Dec. 18 — On a Wednesday night, with just hours’ notice, Donald Trump seized the airwaves for an 18-minute primetime address. Major networks cut away from scheduled programming — including the live finale of Survivor. Speculation spread across media and political circles about what could justify such an abrupt interruption. Some wondered if it signaled a major policy shift or even a declaration of war on Venezuela.

What followed was neither policy nor clarity. It was a frantic, angry, fact-free tirade that alarmed even sections of the political establishment — not because of what Trump announced, but because of how he delivered it and what it revealed about a presidency struggling to contain deepening crisis.

A performance that alarmed even allies

In moments like this, presidents are expected to project control. Trump did the opposite.

He tore through more than 2,600 words in 18 minutes — roughly double his usual pace. The delivery was widely described as manic, rushed, and angry, as if he were chasing text racing ahead of him. One observer said it looked like the teleprompter was running at triple speed and Trump was barely keeping up.

The display was disturbing enough that CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a former cardiologist to Dick Cheney, publicly said Trump appeared “unwell.” Presidential addresses are staged to project steadiness. This one projected volatility.

Some commentators have speculated that Trump may be exhibiting symptoms consistent with white matter disease — a condition that can strip away social and political filters and intensify long-standing personality traits. This remains speculation, not diagnosis. But Trump’s publicly released medical reports omit brain MRI results. As one analyst put it bluntly: Withholding them raises serious questions.

Whatever the explanation, the political reality was clear. The head of the U.S. state apparatus appeared visibly out of control.

A speech built on economic falsehoods

The stated purpose of the address was to sell an economic success story. Trump claimed inflation had been crushed, prices were falling, jobs were booming, and foreign capital was flooding into the country.

None of it holds up.

Gas prices remain near $3 a gallon nationally, food costs continue to squeeze working-class households, and unemployment has climbed to a four-year high as layoffs continue to mount — the opposite of the boom he claimed.

It was a wholesale rewriting of economic reality — an attempt to deny the widening gap between official claims and working-class life.

Racism and fascism as political strategy

Fact-checking, though, misses the point. The speech’s core was scapegoating.

Trump described immigration as an “invasion by an army of 25 million people,” claiming migrants came from prisons and “insane asylums” to “prey on Americans.” This language is deliberate. It mirrors classic fascist rhetoric, which portrays a nation as a pure body under attack by criminal outsiders and promises salvation through repression and violence.

Trump has repeatedly referred to immigrants and political opponents as “animals,” “vermin,” and “the enemy from within.” This language prepares the ground for state violence, mass detention, and the suspension of basic rights — especially as economic conditions worsen.

Racism here is not a distraction; it is a tool. Layoffs have surged — more than a million since Trump took office — while housing, food, and health care costs remain punishingly high. Jobs disappear while prices rise, even as corporate profits and military spending are protected. Rather than confront these contradictions, the administration redirects anger downward, toward immigrants and communities of color.

Trump’s attack on the Somali community in Minnesota was especially telling, echoing earlier remarks widely interpreted as threatening Rep. Ilhan Omar. Instead of addressing why working people cannot afford rent or groceries, he offered a familiar racist answer: scapegoating immigrants and communities of color.

A speech born of desperation

Behind the scenes, the address appears less strategic than panicked. It came just hours after Vanity Fair published a profile of Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, quoting her describing Trump as having an “alcoholic’s personality,” judging people by their “genes,” and dismissing Vice President JD Vance as a conspiracy theorist. The backlash inside MAGA circles was swift.

According to journalists present afterward, Trump admitted Wiles told him he had to give the speech. He then asked her, “How did I do?” Even close allies reportedly found the address baffling — not the move of a leader acting from strength.

Meanwhile, material conditions continue to undercut the White House’s claims. Unemployment is rising. Household costs remain high. Wages lag behind prices. A Reuters / Ipsos poll showing just 33% approval of Trump’s economic handling reflects lived reality, not a messaging problem.

What the interruption really revealed

This address will not be remembered for policy or persuasion. It will be remembered as a moment when the mask slipped.

It revealed a president visibly unstable, a speech built on falsehoods, an administration leaning ever harder on racist and fascist scapegoating, and a ruling apparatus acting out of panic rather than strength.

For working people, the lesson is clear. When those at the top cannot resolve capitalism’s crises, they turn to lies, fear, and division. Our task is not to be distracted by the spectacle, but to organize against the system that produced it — and against the dangerous politics now being used to defend it.

Kenner, Louisiana, Dec. 13 – Around 75 people rallied for immigrants’ rights along busy Williams Boulevard in Kenner. This Jefferson Parish town is about 30% Latine and has become a focal point of Donald Trump’s ICE invasion. 

The diverse crowd stayed out for over two hours. Youth played a prominent role, often leading chants and keeping the energy up. One of the most popular chants was simple and direct: “!ICE fuera!” or “ICE out!” The response from passing drivers was overwhelmingly positive. 

When asked who organized this action, several people said that community members who are not known activists were the driving force, putting out the call because they are ready to fight back. New people are being drawn into the struggle.

But several organizations participated. These include Unión Migrante, New National Christian Leadership Movement, and the Louisiana branches of Freedom Road Socialist Organization and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.

At least two additional anti-ICE demonstrations happened today within New Orleans city limits. And about 40 miles northeast of New Orleans in the town of Slidell, dozens protesting against ICE terror lined Gause Boulevard near the intersection with Front Street. They did the same yesterday and plan to be out again tomorrow. As in Kenner, youth are playing a leading role. A participant told SLL:

“Both sides of the street were filled. … It was great to see those kids out protesting. Even though my mom heart felt very protective.”

