Donald Trump—Notorious P.I.G. and self-confessed pussy-grabbing hater of women, unhinged habitual liar, Nazi-venom-spewing basher of immigrants, shoot-em-in-the-legs white supremacist, retribution-promising, rule-of-law trampling, America-First outright fascist—has been elected president. In just weeks, he is scheduled to assume the full powers of the state.

Back in 2017, speaking to the nightmare confronted by the first Trump presidency, Bob Avakian, revolutionary leader and author and architect of the new communism, said this:

We are confronted by—we are now being ruled by—a fascist regime: relentlessly assaulting civil rights and liberties and openly promoting bigotry and inequality; acting with callous disregard or cold-blooded malice toward those they consider inferior and a drain or stain on the country; on a mission to deny health care to millions who will suffer and many who will die without it; crudely degrading women, as objects of plunder, breeders of children without the right to abortion or birth control, subordinate to husbands and men in general; defying the science of climate change, attacking the science of evolution, and repudiating the scientific method overall; a regime brandishing an arsenal of mass destruction and threatening nuclear war; intensifying state terror against Muslims, immigrants and people in the inner cities; unleashing and giving encouragement and support to brutal thugs spewing vile “America First,” white supremacist, male supremacist and anti-LGBT venom—a regime that boasts of all this and declares its intention to do even worse.

All this still holds, but this time it is worse. This time around, Trump has a “mandate” from the people. He has learned from his previous experience. He has vanquished his enemies in the election and he is moving to do so in the legal arena. This time around, Trump has a fascist Supreme Court. He has purged the Republican Party of any who oppose him. And he has whipped up and ridden a wave of fascist resentment, frustrated entitlement, and a thirst for retribution back into power. Trump will be less constrained than his first term and more unleashed and determined.

Making things even worse, essentially half the country voted for this nightmare. Yes—they voted for this. And, as Bob Avakian put it in his social media message REVOLUTION #98:

Don’t bother with that bulls**t  that the basic reason why people support Trump is because they are having a hard time economically, and so on. In fact, many Trump supporters are well-off economically (and some are very rich). But even for those who are having a hard time economically, the really relevant question is: why do they support the all-the-time-lying, ignorance-promoting, racist, misogynist (hater of women) and all-around fascist Donald Trump? The answer can only be that, at the very least, they find nothing wrong with racism and misogyny—which makes them misogynists and racists (what a terrible irony for those Black people and other people of color who support Trump!). Just like those who supported Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, they support a fascist because fascism appeals to them.

All this has to be squarely faced by anyone who wants to hold onto their humanity in the months and years to come.

But, for all of you out there who are still thinking or hoping that the Democratic Party has anything to do with anything positive up against this nightmare: here is another, equally significant, truth of importance: The Democratic Party cannot fight these fascists in the way they need to be fought. They cannot do this because—as a ruling class Party of this system of capitalism-imperialism—they cannot offer a positive alternative to the fascism. They cannot provide a means for achieving the things that decent people aspire to. They cannot bring a just end to things that decent people hate. The genocidal slaughter of Palestinians by Israel , which is being armed and backed by Biden and Harris and the Democratic Party as a whole—as well as the Republican Party, by the way—is a concentration of this. And, with whatever differences the Democrats and Trump may have over Russia and Ukraine, they are united in their preparation for war with China, with all the terrible consequences of that, for humanity as a whole.

Further, despite some pretense and deception on the part of the Democrats, the same is true down the line of all the crucial things that decent people care about—from the accelerating destruction of the environment, to oppression based on race, sex and gender, to the persecution of immigrants. The Democrats cannot bring about a just resolution to any of this, for the fundamental reason that all this is built into this system which they represent and enforce.

Here is just one illustration of this among many. Did you watch Harris’s “concession speech” on the day after the election? Despite some meaningless platitudes about “freedom,” this talk was nothing more than a miserable call for capitulation to the fascism of Trump on the basis of allegiance to the system. Allegiance to this system which has given rise to this fascism, along with all the other monstrosities this system in this country has brought forth, from its beginning in slavery and genocide down to today. No decent person, who hates injustice, should follow Harris and join in this capitulation.

All this—including the fact that these Democrats cannot and will not fight these fascists the way they must be fought—is an expression of a deeper reality. This fascism has been bred and fed by this system of capitalism-imperialism. This fascism has grown out of the very soil of this country, with its whole history, and current reality, of horrific atrocity, its fundamental relations of ruthless exploitation and murderous oppression, of people here and all over the world, and the putrid culture that has rationalized, and even celebrated all this.

Yes, very late in the final days of the campaign, Generals Mark Milley and John Kelly, both of whom served under Trump, came out and accurately described Trump as a fascist. Even Harris herself said this a couple of times. But then Harris and the Democrats continued to actively undermine this truth by spreading and focusing on the illusion that the problem with Trump is that he thinks only of himself, or that he is “dividing us” “the American people.” These Democrats are covering over the reality that more or less half the country is supporting fascism.

