A second reign of terror: Inside Trump’s blueprint for home raids

Thom Hartmann, AlterNet
November 15, 2024 

Stephen Miller, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner listen as Donald Trump speaks onstage following early results from the 2024 U.S. presidential election in Palm Beach County Convention Center, in West Palm Beach, Florida, U.S., November 6, 2024. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

When Trump was elected, many Americans wondered if we were in for a brutal nationwide reign of terror, or if he’d merely content himself with more tax cuts for billionaires and a repeat of his last term’s personally profitable crony capitalism.

While the mainstream media has treated him (for years) as if he’s just another, albeit quirky, politician, others among us, as Carole Cadwalladr noted at The Power, remember that, when Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines (whose constitution is modeled after ours), within a mere 6 months he was imprisoning opposition politicians, protesters, and journalists.

Taking down the free press in Germany and imprisoning dissidents and journalists took Hitler only three months, about the same as Mussolini and Pinochet.


America’s right-wing oligarchs are apparently ready for the fun to begin: Elon Musk tweeted last week that it’ll soon be time to use the force of law and the Department of Justice to prosecute the people at The Center for Countering Digital Hatewho’ve been relentless in outing Nazis on Xitter. (Musk just lost a lawsuit to them.)

But even though they moved quickly, Hitler, Pinochet, Mussolini, and Duterte didn’t start with journalists; they started with the most marginalized and least powerful people in their nations. For Hitler it was trans people he went after within his first two weeks; for Duterte it was drug addicts.

Pinochet and Mussolini arrested vulnerable working class supporters of their opposition political parties who dared show up in the streets to demonstrate against them.


So, who’s the weakest here in America? While Trump campaigned against trans people (just like Hitler had in 1933), it looks like he has another group in mind for his first genocide.

Trump has his sights on undocumented Black and Hispanic migrants to begin the state-sponsored violence and inure the American public to what will eventually come for many more of us.

Get ready for midnight doorknocks by men with guns starting in January. Particularly if you or anybody in your extended family has a last name that ends with a vowel or a z, or even if you simply have black hair and brown eyes.


Trump and Thomas Homan are on the case.

Homan notoriously ran ICE during the last Trump administration and is often considered, along with Stephen Miller, as the father of Trump’s brutal child-separation policy that traumatized so many thousands of young families and has left about 1,000 youngsters trafficked into pop-up “Christian” adoption services missing to this day.

Alone. Frightened. Not knowing where their parents are or if they’ll ever see them again.


Homan also helped write part of the immigration policies for Project 2025 - and famously bragged to CBS that if he found families with “illegal” members in this country, he’d simply deport the entire family, US citizens or not.

When asked by Cecilia Vega on 60 Minutes, “Is there a way to carry out mass deportation without separating families?” Homan barely took a breath before asserting, “Of course there is. Families can be deported together.”

America has done this before, and the results were ugly.


In the 1920s, Republican President Herbert Hoover initiated a nationwide roundup and deportation of people of mostly Mexican ancestry. Police and border agents simply went house-to-house in Hispanic neighborhoods from Arizona to Alaska, often kicking in doors and dragging out people who couldn’t immediately prove their citizenship. As many as 2 million people with Hispanic last names were arrested.

As a result, an estimated 40% to 60% of the people arrested, detained, and deported were actually US citizens by virtue of their birth on US soil. Because they were deported without proof of citizenship (often because of home births without hospital records), however, they were never able to return to the US.

During WWII, American employers encouraged Mexicans to come to the US to fill jobs vacated by US citizens who’d been drafted and sent off to war.


After the war, President Eisenhower launched Operation Wetback and essentially replicated Hoover’s program; an estimated 300,000 to 1.1 million people were similarly dragged from their homes. Nobody is certain how many were US citizens, but estimates range from 30% to as many as 60%.

Again, because they weren’t able to instantly prove citizenship when the police arrived at their homes, they had no way to get back into the US once they were dumped in Mexico.

If Trump’s leading candidate for Attorney General, Mike Davis, assumes that role he’ll almost certainly back up Holman’s efforts, even if millions of US citizens are seized, imprisoned, and deported. He’s the guy, after all, who just tweeted:

“Fuck unity. We have the votes. And they tried to kill Trump.” And “Here’s my current mood: I want to drag their dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall. (Legally, politically, and financially, of course.)”

The fact that Trump and the people around him are giddy about going after Hispanics and other Black and Brown immigrants from “shithole countries” answers the question everybody is asking about how brutal his second administration could become.

It’s going to be rough. Get ready.

Stephen Miller has already said he’s gleefully going to try to undo the citizenship of naturalized US citizens (presumably not the Norwegians, though) so he can throw them into the concentration camps along with the “illegals”:

And if you you’re a natural born citizen with an Hispanic last name or live anywhere near Hispanics and have black hair and brown eyes, be sure to get your proof of citizenship ready and carry it with you at all times, even when you sleep.

And the rest of us? No dictator in history has ever started a violent inquisition attacking the weakest in society — and they all begin there — without soon extending his terror against every person he thought opposed him or who represented a challenge to his power.

The smug media idiots who’ve been sanewashing Trump for yearswill either roll over (as has already begun) or end up in jail themselves, along with many of us on Substack and in the progressive press.

As JD Vance recently said, implying the thought and speech police will soon be coming for Trump’s critics:
“You cannot lie, take your position of public trust, and lie to the American people for political purposes. It’s disgraceful. And people have to suffer consequences for it.”

Welcome to Trump’s version of hell. And welcome to the resistance.

