Isolate the Fascists and Bail Out the People
Metro Atlanta DSA forcefully condemns the coup attempt by supporters of Donald Trump that occurred in the United States Capitol building on January 6th. We echo the calls for Trump to resign or be removed from office as soon as possible. We call for the expulsion from Congress of all GOP politicians who encouraged this attack and we urge all our members and supporters to pressure their legislators to support Representative Cori Bush’s resolution to do so.
Since announcing his candidacy for president in 2015, Trump has organized a campaign of hatred, violence, and terror against working people. We saw this throughout his campaign, at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville in 2017, and in the repression of the Black Lives Matter protests of summer 2020. We saw further escalation in this week’s attack on the Capitol building by a mob of white supremacists and far-right terrorists.
This attack was a convening of far-right activists and militants from across the country, called to D.C. by Trump himself. The crowd was made up of professional internet personalities, small business owners, neo-nazi militias, and even a Republican legislator from West Virginia. Despite aesthetic appeals to “liberty,” this movement is fundamentally opposed to the constitutionalism and rule of law of modern liberal democracy.
Trump’s presidency is an extension of a wider neofascist movement fueled by the decay of capitalism in a dwindling empire. Squeezed between the pandemic, the climate crisis, and the declining rate of profit, the small capitalists and fascist militias are on track to grow increasingly hostile to both the liberal democratic state and the working class at large. Appeasement is not an option – the only effective counter is a mass movement of the working class fighting for truly democratic control of our society. Metro Atlanta DSA is committed to building this movement to defeat the fascists and the wealthy elites.
David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler have been defeated in Georgia. Working people showed up and voted in record numbers to reject the GOP and their cruel agenda. With Democrats on the cusp of taking power in the White House and both houses of Congress, our immediate task as socialists is to demand that the new Democratic Party government take bold action to empower working people and isolate the forces of reaction. If President-Elect Biden and Democratic Leaders Schumer and Pelosi truly intend to oppose fascism, they must tear it out at the root. We demand they pass a People’s Bailout for working people and that they move to swiftly expel the far-right coup instigators from Congress. Anything less will effectively enable the fascists to regroup and begin planning to take the House in 2022 and elect a Trump 2.0 in 2024.
This election was a referendum on COVID Relief. Congress must send all USA residents $2000 survival checks, in addition to retroactive compensation of $2000 per month for the entire span of this pandemic. To both address the immediate unemployment crisis and avert the worst of the climate catastrophe, we demand a Green New Deal to put Americans back to work and achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030. We can create good paying union jobs for all building green infrastructure for a clean and habitable planet for future generations. Finally, we must pass the Health Care Emergency Guarantee Act and establish a single-payer Medicare for All system, so that people are never forced to choose between their healthcare and their rent.
The dramatic upset in the Georgia Senate election can in large part be credited to an unprecedented electoral mobilization by organized labor. The hospitality workers’ union UNITE HERE, with support from other unions across the country, knocked 1,500,000 doors in the Senate election. Without their intervention, the Republican Party would still control the US Senate. Joe Biden owes it to the trade union movement to pass bold pro-labor reforms. Congress must establish a $15 minimum wage tied to inflation, pass the PRO Act, repeal Taft-Hartley, ban right-to-work laws at the federal level, and permit unions to organize through card-check.
We are under no illusions about the Democratic Party. Their neoliberal elite leadership has betrayed working people to serve wealthy corporate interests over and over again, and they will do it again as soon as the opportunity arises. Neoliberal rule from 2008-2016 is what gave us Trump in the first place. Our only recourse is to organize ourselves as working class people in a mass movement for justice and equality. We now have an opportunity for bold federal action, and we must seize this moment to build a vibrant movement for socialism that can overwhelm the forces of reaction. Join us in this fight – a better world is possible.
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