Although U.S. finance capital didn’t back Donald Trump’s surprising path to the presidency, he will nonetheless represent the interests of the finance capitalist section of the ruling class. “Fascism represents the policy of large-scale capital, and not the revolt of petty bourgeois policies against large-scale capital,” says R. Palme Dutt, the early 20th-century British communist leader and author of Fascism and Social Revolution. Based on the people he’s appointed to cabinet-level positions and others under consideration, Trump could represent an opportunity to unify the rulers’ dominant section with the wing represented by more domestically oriented capitalists, like Charles and David Koch.
While still on top of the dunghill of global capitalism, the U.S. is in significant decline. It faces intensifying competition from two rising capitalist powers, China and Russia. The U.S. bosses’ only chance to stave off their rivals—at least for a while longer—is to impose fascism at home. They need to intimidate, divide, and nationalize the working class to fight in the next broad global conflict. From this point forward, every U.S. president will play his or her part in building a mass fascist movement. Progressive Labor Party cannot stop this trend; it is ingrained in the contradictions of the profit system. But communists have a vital role to play in this volatile period. Our job is to organize the international working class to defend itself and fight back. Our historical task is to turn the guns around and transform imperialist war into a mass revolutionary war for a communist future.
The Next War President
The U.S. military is essential to U.S. capitalist dominance around the world. While Trump may have made isolationist-sounding campaign promises to cancel trade agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or to step back from NATO and give Russia freer rein in Eastern Europe, make no mistake. Trump will be a war president. There is consensus within the ruling class that Russia and China must be militarily confronted, and sooner than later.
The president-elect’s campaign rhetoric aside, his first cabinet appointments appear to be in lockstep with the finance capitalists’ agenda for imperialist war. Trump’s new national security adviser, Michael Flynn, is a retired U.S. Army general who has pushed for more aggressive intervention in the proxy war in Syria. He also co-authored a book titled, The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies. A well-vetted servant of U.S. imperialism and a former senior military intelligence officer, Flynn took part in the invasions of Grenada (1983) and Haiti (1994). More recently, he helped engineer the slaughters of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan to defend main-wing oil interests in the Middle East.
While Trump is as ruthless a capitalist as they come, he has a lot to learn about handling state power on behalf of the arch-imperialists. To that end, he wasted no time in getting briefed on international affairs by arch-imperialist and genocide architect Henry Kissinger. After the meeting, Kissinger told CNN:
On should not insist on nailing [Trump] into positions that he had taken in the campaign. “The art now would be to develop a strategy…that can be linked to some of the main themes of American foreign policy.
In other words: No Trump policies are solidified, and the main wing can align Trump to their imperialist needs.
White Supremacy in the White House
Racism is the backbone of capitalism. Trump’s appointment of alt-right (media baron Stephen Bannon as chief White House strategist and senior counselor, along with his nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions as attorney general, reflects an unambiguous commitment to racist terror. We can expect Trump to build on the legacy of State-Terrorists-in-Chief Barack Obama (who deported a record 2.5 million immigrants) and George W. Bush before him.
 “Over the last 16 years, the federal government has used local police and jails as a key tool to orchestrate mass deportations – and that’s precisely what Trump plans to do on a more frightening scale than ever” (the Guardijjjan.com, 11/21).
Sessions is an open racist. In 1986, he was denied a federal judgeship after a Senate committee learned that he’d called the NAACP “un-American” and “communist-inspired” and “had accused a white attorney who supported voting rights of being a race traitor” (New York Times, 11/21). As Alabama’s attorney general in the 1990s, Sessions blocked reforms to provide basic services to underfunded, segregated public schools (NYT, 11/21).