Ultra-Conservative War Hawks Dominate Trump Cabinet

Trump quickly fills cabinet positions with Zionists, warhawks, and personal friends all unified under an ultra-conservative agenda and total loyalty to Trump

By Peoples Dispatc

hNovember 16, 2024

Source: People's Dispatch

Since being elected to be the 47th President of the United States last week, Donald Trump has moved quickly to fill his cabinet with both Washington insiders and outsiders, but all unified under an ultra-conservative agenda and a complete loyalty to Trump. 

Peoples Dispatch has compiled a list of notable appointments below: 

Thomas Homan: “Border Czar”

Homan was the head of ICE during Trump’s first term, and has been selected to lead up Trump’s campaign promise to conduct mass deportations of 15 to 20 million people. Homan pledged at the Republican National Convention that he would “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen” and promised to “flood sanctuary cities” with agents to conduct mass arrests, and carry out massive raids targeting workplaces. He was given the “Presidential Rank Award” by Barack Obama in 2015 for his work in “enforcement and removal operations.” Obama himself was dubbed the “Deporter in Chief” by immigration activists for deporting more people than any president who came before him.

Stephen Miller: Deputy chief of staff for policy

Miller is another pick that signals that Trump is serious regarding his campaign promise to carry out the largest mass deportations in US history. Miller is the architect of the cruelest anti-immigrant policies of the first Trump administration, such as family separation, and a key bridge between the Trump administration and the “alt-right” fascist movement. Miller supports deploying military units of the National Guard to hunt down undocumented people, and advocates for the construction of massive camps to detain immigrants rounded up in raids.

Marco Rubio: Secretary of State

Trump’s choice of Florida Senator Marco Rubio for Secretary of State has surprised some who wanted to believe Trump’s campaign promise of “preventing World War III”. Rubio is a notorious warhawk, known for promoting an aggressive foreign policy approach towards countries that do not tip-toe around the US, including Iran, China, Russia, and Venezuela. Rubio’s appointment could be a test of whether the Trump administration will lean more neoconservative than promised or whether Rubio will be forced to toe a more isolationist foreign policy line.

Rubio, who is of Cuban descent, has a particular hostility towards the socialist state and is a key promoter of harsh sanctions against the island. Rubio has also attacked left-wing social movements within the United States, attempting to use the power of the state to harshly sanction the BDS movement and pro-Palestine and leftist organizations. 

Michael Waltz: National Security Adviser

US Army colonel and Florida Representative Michael Waltz is also a notorious warhawk, particularly on China and Iran. During Trump’s first administration, after he almost provoked war with Iran with his assassination of General Qassim Suleimani in 2020, Waltz was one of a small group invited to the White House to receive a briefing on the strike. 

Matt Gaetz: Attorney General

Trump loyalist and Florida Representative Matt Gaetz is a prominent figure in the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party, leading the charge to overthrow the more established Republican Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House—who was replaced with Mike Johnson in 2023. Gaetz, like Trump, is no stranger to scandal, being embroiled in a three-year long federal sex trafficking investigation that ended in 2023. 

Pete Hegseth: Secretary of Defense

Hegseth is a controversial Fox News host and military veteran, who is known for his advocacy on behalf of former members of the military who have been convicted of war crimes. This includes lobbying in defense of Navy SEAL Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who was accused of stabbing a teenaged prisoner of war to death and shooting a teenage girl and elderly man while deployed in Iraq. Since Trump picked Hegseth, his collection of right-wing tattoos has gotten some media attention, which includes a tattoo across his arm of the medieval crusader slogan “Deus Vult,” which translates to “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword,” and signals his political leanings towards the Christian far right.

Kristi Noem: Secretary of Homeland Security

Noem is the current Governor of South Dakota who’s known for her total loyalty to Trump. Noem’s deeply anti-migrant agenda has led her to claim that the “United States of America is in a time of invasion” as a consequence of immigrants “waging war against our nation.” Noem supported the Muslim ban during Trump’s first term because it would restrict refugees from “terrorist hotbed areas.”

John Ratcliffe: CIA Director

Ratcliffe was Trump’s director of national intelligence during his first term. This pick was praised by Republican Representative Mike Turner, who has accused fellow Republican colleagues of repeating Russian propaganda, for helping “counter the serious threats posed by China, Russia, Iran and North Korea.”

Tulsi Gabbard: Director of national intelligence

Trump’s pick of veteran and former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard as the pick to oversee 18 spy agencies has been welcome news to those more critical of the foreign policy establishment. Gabbard endorsed Trump last month, claiming that Trump would transform the Republican Party “back to the party of the people, and the party of peace.”

Steven Witkoff: Special envoy to the Middle East

Witkoff is a Zionist multi-millionaire real estate investor and close personal friend of Trump’s, with zero prior experience in politics in the Middle East/West Asia region. 

Mike Huckabee: Ambassador to Israel

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and ardent Evangelical Christian is likely to continue his long career of defending Israel in his new post. Huckabee once argued that there was “no such thing as a Palestinian” and recently claimed that the US would back an Israeli attempt to annex the West Bank. 

Elise Stefanik: United Nations ambassador

The conservative New York representative went viral for her role in orchestrating the downfall of several prominent university presidents, including former Harvard President Claudine Gay, over the accusation that these presidents were not repressing pro-Palestine students enough. Stefanik is viewed as one of the most prominent enemies of the student movement in the US. 

Lee Zeldin: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator

Trump’s pick of Zeldin as EPA Administrator signals that Trump is ready to make good on his campaign promise to attack key environmental protections that are one of the few ways the US government attempts to mitigate the effects of climate change. 

