Hundreds in Defiant Protest At Trump Celebration in DC … Thousands Rally in NYC

January 19, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

 

 

Hundreds Protest at alt-right "DeploraBall" celebration in D.C

Hundreds, including RefuseFascism, protested and confronted racist Trumpites outside the "DeploraBall" on Thursday night at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, where "alt-right" white supremacists came to celebrate the victory of the fascist Trump-Pence regime. Whining about the protest, one racist told the press: “This was our election. We emerged victorious.”

 

 

 

NYC: Ten Thousand Rally, Pledging “Resistance” to Trump

From reader:

At least 10,000 people came out after work Thursday, on the eve of the Inauguration, to protest the incoming regime of Donald Trump and Mike Pence. Chants of “not my president” erupted from the crowd, and “Stop Trump-Pence Fascist Regime Before It Starts” and other signs from refusefascism.org peppered the crowd. Calls from the speaker’s platform to resist, to fight back, and especially for everyone to come together to defend any group targeted by the regime—Muslims, immigrants, LGBT people, women—met with roars of support.

The rally was called by New York Mayor de Blasio, filmmaker Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, and Greenpeace. There were many short speeches from local political leaders, Al Sharpton, the national chairperson of the NAACP, unions, and by numerous celebrities like Robert DeNiro, Alec Baldwin, Rosie Perez, Julianne Moore, Marisa Tomei, Cynthia Nixon, Sally Fields, and more. While there were of course a range of views presented, a major theme was that people could not lie down in the face of this coming to power of Trump, but had to get ready for a major fight. Michael Moore called on people to be ready to block streets and bridges to prevent the implementation of Trump’s agenda of racist and xenophobic persecution, and announced that if Trump starts a Muslim registry, Moore would be the first to sign up as a Muslim.

These points connected strongly with the crowd, mainly white, middle class people in their 30s, 40s, and 50s, and mostly not activists or people who go to a lot of protests. Many people said they felt that they really had to come out and be with like-minded people on this night, standing on the eve of what all sensed to be a truly horrible turn in the history of the U.S., and also they felt compelled to do something and not just sit home by themselves letting this happen. There was anguish and concern, and a feeling that this was not the end but the beginning of determined resistance. A young woman told the New York Times, “Trump is a direct threat to me and my humanity ... I couldn’t not be here.”

At the same time, people there were only beginning to come to grips with what it means to have a fascist regime in place—including what it means to resist under these conditions. Most had not thought through the kind of police state conditions that people will likely face very soon under a regime that—as revcom.us put it—will aim to “stay on the offensive and bludgeon its way out of any problems it creates,” relying on both state and mob violence in an attempt to scatter and shatter resistance. A number of people expressed outright disbelief that this could happen in the U.S., even now. But the spirit of standing up at this moment shown by tens of thousands in NYC and elsewhere is an essential element and holds real promise for the battle that needs to rage going forward.

 

 

 

 

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