Introduction: Throughout his social media dispatches this year, Bob Avakian (BA) has hammered home the theme that this is not a “normal” election year, and he’s gone into what this means for the oppressed and those who hate oppression. Earlier this year, BA said:

[S]ome people would love to be rid of all the terrible and unnecessary suffering that is actually caused by this system—but they just think the revolution I’m talking about could never happen.

Well, the truth is: it could happen—not just in some far off place and time, but right here and right in this time we are living in.

The basic reason why this revolution is possible now is because those who have ruled this country for so long are bitterly and deeply divided among themselves, while the country as a whole is being torn apart by divisions that can no longer be covered over and things can no longer be held together in the way they have been for generations. (from REVOLUTION #8, @BobAvakianOfficial)

Think about some of the craziness that has gone down just since this was written—everything from the attempted assassination of one presidential candidate to the sitting president of the other party being forced to give up the nomination he seemed to have already won. 

BA immediately went on to say in this post that:

Everything will very likely be coming to a head and coming up for grabs this year, 2024, with the presidential election this year a sharp focus of the fight between the dominating ruling class parties—Democrats and Republicans—a fight that is very likely to break all out of the bounds of the “normal way” they exercise power over the people, and keep their whole murderous system going.

The fascist Republicans are actively preparing for this fight. They are mobilizing their fanatical supporters to break whatever rules they need to break by whatever means they need to break them. 

But the Democrats are acting as if this is a normal election in which their supporters just need to make sure to vote. This week, in some of his most recent dispatches which we are reprinting, Bob Avakian goes deeply into how the speeches of the Obamas and others at the convention consciously steered people away from understanding the FASCIST character of what is going on. The Democrats worked to conceal this crucial reality for two reasons. One, such an admission could call into question for millions what kind of system is this anyway, where such a thing can happen. And two, if masses of people opposed to fascism did go into the streets to resist this, it could get all out of control of the Democrats and PEOPLE could begin to actively seek out and fight for not just liberal or even “radical” solutions, but revolutionary and emancipating solutions to this madness.

As this series we are starting this week at revcom.us, “The Fascist Attacks on the Elections and the Need to Actively Prepare for the Coming Showdown,” makes clear, this fight is not just coming—it is already here, in beginning but very intense forms. As an accompaniment to this series, we are including an extremely relevant section of Bob Avakian’s 2021 talk SOMETHING TERRIBLE OR SOMETHING TRULY EMANCIPATING: Profound Crisis, Deepening Divisions, The Looming Possibility of Civil War—And The Revolution That Is Urgently Needed, which gets into some of the implications of this.

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Part One: The fascists are whipping up their supporters into a frenzy, forging “shock troops” and “holy warriors” to spearhead their whole project.

In 2016—when he won—Trump claimed that millions of “illegal immigrants” had been allowed to vote. Then in 2020 he said that he didn’t “lose”—no, the election was “stolen” through non-citizens voting and other types of “fraud.”

There is no evidence for this because it never happened. But the lie of the “stolen” election serves three very real purposes for the fascists. First, it is an assertion of their white supremacism—any president elected in significant part by non-white voters is in their eyes “illegitimate.” Second, it is a means for inflaming the fascist base, telling them they were “robbed” by those they perceive as their enemies—illegal immigrants, Black people, liberals.

And third, it is preparing the fascist base to believe that a Trump electoral defeat in 2024 can only happen due to “election fraud.” Trump says: “Our primary focus is not to get out the vote, it is to make sure they don’t cheat. We have all the votes we’ll need.” In other words, if Trump doesn’t win, that is “proof” that the election was “stolen again.” And then Trump says “you have to fight for the right of the country.”

And this is working. A large majority of Republican officials and leaders are actively spreading these lies, while most of those elected Republican officials who said the claims of "stolen election" were untrue have retired, left or been driven out of the GOP, sometimes by threats of violence.¹ And according to recent polls:

• more than 60 percent of Republican voters believe that Trump won the 2020 election;
• more than half do not think the 2024 elections will be fair; and
• more than one in four are willing to say to pollsters that they believe that “Americans may have to resort to violence to get the country back on track.”

The fascists are also demonizing their enemies, both among the oppressed masses and within the ruling class, preparing their followers for violence. Trump exhorts his people: “Don’t let them cheat. Don’t let them do anything.” He warns "If I don't get elected, it's going to be a bloodbath for the whole country."

Trump calls immigrants “animals,” says they are “the greatest invasion in history,” and are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He recently pledged to “root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin”—meaning mainstream Democrats! And just last week he reposted two ominous tweets. One included photos of 15 top political opponents—including Biden and Kamala Harris—saying “they should be going to jail.” The other called for Liz Cheney (a prominent anti-Trump Republican) to be tried for treason before a military tribunal, a charge that carries the death penalty.

And at the same time, Trump portrays the actual fascist thugs who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021—and have pleaded guilty to or been convicted of crimes, including serious violent crimes—as heroes and martyrs. Trump calls them “hostages” and promises to pardon them once in office. He sometimes opens campaign rallies with a recording of the “J6 Prison Choir” singing the “Star-Spangled Banner.”

All of this is central to the Republi-fascist 2024 “elections strategy.” Having millions of fanatics cohered (held together) by the belief that “the true Americans” are being cheated of any say in things and their lives “ruined” by impoverished immigrants, Black people, women, and so-called “liberal elites” serves both to push through the quasi-legal efforts to “win” the election and to prepare more openly violent ways to seize power if they can’t win or rig the election. This will be brought out much more fully in the next installments of this series.

Next week: Part 2: Suppressing the Vote