Trump and the Kennedy Center Honors

With all the other crises going on, it may seem silly to even pause and think about President Donald Trump hosting the Kennedy Center Honors on Dec. 2. But the fact that this happened tells us a few things. 

One is that the U.S. government’s authoritarianism is deepening: The executive branch – Trump – is trying to directly interfere in popular culture, even in a capricious and personal way (though always in the service of rich elites). The second is that there is a real assault on our very memory of the past, on who and what gets remembered, as well as how they are remembered. This is an escalation of the so-called “culture war,” using political power to intervene on the side of reaction.

Culture is important. As SLL writer John Parker reported this week from Venezuela, “Fidel Castro and many African liberation and Indigenous leaders recognized culture as the ruling class’s primary tool of ideological control — denying the oppressed and working class the ability to think independently, distracting them and directing them toward their own disempowerment.”

Trump’s authoritarian interventions in the media are glaring. For example, as with other legally independent government agencies, Trump has placed loyalists in the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). That agency regulates communications, including the internet and television. He also called for the firing of late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel, who was fired by ABC but then rehired following public outrage.

As soon as his second term started, Trump began remaking the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. He fired the board members, and the replacements he brought in immediately put him in charge of the institute. This is unprecedented. At a Kennedy Center press conference back in August, Trump boasted that he was “very involved” in selecting the honorees and that he said no to “a couple of wokesters.” Hosting the awards was the final touch.

These awards are given to artists and entertainers for lifetime contributions. It’s about legacy. It’s another question why specific people made the list: disco artist Gloria Gaynor, action star Sylvester Stallone, or the rock band KISS. But based on Trump’s press conference statement, we can assume that someone like television maverick Norman Lear, an honoree in 2019, would not have made the cut in 2025. 

So classic TV was ‘woke’?

Lear, who died at 101 in December 2023, wrote for, produced, or developed over 100 shows. He is primarily known for introducing political and social themes to sitcoms in the 1970s. 

There’s a decent chance that if you ask someone who grew up in the U.S. to name a few ‘70s sitcoms, at least one of them will be Norman Lear’s. There’s a good chance that they’ll name more than one. The list includes some of the most popular shows of the period: “All in the Family,” “Maude,” “Sanford and Son,” “One Day at a Time,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Good Times.”

These shows tackled subjects like hate crimes against the queer community, drag, abortion, and many more, decades before the manufactured furor over drag story hour and beer commercials. Some shows featured interracial relationships. Hell, just the fact that several of these shows centered on Black families was groundbreaking. That wouldn’t have happened just a few years earlier.

These developments didn’t just stem from Lear’s genius. They were part of the zeitgeist. The 1960s-70s were a progressive era when people’s struggles were making gains. Culture – including pop culture – reflected that. The struggles made these shows possible.

Of course, none of this was perfect. Some Black writers and actors involved in these shows say that they were sidelined and have not received the full credit that they are due. Black screenwriter Eric Monte was a co-creator of multiple of these shows, such as “Good Times” along with “Good Times” actor Mike Evans. (Evans is best known for playing Lionel on that show.)

Likewise, the white actress Sally Struthers – who was 24 when she began playing Gloria in “All in the Family” – recently claimed that Lear did not take her seriously and was often rude to her, and that the mostly older male writers did not know how to write for her character; when they didn’t know what to do with her, they gave her lines like “I’ll set the table, ma” and “I’m going upstairs to wash my hair.” The contradictions in society play out in cultural production. 

But again, looking beyond Lear, another indicator of the zeitgeist was “Sesame Street,” which first aired in 1969. The radical underpinnings of the show may be lost on many today. It was an ambitious experiment: Make children’s education available to the masses through public television. (The federal Head Start program to help poor and working-class preschoolers began in 1965. “Sesame Street” aimed to do the same thing through a different medium.) The show featured Black, Latine, white, and other characters in an inner city environment. In the beginning, Mississippi officials refused to air the show because of its multiracial cast!

Archie Bunker not a MAGA prototype

One of my social media pet peeves are the rightwing memes depicting the dads Archie Bunker and George Jefferson (of “All in the Family” and “The Jeffersons,” respectively), with captions like, “TV back when people weren’t offended by everything.” This fundamentally misrepresents what these shows were about.

Archie Bunker is not the prototype of the MAGA culture warrior. The latter always digs in and is actively helping to push back the progress of people’s struggles. Archie Bunker, a loading dock worker who also worked part-time as a cab driver to make extra money, is a working-class character from a different era. Projecting MAGA values onto him is wrong. 

Yes, he is an older white man with oppressive social baggage. He is bullheaded. But he does not have the sociopathic cruelty celebrated by MAGA. When confronted with situations he doesn’t understand, like Black neighbors moving in (the Jeffersons), he eventually starts to come around. 

That is the comedy – the exasperated look on his face when he has to accept something new. He’s the butt of the joke. But at the end of the day, he cares about other people. He learns. Without that human core, the show would hardly have been compelling. This has nothing in common with today’s comedians who intentionally try to offend by punching down at trans people or other oppressed groups.

Archie was part of a world that was progressing. He was along for the ride whether he liked it or not. The present was far from perfect, but movements throughout the country were making strides: women’s power, Black power, Indigenous power, LGBTQ+ power, union power. 

And it wasn’t just the U.S. People’s movements all over the world were racking up victories, like when the Vietnamese people drove out the U.S. invaders and reunified their country.

