ICE: Crossing State Lines to Incite Riots

ICE: Crossing State Lines to Incite Riots: The only disorder the National Guard will find comes from the deporters.

The Disappeared: Lessons from LATIN AMERICA

 

The ‘Disappeared’: Lessons From Latin America National Security Archive May 12, 2025 National Security Archive We can’t help but connect what is happening in our country today to a long history in the Americas of governments’ use of enforced disappearance. Three experts with direct experience provide lessons in how to protest, to mobilize, to fight back. ,    On April 30, the National Security Archive and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) co-hosted an online conversation with three Latin American experts to learn from their experiences with enforced disappearance. The motivation behind the meeting was a growing sense of alarm, disbelief, and helplessness among many Americans as we witness the Trump administration’s unprecedented actions targeting immigrants in the United States. At the president’s direction, U.S. government agents have seized men, women, and children for detention and deportation without due process. We have seen the images of masked security forces swarming a student outside her home, a mother driving with her kids, workers in a restaurant kitchen. To take them where? Whether the agents are from ICE, DEA, ATF, CPB, or the local police, they don’t always reveal the victim’s destination. They don’t always inform their families that they’ve taken them. They don’t always allow the victim to contact their lawyer. They don’t always bring them before a judge. And now they don’t even always imprison them in the United States. How do we make sense of this? For those of us working in Latin America, the actions of Trump’s security forces ring a deeply disturbing bell. We can’t help but connect what is happening in our country today, right now, to a long history in the Americas of governments’ use of enforced disappearance to punish people considered dissidents. In Latin America, that could mean armed guerrillas or suspected subversives; more often it meant students, teachers, journalists, investigators, indigenous activists, opposition politicians, lawyers, priests. But if the region has a dark history of disappearing its perceived enemies, it also has a proud and powerful tradition of fighting back. People mobilized. They organized. They created strategies to protest the disappearances, demand information, hold hearings, fight in the courts, create new laws, search for the missing, expose injustice, and tell the rest of the world what was happening. That’s why we invited these three experts – these colleagues and friends – to speak to us. Mimi Doretti, Juan Méndez, and Marcela Turati all have direct experience with enforced disappearance and its impact on a society. We need to hear from them. We need to learn from their histories. We need to pull lessons from what they have to tell us about how to fight back. Our conversation is archived for anyone who missed the live event. And go to WOLA’s posting about the webinar for a transcription of the some of the key remarks and a set of powerful conclusions drawn from our speakers’ presentations. Learn about disturbing parallels between the U.S. government’s current trajectory and what their nations have lived through—and learn about how courageous people from many walks of life have responded. WATCH THE RECORDING Speakers include: Mercedes Doretti, Executive Director, Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team Juan E. Mendez, Professor of Human Rights Law in Residence, Washington College of Law, American University Marcela Turati, an investigative journalist based in Mexico Kate Doyle, Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive, will moderate. Carolina Jiménez Sandoval, President of WOLA, will introduce the event. About the National Security Archive: Founded in 1985 by journalists and scholars to check rising government secrecy, the National Security Archive combines a unique range of functions: investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents ("the world's largest nongovernmental collection" according to the Los Angeles Times), leading non-profit user of the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, public interest law firm defending and expanding public access to government information, global advocate of open government, and indexer and publisher of former secrets. Latin America   disappeared Political repression

Trump, Migrants and the Insurrection Act

 What is the Insurrection Act?

The Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations. The statute implements Congress’s authority under the Constitution to “provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” It is the primary exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, under which federal military forces are generally barred from participating in civilian law enforcement activities.

 

The Insurrection Act, in principle, only allows the American president to use the armed forces to assist civilian authorities to enforce some law in the presence of an insurrection. But the language of the law is quite vague. Trump makes it clear that he has in mind invoking the Insurrection Act to very broad purposes, essentially to change the regime.

