November 24, 2020
Andy Zee Opening Remarks
Forum: What Just Happened? Trump, America, and the Danger of Fascism

November 30, 2020 | revcom.us

 

Editors’ note: These comments have been slightly edited for publication.

If you’ve had a recurring nightmare repeatedly jolt you awake, it can be a problem, indeed dangerous, to not find out where that’s coming from, and work your way through it... For the sources of that terror lie deep and can reassert themselves.

Four years ago, Refuse Fascism said This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go! In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America. How prescient that was, how critical the understanding, the analysis, and the still urgent stand of what begins the Pledge we watched earlier from Refuse Fascism which is: “In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America.”

In the name of humanity concentrates the grave danger that a fascist regime in the most powerful imperialist superpower in history posed not just to people here, but to the people of the world, and to the very Earth we live on. The Trump/Pence fascist regime came to power through the “normal” political processes of this system and the regime represented, it pulled together, it cohered, a whole section of the ruling class of this system who regarded and still do—this American fascism as one possible resolution to the problems that this system faces in the world today.

The Trump/Pence regime did not create the deep divisions in America, nor did it create climate change, nor nuclear weapons, let alone the triad of its fascist program that Coco referred to: white supremacy, patriarchy, and xenophobia, anymore than it created the COVID virus. What the Trump/Pence regime did do, is amplify and put on steroids all of these pre-existing conditions, and to do so, it concentrated and fought for a different form of rule of this same system—it tore through what had been the political and civic norms—to rule

through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thugs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as “enemies,” “undesirables,” or “dangers to society.”

All of this to implement their program of America First—an America of genocidal racism, the most toxic male supremacy, and the outright demonization and terrorizing of immigrants in concentration camps, with the children of refugees separated and put in cages as their families fled countries that the U.S. and the capitalist-imperialist system has devastated.

Isn’t this what they have done? And, since they are not out of power yet; and 73 million people voted for them with over 40 percent of all those who voted in the election fervently convinced that Trump won and Biden stole the election and thus is illegitimate—along with their believing even worse lunatic conspiracy theories; we must remain vigilant, now and going forward.

This Is Not Going Away. There will be no return to normal ... no return to normal ... and any objective view of what this country does to millions of people within its borders, to the people of the world and to the planet, should lead to no one wanting to return to “normal” for all the horrors that brings.

Why? Because fascism is one response to the contradictions of this system on the part of a section of those who rule this system.

Bob Avakian, the revolutionary leader, has said the normal workings of this system will:

continue to wreak havoc in the world and on the masses of people in the world, through destruction of the environment, wars, massive displacement and desperate migration of people, on top of the ongoing savage inequalities, crushing exploitation and murderous oppression “written into the DNA” of this system and carried out by its brutal enforcers.

This is from an article whose title poses a key takeaway from what I am bringing to our conversation: Radical Change Is Coming: Will It Be Emancipating, or Enslaving—Revolutionary or Reactionary? I cite Bob Avakian repeatedly, and I follow his lead, because he has developed the science to more deeply explain where the problems of today’s world come from, what the strategy is for getting out of this mess, what the methods and approaches should be to stay on track and actually build a better world.

The roots of fascism in America are deep. At the organized mass core of this fascist movement is a Christian fascist movement—a form of political Christian fundamentalism—that has been organizing for decades.

One can draw a direct line from the fascism of the Trump/Pence regime with this Christian fundamentalist base, to the Confederacy. A religious fervor of a return to the “lost cause” of a noble way of life—of unfettered brutal white supremacy and patriarchy—each taking on genocidal proportions while wrapped in MAGA/America First package—an aggressive approach to the world—threatening nuclear annihilation that mirrors the aggressive individualism of their movement: my freedom means you might die—fully aware that with COVID that disproportionately means Black and Latino lives.

I want to bring this to a conclusion with Four Points.

[1] There can be NO RECONCILIATION WITH FASCISM. Trump did not divide us and Biden cannot unite us. Bob Avakian has pointed out that the minds of these fascists in power and in the streets will not be changed by “being nice” to them:

There can be no “reconciliation” with these fascists—whose “grievances” are based on fanatical resentment against any limitation on white supremacy, male supremacy, xenophobia (hatred of foreigners), rabid American chauvinism, and the unrestrained plundering of the environment, and are increasingly expressed in literally lunatic terms. There can be no “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists, with all the terrible implications and consequences of that!

NO “reconciliation” with this, other than on the terms of these fascists... If you compromise, conciliate, collaborate, with fascism, which is what the Democrats have done and will do, because they fundamentally represent the same system that has white supremacy, patriarchy, and domination of the people of the world woven into its very functioning. It is the fuel of the engine of capitalism-imperialism. So this is my second point. To underscore it:

[2] Biden and the Democratic Party, as representatives of the same system, cannot solve the underlying problems of this system which cause so much unnecessary suffering to people here and around the world—a world of tens and hundreds of millions of refugees, of 150 million children locked in virtual slave labor, of half of humanity confined and thwarted by a vicious patriarchy, of wars, climate devastation, of racial and national oppression, and the crushing of spirits and the squandering of human potential to the dictates of a system whose lifeblood is the exploitation of billions of people enforced through brute power and reinforced through tradition’s chains.

[3] Point three. The contention at the top of society around the fascist Republican Party, deep in the institutions of this country, in control of the Supreme Court and after four years having forged a cohered and hardened fascist base is not going away, but will continue to metastasize and contend for power.

The struggle for any fundamental change and the ground for revolution will be fought on this ground. It is a conflict that is likely to intensify. And, it will be, as BA has written, “a significant factor in the context of an all-out struggle between revolution and counter-revolution.”

[4] There is a way to understand the nightmare of fascism and the workings of the system that gave rise to it. And there is a way for humanity to move beyond a system that perpetuates such unnecessary suffering. To get there requires the scientific method and approach of the new communism developed by Bob Avakian—which stands in opposition to religious obscurantism, conspiracy lunacy, as well as the relativism of the progressive community that there are just individual truths but no objective knowable reality... There is a road—a hard road through an actual revolution to a radically new society on the road to real emancipation that is outlined in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America, authored by BA.

This is an invitation to take up the scientific approach of the new communism. Have the integrity and courage of thinking critically, to not be bound by the conventions of today, but aspire to what really could be—a radically different and far better world for all humanity.

The fight against fascism is not over. It enters a new phase. But, let’s undertake this fight. Let’s continue to fight together against fascism and indeed against all the injustices that this system continually brings down on the people. Let’s do so while digging into, discussing, and debating the way out of the outmoded madness that haunts the world today.

The Refuse Fascism Pledge to the People of the World: In the Name of Humanity, We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America must continue to resonate far and wide and become not only a needed political and moral compass, but the organized expression of a network ready to act with nonviolent determination to not allow fascism to grow and dominate and terrorize humanity. The next 50 plus days until Trump and Pence are gone from power present real and present danger. We remain vigilant.

To all who have taken up the call from Refuse Fascism, to my fellow panelists who have exposed the dangers of what we face until they’re gone, we should continue to, as the Pledge concludes, “We pledge our determination to prevail over a regime that imperils the people of the world and the earth itself.”

WHAT JUST HAPPENED: TRUMP, AMERICA & THE DANGER OF FASCISM

See the full film, excerpts and Q&A of this film