The fictional world of “All in the Family” mirrored society in the real world. And the changes happening in the real world – the high tide of people’s struggles through the 1960s and ‘70s – made such a show possible. 

The right wing wants us to forget

Right now, Trump is leading a colossal attack on the working class, helping to transfer more and more wealth to the top. His movement, which is controlling the government, is especially lashing out against immigrants and trans people, trying to divide people up so they can’t fight back. 

If there is a “culture war,” we must be clear that this war is not just about ideas. It is a manifestation of the class struggle. The assault on progressive culture – representation in pop culture, the teaching of history, and more – is part of the broader assault on people’s movements; it is about reversing real gains made by those struggles.

They want us to forget past cultural representations reflecting those struggles because they want us to forget the struggles themselves, and to stop fighting today. 

When the right wing promulgates the false idea that all of the pop culture of the past was simply reflective of reactionary values, and that only recently have TV series and films begun to explore social problems from a progressive angle, they are reinforcing the false idea that things never changed, and never will change. But the fact that these shows were so popular more than 50 years ago argues to the contrary. 

Frackville, Pennsylvania, Dec. 9 — Mumia says it’s about love. What else could have given 17 people the passion to hike 103 miles for 12 days across Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia to the Mahanoy prison in Frackville? They arrived on Dec. 9, marking 44 years since December 1981, when Black Panther journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal was framed for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

The warmth in their hearts gave the Marchers4Mumia the stamina to endure a bone-chilling, bitter cold wave with the added danger of marching through Trump country. Bob Nash, an elder with Veterans for Peace, who is 82 years young, marched the entire route along with others, some nearly a quarter of his age.

Why else would they have chosen this holiday season when every TV and newspaper is blasting a daily distraction of “Black Friday” gift sales? A Black woman on the march noted that the hardship endured on the march was nothing compared to the brutal conditions that break down the health of prisoners. Mumia has been denied proper medical care in prison, permanently risking his eyesight.

A system of racist injustice

Of course, the marchers were motivated by hatred too, of a racist system that has locked Mumia Abu-Jamal in a “steel box” ever since he was shot in the abdomen by police after stopping the taxi he was driving to help his brother in the street. The march has been fueled by Mumia’s prolific reports written from inside the walls about the privatized U.S. prison system that incarcerates a wildly disproportionate number of African Americans. 

It’s hatred for the flagrant injustice in the case of a Black journalist who truthfully reported the Philadelphia police attacks on the peaceful MOVE organization, which culminated in the 1985 bombing of a Black community. It’s their outrage over the notoriously racist prosecution in Judge Sabo’s court, which has been internationally protested by the international writers’ organization PEN, the National Writers Union, and Amnesty International. A number of Marchers4Mumia have spent their lives building the movement for Mumia.

In 2019, a discovery of cartons of evidence proving that Mumia’s guilt was intentionally manufactured by the police was found hidden in a closet. The court dismissed calls for a trial with a ruling that the evidence appeared “too late.” The menacing, vain efforts of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police to silence all support for the freedom of Mumia have not buried suspicion of the police role in the death of their new recruit, officer Daniel Faulkner. 

Grand plan with superb organization

Love for Mumia, who is a powerful advocate for health care for all the aging prisoners, was manifest in the superb organization that enabled the march. Steve Bernhaut initiated the idea for the march with a grand plan for how it could be done. The secure provision of housing, food and support vans along the route, as well as widespread solidarity, including donations made to the March4Mumia.org site, made it all possible. Frequently, along their route, the marchers managed to get calls directly from Mumia in prison.

Supporters from afar joined the beginning of the march in Philadelphia on Nov. 28 and again at the Dec. 9 press conference and rally at the prison. They came from Baltimore, New York and multiple towns in New Jersey. Two representatives from the French movement for Mumia, Libérons Mumia, visited him in prison and spoke at the rally.

On the last day, Dec. 9, over 50 supporters joined the march, chanting and singing protest songs, for the last three miles to the entrance of Mahanoy prison in Frackville. Mumia greeted them by phone. They stood in line to introduce themselves and tell Mumia where they were coming from. There was a lot of support along the highway, especially from truck drivers, with only a couple of hostile reactions.

Dozens more gathered together at the prison entrance for a rally and press conference featuring marchers Larry Hamm, Dr. Alvarez, and Jian White as well as Dr. Joseph Harris, Mama Pam, Yahne Ndgo, Gabe Bryant, Cindy Lou Miller, Jacky Hortaut from France representing Libérons Mumia, and Rubina Tareen from Schuylkill County.

Speakers addressed the main demands of the long march, including ending medical neglect of incarcerated people, releasing elderly prisoners, and freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal. “Free them all” was a popular chant. 

The protest march was organized by the March for Mumia coalition, which included the Mobilization4Mumia, People’s Organization for Progress, International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, The Campaign to Bring Mumia Home, Abolitionist Law Center, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, Detroit Jericho Movement, Philly Muslim Freedom Fund, Workers World Party, le Collectif français LIBERONS MUMIA, amigos de Mumia, Prison Radio, The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and Struggle-La Lucha.

After marching for 12 days, Zayid Muhammad reported on the Democracy Now! radio show: “We’re taking that long walk, because the walk for freedom is a long walk. And we do it with an intense, extra-motivated passion, because we just lost a bold freedom fighter in Imam Jamil Abdullah al-Amin in the clutches of the state, and that should not have happened. So, under no circumstances can we allow the state to take any more of our freedom fighters. It’s time to get Mumia all the healthcare he needs.”

