Chicago, IL – The No Kings protests and demonstrations are both an organized response and a clear manifestation of a spontaneous uprising in resistance to Donald Trump’s agenda. Given the commentary and calls of the leaders and organizers of the demonstration, it’s clearly entrenched within the limited oppositional politics of the Democratic and Republican parties.

The Republican Party has gone so far to the right that it has actually deprived the Democrats of a lot of oxygen for carrying out their neoliberal programs. The Democratic Party’s neoliberal budget cuts leave us lean, but the Republican cuts are to the bone. This makes for an interesting kind of politics. You might say that the Democrats are for restoring the leadership of the Democratic Party to its neoliberal mission. It’s more about restoring the status quo of neoliberalism, and this shows up in how they are presently negotiating with the Republicans about ICE, government layoffs, the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and so on. 

So where do we find the bottom line? If we look for the bottom line that the Democrats are drawing saying “Here’s where we stand. Here’s where we will fight, and we shall not be moved,” it’s hard to find that line. Just look at the fights around the budget. First they said ICE should be abolished. Then they said they had to be restricted. They had to show their badges, their warrants, and not wear masks. They went back and forth on that so much that we couldn’t keep track of what they are demanding, what’s the bottom line. Now that we’re in a period of trying to stop a government shutdown, they agreed to the Republican bottom line in the Senate. Now they’re being critical of the Democrats in the House for not going along with the Democrats in the Senate. 

And what’s wrong with this? They have been negotiated backwards to just the limited demand of giving ICE no more money, when ICE already has gotten hundreds of billions of dollars to function, and they don’t really need more money. So, it’s almost a meaningless demand. 

Both the liberal and the conservative parts of the Democratic Party unite and agree that the problem that people have with Trump is the price of eggs and the price of gasoline, and that he broke his promise to take prices down and instead prices have gone up. They have moved the economy to the front burner. This becomes their principal demand. 

But what about the Medicaid cuts? What about housing? What about the near-elimination of the National Labor Relations Board, where no government official is bound to respect trade union rights? What about the massive layoffs of all of the government workers, including air traffic controllers? And last but certainly not least, what about the white supremacy? What about the unchecked, blatant, gross racism that currently resides in the White House?

It becomes like a meteorite issue that flashes through the political firmament and then is no longer seen and no longer mentioned by the Democratic Party, even when their own leadership, like the Obamas, have been characterized as apes by the President. 

As harsh and mean-spirited as Trump’s racism is, it is not exceptional or unprecedented in the annals of American history. 

The masses of the people are way out ahead of the Democrats when it comes to opposing Trump’s agenda. We think this was demonstrated in Minneapolis, and we think it’s also been demonstrated at numerous Congressional hearings, but mainly in Minneapolis, where we heard an undisputable, unmistakeable protest against the ICE occupation and the police state tactics of Trump, coming from the masses of people. 

I’m not talking about the governor of Minnesota. He opposed it, yes. Nor am I talking about the mayor of Minneapolis. He opposed it, too. But they also did not draw the line when it came to aggressive, brutal and murderous actions of ICE on the ground. They let one face of ICE be replaced by another, switching out Bovino for Homan. 

So, the challenge to us is that in these momentous times, when you have political leaders clearly standing in contradiction and opposition to the popular demands and impulses of the masses, that we consciously intervene and make it clear that defeating Trumpism, or defeating the Trump agenda and all the social savagery that it unleashes on the people, means we must address the racism, xenophobia and gender-based oppression as vigorously and uncompromisingly while we also address the social misery caused by the rise in the cost of living. 

Our response to the neoliberal war cry coined by Bill Clinton decades ago, “It’s the economy, stupid,” is “It’s the politics, stupid.” 

Because of the extremism characteristic of this administration, we must not draw the conclusion that our demands are unreachable. We must take the fighting attitude that to get out of the situation that we’re in, our demands must be met. Our immediate demands to stop the Trump agenda must not be seen as a transitionary demand to tolerate the present moment until we get a better moment.

Trumpism is totally unacceptable now, and we must fight it to the finish.

#Opinion #Commentary #FrankChapman #Trump #PeoplesStruggles #ImmigrantRights