 

1. What does it do? Invoking the Insurrection Act would allow Trump to deploy the military (including federalized National Guard) anywhere in the US. Trump may claim it’s to protect the border, but he could deploy these forces anywhere.
2. Why April 20? On his first day in office, Trump directed the Department of Homeland Security to take 90 days to come up with a recommendation on whether he should invoke the Insurrection Act to solve the non-existent immigration crisis. 90 days after January 20 is April 20. It could come earlier, or it could never come.
3. How bad could it get? We don’t know! Maybe Trump doesn’t invoke it at all -- he didn’t in his first term. Or maybe he does, and he further militarizes the border. Or maybe he uses it to implement his promised nationwide deportation force and crack down on peaceful protest. Last week, his ICE Director described their vision of creating a deportation system “like [Amazon] Prime, but with human beings.” Maybe that’s mere bluster, or maybe that’s the plan. Nobody knows -- which means we should neither freak out prematurely nor ignore the warning signs.

So what do we do about it? The courts are unlikely to save us here -- the Insurrection Act gives fairly wide authorities to the President and the courts have historically been fairly deferential regarding those powers. This is more of a political question than a legal question: Does Trump look strong and decisive, and does his support grow by virtue of invoking the Act? As he militarizes the border and beyond, do his approval numbers increase? Does his coalition hold strong? Or is there widespread backlash, defiance, opposition, and ridicule? In the latter case, Trump may call it off and claim that was his plan all along.

Solidarity

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

 

This quote is attributed to a prominent German pastor Martin Niemöller. 

After World War II, Niemöller openly spoke about his own early complicity in Nazism and his eventual change of heart. His powerful words about guilt and responsibility still resonate today.

 

 

The Resistance Starts Now

 

The Resistance Starts Now

I still have faith in America, but we must mobilize to protect those at risk if Trump achieves his worst impulses.

ROBERT REICH

NOV 06, 2024

•  

Friends,

I won’t try to hide it. I’m heartbroken. Heartbroken and scared, to tell you the truth. I’m sure many of you are, too. 

Donald Trump has decisively won the presidency, the Senate, and possibly the House of Representatives and the popular vote, too.

I still have faith in America. But right now, that’s little comfort to the people who are most at risk.

Millions of people must now live in fear of being swept up by Trump’s cruel mass deportation plan – documented immigrants, as he has threatened before, as well as undocumented, and millions of American citizens with undocumented parents or spouses.

Women and girls must now fear that they’ll be forced to give birth or be denied life-saving care during an ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage.

America has become less safe for trans people – including trans kids – who were already at risk of violence and discrimination.

Anyone who has already faced prejudice and marginalization is now in greater danger than before.

Also in danger are people who have stood up to Trump, who has promised to seek revenge against his political opponents.

Countless people are now endangered on a scale and intensity almost unheard of in modern America.

Our first responsibility is to protect all those who are in harm’s way.

We will do that by resisting Trump’s attempts to suppress women’s freedoms. We will fight for the rights of women and girls to determine when and whether they have children. No one will force a woman to give birth.

We will block Trump’s cruel efforts at mass deportation. We will fight to give sanctuary to productive, law-abiding members of our communities, including young people who arrived here as babies or children.

We will not allow mass arrests and mass detention of anyone in America. We will not permit families to be separated. We will not allow the military to be used to intimidate and subjugate anyone in this country.

We will protect trans people and everyone else who is scapegoated because of how they look or what they believe. No one should have to be ashamed of who they are.

We will stop Trump’s efforts to retaliate against his perceived enemies. A free nation protects political dissent. A democracy needs people willing to stand up to tyranny.

How will we conduct this resistance?

By organizing our communities. By fighting through the courts. By arguing our cause through the media.

We will ask other Americans to join us – left and right, progressive and conservative, white people and people of color. It will be the largest and most powerful resistance since the American revolution.

But it will be peaceful. We will not succumb to violence, which would only give Trump and his regime an excuse to use organized violence against us.

We will keep alive the flames of freedom and the common good, and we will preserve our democracy. We will fight for the same things Americans have fought for since the founding of our nation – rights enshrined in the constitution and Bill of Rights.

The preamble to the Constitution of the United States opens with the phrase “We the people”, conveying a sense of shared interest and a desire “to promote the general welfare”, as the preamble goes on to say.

We the people will fight for the general welfare.

We the people will resist tyranny. We will preserve the common good. We will protect our democracy.

This will not be easy, but if the American experiment in self-government is to continue, it is essential.

I know you’re scared and stressed. So am I.