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy: Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

The world’s richest person, who in many ways directly bought votes for Trump in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, has been promised a formal role in Trump’s administration alongside entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, through the new commission dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency (the acronym referencing an internet meme). DOGE is in many ways designed to help the ultra-rich including Musk slash through government regulations that may place a limit on power and profit.

Four Ways to Repel Trump’s Far Right Populism – European Insights

By Thomas Klikauer

November 14, 2024
Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


Source: federal government of Germany: https://jugendstrategie.de/warum-ist-rechtspopulismus-gefaehrlich/


With the rise of far right populism and seen from a distance, right-wing anti-democratic forces may look a bit like real democrats. But far right populism remains dead set at manipulating and hollowing out democracy.

While play-acting to be democrats, these pretend-to-be democrats can play a rather decisive role in the manipulation and unhinging of democracy.

In general, the outmanoeuvring and undermining of democracy comes once right-wing populists are in power or close to it in, for example, a co-governing coalition government.

Meanwhile, democracy is under threat, globally. Worldwide, the prerequisites, such as an open society, for the functioning of democracy are dwindling more and more. This is flanked by the rise of right-wing authoritarianism.

Meanwhile, democratic politicians and political parties committed to the survival of democracy are all too often ambushed by right-wing populism. To fight such far right traps, real democrats need to meet three basic necessities:Elections:

True democrats must accept the result of free and fair elections whether they have won or lost in those elections. Democratic political parties must acknowledge defeats without hesitation. Political Violence:

Accepting democracy also means democratic political parties must unambiguously reject political violence, including the threat of violence when achieving political goals. In other words, democratic politicians who support military coups, organise coups, instigate uprisings, plan murders and bomb attacks and other terrorist acts. Democratic politicians cannot set up militias, thugs, and killer squads to intimidate, beat up and kill political opponents. Any party and political actor violating even “one” of these two basic rules must be considered as a peril to democracy. Repelling Far Right Henchmen:

It remains imperative for committed democrats to repel, reject and break up with all anti-democratic forces. Those who attack democracy often have – stealthy and otherwise – collaborators, sidekicks, and henchmen. In many cases, these are political insiders pretending to adhere to democratic rules. Yet, they secretly or – less likely – openly undermine democracy. These are the “pretend-to-be”, but ultimately fake democrats.

In the third group are established politicians who “outwardly” appear to live up to democratic rules and, worse, can be rather successful in doing so.

On the surface, they never take part in all too obvious anti-democratic actions. Far right façade democrats achieve their goal of outwitting honest and true democrats by manipulating – but not by all too obviously eliminating – democracy.

Yet, their anti-democratic thumbprints are rarely found on the murder weapon that turned democracy into a tool of far-right authoritarianism.

Yet, democrats should not be fooled, these pretend-to-be democratic politicians can still play a rather decisive – albeit hidden – role in the wanted breakdown of real democracy.

True democrats always and most definitely condemn anti-democratic behaviours. Meanwhile, pretend-to-be democrats behave ambivalently.

It is precisely this ambiguity of presenting themselves as democrats while – simultaneously – working towards the destruction of true democracy that renders them extremely dangerous.

Openly far right authoritarian and Neo-Nazi figures, on the other hand, are easily recognisable. By contrast, right-wing populists aren’t.

However, far right populists often lack enough public support and democratic legitimacy to destroy a true democracy on their own – just as Hitler failed to get above 50% of voter support in 1933.

Yet, when far right democrats – natively, ideologically, or otherwise – give the enemies of democracy and far right populists their patronage, openly and “not-so-openly” authoritarian forces become even more dangerous to democracy.

Democracies can also get into trouble when established democratic parties tolerate – for ideological, tactical reasons, or otherwise – right-wing authoritarian extremists. In some cases, democrats can pave the way towards far-right authoritarianism.

In fact, the cooperation between authoritarian forces and seemingly respectable pretend-to-be democrats has, historically, always been a harbinger of the collapse of democracy. The Nazi strategist Carl Schmitt believed: democracy can make fascism possible.

Beyond the Nazi’s destruction of democracy remains one of the key problems on how to distinguish true democrats from pretend-to-be democrats.

Potentially, one element is their attitude towards political violence. Anti- and pretend-to-be democrats secretly or openly support violence while truly democratic political parties work inside the democratic system and reject violence.

The next test is the difference between true democrats and pretend-to-be democratic politicians’ reaction to violent and anti-democratic behaviours.

It remains relatively easy to condemn violence and authoritarian behaviours of outright Neo-Nazis and far right terrorists. In general, traditional conservatives, for example – rather frequently and rather reliably – tend to condemn violent and radical acts.

Another key aspect of political violence is the fact that far right populist’s political parties often feature a more radical, anti-democratic, and a more violent youth wing. Many party leaders and activists of far-right parties have previously belonged to such organisations.

The transition of MSI-style Italo-fascism to prime minister or the transition of German Neo-Nazis into democratic parliaments for the AfD are no exceptions. Unlike such Neo-Nazis, neo-fascists, and most importantly, also pretend-to-be democrats, true democrats, on the other hand, obey four democratic rules:

Firstly, Repelling anti-democratic focuses:

truly democratic political parties remove anti-democratic elements from their ranks, and they do this even when they turn their own party base against them. In sharp contrast, pretend-to-be democratic political parties tolerate anti-democratic extremists and, worse, offer them a political home and even worse, an institutional home. The neo-fascist AfD offered 100 Neo-Nazis a home in German parliaments.

