The first weeks of the Trump administration have laid bare the hate-filled agenda they plan to carry out. This administration has already openly attacked immigrants, Muslims, women, LGBTQ people, threatened to accelerate environmental destruction, to support corporations and banks while increasing attacks on working people. And as it gets ready for a war at home against those who resist their agenda, it is preparing to intensify U.S. wars abroad.
This is an administration ready to increase the criminalization of protests and dissent, and do whatever they can to bolster racist and nationalist sentiments in order to divide the population and try to weaken our forces.
Many people have expressed fear about what might be coming. Others have said we should just wait and see what happens.
But these have not been the only responses. Across the country tens of thousands of people have begun to express their outrage against the horrific agenda of this administration. There have been protests, rallies, school walkouts and more. People have begun discussing what lies ahead with their families, their friends, their co-workers, their neighbors. But the question on everyone’s mind is what do we do next?
First, we must begin to understand what we are up against. Long before the Republican administration of Donald Trump, we have faced these same problems. The Democrats too have supported brutal wars and military strikes on millions of innocent people, defended corporations destroying the environment, supported banks as millions of families lost their homes, attacked working people in defense of corporate profits, supported attacks on immigrants, attacks on women, the militarization of the police, the gutting of funds for education, health care, and many social services.
The reason we see similar policies under Democrats and Republicans is because they both serve the same system – capitalism, run in the interests of the one percent, the owners of the banks and large corporations.
The Obama administration tried to present a more acceptable version of this system, to conceal its defense of the one percent. Trump represents the same interests but with the mask ripped off, revealing a more brutal functioning of the same system.
We know what to expect from their system. We know the forces gathered against us. But we must remember that we are the vast majority of humanity, and it is our labor that makes their whole system run. When we are organized together, we have the power to resist further attacks and defend our own interests.
Now is the time for us to start gathering our own forces and start to organize for a fight against their whole system.