Under Obama, liberal attorney generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch have done nothing to stem the rising tide of racist police murders across the country. In Chicago, the U.S. Department of Justice acknowledged that “...police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color” (Washington Post, 4/16). The DOJ then proceeded to give the Chicago Police Department $2 million for “overtime and upgraded equipment” (ABC 7, 9/9). We can expect more of the same from Sessions.
Bannon is an ex-Goldman Sachs banker and, until recently, the executive chairman of the white supremacist website Breitbart News. As Mother Jones (8/22) observed, he is most ominous when it comes to anti-Muslim racism:
He describes Islam as “a political ideology” and Sharia law as “like Nazism, fascism, and communism.” On his Sirius XM radio show, he heaped praise on Pamela Geller, whose American Freedom Defense Initiative has been labeled an anti-Muslim hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. Bannon called her “one of the leading experts in the country, if not the world,” on Islam. And he basically endorsed House Speaker Paul Ryan’s primary challenger, businessman Paul Nehlen, who floated the idea of deporting all Muslims from the United States.
Bosses Cracking Down on Bosses
Despite their internal divisions, the ruling class and their politician servants are aligning to shore up their decadent system. One hallmark of rising fascism is stricter discipline within the ruling class, which must sacrifice some short-term profits to finance an imperialist military and critical domestic infrastructure. “Trump wants an active-duty Army with another 60,000 soldiers in the ranks, an unspecified number of additional sailors to man the 78 ships and submarines he intends to see built in coming years. He wants up to 12,000 more Marines to serve in infantry and tank battalions, and at least another 100 combat aircraft for the Air Force” (Military Times, 11/20).
Liberals like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, longtime champions of higher corporate taxes, have already expressed their willingness to cooperate with Trump in this effort.  Politicians may be Democrats or Republicans, “progressives” or conservatives; they may have tactical or even strategic disagreements. But they are all enemies of the working class. As the U.S. moves closer to full-blown fascism, they will fall in line to support the profit system’s long-term needs. If ruling-class history is any guide (see: German in the 1930s), any holdouts will be eliminated.
It’s too early to assess Trump’s impact on the splits that plague the unstable U.S. ruling class. But it should be noted that he has nominated Kansas Congressman Mike Pompeo as the next director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Since the days of the Cold War with the Soviet Union, the U.S. rulers have entrusted this job to reliable main-wing insiders, from Allen Dulles to George H.W. Bush to David Petraeus. As The Nation (11/18) noted, Pompeo marks a clear departure from tradition:
Pompeo came out of the same Wichita, Kansas, business community where the Koch family’s oil-and-gas conglomerate is headquartered. Indeed, Pompeo built his own company with seed money from Koch Venture Capital. More important, from a political standpoint, is the fact that Pompeo made the leap from business to government with a big boost from the Koch brothers and their employees. “I’m sure he would vigorously dispute this, but it’s hard not to characterize him as the congressman from Koch,” says University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis.
Workers Fight Back!
Workers are not taking the rulers’ attacks lying down. Since Trump’s election, hundreds of marches and demonstrations have erupted all over the country. Black workers are mobilizing against police terror in dozens of cities. Movements like Black Lives Matter, #NoDAPL, and Not My President are severely limited by their reformist nature, opportunistic leadership, and/or bankrupt identity politics. At the same time, they show that workers are ready to fight and resist the drive to fascism and imperialist war. Internationally, from Haiti to Pakistan, in countries where fascism is most advanced, workers are locked in open class struggle against the bosses.
These fightbacks are inspiring to the workers of the world. Ultimately, however, they will fall short without leadership from a serious, disciplined, mass communist organization. History has taught us that only communism can defeat fascism. The Soviet Army smashed the Nazis during World War II. The Chinese Communist Party led peasants, students, soldiers, and workers to victory over Japanese fascism, liberating the planet’s most populous country from the capitalist class. With the leadership of Progressive Labor Party, we can do it again! Join us!