If you are grieving or frightened, you are not alone. Tens of millions of Americans feel the way you do.

All I can say to reassure you is that time and again, Americans have opted for the common good. Time and again, we have come to each other’s aid. We have resisted cruelty.

We supported one another during the Great Depression. We were victorious over Hitler’s fascism and Soviet communism. We survived Joe McCarthy’s witch-hunts, Richard Nixon’s crimes, Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam war, the horrors of 9/11, and George W Bush’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

We will resist Donald Trump’s tyranny.

Although peaceful and non-violent, the resistance will nonetheless be committed and determined.

It will encompass every community in America. It will endure as long as necessary.

We will never give up on America.

The resistance starts now.

 

 

Left unity is more important than ever around this issue. Now is the time for US socialist organizations to come together to develop a strategy to fight against Trump’s plans and for full rights for all undocumented workers. All leftists and activists can organize within unions, independent political organizations, non-profits, and other mass organizations within which they are organizing.  

Mass Deportations

Trump is calling for mass deportation of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, the great majority of whom are Mexican, but who also include Central Americans, Cubans, Venezuelans, Haitians, Chinese, and Muslims. The New York Times on November 11th ran an article titled “Sweeping Raids, Giant Camps, and Mass Deportations: Inside Trump’s 2025 Immigration Plans.” The article provides a chilling description of the plan: “To help speed mass deportations, Mr. Trump is preparing an enormous expansion of a form of removal that does not require due process hearings.” He wants to build massive deportation camps to house the millions of immigrants and refugees they plan to remove from the US. Trump has publicly compared his plan to the infamous “Operation Wetback” of the Eisenhower administration, in which millions of Chicanos and Mexicanos, many of them US citizens, were rounded up and deported to Mexico. 

Most people don’t realize the horrendously broad impact of these policies, not only on those rounded up and shipped out, but on their families, their communities, on schools, local businesses, churches, and faith organizations, and unions with large numbers of immigrant worker members.

To help Immigration and Customs Enforcement carry out sweeping raids, Trump plans to reassign other federal agents and deputize local police officers and National Guard soldiers voluntarily contributed by Republican-run states. He would pay for this terror project by using money from the massive US military budget, as he did during his first administration when Congress refused to fund his infamous border wall.

An End to Legal Immigration

Unlike during his first administration, Trump’s plan assumes broad judicial support from the reactionary Supreme Court majority that he appointed as well as from the hundreds of federal judges that he appointed during his administration.

The racist neo-fascist agenda includes ending the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program altogether. It also includes ending the Temporary Protected Status Program that provides refuge for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing systemic violence or natural disasters.

The Trump and Republican agenda includes virtually eliminating opportunities for legal immigration and promising to end the Constitutionally protected policy of birthright citizenship for babies born in the US to undocumented parents, and ordering federal agencies to stop issuing Social Security cards and passports to these citizens. Trump has also promised to cancel the visas of international students who participated in anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian activities. US consular officials would have the okay to block visa applicants whom a Trump administration considers to have undesirable attitudes.

Trump’s racist agenda has not only received enthusiastic support from most of the Republican Party, but some of them have upped the ante by promising to launch military assaults, including missiles, against Mexican drug cartels.

This agenda is but one crucial example of the program of the New Confederacy, represented politically primarily by the Republicans. For leftists and progressives, this is but one more proof that this neo-fascist right-wing movement represents the greatest threat to any semblance of democracy, equity, and social justice. And these measures do not even include Trump’s plans to eliminate all federal policies that address the climate crisis and provide a complete green light (and federal subsidies) to the fossil fuel industrial complex.

So where is the outrage? Where are the marches? Where are the sit-ins? Where are the boycotts? Where are even the articles or blogs that should be sounding the alarm about this planned ethnic cleansing?

Michael Fleshman, “Not One More Deportation,” 2014 

What Is to Be Done?

Labor can take the lead in this important fight for equity and democracy. The AFL-CIO should work together with the extensive network of worker centers throughout the US to not only push back on Trump’s plans but work to achieve genuine immigration reform, including an accessible path to citizenship for all the undocumented, and full protection for all undocumented young people brought to the United States as children (“dreamers”).