Secondly, Rejecting alliances and coalitions with the far right:

real and true democrats cut off “all” links to groups, individuals, and political parties that behave anti-democratically. True democrats never enter into alliances with far-right populists. They refuse in supporting right-wing populists and avoid public appearances with them. Real democrats do not conduct secret tactical conversations with far-right populists – not openly and not behind closed doors. Unlike real democrats, pretend-to-be democrats cooperate with anti-democratic extremists. Worse, they also enter into political cooperation, alliances and even coalitions with the far right. More often and this is harder to detect, their cooperation can be casual or unofficial. Worse, pretend-to-be democrats keep a – publicly displayed – distance from far-right extremists. Yet, secretly cooperate with far-right populists and accept their support.

Thirdly, Eliminating violence:

true democrats unreservedly denounce political violence and other anti-democratic behaviours. They do so even when these are political allies or are ideologically close. In times of political polarisation and real or invented threats, fears and crises, the far right finds it all too easy to engineer anti-democratic attitudes among a given population. But even in these cases, true democrats resist the temptation to endorse and justify such attitudes. Instead, real democrats openly confront them.

Fourthly, Isolating the far right:

true democrats also do not shy away from joining forces with the opposite side of the political spectrum to fight, isolate, and defeat anti-democratic far right extremist parties. This is not an easy task but it supports democracy rather than the far right’s Nietzsche-like Will to Power. To establish a political coalition in defence of democracy, true democrats must overcome ideological goals and political principles and work together with politicians from the opposing camp. In other words, progressives need to engage with conservatives to defend democracy. By contrast, pretend-to-be democrats and far right populists refuse to cooperate with ideological “enemies” as they see democratic political parties.

These four rules of true democratic politics are simple and straightforward. Yet, when parts of a conservative party’s base, for example, identifies with anti-democratic extremists, party bosses condemning these far right extremists take a significant political risk. It remains imperative to note that true democrats do it anyway.

By doing that, they preserve democracy. They repel rather than normalise far right extremism. On the surface, pretend-to-be democratic behaviour often appears to be rather harmless. This type of behaviour can even be portrayed by the so-called “respectable” politicians.

However, normalising and mainstreaming the far right can be dangerous. By taking a seemingly “convenient pathway” of tolerating anti-democratic extremists, progressives, democrats and conservatives can strengthen anti-democratic forces. By doing this, they can contribute to the collapse of an – even seemingly rather solid – democracy.

Willingly, they also protect anti-democratic forces. When, for example, violent and even not-so-violent far right extremists have the tacit or open backing of a respected party, they are more likely to be safe from prosecution and dismissal from public office.

Worse, they are more likely to engage in political violence. In addition to enabling anti-democratic forces, pretend-to-be democrats also legitimise their anti-democratic ideologies.

Overall, anti-democratic extremists are treated as outsiders in a healthy democracy. Mainstream media ban them while democratic politicians, businessmen, and other individuals of the democratic community avoid them. In true democracies, those sections of the media that are committed to democracy begin to report on far right populists.

Importantly, media committed to democracy no longer invite them for interviews and discussions as if they are politicians, like democratic politicians.

Primarily, democratically oriented businessmen may decide to put money into the election campaigns of democratic politicians. At the same time, democratically oriented political advisers will avoid far right populists – no longer returning their calls.

Even more important is that when democratic politicians reject anti-democratic behaviours, far right extremists become ever more isolated. They lose momentum and others – like the politically naïve, those easy to manipulate, the inexperienced, and the so-called non-political – are deterred from joining the far right.

This, sadly, also works the other way around. When democratic parties tolerate, approve, and even tacitly support anti-democratic and pretend-to-be democratic parties, democratic parties make it clear that anti-democratic behaviours can be acceptable.

Worse, the deterrent effect fizzles out. It becomes even more problematic when pretend-to-be democrats with their shifting stance only help anti-democratic forces to normality. This encourages them and even radicalises them.

Meanwhile, many of the politicians who can cause the downfall of democracy are simply over-ambitious careerists who want to keep their current office, win higher offices or have a sheer insatiable Will To Power.

And because of some sort of deep-rooted anti-democratic convictions, they aren’t ideologically opposed to democracy – they are simply indifferent to democracy.

Yet, they tolerate and even approve anti-democratic extremism simply because this is the path with least resistance. They – wrongly – often tell themselves that they only do what is necessary to get ahead.

Meanwhile, pragmatism can become a dangerous ideology. Worse, they are indispensable accomplices in ruining democracy.

In other words, even established politicians can contribute to the destruction and hollowing out of democracy by, for example, promoting far right anti-democratic extremism.

But democracy can also be undermined by behaviours that – superficially – adhere to the letter of a democratic constitution. Simultaneously and, worse, deliberately, they assist in the hollowing out of the democratic spirit of a constitution.

This is not an open struggle against the existence of a democratic constitution. Worse, it is a pretend-to-be democratic behaviour that “uses” a democratic constitution as a political weapon. Far right pretend-to-be democrats use democracy against democracy.

Most constitutions – even the most brilliantly formulated – can be (mis)used to destroy a democracy. This is exactly what makes the far right’s claim to be “constitutional” so dangerous.

Yet, this also means that far right populists may not need to openly violate the constitution and no law needs to be broken to end democracy.

The poster boy of the pretend-to-be democratic far right is not Adolf Hitler, Mussolini and Pinochet but Victor Orbán’s Art of Eroding Democracy keeping the façade of democracy intact while destroying it from the inside.

What works for far right populists is that even well-drafted constitutions and democratic laws – almost inevitably – can contain ambiguities and potential loopholes for anti-democratic activities.

Laws and constitutions are, after all, subject to different interpretations and can be enforced in different ways. This drove Donald Trump to get his hands on the US constitution by appointing “his” supreme court judges.

