BAYAN USA joins the growing clamor in the streets to remove Donald Trump from the Presidential office immediately and hold him and his base—including his neofascist armed supporters and the Capitol police—criminally accountable for engaging in the violent, terrorizing, and deadly storming of the Capitol building in Washington DC last January 6.
The attack on the Capitol, Trump’s open and implicit support for it, and the audacity of the Capitol police to take selfie pictures and open the gates for Trump’s supporters clearly demonstrates the aligned class interests of Trump’s faction of the ruling class and his extreme right wing base. History teaches us there can be no peace or healing after such an incident without justice. And that justice can only be won by the unity of the American people to decisively fight for pro-people change and defeat fascism through people’s struggle. Trump and his faction of the ruling elite are well-aware of this, and for the last four years have co-opted sections of the working and poor masses—including many Filipinos—over to his camp. To combat this, we must organize people more boldly to genuine mass movements that will challenge not just Trump, but the current power structure in play.
Change in President not a Change in the System
We know from our history as Filipinos in the US, who witnessed the ouster of US-backed dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1986, that a change in who holds the office of President does not equate to a change in the character of the ruling system itself. In fact, the 2-party veneer of the US government’s liberal bourgeois democracy only superficially hides its unitary goal of upholding the interests of the US financial oligarchy and protecting the monopoly capitalist system.
This system continues to demonstrate its rotten anti-people character via the labor exploitation of the working class, systemic racism, police brutality, mass incarceration, the separation of families, endless wars of aggression, wide scale impoverishment of the American people and those in colonies and neocolonies, and so on. Biden’s projection of a domestic terrorism bill in response to the Capitol attack—which will surely be used against genuine people’s movements—only serves to further expose US imperialism’s rotten character.
Fight Terror at Home and Abroad
While many were shocked and traumatized by the events that unfolded in Capitol Hill last week, it is important to note that similar scenes occur frequently in other parts of the world as well, especially in so-called poorer nations in Latin America, Asia, and Africa. And more often than not, it is the US imperialist government that is responsible for destabilization, coups, and sieges unleashed on other governments overseas via its foreign policy doctrine of intervention, militarism, and counterinsurgency.
The American people’s struggle to defeat domestic terrorism by Trump’s neofascist supporters and the state terrorism committed by the US police and other armed forces must be linked to the the struggle against US imperialist aggression and interventionism overseas. We must connect the call to stop fascism at home with the call to stop US war abroad and for a US foreign policy that recognizes and respects the sovereignty of nations and rights of peoples.
Build the Mass Movement
While millions residing in the U.S. are suffering and dying from the economic crisis and COVID pandemic, the ruling class continues to scramble and stumble over themselves allowing Trump’s far-right faction to sow division. On top of everything, this month has been the deadliest week of COVID-19 in the U.S. thus far. With the Presidential inauguration less than a week away, we can only expect worsening conditions. We refuse to place blind hope in any one person, President, or leader.
Instead we place our trust in the masses, the people most impacted by this current crisis especially the working-class, houseless communities, essential workers, and health workers on the front-lines keeping the population and economy afloat, yet drowning in the failures of this Trump administration to address this crisis. We must continue to organize our communities beyond the ballot and beyond the inauguration to unite and fight back against fascism, fight back against COVID-19, and push for a pro-people government that dedicates public resources and attention to addressing the majority’s issues. Let us fight for what is ours but is being taken away from us by monopoly capitalism, especially in this time of the deadly pandemic, socio-economic crisis, and rising state repression. ###