The recent explosion in Los Angeles in response to Trump’s escalating, aggressive, and draconian raids and deportations targeting immigrants illustrates the growing anger and rage against the Trump administration. That explosive rage has also sparked street actions in other major cities across the country. This specific targeting of workplaces illuminates the intersection between immigration and workers’ rights. David Huerta, the president of the SEIU, was among those opposing and resisting the raids, and was brutalized and held in custody by federal agents. His treatment should bring anger and concern to the working class and the labor movement, and give clarity about why it is a failed strategy to align their destiny with Trump’s policies or interests.
The Trump administration’s blatant disregard for the courts should alarm everyone, as it demonstrates an intent to establish a reactionary governmental regime that operates above the law and without upholding our rights. Trump’s agenda threatens to recreate the repressive conditions of the 1930s and 1940s, a period marked by Jim Crow and McCarthyism that unleashed an attack on the oppressed and the Left. We see this in the recent attack on the Party of Socialism and Liberation by the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counter-Terrorism, chaired by Republican Josh Hawley.
In the face of this threat, the Democratic Party has failed to be bold and audacious in their opposition to Trump. Worse, some Democratic Party leaders have argued that the Democrats need to stop being the party of “wokeness” and adopt a more right-wing, populist agenda, further dividing workers and the oppressed. To mount the type of opposition we need, the movement against Trump has to come to terms with the fact that the Democratic Party cannot be relied on to wage a consistent and militant fight against Trump. Every effort we put into “saving” or “transforming” the Democratic Party takes away energy from building the type of grassroots, bottom-up organizations, locally and nationally, that are needed to unite the struggles against Trump and strengthen our ability to resist raids and deportations, and attacks on public education, civil rights, and social programs like Medicaid and Social Security.
This is why we are calling for people who understand the need for radical ideas, bottom-up organizations, and the collective power of the working class and oppressed to join the “No Kings” protest. We seek to unite various struggles, whether it’s for the fight for Palestinian freedom and an end to genocide, resistance against the attack on immigrant communities, or opposition to the Trump administration. No one is free until all of us are free! Our liberation is connected and can only be won through our collective activity, independent of the Democrats and Republicans, and fights for a new system controlled and operated by the working class and the oppressed.
End police brutality and abolish the police! Free Palestine and end the ongoing genocide in Gaza! Stop the raids and deportations! Abolish ICE! Full rights for undocumented immigrants! Defend democratic rights and release all political prisoners! Free Mahmoud Khalil! Tax the rich and end the attack on Social Security and Medicaid! End the attack on labor rights and the working class!
We’ll see you on Saturday.