Far right and anti-democratic politicians can – and have – exploited these ambiguities in a way that distorts or even reverses the very raison d’être of a democratic constitution and of democratic laws. Again, there are four techniques that anti-democratic far right populists use to scam democracy:

1) Abusing legal provisions:

Anti-democratic right-wing populists can exploit gaps in legal texts. Ultimately, no legal regulation can cover “all” eventualities. There are always circumstances that are not specifically covered by law. For example, if a political behaviour isn’t expressly prohibited, the anti-democratic far right considers their anti-democratic action as permissible. If democratic rules don’t determine exactly how a democratic process should be carried out, there are opportunities for the anti-democratic far right to take advantage of this to the detriment of democracy.

2) Using legal provisions against democracy:

There is also an excessive or inappropriate use by the anti-democracy right to apply legal provisions against democracy. Some rules require tact and restraint in their use. Presidential clemencies and pardons are a good example. These are not for relatives, friends, donors, political aides, and allies who have committed crimes.

Misusing these rules makes a mockery of the rule of law. This is something right-wing populists claim to uphold but all too often systematically undermine. Others simply destroy it as Nazi judge Roland Freisler had shown. Impeachment procedures can also be misappropriated by the far right.

Many democratic constitutions allow the government to declare a state of emergency and revoke basic rights for its duration. In healthy democracies, this right is protected by the norm of restraint. Democratic politicians share the view that it should be used only in the most extraordinary circumstances. The anti-democratic far right sees this as completely different. To them, emergency powers are simply a tool to cement power.

3) Selective application of laws:

the anti-democratic far right will not shy away from the selective application of democratic laws. Far right governments often pursue, persecute, and even prosecute their political rivals not just by circumventing and violating existing laws, but also by the application of such laws. Meanwhile, the non-application of laws is the rule for the anti-democratic far right. It routinely cheats on tax payments, misappropriates state funds, and routinely violates democratic regulations.

Simultaneously, well-placed pro-far-right officials use their influence to give benefits to relatives, friends, and allies. Far right governments can (and do) apply laws selectively to target their rivals. To the innocent outside, this can be made to look as if right-wing populists are legally compliant. After all, they enforce laws. Yet, the enforcement of the laws is aimed only at democratic opponents. In short, the law is used as a weapon against democracy.

4) Far right lawfare:

In what became known as lawfare, legislation becomes an anti-democratic weapon against democracy. Far right politicians can introduce new laws that – at first glance – seem impartial and objective but are exclusively directed against democratic opponents. This is where ideological warfare meets the law to create: lawfare. It is the misuse of laws and legislative powers as a weapon against democracy.

In the end, there are three identifiers of far right anti-democratic political parties: right-wing populists do not accept the outcome of democratic elections; they are ambivalent about political violence – condemning it publicly but supporting anti-democratic thugs, brutalities and violence; finally, they open or by stealth support the hollowing out of democracy.

More complicated is the separation of real and truly democratic political parties from pretend-to-be democrats who use democracy to get into power.

Once in power, they do not eliminate democracy outright but hollow it out so that democracy becomes a mere shell, a façade, a cover, and a veneer.

This remains highly dangerous as it allows far right populists to present themselves as democrats while deforming, bending, manipulating, twisting, or even eliminating the raison d’être, the essence, and the spirit of democracy.

On the other side of the pretend-to-be democrats are the true democrats that live by four democratic rubrics: they remove anti-democratic elements from their parties; they fight against those displaying anti-democratic behaviours; they reject violence; and, they act in favour of democracy even when this disadvantages them and their democratic political parties.

Finally, anti-democratic (Hitler Mussolini, etc.) and pretend-to-be democrats (Orbán, Trump, etc.) apply four broad strategies while, at the same time, claiming to stand for democracy and law and order: they exploit legal gaps in the constitution and in law to advance their right-wing populist cause and to damage democracy;
they abuse the legal system to favour friends and right-wing stooges;
they refrain from applying the legal system against their friends and far right allies; and finally,
they engage in lawfare – the use of the law in their war against their political opponents who are seen as enemies to be eliminated.

Ultimately, and unlike real neo-fascists and Neo-Nazis, far right populists and pretend-to-be democrats do not openly seek the annihilation of democracy. Rather, they leave an outer shell of democracy in place creating a kind of a façade democracy.

Simultaneously, they hollow out the inside of democracy. Democracy exists in name only. Armed with this, they can claim to be democrats supporting the rule of law while, concurrently, establishing an illiberal crypto-dictatorship.


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.  Donate



Thomas Klikauer has over 800 publications (including 12 books) and writes regularly for BraveNewEurope (Western Europe), the Barricades (Eastern Europe), Buzzflash (USA), Counterpunch (USA), Countercurrents (India), Tikkun (USA), and ZNet (USA). One of his books is on Managerialism (2013).

FIGHT BACK IN TRUMPISTAN

Don’t Mourn, Fight

Ron Jacobs

 November 7, 2024

Facebook

TwitterReddit

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

Far be it from me to claim that the US government is a democracy.  In my understanding, capitalism prevents genuine democracy because of the influence money has in elections and elsewhere throughout the political system.  This is especially true in the current monopoly phase of capitalism we call neoliberalism.  Just ask Elon Musk, the billionaire Trump wants to run his austerity program.  The power of his purse was a crucial element in the final weeks of the Trump campaign.  It will continue to be so until the printing presses that print money stop printing and the engines that run cryptocurrency melt the ice caps.  In the minds of the uber rich, the US government is just another subsidiary and the people are employees, customers and suckers.