Throughout its history, the U.S. Military has used racism and sexism to divide and manipulate the working class in an effort to build a military to fight their wars.

• Not Recognized By Name
  During the American Revolutionary War, the typical Black soldier was a private, often lacking a name or official identity. He was carried on the rolls as A Negro man, or Negro by name, or A Negro name not Known
• Denied Human Rights But Forced to Fight
  During the Civil War, Black slaves substituted for White masters who chose not to fight. Pressured by Congress to increase enlistment, some states compensated slave owners up to 120 pounds for slaves who served.
• Three-Fifths A Human Being: All Parts Soldier
  By the end of the American Revolution, over 300,000 men would fight, including approximately 5,000 who were Black. However, the new U.S. Constitution re-emphasized Black inferiority by deeming that, for political representation, each enslaved Black person would only count as three-fifths of a human.
• Returned to Chains After Combat
  After fighting in the War of 1812, Black soldiers were returned to their owners once the war ended and re-enslaved, through the Treaty of Ghent which provided for the mutual restoration of properties, including slaves.
• Defending Murder: Houston Rebellion 1917
  When the Twenty-fourth Infantry, of which all members were Black, arrived in Houston, the segregated Texas City responded by enforcing Jim Crow laws and enlisting city police to harass the men. On August 23, two cops beat and murdered a member of the infantry in response members of the 24^th organized the Houston Rebellion. In November 1917, the largest court-martial in U.S. military history convened at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio to try sixty-three soldiers from the rebellion.  Thirteen of the convicted men were executed by hanging on December 11 and 47 others received life sentences.
• American Weapons not American Citizens
  Although they were still not considered American citizens, more than 17,000 indigenous workers fought in WWI (1914—1918). They would, however, not receive any veteran benefits until 1924, when they were declared citizens, yet racism and exploitation were still commonplace in the military.
• Jim Crow On The Ground & In Flight
  During WWII (1940 – 1952), the Tuskegee Airmen were the first Black military aviators in the U.S. Armed Forces. The Military was still racially segregated and Black soldiers were subjected to racism both within and outside the Army. In Southern States Black soldiers were also was still subject to Jim Crow laws.
• Scapegoating on U.S. and E.U. Soil
  During WWII almost four times as many Black soldiers as whites were executed in Europe after military courts-martial, despite the fact that Blacks made up less than 10 percent of troops (NYT, 2013).
• Turning a Blind Eye to Racist Extracurricular Activities
  In 1986, Marine and Army troops based at Camp Lejeune and Fort Bragg in North Caroline took part in Neo-Nazi and White supremacist activities led by the White Patriot Party and KKK to which Army spokespeople responded, “We cannot restrict their freedom of expression, in as much as it does not interfere with their military duty, or violate civilian or military lay” (NYT, 1986).
• Breeding Grounds for Racism
  In 2012 Reuters reported that Neo-Nazi and Skinhead groups were encouraging followers to enlist in the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to acquire military skills. A 2005 Department of Defense report states, “Effectively, the military has a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy pertaining to extremism.
• Sexual Assault: Unprecedented and Unreported
  A 2012 Pentagon survey found that approximately 26,000 women and men were sexually assaulted. Of those, only 3,374 cases were reported. In 2013, a new Pentagon report found that 5,061 troops reported cases of assault.
• Mass Rape Goes Unreported and Repressed
  On the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas at least 43 female trainees who went through boot camp from 2009 to 2011 reported being sexually assaulted or raped by 17 male instructors. Service members who report a sexual assault were 12 times more likely to experience some kind of retaliation than they are to see an attacker convicted.
• Racial Thursday: Weekly Dose of Racism
  Still common practice, one day a week, the U.S. Army allows soldiers to use racial slurs and share racist thoughts within their units without consequence. This practice has been dubbed Racial Thursdays.

Communist author Mike Golash of the Progressive Labor Party speaks out at #StopNPI pic.twitter.com/YxZvxGGTAT

— Alexander Rubinstein (@AlexR_DC) November 19, 2016

Washington, DC, November 19—Over 500 antiracists protested outside a conference of the racist National Policy Institute (NPI). These NPI scum are often called coat-and-tie white supremacists. During this years’ conference these Nazis got several tastes of militant, antiracist action. The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) also took a small step forward in building a movement for communist revolution.

The NPI are hard core supporters of eugenics, the idea that races are biologically different, and that whites are simply “better stock” than others, who they call the “mud people”. The NPI was celebrating the election of Donald Trump, their partner in advancing racism, and were making plans to further a “white nation.”
No Food for Racists
The antiracists from Smash Racism DC were having none of this. The day before, the antiracists had succeeded in forcing the Hamilton Restaurant to cancel the NPI’s annual dinner. The NPI then moved their dinner to Maggiano’s Restaurant, at which point antiracists stormed the restaurant, disrupting the dinner and spraying a foul-smelling liquid on Richard Spencer, NPI president, who was trying to mock the protesters. After leaving the restaurant shortly before the cops arrived, the demonstrators picketed outside the restaurant, which was forced to close its doors to new diners.
Though small crowds have picketed this annual conference in DC in the past, this year’s rally was more mass and militant. Fittingly, these NPI racists were meeting in the Ronald Reagan building. Even though a huge police presence prevented the demonstrators from shutting down the conference, we were able to shut down several NPI members. They were booed when they came out and tried to mock the demonstrators. One racist’s face was bloodied.
At the rally a member of the Progressive Labor Party spoke on the need to take this moment of anger at the election of openly racist and sexist Donald Trump and turn it toward a revolutionary movement for communism. We need to abolish the whole damn capitalist system, which uses racism and sexism to maximize profits for the few at the top. (See twitter @PLPchallenge for the speech #StopNPI). Millions of workers abandoned the Democratic Party in this election because it has failed them, and millions more simply stayed home for the same reason. The PLP member warned that the liberal bosses are regrouping with people like Senator Elizabeth Warren to try to funnel the energy of these workers and youth into the Democratic Party and pointless electoral politics. Instead we must boldly put forth and fight for a revolutionary alternative; a multiracial movement of women and men fighting for an egalitarian world.
Today, several of the protesters asked to be contacted by the PLP to learn more about revolution and communism, the real alternatives to electoral politics. We must be deeply engaged in the anti-Trump protests to bring awareness of our revolutionary ideas to thousands more. Join us.

