Bernie Sanders spoke after Trump sent the troops in to Los Angeles.
Let us be clear, we are living under an oligarchic form of society which has created more income and wealth inequality than any time in our history. That oligarchic form of society created a corrupt campaign finance system that allows billionaires to make unlimited amounts of campaign contributions.
Trump won the election with $270 million in support from Elon Musk, the wealthiest guy on earth. The result of that enormous campaign contribution was that Musk was given the most important job in government and the opportunity to decimate government agency after government agency.
Because of Musk’s chainsaw approach, we have seen massive lay-offs in the National Institute of Health, the Center for Disease Control, the Department of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, and many more.
Now, as I hope all of you know, Trump and the Republicans are working Trump’s “big beautiful bill”. At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, this legislation provides a $645 billion tax break to the top 1% at a time when these guys already own more wealth than the bottom 93% of Americans.
This bill would also provide a $420 billion tax break to large corporations that are stashing their profits and offshore tax havens like the Cayman Islands.
How do Trump and the Republicans pay for these huge tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations? Well, at a time when over 85 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured, when our current health care system is already broken, this bill slashes Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act by more than $1 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that this bill would eliminate health care for 16 million Americans, and a recent study from Yale University and the University of Pennsylvania concludes that result in 50,000 unnecessary deaths every single year.
Further, this bill makes massive cuts to nutrition, education, and other programs that working families depend upon for their survival.
In other words, this unspeakable piece of legislation takes from the most vulnerable people in our country, people who are barely hanging on today, and gives it to the very richest people who have never ever had it so good.
But the struggle we are engaged in now is not just to defeat this terrible piece of legislation. We are also engaged in an unprecedented effort to defeat authoritarianism and maintain our democracy.
Never before in American history has a president acted with such disdain for our constitution and for the rule of law as Trump is doing right now. He has usurped the power of Congress by putting a hold on appropriations that Congress has authorized firing thousands of employees and abolishing agencies that Congress established all that is illegal he and his supporters have usurped the power of the judiciary by threatening to impeach judges who rule against Trump’s policies.
He has sued media and extorted them for large settlements including ABC, Meta, and the De Moines Register. He is now in negotiations with CBS and its parent company Paramont, which he sued for $20 billion. Why? He didn’t like an interview they did with Kamala Harris. His administration is attempting to zero out funding for PBS and NPR because they provide a more objective source of news than he is comfortable with.
This is clearly a man who cannot tolerate criticism of him or what he does, which is exactly what authoritarianism is all about. He has extorted money from law firms who represented clients he didn’t like and he’s going after universities whose courses he disagrees with.
What he is saying, rather bluntly: if you stand up to Donald Trump he will punish you.
Unfolding
And now we have the situation unfolding in Los Angeles. Let me be clear. Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and Marines in California is not about the protests. It is not about ICE, and it’s really not about immigration. It is another example of Trump using extremely dubious legal authority to expand his never-ending quest for more power and his effort to move this country toward authoritarianism.
Trump’s argument for his deployment of the troops is nothing less than absurd. Does anybody really believe that we are in the midst of a foreign invasion or a rebellion against the United States? Those are the legal arguments that Trump has used to “nationalise” the National Guard in California.
Defeating Trumpism and the oligarchs who support him will not be easy. These guys have enormous amounts of wealth and enormous amounts of power. But if there is anything that we learn from Dr Martin Luther King Jr.’s successful effort to combat racist officials and segregation, it is that disciplined resistance is the best way forward. Burning cars or throwing rocks at police officers is precisely what Donald Trump wants.
If we’re going to defeat Trumpism, it is going to require a multi-faceted approach. We have already held 18 Fighting Oligarchy rallies in 12 states, with over 250,000 people in attendance. We will soon be announcing a new series of rallies which will be located in rural conservative areas, exactly the areas that we have got to turn around.
Short-term, we’re mobilising opposition around the country to Trump’s disastrous budget reconciliation bill. We are working hard to end their control of Congress. If we are successful that will go a long way to putting the brakes on Trump’s reactionary agenda.
Longer term, we are building a political movement which is taking on the billionaire class taking on the right-wing extremist Republican party and taking on a corporate-dominated Democratic party whose leadership is wedded to maintaining the status quo. We are fighting, to quote President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, for a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
If there was ever a time in American history when we need to come together, now is that time. If we continue to fight for the basic principles of economic, social, racial, and environmental justice, I am confident that we will get through this unprecedented crisis and we will lay the foundation for a better and more just America in the future.
Comments?We welcome replies, corrections and debate pieces. Contact us