Fascism and Resistance: All Of Us Or None

A much needed guide to Resistance. 
By Kurt Stand. March 25,2025.  Z Network. 

“The Democratic Party’s failure to address the cost of living crisis, its refusal to maintain the expanded pandemic safety net, and its continued funding of a genocide fueled much of the despair that paved the way to Trump’s restoration.  In order to survive his presidency, and defeat his movement, we must defeat this very despair.  Otherwise, it will continue to be used by Trump, who has shown himself adept at exploiting genuine pain and alienation, only to carry out the billionaire class’ arsonist agenda.
“In an earlier era of rising fascism, FDR said, ‘Democracy has disappeared in several other great nations — not because the people of those nations disliked democracy, but because they had grown tired of unemployment and insecurity, of seeing their children hungry while they sat helpless in the face of government confusion, government weakness.’ The task before us is to end this false choice — to build the institutions that protect the most vulnerable among us while putting forward an agenda that improves working peoples’ lives.”

The Crisis of Division
Donald Trump’s reelection as president reflects the deep crisis of U.S. (and global) capitalism – a crisis powerful corporate sectors are seeking to resolve by placing new restrictions on democratic rights and removing existing restrictions placed on capital.  Although marked by chaos and confusion, the measures taken by Trump and – perhaps more relevantly – by Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, reflects that orientation: destroying government regulatory agencies, attacking work-place protections and worker rights, eliminating any hint of civil rights and racial or gender justice by destruction of DEI programs.  The attacks on immigrants and Palestinian rights activists, cruel in their implementation are designed to inhibit the ability of people who defend the rights in their communities, schools or workplaces, to inhibit global solidarity and opposition to war.  As such, they serve as an opening wedge to a more generalized assault on civil liberties and democratic rights.
The narrow nationalism promoted by Trump similarly seeks to limit restrictions on US trade and military policy inherent in multinational bodies – even those the U.S. dominates.  This attempt to overcome the relative decline of the U.S. in the world economy is behind a seeming “go-it-alone” assertion of unbridled power.  The “free hand,” pursuing foreign policy has its analogy in asserting a “free hand” domestically.  Hence his rejection of police accountability, his threat to use the military for domestic repression, threats against political opponents.  More to the point, his rejection of any concept of international law reflects his rejection of the rule of law domestically.  Constitutional law is fundamental to the functioning of political democracy – and the law has provided a framework within which working people have defended their rights, the terrain through which popular movements for social justice have sought to expand those rights.  Thus what we see is an ever clearer assertion of the power of capital, of US militarism, of the wealthy elite, to eliminate any impediments to expansion.  It is a sign of weakness, not strength, but is all the more dangerous for that.
Trump’s victory rested on a different appeal.  His and Vance’s campaign was marked by vicious attacks on immigrants, on the transgender community, on “childless cat ladies”, on the “enemy within.” Yet he also campaigned as a leader who would bring back jobs, end inflation, create economic growth, bring peace to the world by displays of power.  The slogan “Make America Great Again,” was designed to promote an image of safety and stability.  Holding this together was Trump’s projection of himself as someone invincible, an appeal to the irrational that was stoked by the violence of his rhetoric. 
Kamla Harris’ campaign was unable to sufficiently counter this because corporate power in the Democratic Party did not want to challenge the corporate power at the heart of our country’s political and economic failings.  Critically, she challenged Trump as an individual, without addressing the underlying fears that generated his support.  
Read more. Leading to strategy. 
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/fascism-and-resistance-all-of-us-or-none/