At this writing, it has been almost six weeks since President Trump was inaugurated, and protests in opposition to him continue with no let-up in sight. Emotions run high. “Hope not fear . . . Equality for all . . . Women’s Rights. . . Healthcare for all . . . No walls. No Ban. . .” are just a few of the peoples’ demands.
Trump portrays himself as something closer to the common man. As a corporate owner he is anything but that. He and his cabinet members aren’t just pro-big business, they are big business. People are saying, “What is this, a dictatorship?” The real common people are morally outraged at his demeaning of women, his racist hate speak toward Muslims, Mexicans and African Americans, and his blatant disregard for the environment and the disabled, among other things. It is on this basis that a very broad, massive, sustained movement is developing intuitively referring to itself as the resistance.
The Democratic Party and others would like to keep the attention of this movement focused just on Trump, or the far right, or Republicans. However, long before this (s)election was concluded, many were beginning to question an economic system and and its political structure that finds every way possible to enrich the tiny class of billionaires, while making an ever increasing number of American workers jobless and homeless.
When a young man recently told Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on live TV that 51% of young people “no longer support the system of capitalism,” she defended the system. Obviously, Donald Trump is not the only “front man” for capitalism. Both major political parties are caught in the dilemma of having to protect corporate profits and private property while at the same time appearing to be for the working class. The resistance movement is a potential threat to that charade.
Our economy is not broken, it’s dying. It’s become cheaper for capitalists to buy machines to do work rather than give a worker a job. What jobs are left are temporary and at lower pay. Trump’s proposed tax breaks, deregulation and subsidies for the wealthy can bring some manufacturing home to the US in large part because it’s becoming cheaper to produce here with robots than to use cheap labor anywhere in the world. There is a world of difference between made in America by robots and made in America by workers with jobs. When that difference becomes clear to the workers, it will add fuel to the resistance movement. It is under these conditions that the ruling class is imposing fascism in order to quell any and all resistance.
Fascism today is the merger of the government and the corporations. This means not only the dictatorship of the corporations to repress dissent: it’s also the corporations using the government to guarantee their profits. While Trump’s racist propaganda of hate is used to try and distract and divide us, the corporate takeover of government continues. Public housing, public schools, parks, libraries, highways, water, even the postal services—all government entities are becoming the private property of corporations and a source of profit for them. Soon to follow will be Medicare and Social Security.
Fascism, the open dictatorship of the corporations, is the exact opposite of what we the people are fighting for. We are fighting for a whole new society where the people are in charge, where no one lives in fear, where everyone’s rights are guaranteed and no one is homeless or hungry. The force to create this new society already exists; it is the millions of every color, nationality and gender, many of whom have been forced into poverty by the corporate system, and are fighting for a just society for all. A first step toward a new America would be for us to unite this movement around the demand that the government be our government and take over the corporations and run them in the interest of we the people.
If you add “for the Billionaires” at the end of each Trump sentence it makes sense. “We have a fantastic health care bill….for the Billionaires”. “We are doing a great job bring back jobs..for the Billionaires”, We are making great success in changing laws….for he Billionaires”