In his piece, published just before the election, called Fascism and the Whole System, Bob Avakian spoke to why the Democrats cannot speak to this truthfully. This is because:

to acknowledge that essentially half the country is fascist blows apart the whole “shining city on a hill” and “leader of the free world” mythology, which is crucial for the way they seek to hold the country together and project its power in the world.

All this brings me to something that is critically important:

So long as your horizons are limited to what is possible within the confines of this system—so long as you believe that the only “realistic choices,” in terms of the direction of society, involve supporting one or another ruling class party of this system (Democrat or Republican)—the result will be a continuation of horrors.

It is time to look seriously for solutions outside and beyond this system.

It is time for a revolution to overthrow and uproot this whole system and bring into being a fundamentally different and much better system.

This is possible. 

Because of Bob Avakian and the work he has done over decades, there is a whole new framework of human emancipation—a real-world, scientifically grounded strategy and approach for not only overthrowing the existing system but for bringing into being a far better, emancipating system that enables and unleashes people to thrash out together how to go to work digging up and overcoming all relations of oppression and exploitation based on race, sex, gender and class. A revolution and a whole new system that can bring about the emancipation of all of humanity. Bob Avakian has authored a blueprint for how we do this in the Constitution for the New Socialist Republic in North America.

On top of all that, Bob Avakian is actively providing the necessary strategic leadership—through his social media messages @BobAvakianOfficial and in other ways—to guide us in making this revolution real.

As Bob Avakian said three years ago, in Something Terrible OR Something Truly Emancipating:

Things are not as they were in the past, and the reality is this: The profound divisions, within the ruling class, and in the society overall, cannot be smoothed over—they are only going to become deeper and sharper, more acute and antagonistic. Here is the fundamental truth that needs to be clearly and deeply understood: These divisions

cannot be resolved within the framework that has existed, and has held things together, for nearly 150 years, since shortly after the end of the Civil War which led to the abolition of slavery—they cannot be resolved on the basis of the capitalist “democracy” that has been the “normal” means of capitalist rule (dictatorship) for so long.

Look, things have already broken out of bounds of what is normal for so long under this system. The fact that some top operatives of this system openly called Trump a fascist is just one example of this. And these divisions are not going away. In this kind of situation, moves by Trump or his supporters or any number of other developments could cause these splits among the rulers and in society to intensify even further.

So now here we are. You may be reeling from the result of the election, you may be despairing at the possibility of achieving a more just society—and, if you are someone who thinks about the possibility of an actual revolution, you may think this shows that such a revolution is impossible.

But if you think these things, you would be wrong. Very wrong.

All the horror that we now confront, including the turning to fascism by large numbers of people, is a result of the basic functioning and dynamics of this system, and it is only in the fight against this system as a whole that all this can be fundamentally addressed and transformed. For that matter, it is only in that context that there is the possibility of winning over some of those who have, for now, been drawn to this fascism.

What happened through this election is an expression of the fact that there really is only one possible positive alternative and positive resolution to all this madness—and that it is a revolution to overthrow and uproot this whole system—which, along with its other towering crimes, has given rise to this fascism.

What happened through this election is also an expression of, and strongly emphasizes, the fact that the forces for this revolution—including THE REVCOM CORPS For The Emancipation Of Humanity—must be the backbone of, and come to the fore in, the fight against fascism, and do so as part of the fight to bring down this whole system of capitalism-imperialism, and put something much better in its place. This won't be easy, but it can make all the difference in whether humanity will be subjected to the terrible future which just took a quantum leap forward with the election of Trump—or whether we wrench out a future that is truly emancipating.

We need to raise the slogan and fight for this truth:

This Whole System Is Rotten and Illegitimate: We Need and We Demand a Whole New Way to Live, a Fundamentally Different System.

And we need to couple this with the content of this broadsheet, which brings alive the liberating changes a real revolution will bring about and spells out how this can be accomplished:

The Existing Capitalist-Imperialist System And Institutions Of Government In This Country Must Be Abolished And Dismantled—And Replaced By A New, Socialist System Based On The CONSTITUTION FOR THE NEW SOCIALIST REPUBLIC IN NORTH AMERICA.

To everyone who has been and will be rocked by this fascism, we have to tear open serious debate and struggle over the deeper reality I have outlined today. And to everyone who has been working for revolution—or who is just now starting to think about revolution—now is a time to become tempered and steeled, to draw growing numbers of people into the ranks of the revolution through the course of this fight, and to continually deepen your understanding of the need for, and your determination to fight for, the emancipating revolution that is possible.

As we do, we all need to join together to declare:

In The Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!