Larry Hamm said: “We are marching to draw attention to Mumia’s medical problems, to demand that he get the surgery and medical treatment he needs. We are marching for the care of all prisoners in an aging prison population. We’re marching today to demand freedom for Mumia and all political prisoners.”

Speaking to a Struggle-La Lucha reporter in Philadelphia on the first day of the march, Lisa Davis, the vice chair of the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace, and Reparations, and a member of the Uhuru Movement!, told how “they tried to put three leaders of the Uhuru Movement! in prison for 10 to 15 years, just for speaking out and condemning the U.S. proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, but also against colonialism and the whole damn system of imperialism. They specifically came after Uhuru leader Omali Yeshitela.

“And this case was under the Democrats. They also came after me in South Orange, New Jersey, where I was at a weekly pro-Palestine protest. A Zionist came running up after me, yelling and screaming. When I attempted to defend myself from this extremely racist guy, the police picked on me. I happen to be the only Black person in the protest and the one they went after.

“The police fabricated what happened, even though it was on video. The judge ruled that whether or not I organized the protest, I was responsible. He fined me $300 with an additional $66 for court fees. And then $10 more to pay the damn thing online with only 20 calendar days to appeal. Then I had to pay for the court transcripts, including those for the prosecutor. Yeah. So they’re not for poor people at all. They’re certainly not for Black people.” 

Small businesses are collapsing at the fastest rate since the pandemic. In November alone, small firms eliminated 120,000 jobs — the steepest drop in years. Bankruptcy filings are at their highest level since 2019.

At the same time, the corporations that dominate the U.S. economy are thriving. Tech giants are pouring billions into artificial intelligence, data centers and chip production. The stock market surges while workers face layoffs, shrinking paychecks and rising costs for basic necessities.

Politicians call this a strange “divergence.” But nothing unusual is happening. 

Capitalism churns out far more goods and services than can be sold at a profit, and when capital can no longer realize profit on the goods it produces, the system restores itself by destroying the weakest parts of the economy. The collapse of smaller competitors and the tightening grip of the ruling class aren’t accidents — they’re built into how capitalism works.

Monopoly is not an accident — it’s the system

When a neighborhood restaurant shuts down, or an independent hardware store goes under, it is not simply a personal tragedy. It is capitalism moving in its usual direction. Larger firms negotiate lower prices, shift production across borders, ride out downturns that sink smaller rivals and use their political connections to shape government decisions.

A corporate economist admitted it plainly: “They have more tools in the toolbox.” He was only echoing what Marx showed long ago — competition drives capital into fewer, larger hands.

Every collapse on Main Street strengthens the corporations that already dominate retail, logistics, technology and finance. Capital doesn’t just expand — it concentrates. And when profits tighten in glutted markets, the system clears space for the monopolies by wiping out smaller firms.

The capitalist state picks winners — and it isn’t small business

The Trump administration’s response makes the class character of state policy unmistakable. Commerce Secretary and billionaire financier Howard Lutnick blamed small business failures on immigration restrictions, claiming firms can’t survive without hyper-exploited undocumented labor. When data showed that falling consumer demand — workers not earning enough to sustain small firms — was the real driver, the administration simply ignored it.

The capitalist state does not protect “business in general.” It serves the monopolies, the banks, the tech giants and the energy corporations. It funnels government-funded research and development into private hands, turning collective resources into corporate profit. Trump’s tariffs, tax cuts and attacks on social programs all move wealth upward while claiming to help workers and small business owners. 

Tariffs marketed as “protective” act as taxes on workers. The corporations best positioned to gain are those that can reorganize supply chains, push costs onto workers and their communities, and secure special carve-outs.

Small manufacturers and independent contractors are left to fend for themselves in a system stacked against them.

The AI boom exposes capitalism’s priorities

The artificial intelligence boom shows the system’s direction clearly. Tech monopolies are investing staggering sums into chips, cloud platforms and sprawling data centers. Stock prices rise. Corporate profits climb.

But these projects create remarkably few jobs. A data center costing billions to build and operate may employ only about a hundred people. Capital pours into machinery and infrastructure while less and less is spent on living labor.

For corporations, this is ideal: Fewer workers mean fewer wages and fewer rights to contend with. But stripping labor out of production sharpens capitalism’s basic contradiction. 

Output and productive capacity grow much faster than profitable markets can absorb them. This deepens the crisis of overproduction inherent in the system. Machines cannot create new value; they only transfer the value previously created by workers.

That is why AI’s immediate impact is job elimination. Automation sweeps through retail, logistics, office work, customer service, transportation and media. These jobs do not return in the tech sector. They simply vanish.

Wall Street’s boom has nothing to do with workers’ well-being

The soaring stock market is advertised as proof of economic strength. But the gains flow overwhelmingly to the ruling class. Workers own none of the financial wealth behind this supposed prosperity.

Working-class life tells a different story. Rents and home prices push families out of their communities. Health care premiums climb. Electricity bills rise as data centers devour power. Food assistance is cut. These hardships are not accidental. They are how corporations turn every human need into a source of profit — and force workers to cover the cost. By driving down wages to raise profits, corporations intensify the imbalance that fuels crisis: production outrunning what can be sold for a profit.

This is not inflation driven by “labor shortages.” It is a deliberate upward transfer of wealth.

