aid camp set up by No More Deaths/No Más Muertes in the Arizona desert. Twelve immigrants were arrested, and seven volunteers at the camp were detained.

No More Deaths operates two camps in the desert, providing humanitarian support such as food, water, and basic first aid for people trying to cross the Mexico-U.S. border through the treacherous desert terrain, where hundreds of immigrants who fail to make the crossing die each year. Volunteers also leave jugs of water in different desert locations to counter the dehydration that has killed countless immigrants in heat that often soars well above 100 degrees—water that CBP agents often destroy.

CBP had the camp under “surveillance” for two days before assaulting it on October 5. A statement from No More Deaths describes how, “In a massive show of armed force, Border Patrol, along with the Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), descended on the camp with an armored tank, ATVs, a helicopter, and many marked and unmarked vehicles. Agents armed with assault rifles chased and terrorized those that were receiving care, all while the helicopter hovered low above them kicking up dust and debris, making it nearly impossible to see.”

CBP didn’t respond to journalists when asked its reason for this raid. But it has been staging violent assaults on the No More Deaths camp since 2017. A professor at Arizona State University, Bijal Shah, was cited in an Associated Press article as saying that the “Border Patrol appears to be crossing lines it hasn’t before—targeting not just non-citizens for immigration violations but citizens for carrying out aid.” The federal government has twice tried to convict Scott Warren, a volunteer with the humanitarian group, on serious felonies for providing support to immigrants. Both times, Arizona juries refused to find him guilty.

Vicious assaults upon immigrants within the U.S. and along the border have been underway for decades, and are now being taken to an entirely new depth of murderous intensity by the fascist Trump/Pence regime. The U.S. government has created conditions that have killed thousands of immigrants, then it punishes those who try to support them, and inflicts further pain on the immigrants themselves. This is straight-up Nazi repression—but with weaponry and technology the original Nazis could only have dreamed of using against unarmed people.

The courageous volunteers at No More Deaths are acting to save the lives of some of these immigrants. Their actions should not just be supported but emulated by people throughout the country.

🚨🚨🚨 UPDATE — At sunset last night, in a military-style assault, Border Patrol raided our humanitarian aid camp, chasing and arresting 30+ people who were receiving care and detaining all aid workers, whose phones were confiscated along w/ any video footage of the raid. pic.twitter.com/yiGAB98KYi

— No More Deaths (@NoMoreDeaths) August 1, 2020

Sources

No More Deaths website.

Border Patrol raids No More Deaths camp near Arivaca for 2nd time in 3 months, AZ Central, October 6, 2020.

Border group raided again; experts say it’s a pattern, Associated Press, October 6, 2020.

In the Executive Order “On Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping,” the Trump/Pence fascist regime enforces an official narrative about the “Greatness of White Christian America.” This is an ominous step of purging civic society of truths that stray from this official narrative.

On September 22, Trump signed the Executive Order targeting and censoring diversity and “racial sensitivity” training in all federal entities—including national science labs, museums, research institutions, the armed forces, and more—that dare to tell the truth about the history of this country or even dare to question and struggle over the ways in which white supremacy or male supremacy shape the lack of diversity in hiring or dynamics in the workplace. This goes so far as to include private businesses with federal contracts or universities and hospitals that receive federal grants.

The executive order came several weeks after an official memo was issued from the Office of Management and Budget to cancel all “training on ‘critical race theory’” or “white privilege.”

This is one move in a larger fascist program of America First white supremacy, slamming women and LGBTQ people back to the dark ages, and importantly: suppressing dissent, rewriting reality, and violently crushing what are supposed to be basic democratic rights.

The Executive Order paints a picture of the U.S. as having achieved its “national creed” that all men are created equal and that what is dangerous is not the ongoing, deadly white supremacy of this system but the discussion and struggle over this white supremacy. Black, Latinx, and Native people are catching hell in every sphere of society—from dying disproportionately from COVID-19 to economic disparities and brutality by the armed enforcers of this system. The regime is not only moving to ramp this up to genocidal proportions but is working to suppress any truth-telling that gets in the way of enforcing this.

The Executive Order states: “Thanks to the courage and sacrifice of our forebears, America has made significant progress toward realization of our national creed, particularly in the 57 years since Dr. King shared his dream with the country.... Today, however, many people are pushing a different vision of America that is grounded in hierarchies based on collective social and political identities rather than in the inherent and equal dignity of every person as an individual. This ideology is rooted in the pernicious and false belief that America is an irredeemably racist and sexist country; that some people, simply on account of their race or sex, are oppressors; and that racial and sexual identities are more important than our common status as human beings and Americans.”