Left unity is more important than ever around this issue. Now is the time for US socialist organizations to come together to develop a strategy to fight against Trump’s plans and for full rights for all undocumented workers. All leftists and activists can organize within unions, independent political organizations, non-profits, and other mass organizations within which they are organizing. Those fighting for the rights of oppressed gender people have an important role to play as well, especially since significant numbers of undocumented people impacted by a massive deportation campaign would be women (and children). 

Trump’s threat calls for a powerful and sustained response from the Democratic Party. The groups mentioned above can demand that response in an open letter calling for an immediate denunciation of the whole Trump program. This includes a commitment to genuine and comprehensive immigration reform that will provide immediate and unconditional residency to all refugees and asylum seekers while the authorities process their cases. We need to fight to restore the DACA program, and to advocate for new immigration legislation that will provide an accessible path to citizenship for all undocumented residents. This program should also include a promise to protect birthright citizenship. 

All of this work should be supported by a comprehensive communications campaign to get out the word—including the Spanish-language and other non-English media, Black media, and progressive outlets such as Democracy Now, Real News Network, the  Mexico Solidarity Media website, and op-ed features in the mainstream media as well. Now more than ever, we need to work to win the battle of ideas on this issue.

---

This article was written by Bill Gallegos as part of Liberation Road’s “Adalante!” booklet series, in coordination with the Mexico Solidarity Project. A former member of the Brown Berets and a founder of the New Raza Left, Bill Gallegos has been an activist and theorist in the Chican@ Liberation Movement since the 1960s. 

Where Do We Go From Here ? - A Strategy Statement

 WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? 

DSA, North Star, and the Crisis

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/where-do-we-go-from-here-dsa-north-star-and-the-crisis

 

The Political Moment

 

Successful coups d’état can follow failed ones. On the one-year anniversary of the January 6^th assault on the Congress, we in the U.S. face the threat of an authoritarian movement seizing state power, dismantling our democratic institutions, and launching repressive attacks on progressive organizations. Republican-controlled state governments are expanding voter suppression, gerrymandering, and administrative control of elections. Over 60 percent of Republican voters believe President Biden’s election to be fraudulent. Among them is a hard core of heavily-armed fanatics who believe violence is necessary to purify the nation.

 

The authoritarian threat is global. Donald Trump’s collaborators include Narendra Modi in India, Victor Orban in Hungary, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines. Describing such demagogues as populist obscures their neo-fascist nature and their support from corporate interests. Theirs is a budding alliance that strengthens corporate interests’ ability to perpetuate climate-destroying fossil fuel consumption and accumulate wealth from wage theft, tax evasion, and financial deregulation. Their drive for profit runs roughshod over workers’ rights and concentrates growing economic power in fewer hands. Their neglect of the common good precluded effective responses to Covid-19 and enabled an anti-vax movement, leading to catastrophic loss of life. 

 

We in North Star would like to emphasize the gravity of this threat, but we also recognize the historical precedents for an effective movement against it. People of color are already playing a leading role in resistance to neo-fascism in the United States. Growing voices across the political spectrum support the fight for universal, fundamental human needs and human rights. White people are increasingly aware of the importance of white supremacy in corroding U.S. democracy. 

 

The 2020 Senate and 2021 local election results in Georgia were an excellent example of how multi-racial unity with active participation from left and progressive forces can increase grassroots activism and produce victories. 

 

The labor movement has fortified its power through advocacy for the $15 minimum wage. Upsurges have come from gig workers, teachers, and fast food workers. Challenges mount against such exploitative mass employers as Amazon, Walmart, and Starbucks. Workers are voting with their feet against low wages and unacceptable working conditions, refusing unrewarding jobs. Undocumented young people brought to the U.S. as children – the “Dreamers” – have become symbols of the contributions immigrants make to this country. Abuses visited upon new immigrants and asylum seekers have revolted public opinion.

 

Working Together in Defense of Democracy

 

DSA and the broader Left must join forces to confront the international rise of authoritarianism. Together we should work to build a center-left coalition in defense of democracy. DSA must jettison a growing tendency towards a  “go it alone” approach that devalues coalition work and glosses over the importance – indeed, the necessity – of a center-left coalition to defend democracy from neo-fascism.