Instability as a method of rule

Trump’s unpredictable trade policies are often dismissed as incompetence. In reality, they function as political pressure. Tariffs appear, vanish and change without warning. This uncertainty disciplines foreign competitors, unsettles domestic firms and keeps workers on edge.

Businesses hesitate to hire or invest when economic rules shift week to week. Workers brace for layoffs and price hikes. Trump’s interference in federal agencies worsens the instability. When he fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics for releasing accurate but politically inconvenient data, he signaled that economic information must follow political dictates — a hallmark of crisis and reaction.

Crisis and its meaning

The “Main Street recession” is not an exception. It is capitalism in motion. Capital concentrates ownership, sheds workers and reorganizes society around the demands of the ruling class, not those who produce the wealth.

Small business owners occupy an in-between class position. They employ workers but are squeezed by banks, landlords, debt and the monopolies that dominate every sector. Their collapse is one more expression of monopoly capital tightening its grip.

Workers are being told to carry the cost. Layoffs, stagnant wages, rising prices and cuts to social programs are treated as unavoidable, even as corporate profits and stock buybacks hit new highs. The ruling class’s message is simple: The crisis belongs to you; the gains belong to us.

This is the classic pattern of capitalist crisis: production and productive capacity outrunning what can be sold at a profit, and a ruling class that restores itself by wiping out smaller capitals and pushing the burden onto workers.

Metairie, Louisiana, Dec. 6 — A protest at a Metairie Home Depot demanded answers after ICE agents allegedly struck and possibly killed a pedestrian during a high-speed chase the previous night. While the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office claims the crash was unrelated to Border Patrol, officials have not released evidence. Community activists are calling for JPSO to make surveillance footage public.

Regardless of what JPSO releases, the ICE terror is real. People are living in fear of being snatched up by masked Nazi-like agents in unmarked vehicles. 

Back in September, the U.S. Supreme Court greenlit racial and ethnic profiling by immigration agents, allowing roving patrols to stop people whom they suspect to be immigrants because of their appearance or the language they speak. 

Jefferson Parish — where Metairie is located — is 20% Latine, with some neighborhoods being as high as 54%. Louisiana has also been made into an immigrant detention hub, further enriching the shareholders of the for-profit prison industry.

Speaking at the rally, Deborah with the New Orleans Party for Socialism and Liberation said:

“We’re out here today because we see the violence that ICE — that Border Patrol — is injecting into our community. They’re committing acts of violence and terrorizing our neighbors. 

“People are too afraid to leave their houses out of fear of being targeted, arrested, deported. People are afraid to go to work.

“We saw a few days ago images and videos of workers repairing someone’s roof and had guns pointing at their faces. And they arrested these workers — people who were just showing up to do their job and contribute to society. 

“We’re hearing reports from all over the city — in New Orleans, and in Jefferson Parish, all over Louisiana — of neighborhoods being terrorized. This is an invasion, a racist occupation of our city, and the majority of us reject it.”

On the same day, two other anti-ICE protests happened in New Orleans. And the day before, people came out to confront ICE agents and Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino in Metairie’s Lafreniere Park, live-streaming everything that the agents were doing. Community members responded to calls posted on social media by Unión Migrante and other organizations, showing that real-time response networks are forming here, just as in other parts of the country. 

The people of Louisiana — especially the workers — have the power to drive ICE out, just like they did in Charlotte, North Carolina. The South is not some place where the people passively accept every injustice inflicted on them by the racist ruling class. This is where the Civil Rights and other movements started. That can happen again.

On Nov. 21, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a prominent figure in the MAGA movement, announced she will resign from Congress in January 2026. Her decision follows a public split with President Donald Trump, whom she had loudly championed for years.

Since entering Congress, Taylor Greene has been the face of MAGA. She openly identifies as a Christian nationalist and commonly promotes white-supremacist ideas. For years she has accused the left of promoting a fabricated “white genocide” and has compared basic COVID-19 safety measures to Nazi-era euthanization policies.

Her legislative initiatives include fascist insanity like the “Gulf of America Act,” the “Death Penalty for Dealing Fentanyl Act,” and the “Tren de Aragua Border Security Assessment Act” — all grounded in an openly reactionary, anti-immigrant agenda. At every turn, her politics have been defined by xenophobia, anti-communism, and antisemitism.

Taylor Greene has repeatedly pushed the racist lie that immigrant workers “steal American jobs.” In a 2023 appearance on the Charlie Kirk Show, she went so far as to call for U.S. air strikes and ground troops to wage war against Mexican drug cartels — a position she promoted for years. Greene and neo-fascist demagogue Charlie Kirk were political allies until his death, and she even backed legislation to award him a posthumous Medal of Freedom.

To Taylor Greene, the 2020 Black Lives Matter upsurge against racist police violence was simply an “antifa terrorist” plot. Before entering Congress, she promoted the claim that “Jewish bankers” operating space lasers had caused California wildfires. At her most fundamental, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a racist, xenophobic fascist. Her resignation does not change that. 

Even so, a number of progressive commentators and media outlets praised the tone of Greene’s resignation letter. Some even urged her to remain in Congress. A few Democratic Party–aligned publications went further, recasting her as a potential ally in an “anti-Trump resistance.”

It’s true that Greene has criticized U.S. funding for Ukraine, and more recently made limited comments about military aid to Israel. But these statements don’t reflect any principled opposition to war. Greene has a long voting record backing Israel and has consistently supported Trump’s massive Department of War agenda.