To translate this bullshit Nazi double-speak: The act of recognizing the oppression of social groups—forged through slavery, the genocide of Native peoples, the centuries-old oppression of women which has been woven into the economy, organization, and culture of present-day capitalism-imperialism—is a “destructive ideology” that undermines national unity.

The Executive Order argues that in America, individuals succeed based on their merit, that it’s a color-blind society and to argue otherwise is a “divisive concept.” So forget the fact that Black people face twice as much unemployment as white people; that on average, Black workers are paid 73 cents to the dollar that white workers are paid; or that the median income for white households is 70 percent higher than Black households.¹ This reinforces genocidal white supremacy—if you’re forbidden from examining the underlying and driving dynamics that causes these systemic disparities, then all you’re left with is the fascist idea that all this must be Black people’s fault for not “working as hard as all the successful white people.”

Trump has repeatedly attacked “critical race theory” and the New York Times Magazine 1619 Project, which explore the ways in which slavery and white supremacy have shaped every sphere of American society: from the fact that the wealth of America, and the speed with which it gained its wealth, was derived in large part from slavery; how the institutions and law in this country evolved rooted in slavery; how modern-day segregation flows from the history of KKK terror and legally enforced apartheid; how white people, just by virtue of being white, have a leg up in this society because of how it historically evolved. This important scholarship has contributed to a deeper understanding of the actual nature of American history and its brutal present-day reality.²

Two ominous examples of what this Executive Order means in practice:

* As part of Hispanic Heritage Month, longtime activist and public speaker Rosa Clemente was supposed to give a presentation to the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) titled: “Unapologetically Black: Afro-Latinx Culture and Identity.” Just 10 days after the Executive Order, and 24 hours before Clemente was supposed to give this presentation, she received a letter of cancellation. The NCUA said that they were “reviewing the recently issued executive order and OMB memos.”

* Actor William Jackson Harper had an event planned with the organization “Arts in the Armed Forces.” They were screening the Spike Lee film Malcolm X in a virtual event and Harper was going to lead a discussion/Q&A about the film. This involved four classes of cadets from different military academies. Jackson wrote, “Two days before the event, I was informed that students at two of the academies would not be taking part for fear of running afoul of President Trump’s ‘Executive Order Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping.’” Jackson went on, “I don’t disagree with the idea of combating race and sex stereotyping. But that is not what this order is about. This is censorship. This executive order is an attempt to censor certain difficult truths that still haunt our society. This executive order denies the very real experiences of so many minorities in this country. This executive order is rooted in the fictitious idea that the scourges of racism and sexism are essentially over, and that the poisonous fallout from centuries discrimination isn’t real. But all of these things are real, and they remain to this day some of the most salient malignancies in our society.” In the end, just one of these military classes pulled out of the event.

Trump’s Executive Order points specifically to the danger of teaching people in the military that America is “fundamentally racist.” These fascists are relying on a military with over 30 percent people of color. So from their fascist perspective, such teachings are a serious threat, and they warn that it “could directly threaten the cohesion and effectiveness” of the U.S. military.

***

Fascism has direction and momentum. This is just the beginning of their moves to rewrite American history, silence dissent and scholarship that tells the truth about the history of this country and breaks open debate about why white supremacy continues to today and what must be done about it. In this Executive Order combined with Trump’s calls for “Patriotic Education,” and Betsy DeVos’ attacks on public, secular education, as Bob Avakian pointed out in his August 1 statement, “We can recognize the looming shadow of a situation where not just school children, but everyone in society, will be required to pledge allegiance to a white Christian fascist America.”

1. See “What Donald Trump’s Claims About Black Unemployment Reveal and Conceal... The Reality of Systemic Racism and the U.S. Labor Market,” by Raymond Lotta, at revcom.us. [back]

2. See the revcom.us comment on the 1619 Project here, which notes there are three different choices and futures posed: “First, there is the MAGA-style open re-assertion and imposition of white supremacy with potentially genocidal implications... Second, there are efforts like that of the Times and many progressive public intellectuals to open up and make available the actual history of this country, in an effort to ‘save America’... Third, there is the real urgent necessity of getting organized now for an ACTUAL revolution to overthrow and defeat the system of American capitalism-imperialism, and the white supremacy woven into its fabric....” [back]