I’m not going to spend much of my time here trying to evaluate why Harris lost the election.  There are others much more adept at that, including CounterPunch editor Jeffrey St. Clair.  I will state that as far as I’m concerned the fundamental reasons for the Trump victory are misogyny, racism and the ignorance that fuels those phenomena.  As any honest observer can tell you, neither phenomenon is limited to a particular class or region of the country, but it seems fair to say the South and Midwest contain populations where such sentiments may be in the majority of the voting population.

There is no easy way to defeat fascism within the context of a capitalist economy and a bourgeois electoral system.

One cannot sit in their living room and curse at the television, hoping it will go away.  As history makes clear, fascists will not stop until they are stopped by the forces opposed to them.

That fact means organizing.

It means getting off one’s ass and hitting the streets.

It means not compromising with those in one’s union, one’s church, and one’s community who push fascist agendas of austerity and division.

If (or perhaps I should say when) ICE comes to your town and begins rounding up immigrants for deportation, one cannot turn away because it isn’t happening to their family.

When women are refused reproductive choice and threatened with prison time for asserting their right to that choice, one cannot compromise with the authorities locking those women up.

When Medicaid and other government subsidies for health care are cut—leaving people without health care—one cannot merely be glad it’s not them. These are just a few examples of when and where one must oppose the programs almost certain to be implemented in the coming months.

There will be those who argue that Trump isn’t that bad.  They are lying.  One need only look at his Vice President (who became almost invisible in the campaign’s final weeks) to understand the true agenda of the Trumpist government.  Although the leadership of the House is uncertain as I write this, the United States is extremely close to a one-party regime.  From the Supreme Court to the White House, the right wing is in control.  If the House goes to the GOP, we will be living in a one-party state.  I don’t hesitate at all when I call it a fascist regime.  I don’t think the reader should either.  Doing so describes the power out opposition faces.  Capitalism’s current crises demand an authoritarian government.  We recognize that our future demands that government’s dismantling.

It’s time to take a risk.  To put your body on the line.  To get in the streets and make noise.  To cause a ruckus if the situation demands it.  To piss the fascists off.

Don’t mourn, organize.

Ron Jacobs is the author of several books, including Daydream Sunset: Sixties Counterculture in the Seventies published by CounterPunch Books. His latest book, titled Nowhere Land: Journeys Through a Broken Nation, is now available. He lives in Vermont. He can be reached at: ronj1955@gmail.com

How to Stop Fascism

By Roger Hallam

November 6, 2024

Source: Roger Hallam




One word. Proximity. Let me explain.

In a now largely forgotten book published in 1989 called Modernity and the Holocaust, Polish-Jewish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman examined the overwhelming evidence for why the Holocaust happened. It required a gang of political adventurers who seized control of the German state, wielding its immense organisational and industrial capacity. But this still leaves the question of how they managed it. In a key section titled Social Proximity and Moral Responsibility, Bauman argues that the decisive factor wasn’t ideology but the creation of psychological and physical distance between Jewish people and the rest of the population.

In 1933 the Nazis called for a boycott of Jewish businesses. It failed because too many non-Jewish Germans personally knew their local Jewish shop owners and felt a moral responsibility not to harm them. The Nazis learnt from this and, over the next decade, progressively reduced the proximity between Jews and other Germans. Jewish people were forced to wear identifying badges, then moved into camps, and ultimately, when they were murdered, the separation had become so vast that most people felt no moral responsibility to intervene.

To prevent fascism, we must do the opposite. A pro-social movement of political adventurers must take control of the state and progressively increase proximity. Proximity—not “economic growth”—is the key determinant of a flourishing civilisation. It’s what people truly crave: to connect, to sit down in small groups and talk. We care about “politics” and “self-interest” only to the extent that they foster this connection. Love—mutual care and recognition—is humanity’s foundational need. This truth spans the social sciences and is echoed in the wisdom traditions.

House of The People Gathering

Let me give a few examples. In my award-winning research at King’s College London I showed that if people sit in small circles to discuss a social issue (with biscuits on the table!) for most of a public meeting, 80% leave feeling empowered. In contrast, only 20% feel empowered after a conventional meeting with a series of speakers and no small group discussion. Research shows most people initially attend campaign meetings not for political reasons, but because a friend invited them or they seek human connection. A Harvard study on negotiation found the single biggest predictor of success is whether the other party personally likes you. The early Christian church, one of the most successful movements in history, didn’t convert people through doctrinal persuasion but by fostering friendships. The evidence is overwhelming. “It’s absolutely fantastic,” one trade union leader told me after restructuring his events around small group discussions.

Progressives and the Left fail repeatedly because they are wedded to an Enlightenment secular religion that assumes people respond to ideas over emotions and ideology over connection. They’re embarrassingly mistaken. Fascist men, for instance, often abandon their views after forming personal relationships—such as getting a girlfriend. There are countless stories of individuals entering far-right spaces, listening, building personal connections, and subsequently helping others to leave those spaces. During the recent English riots a group of Muslims, faced with an angry crowd outside their mosque, offered food and listened to people’s concerns. Conversations ensued, tensions eased, and constructive dialogue began.

I’ve given over 200 public talks on the climate crisis, often with right-wing conspiracy theorists turning up to disrupt. I never argue with them but thank them for sharing their views and invite them to discuss afterwards. I take them aside in a small group, summarise their questions as they speak, and they continue talking. It works wonders. One of the main right-wing conspiracy theorists in the UK even shook my hand afterwards. Proximity can build a connection in minutes.

