Dave Stockton
Donald Trump has launched a veritable reign of terror against America’s migrant communities and for this he has chosen the self-designated sanctuary city Los Angeles as the test bed for his anti-immigrant, crusade. Massive raids by Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) agents on homes, workplaces and kidnapping people of the streets, began on Friday June 6. And when it led to organised protests, as it was meant to do, Trump instantly took over command of the National Guard from the state governor and then send in the Marines too. If this onslaught is not stopped then truly dark days lie ahead for the county’s workers, ethnic minorities and the racially and gender oppressed
Fortunately, on Saturday June 14 2,000 marches and rallies across the nation with numbers reaching millions, have taken place under the slogan ‘No Kings’. Meanwhile in Washington the dime store Caesar addressed a 7,000 strong military parade on his 79th birthday including dozens of tanks, helicopters overhead, nominally in celebration, the 250th anniversary of the founding of the US armed forces . He had threatened ahead of the event; “ we’re going to be celebrating big on Saturday. We’re going to have a lot of …., (sic) and if there’s any protest that wants to come out, they will be met with very big force.”
The attack on Los Angeles
Trump targeted Los Angeles because its population is composed third of immigrants and California has the largest undocumented community in the country and the iCE raids naturally provoked thousands of Angelinos, many students and trade unionists, as well as those with migrant backgrounds to take to the streets in the days that followed. They tried to de-arrest those being swept and slated for deportation without any recourse to legal representation or appeal. The California President of the SEIU David Huerta, was beaten up and arrested for participating in the protest against the detention centre on Friday. Though released he is facing a charge with a considerable jail sentence
Rapid response efforts to repel ICE raids have been coordinated by a Community Self-Defense Coalition and other local bodies. On Sunday June 8 over 10,000 people surrounded the area with all the government buildings in downtown LA. Marching to the LA Metropolitan Detention Center where ICE had detained over 100 of those it had kidnapped, they were met with tear gas and pepper spray. A pitched battle developed with stones being hurled at LAPD officers in response to their missiles. Also in the working class suburb of Paramount, where immigrants form a large part of the industrial workforce and later in the city of Pasadena, where protesters blocked the freeway, police violence Increased with flash grenades and plastic rounds fired. In response people started to burn cars.
This of course was used by Trump and White House officials to claim that an insurrection was underway and thus ‘justified’ deploying troops including marines to the city Trade unionists and pro-Palestine activists were prominent, according to witnesses prominent in all these events.
Protests soon spread to other centres in California and since then to Chicago, New York and cities across the United States. This needs to receive international solidarity action against US government institutions, and Trump and his billionaire cronies’ businesses.
In LA the whole Trump playbook from the ICE dragnet to the takeover of the state’s National Gurad to the deployment of marines, constitutes a carefully prepared provocation by the would-be-dictator and his full spectrum reactionary (racist, misogynist, homo- and transphobe, anti-worker) MAGA movement. It is aimed to break any resistance to his plans to deport millions of immigrants and asylum seekers. Indeed, the LA raids and any resistance to them were aimed to provide pretext to exercise unprecedented powers. rarely if ever used by incumbents of the Oval Office except in time of war.
Trampling on conventions usually hallowed by Republicans (states’ rights) he has threatened to order the arrest of state Governor Gavin Newsom and LA mayor Karen Bass. Though Newsom has dared Trump to arrest him and made an application to a judge to order the removal of the federal forces the court rejected this showing that no reliance can be placed on the judiciary to impede Trump’s grabs for power. And mayor Karen Bass has even ordered the LAPD to join the National Gurad in enforcing a curfew under which protestors continue to be arrested. This proves that the Democrat officials will quickly cave in after a token show of defiance.
The would be Bonaparte
Clearly Trump’s aim is to cow all resistance to his rule by decree (executive orders, etc). If he succeeds in establishing unfettered presidential power beyond challenge this would amount to Marxists refer to as Bonapartism though not as some on the left are saying ‘fascism’.
Bonapartism is so called after Napoleon Bonaparte who seized power in 1799 and another coup d’état by his nephew, Louis Napoleon , President of the Second French Republic (1848 -1851) that Marx brilliantly analysed in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte . Bonapartism frees the power of the chief executive from any effective checks and balances by Congress or the courts.
Fascism, on the other hand mobilises a mass movement of the reactionary middle classes and de-classed workers, in combination with the state forces , to atomise the working class and crush its mass trade union and party organisations. Certainly, bonapartism can play a preparatory role towards a fully totalitarian fascist state. As it did in Italy and Germany in the 1920s an 1930. But to suggest that process as already complete can only induce a fatalistic passivity, rather than the mobilisation of the intact forces the workers and the oppressed still have at their disposal
Though this step by step plan is not yet complete each victory for Trump, each successful use of the repressive machinery for his own purposes, brings this nearer.
Fighting Back
The hope of countering Trump’s stealthy bid for absolute power lies in the efficacy of resistance. The ‘No Kings’ mobilisation is a great start and shows that given a lead mass resistance is possible. Trumps’ repeated claims of a huge majority made from Americans support is like so many of his claims a complete fraud A majority of Americans already disapprove of him (51%) with 43% approving (the London Economist-YouGov opinion tracker on June 10). But the decisive question is persistence and class character and concentration of active resistance to him . Already the makeup of the solidarity actions shows the impact of the eighteen months of pro-Palestinian demonstrations and encampments (and that is why Trump like Genocide Joe before him, is persecuting those campuses that were the most outspoken against Israel over Gaza. But it is absolutely vital is to draw the trade unions into activity
As early as June 9 a rally took place Grand Park in protest against the arrest of SEIU California President David Huerta, with other major unions represented, including Teamsters, UNITE HERE!, the Longshore workers (ILWU), the theatrical and cinematic technicians (IATSE). One speaker was 95 year old Dolores Huerta, co- founder, Cesar Chavez) of the United Farmworkers Union. However, she, reportedly, like other speakers, emphasized the need for electoral strategies during the midterms. This would be a dangerous diversion.
Whilst indeed building the broadest united front of active resistance to Trump’s attacks, it is high time militants, finally break with the paralysing influence of the Democrats and their calls to wait for the mid-terms or 2028 and in the process create local commitees , abale to launch action including strike action. The movement to defeat Trump and his MAGA movement could lay the foundation for a workers party, a party of militant direct action and class struggle.
Therefore, we say:
• Release all immigrant detainees and arrested demonstrators
• Take the National Guard out of Trump’s control and off the streets,
• All ICE agents and Marines out of LA.
• Build residents and workplace self-defence units in all districts
• Win unions from the workplace and local level up to state/national level to pledge strike action to end the raids, kidnappings and deportations.
• International solidarity actions with the US resistance to Trump
• Down with Trump, Vance and Co and the Billionaires’ regime
• For working class power and socialism