Today’s demonstrations across the country will no doubt be enormous. President Trump’s sadistic attacks on the rights and bodies of immigrants — documented and undocumented alike — should be enough to raise up a mighty army of resistance.
Add to that barbarity a host of others. The onslaught against fundamental civil rights and liberties; the misuse of ICE thugs and the National Guard against his political enemies in states and cities controlled by Democrats; his revival of malignant sexism and racist tropes; the support for Israel that makes its genocide against Palestinians possible; and much, much more — these are enough to fuel protests for eternity.
But can we win?
A system in crisis
Capitalism is in trouble internationally, and the ultra-right is offering up scapegoats while it bids for power across the globe. In the U.S., Trump is a symptom of this development, not the cause. If he didn’t exist, the billionaires would have picked someone else to lead the unraveling of reforms and safeguards won by the working class over centuries of struggle.
Profit rates are falling. Workers must be made to pay through the gradual shrinking of real wages, cuts to healthcare and social services, higher prices for everything, and layoffs. This crisis spreads to farmers and to owners of small and medium-sized businesses, who are targeted by MAGA for recruitment.
Day by day the turmoil deepens and Trump tightens the screws. Now he is using the shutdown to fire thousands of government employees, possibly without paying them wages owed, as a warning to other workers of the lengths he will go to break us and wipe out all legal protections.
For a national general strike
No Kings organizers proclaim that they are “building a movement powerful enough to win against authoritarian forces dead set on destroying our democracy.” Instead of offering any ideas about what kind of program or strategy this movement would be based on, they offer abstractions about “staying in the fight, taking concrete action today, and investing in the long-term.” They carefully avoid any discussion of where the power to win lies and what actions could achieve victory.
The Freedom Socialist Party, on the other hand, has some ideas on this subject.
The movement so far has not stopped Trump’s attacks because the U.S. working class underestimates its own strength and lacks a confident, collective leadership ready to unite us nationally and take us into battle. But this could happen in rather short order if we organize now within our unions, from the ground up, to tell labor leaders it’s time to get serious about calling a general strike. If the unions show that they are fighting for the whole multi-colored working class, organized and unorganized, and win bankrupt farmers and small-business people to their side, the chances of victory are in our favor.
The labor anthem “Solidarity Forever” sums it up well: “In our hands is placed a power greater than their hoarded gold.” Without our labor every day, “not a single wheel would turn.” The sick-out by a small number of federal air traffic controllers last week showed how true these words are.
The might of the international working class lies in our ability to withhold our combined skills and in our knowledge and on-the-job teamwork. Government agents with guns are not trained to run trains, keep the skies safe, teach children, care for the sick and elderly, or keep society humming. That’s workers’ power. Let’s use it to defend our class and our rights.
To get involved with the Freedom Socialist Party, contact:
FSP National Office: 206-985-4621 • FSPus@socialism.com
New York City: 212-222-0633 • nycfsp@gmail.com
Los Angeles: 323-732-6416 • lafsp@socialism.com
San Francisco: 415-864-1278 • BayAreaFSP@socialism.com
Seattle: 206-722-2453 • SeattleFSP@socialism.com
Portland, OR: 503-516-2151
Baltimore: fspbaltimore@hotmail.com
