https://fighting-words.net/2019/05/17/the-struggle-against-donald-trump/
By Chris Fry
The president is an unabashed white supremacist. His racist policies are designed to roll back gains hard-won through incredible struggle. He travels the country spouting the vilest bigotry. His political “base” includes terrorist groups like the Knights of the Golden Circle, the Knights of the White Camellia and, of course, the Ku Klux Klan. Individual Black people are shot down in the streets with impunity. Brutal massacres kill dozens at a time. This president’s policies arouse such outrage among the people that demands for his ouster through impeachment spread from the halls of Congress to most of the country.
The year is not 2019; it is 1868. And the president is not Donald Trump; it is Andrew Johnson.
The squandering of the “Dump Trump” movement
Today, the leadership of the Democratic Party is in a deep quandary entirely of its own making. From day one of Donald Trump’s inauguration, millions of people have poured into the streets to protest against him: from millions of women marching against his crude misogyny, to massive protests against his bigoted anti-Muslim ban, to incredible outrage against his openly racist attacks against migrants that included tearing children away from the arms of their parents and placing them in cages like animals. Trump’s pro-Nazi statements about Charlottesville sent shockwaves of anger and disgust through workers and oppressed across the country.
This massive outrage expressed itself in a huge electoral victory for the Democratic Party in the 2018 elections, where they won control of the House of Representatives. Clearly, ousting Trump through the legal mechanism of impeachment topped the agenda of millions of voters, particularly those from the oppressed communities. This fervor was so deep that even some who called themselves “socialist” ousted the more corporate Democratic politicians and took office.
And what have Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer done with this popular movement to oust Trump, two years before the next election? They narrowed their effort against him entirely to his election campaign’s supposed “collusion with Russia.” They relied entirely on the Mueller investigation from that bastion of repression, the Justice Department (DOJ), to indict Trump. That, they refuse to do.
In the midst of all this, Speaker Pelosi announced that impeachment is “off the table.” She and Senator Schumer held a “friendly” meeting with Trump to discuss an “infrastructure” program, which is, of course, a pipedream that will never happen, but it does show the complete capitulation of the Democratic Party leadership to the Boss Trump regime.
Now the Trump regime shows its complete contempt for its impotent Democratic Party opponents, arrogantly defying all subpoenas for White House witnesses and documents. Instead of launching impeachment hearings based on this defiance, as well as all the racist, sexist, anti-worker, vile Trump policies that are aimed to sweep away all the gains from decades of struggle by the workers and oppressed, the House leaders are meekly announcing plans to going to court to file “contempt citations,” which will accomplish nothing.
They have not even uttered a whisper against Trump’s war threats against Venezuela, Iran, China, Syria or anywhere else.
Like their Republican Party counterparts, these Democratic Party minions of Wall Street corporations and bankers, who are enraptured by Trump’s tax cuts and “deregulation,” are telling the workers and oppressed that we must endure two more years of Trump’s atrocities so that we can finally vote for one of their little army of Democratic candidates….
Protest photos from Anti-Trump protest in Green Bay, WI April 27, 2019 Photos: WI BOPM