Even in these small moments of criticism, Greene’s objection is never to the brutal genocide being carried out against Palestinians. Her problem is the supposed influence of “foreign interests” over Washington — a recycled, antisemitic conspiracy theory claiming that a Zionist or Jewish cabal controls the U.S. government. Such myths have long been used to misdirect working-class anger and shield the real beneficiaries of U.S. imperialism, including billionaires like Musk and Trump.

Greene’s occasional opposition to funding Ukraine or Israel has nothing to do with anti-imperialism or pacifism. She wants U.S. imperialism to remain dominant and is an open advocate of “America First.” What some commentators mistake as progressive gestures are, in fact, entirely consistent with her real politics: the classic fascist blend of nationalism, conspiracy theory, and authoritarianism.

Fascism has always used a façade of “anti-establishment” rhetoric to mobilize a base that ultimately serves the interests of the establishment itself. Hitler railed against “big business,” portraying capitalism as a Jewish conspiracy to rob “real Germans” of their livelihoods. Yet the moment he took power, he wrapped his arms around German steel magnates, U.S. bankers like Prescott Bush, and wealthy automakers across the West. His regime was the hardline, right-wing rule of German and American capital. The same pattern defined Mussolini’s Italy. Like the fascist leaders she echoes, Greene blended conspiracy theory with false anti-elite rhetoric:

“If I am cast aside by MAGA Inc and replaced by Neocons, Big Tech, Military Industrial War Complex, foreign leaders, and the elite donor class that can’t even relate to real Americans, then many common Americans have been cast aside and replaced as well.”

Greene showed no discomfort with the military-industrial complex when she bought thousands of dollars in defense stocks at the outbreak of the Ukraine war. Likewise, her outrage at the “elite donor class” never stopped her from taking hefty contributions from the auto industry, investment firms, and Big Oil in 2024. Nor did she object to Big Tech when she invested heavily in Palantir just days before ICE awarded the company a $30 million contract. Greene is committed to capitalism. She is committed to fascism. And she is committed to militarized police, ICE, and U.S. domination abroad.

The left cannot mistake Greene’s fascist maneuvering for a genuine shift in sentiment. Treating far-right demagogues as “anti-war” or “anti-capitalist” only disorients working people and weakens real opposition to U.S. imperialism. Greene’s resignation reflects a traditional fascist strategy: mobilizing sections of the small-business class — and parts of the working class — against oppressed communities and the Global South.

The movement cannot afford such illusions. Fascist politicians gain strength whenever confusion spreads about their aims. It is not Greene or any faction of the right that offers a way forward, but the independent struggle of the working class against war, racism, and capitalist rule.

Trump’s racist tirade and ICE raids aim to terrorize an oppressed community — and send a warning to the whole working class.

On Dec. 2, President Donald Trump used a White House Cabinet meeting to spit out a stream of racist abuse against Somali immigrants in Minnesota. He called Somalis “garbage,” claimed they “contribute nothing,” sneered that their country “stinks,” and said they should “go back to where they came from.”

This was not just another ugly performance for the cameras. The next day, Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a major operation in the Twin Cities, sending teams of agents into Minneapolis–St. Paul to hunt undocumented Somalis. At the same time, the administration moved to strip Temporary Protected Status from Somalis and to freeze immigration and naturalization from Somalia and 18 other mostly African and Muslim-majority countries.

Trump’s rant was the political cover for a concrete state offensive. His words from the Cabinet table were connected by a straight line to the raid teams pounding on Somali families’ doors before dawn.

Scapegoating an oppressed nationality

Trump’s attack on Somalis is not just personal bigotry. It’s part of how the ruling class governs in a time of crisis.

Somalis in Minnesota are overwhelmingly working class. They drive cabs and trucks, work in warehouses and nursing homes, study in schools and colleges, and struggle with low wages, high rents, and debt like other workers. Many came as refugees from wars, invasions, and economic strangulation in which U.S. imperialism played a direct role.

Now, the same system that helped wreck their homeland brands them a “security threat” and a drain on public resources. Trump falsely links them to fraud scandals, crime, and “terrorism” – pure inventions used to justify raids, detentions, and deportations. The message to the rest of the working class is: Blame Somali immigrants, not Wall Street, not the Pentagon, not the billionaires.

National oppression under capitalism is not just a matter of prejudice. It is built into the way the state, the labor market, and the borders are organized. When the ruling class whips up hatred against an oppressed nationality, it is deflecting anger over unemployment and poverty, testing how far it can go in criminalizing a whole people, and refining methods of repression that can later be used against anyone who resists.

The targeting of Somalis, Afghans, and immigrants from 19 countries lays bare the cynicism of imperialism. People fleeing wars, occupations, and sanctions created by Washington arrive here, only to find themselves treated as suspect, surveilled, and disposable.

Toward second-class citizenship by nationality

What makes this moment especially dangerous is the way Trump’s campaign reaches beyond raids and deportations to the question of citizenship itself.

The administration is talking openly about “reverse migration,” mass removals, and re-examining the status of people who already have papers. Agencies are ordered to comb through applications, green cards, and naturalizations from people born in the targeted countries. At the same time, Trump threatens a “denaturalization campaign” that would strip citizenship from those the government decides should never have become citizens in the first place.

In practice, this means building a system in which some people’s citizenship is permanent and others’ is conditional. A white immigrant from an imperialist ally is treated as a full “American.” A Black Muslim from Somalia or a refugee from Afghanistan is treated as always on probation, always one accusation away from being thrown out.