Of course this doesn’t work every time, and ideas have their place. But as Carl Rogers, one of the most influential psychologists of the last century discovered, listening with “unconditional positive regard” is the single most effective way to promote personal healing and growth. Rogers sparked a counselling revolution, transforming therapy. We need a similar revolution to transform politics. Change won’t come through conventional politics but by circumventing it. We must create proximity directly—through door-knocking and local assemblies organised around small group listening.

This is the next political revolution. I’m convinced that new movement parties could rise from zero to winning local and national elections in six months with these methods. We’ve already seen similar success with new parties in recent years. But it needs perfecting. A national project would require around £1 million to get started. Anyone with money out there would see a far better return by investing in this method to counter the far-right threat, rather than wasting funds on conventional political strategies.

We can either build a new civilisation based on closeness and connection or let humanity destroy itself by ignoring how we actually function. Getting this right, right now, is of utmost importance. You know exactly what I mean.

If you want to join the social movement that will create this revolution, sign up at timetoassemble.org.

Trump’s Second Term – Now is the time for a global fightback

ACR Statement

Thursday 7 November 2024, by Anti*Capitalist Resistance

Donald Trump won a second US presidency on 6 November 2024. The Republican Party is now in almost total control of US establishment politics as they also made gains in the Senate, giving them control of the entire legislature, the presidency and the Supreme Court. It is a victory for the US Plutocrats and Oligarchs, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, the crypto-fanatics and west-coast Tech Bros.

Trumpism is part of the global counter-revolutionary wave we see with far-right populists, authoritarians, semi-fascists and libertarians taking power in countries around the world. What we are seeing is a process of a general shift to the far-right caused by neoliberalism and the collapse in the post-war liberal consensus that it has brought about. Trumpism is the same trend that produced Modi in India, Duterte in the Philippines, Meloni in Italy and so on.

But this victory, in particular, is a disaster for billions around the planet. The power of US imperialism to act or not act is still a decisive factor in global politics.

A second Trump presidency will be as chaotic and vile as the first. Only now his key intellectual backers will be much clearer on what they want to get out of it. Project 2025 is a blueprint for an authoritarian USA; it includes the proposals to sack thousands of government employees and place the rest of the US government bureaucracy under central presidential control. Elimination of the Department of Education to allow state-level control of curricula. It involves Rolling back transgender healthcare and social rights, making trans existence almost untenable in some states. It means the elimination of federal protections for gender equality, sexual orientation and reproductive rights. It will almost certainly prevent abortion pills from being sent through the post, which is the number one way people get abortions in the USA. We will see the mainstreaming of “conversations” about disenfranchising women. It also involves slashing funding for renewable energy research and development, increasing energy production and scrapping targets for carbon reduction.

Whether Trump’s promise to be a dictator on day one and use the military against political opponents was hot air for electioneering or not is unknown. But that he ran such a reactionary campaign and got such a decisive vote reveals something about the growth of far-right populist ideas. We know that both he and his Vice President JD Vance recently endorsed a book called Unhumans, a manifesto for the mass murder of left-wing activists along the lines of Pinochet in Chile. This reveals the fascist kernel of neoliberal politics, which has come full circle.

This defeat largely rests on the wretched politics and failed strategy of the Democrats. It is clear that the Democrats are not even a dented shield against the growth of the far right; they actively feed the problem. They were business as usual in a period of anxiety and division.

They ran a campaign against a populist who was appealing to ‘the common people’ by instead focusing on the virtue of the establishment – constantly repeating that Trump was a felon as if there are not millions of felons in the USA in a corrupt and unfair judicial system who might see in him a persecuted martyr. The Democrats’ fixation on the law courts to undermine him before the election failed utterly and added to his populist credentials. They preferred a campaign from the centre, focusing on celebrity endorsement, winning over middle ground Republicans, and parading with Liz Cheney. They appealed to the belief that the US is a country of equal opportunity and post-racism when it palpably isn’t.

Trump and his supporters see through this. They know it is a lie. They prefer bullish, macho posturing, might makes right, freedom from consequence. The Democrats focussed in the last few weeks on labelling Trump a fascist – the response from his supporters was either a shrug or to embrace the fact that he wound up the liberals so much. Trump is a cypher for all the most selfish and reactionary views in US society, but the Democrats were no alternative. His movement crystallised a view of the USA that rejects equality and embraces domination. His movement is not foreign to the US body politics; it is rooted in it.

The global counter-revolutionary wave is largely a reaction to the gains of the post-war era – the advances made by women, Black people, the LGBTQIA+ community and others. Trump appealed especially to white people and young men, to Christian nationalist far right and tech bro supporters of Elon Musk. He also picked up votes from the Arab American community that turned on the Democrats for their funding of Israel’s genocide in Gaza (although Trump will pursue the same policy). But he also drew support from a significant number of Black people (meaning people of colour) and women, those who reject the liberal establishment and want to resolve the contradictions of American society by embracing its supremacist values. Some of the US Black population also backs mass deportations of recently arrived immigrants if it drives down prices and improves wages (as Trump claims). That is the point of populism; it combines contradictions and appeals to different people in different ways while claiming to provide simple answers to complex questions and denying meaningful change.

There will be considerable contradictions in his populist programme. Trump promised a carbon fossil fuel bonanza to drive down energy bill costs and tackle inflation, but he also wants tariffs on imports to strengthen US industry, which will drive up prices. He seems unlikely to deliver better living standards and more jobs for US citizens, especially with massive public sector cuts. But we also have to be wary of assuming that people primarily vote on economic grounds – the modern political landscape is far more complicated and riven by ideological divisions rather than simple financial calculations.