DENVER, COLORADO, November 2—The Progressive Labor Party (PLP) brought the fight against racism and for a communist world to the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA), an organization of public health professionals and policy makers whose mission is to improve public health and achieve equity in health status. We’ve helped over 300 people think about the relationship between racism and poor public health. Most important, this struggle has translated into bold action. We joined with others in passing important resolutions on police violence and demanding UN financial support for Haiti’s cholera epidemic (see letters). PLP is moving the struggle to the left and exposing APHA as an institution that won’t fix public health. Only communist revolution can deliver the healthcare that workers need and deserve!
Resolve to End Racist Violence
As the fight against racist police terror has intensified in the U.S. over the past two years, PLP members in APHA have called attention to the serious threat to public health that police terror poses. Last year, PL’ers joined with the Black Caucus of Health Workers at the APHA meeting to present a panel on police violence and public health, the only session at that conference to address this problem. Students from California who were inspired by that discussion joined us in introducing a resolution against police terror this year.
After nearly a year of research, we had a resolution condemning the role of police as racist agents of capitalist social control, complete with 82 references to the academic literature. Among the actions demanded by the resolution were decriminalizing homelessness, loitering, sex work, and drug use; tougher police accountability and demilitarization of police departments; putting money into promoting racial and economic equity; and creating community-based alternatives to policing, including more jobs and restorative justice programming for addressing problems like drug use and prostitution.
As expected, the APHA Joint Policy Committee (JPC) that previews resolutions prior to submission for a vote, gave the paper a negative assessment. Capitalist-supported institutions like the APHA will not oppose racism because they support a system that needs it. However, the crowd refused to accept the racist ruling. The hearing was intense, with dozens of supporters demanding to override the JPC’s disapproval.
Beyond Police Reform
The next day, a student co-author of the resolution gave a talk to 300 people called “Beyond Police Reform,” demonstrating that police serve the capitalist class and calling for fundamental revolutionary change. “Law enforcement,” she argued, “cannot be reformed for the benefit of the working class. Education for the police, body cameras, or tasers aren’t answers,” she declared; instead, she said that cutting policing and using funding instead for strengthening working class communities was a solution.
Police terror and other aspects of capitalism like unemployment and unsafe housing are the root of workers’ poor health. Good public health requires addressing these things. The authors of the resolution insisted, “This is what public health should fight for.” However, the JPC deemed this as too impractical and far-reaching, showing that APHA cannot really giving the working class the healthcare it deserves. In fact, capitalism will never be able to eliminate unemployment because it needs to hire and fire workers to deal with periodic crises and keep wages low. The bosses will never give workers safe housing or clean water, as we’ve seen in Flint, Michigan where they poison the water with lead and in rural working-class white communities where they poison the water with cancerous fracking chemicals. For working people to be healthy, we must eliminate this deadly capitalist system. In fact, the essence of public health must be fighting for a world of equality where all working people will have healthy, productive, and creative lives, the opposite of the exploited lives of workers under capitalism. Communism offers this possibility.
The Struggle Intensifies
We would not let the JPC’s negative evaluation slow the momentum we had achieved. PLP prepared and widely distributed a flyer calling for a public rally in support of the resolution. Over 60 public health professionals rallied in front of the convention center, signaling a unique moment in history: the first time that APHA members have publicly protested en masse against a position of the APHA leadership! Militant chants rang out for over an hour, including:
No public health silence in the face of police violence!
Indict, convict, send killer cops to jail, the whole damn system is guilty as hell!
An unusual parliamentary ruckus ensued on the floor of the 300-delegate Governing Council as the resolution was brought forward for a vote. Fearful that the resolution as written would become APHA policy, the leadership suspended the rules and labelled it a “latebreaker” so that it would only be in effect for a year and would come up for reconsideration next year. This is further proof that the APHA is not interested in or capable of creating the necessary changes to fix public health. We can make progress in reform struggles like these, but we can’t expect to create permanent solutions without a communist revolution.
The resolution passed in this modified form. Making the resolution permanent APHA policy will be part of our continued efforts next year in Atlanta. Although reforms are limited, passing the resolution against police terror had a mass character and brought us in close contact with many young public health activists. This would not have been possible without parallel activities in the broad anti-racist movement, including the actions and rebellions against racist police murders in Ferguson and Baltimore supported and led by PLP, Black Lives Matter, and the families of victims of police murders. Similarly, within the APHA, the past year’s president, a friend of PLP, played a positive role by making anti-racism the centerpiece of APHA activities this year and supporting the resolution against police violence on the floor of the convention.
On to Next Year
“Health equity” was the theme of the convention, but only the unflagging, consistent work of the Party and friends clarified the role of racism in the struggle. Look forward to next year in Atlanta, when the theme will be climate change. We welcome you to join us in the struggle to eradicate racism, end capitalism, climate change, and realize a communist world.