On paper, this country has seen formal citizenship rights expand over time. In reality, Black people, Indigenous people, migrants and refugees have always faced second-class status enforced by police, prisons, and the border regime. What Trump is doing now is trying to codify that inequality into new laws and procedures that divide the population into tiers, with oppressed nationalities forced to live under the constant threat of losing everything.

This is a warning. A state that claims the power to strip Somalis of their status today will claim the power to strip others tomorrow, as the crisis of the system deepens and resistance grows.

Omar and the community push back

The Somali community in Minnesota has not met this campaign with silence.

Rep. Ilhan Omar, herself a Somali refugee who became one of the most visible progressive figures in Congress, has called Trump’s language racist and Islamophobic and has made it clear that this is not a “personal feud.” She insists that his words are meant to pave the way for raids and deportations, and she has demanded investigations into the political use of ICE as a weapon against her community.

On the ground, Somali-led organizations, mosque networks, and youth groups in Minneapolis–St. Paul have moved into emergency defense. They are holding know-your-rights trainings, setting up hotlines so families can report ICE activity, and organizing legal teams to respond rapidly when people are detained. Community leaders stress that most Somalis in the Twin Cities are citizens or legal residents, and they warn that Trump’s blanket portrayal of them as criminal outsiders invites vigilante violence as well as state repression.

Neighbors are urged to document ICE raids, refuse cooperation with “voluntary” searches, and spread the word that people do not have to open their doors without a warrant signed by a judge. This is community self-defense in embryo: the first steps toward making it practically impossible for agents to operate in silence and secrecy.

Local and state officials have been forced, by pressure from below, to take a stand. Officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul have reaffirmed policies limiting local cooperation with ICE. The governor and attorney general have spoken publicly in defense of the Somali community and against discriminatory targeting. Schools, clinics, and social service agencies are being pushed to adopt “safe space” protocols so that ICE cannot freely turn everyday places into hunting grounds for deportations.

These measures are limited, and they are fragile. But they show that when a community organizes itself and fights back, it can force concessions even from officials who would otherwise stand aside.

From defense to street-level resistance

Alongside legal work and policy fights, people are turning to the streets.

In Somali neighborhoods and in downtown Minneapolis, multiracial crowds have gathered for rallies and vigils. Somali youth, Black community organizers, Latine immigrant groups, students, and faith leaders have come together to denounce the raids and the racist campaign behind them. They connect Trump’s slurs against Somalis to the broader system of police terror, border violence, and mass incarceration that targets oppressed peoples across the country.

At Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, demonstrators have confronted deportation flights head on. Protesters have marched to the terminals used by charter companies that service ICE, demanding that airlines and contractors cancel removal flights. Union members have joined these actions, raising the question that goes to the heart of the matter: Will workers use their power to refuse to fuel, maintain, or handle planes used to haul families away in chains?

Here we see the beginnings of a front that can make the state think twice: organized labor linked to the self-defense of an oppressed community. When workers at airports, warehouses, rail yards, or docks say, “We will not move deportation cargo, we will not help ICE,” they begin to turn abstract solidarity into concrete power.

In late 2025, after the long federal shutdown, the new federal budget said more about the real priorities of the billionaire class and the politicians who serve them than any campaign speech or press conference.

On one side, the Pentagon’s budget now tops $1 trillion, with tens of billions more handed to war contractors for ships, missiles and the F-35 fighter jet. On the other side, food assistance and health care for tens of millions of poor and working-class people are being cut or threatened. This is not a mistake or bad planning. It is class policy.

A “K-shaped” economy means up for the rich, down for the poor

Economists have given today’s economy a polite name: “K-shaped.” In plain language, that means the line goes up for the rich and down for the poor.

The numbers make the divide plain. Over the last year, retailers in low-income neighborhoods saw their sales grow by only 0.2%, which is basically standing still. Stores in middle- and high-income areas saw sales grow by 2.5% over the same period. When businesses that serve poor communities are barely hanging on while those in wealthier areas keep expanding, that is a map of class inequality.

Surveys of business owners tell a similar story. Stores that serve low-income communities report deep pessimism about the future. Owners who serve wealthier customers are much more hopeful.

Yet on Dec. 2, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went on TV to promise “substantial tax refunds” to the wealthy and “real wage increases” for the upper layers in 2026. At the same time, Goldman Sachs predicts “continued underperformance in low-end spending” — in other words, continued weakness in the parts of the economy where poor and working-class people live.

These are not just mixed signals. This is how the system talks to us. Officials and experts are brought out to say that things are getting better even when their own data shows that life is getting harder for working people.

A budget written for the rich and for war

The clearest picture of class priorities is in the budget itself.

During the recent government shutdown crisis, the Senate voted 77–20 to approve a $32 billion increase for the Pentagon. That came on top of an already approved $156 billion increase. Together, these hikes pushed U.S. military spending past $1 trillion a year.

Much of this money will flow straight into the coffers of a handful of giant corporations that build weapons and military equipment. Many of these contracts are “cost-plus,” which means the companies are guaranteed a profit. The more they spend, the more they make.

At the same time, Congress refused to extend subsidies under the Affordable Care Act that would cost around $35 billion for a year — a small fraction of the Pentagon increase. Without those subsidies, health insurance premiums for millions of people will double or worse. In combination with cuts to Medicaid, as many as 17 million people are expected to lose health coverage altogether.

When a government can easily find hundreds of billions of dollars for war but claims it cannot afford basic health care, that is not hypocrisy. It is a clear sign of whose interests it serves. The Pentagon budget acts as a massive public support system for the biggest banks and corporations. It guarantees profits for military contractors, pumps government money into private hands, backs up U.S. corporate power around the world, and finances research that later becomes private technology and private profit.