His indication that he will withdraw support from Ukraine and ‘end the war there’ almost certainly means that Russia’s imperial annexation will be allowed to proceed. What this means for the broader region as Putin continues his expansionist project remains to be seen. Certainly, the emergence of a more multipolar world will propel us closer to a third world war at some stage. For the Palestinians, it also means more slaughter and defeat, Trump has been clear with Netanyahu that the far right leadership of Israel can “do whatever they need to do” to win.

The need for continued resistance goes without question. There will be many people feeling hopeless or full of despair right now, and that is exactly what the far right and fascists want. They take sadistic pleasure in the defeats they inflict on the ‘woke’ and on the left. But politics is determined by struggles for power and counter-power, building mass coalitions of resistance, identifying the weak points in the enemy’s side and mobilising forces to shatter their strength.

ACR is in total solidarity with those in the USA who reject this authoritarian turn and want to fight for a better world. We know the next few years will be difficult, but our movement has faced difficult times before. We know things will get worse before they get better. But we also know that we can argue for a world beyond capitalism, imperialism, and militarism, based on a society that provides for everyone and is sustainable with the environment. Runaway global warming is already with us, as is the worldwide strengthening of the far right; the two are linked. And politics does not end at the ballot box – that is another lie the Democrats relied on. Power comes from our organisation and resilience. We fight for a revolutionary change. Our role is to be part of the international fightback to change the world, to reclaim the future and build a better society for everyone!

6 November 2024

Source Anti*Capitalist Resistance.

Attached documents

• trump-s-second-term-now-is-the-time-for-a-global-fightback_a8732.pdf (PDF - 912.2 KiB)
  Extraction PDF [->article8732]

• Anti*Capitalist Resistance

International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.

Time to Hit the Streets

By Te Glick

November 6, 2024

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.


STOP PROJECT 2025 Rally across from Heritage Foundation in Washington DC (Credit: Elvert Barnes / Flickr)


The day before the big election I said to my wife that, if Trump ended up winning, it was important that a very broad, massive coalition to oppose him had been created by Kamala Harris and her supporters. As terrible as it is that, as I write, the MAGA’s will control the Senate and the White House, hopefully not the House, a potentially strong counterforce exists to continue the fight to move forward, not backwards.

Then, last night, lying in bed thinking about this so-serious situation we are now faced with in not just the USA but the world because of the MAGA victory, I remembered a very similar feeling after the November, 1972 runaway Presidential victory of Trump-similar Richard Nixon over George McGovern. 21 months later Nixon was gone from DC, resigning in disgrace before he was impeached.

What was Nixon’s vote total compared to Trump’s?

Nixon had a 23% margin of victory in the popular vote and won every state except Massachusetts and DC. As far as Trump, when all the votes are counted It looks like he’ll either be ahead by a couple percent or pretty much tied. And Harris will have won a lot more states than Massachusetts and DC.

Trump’s victory is really bad for the Palestinians; 2 ½ months from now Netanyahu and his allies will have an active enabler in the White House of their planned takeover of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea. It is terrible for our disrupted climate; a climate denier will be President one of whose main promises during his campaign was that if he won, the US would “drill, baby, drill.” Undocumented immigrants, including the dreamers, people brought to the US as children by family members looking for a better life, are facing a planned mass deportation of millions. Women’s right to abortion will continue to be in jeopardy as the movement against that right will be strengthened by Trump’s victory. The labor movement can expect to see anti-union replacements at the National Labor Relations Board. The list of MAGA’s neo-fascist plans, enumerated in the Project 2025 document, is a very long one.

It’s pretty overwhelming to appreciate what we are now facing. But it would be wrong to give up hope, for many reasons, among them:

-History sometimes develops in unexpected ways. Who would ever have thought after Nixon’s overwhelming landslide victory in 1972 that he would be disgraced and gone from the White House 21 months later?

-There are literally millions of us who have been active as part of the effort to defeat Trump. To the extent to which that movement refuses to give in and demonstrates visibly, in the streets and in other ways, that if will fight the MAGA’s, this can have an impact.

-Seven of the 10 ballot initiatives upholding the abortion rights of women, the right to control their reproductive health care, were successful, including several in states Trump won.

-Trump doesn’t control the courts. And even though the Supreme Court is what it is, there is no question that state courts, US District Courts and Courts of Appeal will play a major role slowing, at least, as well as more than that in some cases, the attempted MAGA coup.

Ultimately, what is most important right now is for progressives to resolve individually, on a personal level, that we refuse to give up. The Harris supporters who are demoralized by the election results need to see us continuing to take visible action. That is why “taking it to the streets,” in creative and massive and determined ways, is what now has to rise to the top of our tactical agenda.


ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers .Donate

Ted Glick

Ted Glick has devoted his life to the progressive social change movement. After a year of student activism as a sophomore at Grinnell College in Iowa, he left college in 1969 to work full time against the Vietnam War. As a Selective Service draft resister, he spent 11 months in prison. In 1973, he co-founded the National Committee to Impeach Nixon and worked as a national coordinator on grassroots street actions around the country, keeping the heat on Nixon until his August 1974 resignation. Since late 2003, Ted has played a national leadership role in the effort to stabilize our climate and for a renewable energy revolution. He was a co-founder in 2004 of the Climate Crisis Coalition and in 2005 coordinated the USA Join the World effort leading up to December actions during the United Nations Climate Change conference in Montreal. In May 2006, he began working with the Chesapeake Climate Action Network and was CCAN National Campaign Coordinator until his retirement in October 2015. He is a co-founder (2014) and one of the leaders of the group Beyond Extreme Energy. He is President of the group 350NJ/Rockland, on the steering committee of the DivestNJ Coalition and on the leadership group of the Climate Reality Check network.