Eight million people demonstrated across the United States on March 28, against Trump in the third “No Kings Day.” There were protests in 3,300 communities in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Some were huge, like in New York City, where as many as 200,000 protested (and more than 300,000 marched for Minneapolis earlier this year). Tens of thousands also turned out in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Philadelphia’s march stretched a mile.
These millions represent the vast majority of the working class that hates Trump and opposes Big Oil’s war against Iran. Many sympathize with the Palestinians.
Outrage against the ICE kidnappers helped fill the streets. That was certainly the case in Minneapolis, where Renée Good and Alex Pretti were assassinated by the anti-immigrant gestapo.
Socialist organizations joined many of these protests. So did community groups. They raised anti-war and anti-racist slogans that were welcomed by participants.
Their signs and banners pointed the way forward. Hundreds of thousands of leaflets defending Palestinians and immigrants were distributed.
In New York City and elsewhere, union contingents participated. Among them were SEIU 1199 Hospital Workers and National Nurses United.
It was the Black Lives Matter movement that paved the way for the No Kings Day protests. Black, Brown, Indigenous and Asian communities built a movement from the ground up that swept the United States in 2020.
But the speakers at the big “No Kings” marches were tightly controlled by Democratic Party officials who wanted to limit dissent to voting in the midterm elections. There was probably more leeway at the smaller marches that reached thousands of localities.
The clearest example of Trump acting as a king has been the war on Iran that began with killing 180 schoolchildren, most of whom were girls. The first article of the U.S. Constitution clearly states that only Congress has the right to declare war.
Stopping this bloody, unconstitutional war should have been a central focus on March 28. So should have been the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Combatant Cilia Flores, as well as the strangulation of Cuba. The slogan “No Kings since 1776” was pushed instead.
Never forget that every plantation, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, was ruled by a tyrant. Every workplace where employees don’t have union protection is run by a dictator.
Wall Street is our enemy, not Russia
Attacking Russia is one of the ways that many Democratic Party leaders are using to keep millions of people within the bounds of capitalist politics.
Instead of targeting capitalism and its military-industrial complex, politicians are pushing the Big Lie that Trump is a puppet of Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin. Yet it was the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin that pierced Trump’s blockade, bringing 730,000 barrels of oil to socialist Cuba.
To the Pentagon brass, the Russian Federation is 6.4 million square miles that are not occupied by U.S. troops. The differences between Trump and his political rivals about Russia reflect differences within the ruling class about whom to attack first.
Some of the U.S. oligarchs want to concentrate their weapons on the People’s Republic of China, while others focus on the Western Hemisphere. Nobody in the Big Oil/bankster establishment is willing to give up West Asia.
Attacking Russia is a political diversion that muddled the first impeachment of Trump in 2019. Trump should be kicked out of the White House because he’s a bloody war criminal and hate monger who attacks poor people round the clock.
On to May Day!
The crowd in Manhattan’s big march was largely older, although there were plenty of younger folk as well. It was also predominantly white, although many thousands of Black, Brown, Asian and Indigenous people marched, particularly in the union contingents.
Reactionary commentators on Fox News and elsewhere have emphasized this, as if Trump’s Nuremberg-style rallies are diverse. It’s actually a good thing that millions of white people are marching against racism and war.
Some socialists and revolutionaries boycotted the “No Kings” marches because Democratic Party big shots wanted to exercise tight control. We shouldn’t let capitalist politicians stop us from reaching millions. These characters running the protests were unable to prevent marchers from carrying anti-war signs or chanting anti-capitalist slogans.
Just about every revolution starts with moderate demands. On Jan. 22, 1905, hundreds of thousands of workers in St. Petersburg, Russia, walked to the Czar’s palace humbly begging for modest reforms.
The Czar’s mercenaries shot them down, killing hundreds. The 1905 Revolution broke out, which nearly toppled the tyrant.
Although the 1905 revolt was crushed, 12 years later the Czar was overthrown in five days. When the Communist leader Lenin arrived in St. Petersburg in 1917, moderate leaders were in control who insisted on continuing the slaughter of the imperialist First World War.
Lenin urged his Bolshevik comrades to “patiently explain” to working and poor people why these capitalist politicians needed to be ousted. Eight months after the Czar was overthrown, the Bolsheviks — using the slogan “Peace, Land, and Bread!” — won over millions and established the rule of workers’ soviets (elected workers’ councils).
The masses of poor and working people in the United States don’t need a massacre to awaken them. They suffer violence on a daily basis, from the 1,100 people whom the police kill annually to more than two million people in jail.
Communists and revolutionaries need to use every opportunity to reach our class wherever they are. But we also need to take the initiative, calling events independent of capitalist politicians.
The next step is to organize general strikes across the country on May Day. The Jan. 23 general strike in Minneapolis shows that it can be done.
Millions of people want Trump and his fellow billionaires overthrown. We need to call them into the streets. On to May Day!
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