Programs that help poor and working-class people do not enrich the wealthy in the same way. That is why they are always on the chopping block.

Turning hunger into a weapon

The Trump administration has escalated its attack on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps more than 42 million people buy food.

Officials are now threatening to withhold federal SNAP administrative funds from 22 states led by Democratic governors. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins claims these states are refusing to share data needed to fight “rampant fraud,” and says that $24 million per day is supposedly being lost to fraud and errors — about $9 billion a year.

But federal data undercuts this scare campaign. A 2023 report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture found that only 0.1% of households on SNAP were even referred for fraud review. Policy expert Katie Bergh of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has said clearly that intentional fraud by recipients is rare.

So the question becomes: If fraud is rare, why the loud campaign about “rampant abuse”?

The answer is political. Accusations of fraud are used to demonize poor people, justify cuts to lifesaving programs, and distract from the real transfer of wealth. While officials wag their fingers at a tiny number of supposed cheaters on SNAP, billions of dollars flow without question to Pentagon contractors and the corporations behind them.

This is not the first time hunger has been used as leverage. During the recent six-week government shutdown, the administration carried out an unprecedented 13-day halt in SNAP benefit distribution. Families went without money for food while the government defended the stoppage in court all the way to the Supreme Court.

Shifting the burden onto states and working people

New rules in the budget shift the cost of SNAP away from the federal government and dump it onto the states. Beginning Oct. 1, 2026, states will be required to pay 75% of SNAP administrative costs, up from the current 50–50 split. States will also have to pay part of the benefits themselves if their “administrative error rate” is judged too high.

In practice, this means that poorer states will be squeezed the hardest. State officials will claim they “have no choice” but to restrict access, reduce benefits, or limit eligibility. Some states may threaten to pull out of SNAP entirely.

This is a familiar pattern. When capitalism runs into crisis, those at the top use every tool available to push the costs downward onto workers, poor people and local governments, while keeping profits flowing upward.

The human impact is enormous. SNAP serves about 42 million people. That includes around 14 million children and large numbers of older adults and disabled people. Households that include at least one disabled person experience food insecurity at about twice the rate of those without. For them, delays and cuts are not abstract policy questions. They are a question of whether there will be enough to eat.

Economic warfare on working-class communities

SNAP is not only a lifeline for families. It also supports local economies.

Every dollar in SNAP benefits generates about $1.80 in economic activity. When people use SNAP at grocery stores, that money circulates in the community. It helps pay workers’ wages, covers rent and utilities for local businesses, and supports farms and food suppliers.

In some rural communities, SNAP purchases can make up 20% of a store’s sales. If those benefits are cut back or interrupted, small grocery stores in these areas may be forced to close. When that happens, entire communities can lose their only nearby place to buy food.

While this program that supports poor and working-class communities is being choked off, the Pentagon budget — which concentrates money in a small circle of giant military corporations — is expanding rapidly. That is not a sign of economic confusion. It is a sign of deliberate class policy.

Crystal FitzSimons of the Food Research and Action Center summed up the reality: “The problem isn’t that we have 42 million people on SNAP. The problem is that we have 42 million people who live in poverty.”

The system is doing what it was built to do

A $1 trillion Pentagon budget and 42 million people relying on food assistance are not separate, accidental problems. They come from the same system.

On one side, the U.S. state pours money into weapons, war and corporate profits to keep a crisis-ridden capitalist order afloat. On the other side, that order produces mass poverty, hunger and insecurity, then blames the victims and cuts the programs that keep them alive.

The question is not whether this is sustainable. It is not. The real question is whether working-class resistance — from food justice campaigns and union struggles to antiwar organizing — can come together as a political force that challenges not only each round of cuts, but the whole system that makes those cuts “necessary.”

That is the choice in front of us: a future of permanent war and permanent hunger, or a fight for a society where budgets are written to meet human needs, not to guarantee profits for war corporations and the rich.

Protesters rallied on Wall Street on Nov. 22 to defend Venezuela from Trump and the Pentagon. The speak-out and march was one of many events called by the United National Antiwar Coalition against the impending war for Big Oil.

People chanted “No troops on the ground, no bombs in the air!” in front of the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street. Nearby was the world’s biggest casino, the New York Stock Exchange. It was the 62nd anniversary of the CIA’s regime change in Dallas back on Nov. 22, 1963.

Michela Martinazzi of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization chaired the rally that condemned the ICE gestapo raids and the murders in the Caribbean. Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement reminded people that the late President Hugo Chavez provided free heating oil for poor people in the United States.

Lucy Pagoada spoke of the important Nov. 30 presidential election in Honduras. The Trump regime wants to return the Central American country to being a U.S. colony. Later that day a rally was held in Times Square to support the Libre Party candidate Rixi Moncada.

An activist told of the struggle at the old, shut-down, Brooklyn Naval Yard against the makers of drones for ICE and the Zionist regime. Other speakers included those from the Workers World Party and the Internationalist Group. 

People marched across the financial district to hold a final rally at the Oculus shopping and transportation center, which cost $4 billion to erect. That’s enough money to build 10,000 apartments for homeless families at $400,000 apiece.

While there are 100,000 homeless schoolchildren in New York City — the capital of capitalism — there are no homeless children in Venezuela. The Bolivarian Republic has built five million homes for people.

The people of Venezuela will defend their revolution. No war in Venezuela! No troops on U.S. streets!