 

The immediate task is mobilizing to prevent the Republican Party from retaking Congress in this year’s midterm elections and strengthening its hold on state and local governments. We cannot accept the conventional wisdom predicting inevitable Democratic Party defeat. A Republican takeover would shut down investigations of the January 6^th attack on the Capitol and set the stage for the House of Representatives choosing the next president. To prevent a Republican takeover, efforts should focus on winnable races.

 

With over 90,000 dues-paying members and significant organizing staff, DSA should help to build a "Mississippi Summer"-style mobilization, actively seeking joint leadership with organizations focused on racism, labor, climate change, immigration, reproductive rights and other leading priorities. Not incidentally, a Left that takes a leading role in defending democracy against authoritarianism will win supporters from a variety of political communities.

 

Our focus on democracy and anti-fascism should include the full range of issues important to the working class. Our support for basic needs such as health care, the Fight for 15, free college, and the like answers the question, “Democracy, for what?” In this way, the campaign simultaneously meets the political moment and sets a progressive agenda for the future.

 

The best messages to employ in the current crisis are elaborated in the "race/class alliance" approach proposed by Ian Haney Lopez in the book Merge Left:Fusing Race and Class, Winning Elections, and Saving America, and by Heather McGhee in The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together. Lopez and McGhee show that undecided and even right-leaning voters will respond to appeals framed around the concept that we are each better off when we are all better off. The objectives are to overcome color-blind economism and condescending, do-gooder attitudes toward people of color, and to expose the economic roots of the ruling class’s divide and conquer strategy of pitting white workers against people of color. 

 

One method for delivering these messages is called "deep canvassing." It emphasizes shared humanity, where canvassers express genuine curiosity about the lives of others and the reasoning behind their political views. Thousands of activists are being trained in this method. It has been used successfully in community issues, labor, and electoral campaigns.

 

DSA’s Contribution

 

DSA’s initial task is to forge working relationships with like-minded organizations on the Left. Such an alliance will then be well-situated to reach out to broader political strata.

 

DSA has both strengths and weaknesses in meeting this political moment. Given its growth over the past five years, it has the most potential of all groups on the Left. It has more active members and has realized political victories, especially in electoral politics. The youth, energy, technical, and organizing capabilities of our members are impressive. Most who have joined in the past five years are confident and optimistic.

 

At the same time, DSA suffers from self-imposed constraints. In particular, unity against authoritarianism requires working with those who hold some views that we do not accept. Unity on the Left in the first instance means rejection of sectarianism, especially identification of centrist forces as a political enemy equivalent to Trump’s movement. 

 

A failure to recognize the authoritarian threat was reflected in our unwillingness to acknowledge the need to vote for Biden-Harris in 2020. It has resurfaced in hostility towards Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Jamaal Bowman with regard to Israel and Palestine, or worse, in calls to expel Bowman from DSA. To limit DSA support to avowed democratic socialist candidates forces impossible choices on DSA members working in community coalitions on behalf of progressive candidates for elective office. It is particularly inimical to the development of the broad coalition that we need.

 

Many members seem to endorse a “go-it-alone” strategy that envisions DSA at the center of a working-class, socialist upsurge in the foreseeable future. The reality is that only a minority of working people is ready to identify as socialist. By its support for a broad array of progressive issues, DSA can show that socialism is relevant to people’s lives. Recitation of dogma will not bring working people to socialism. 

 

Political breakthroughs, such as the election of five avowed democratic socialists to the U.S. Congress, are viewed by some members with suspicion, if not hostility. Attacks from our ranks on members of Congress who are the public face of democratic socialism are utterly counter-productive.

 

DSA has attracted radicals who are so disgusted by both political parties that they fail to understand that our growth and current strength are due primarily to our coalition efforts in electoral politics, especially our role in the Bernie Sanders campaigns, AOC’s victory, and the expansion of ‘the Squad’ and the Progressive Caucus in Congress. DSA’s membership grew in large part out of broad opposition to President Trump’s egregious behavior and policies. A “go it alone” approach devalues coalition work and glosses over the importance – indeed, the necessity – of a center-left coalition to defend democracy from neo-fascism.

 

Another factor holding DSA back from coping with the crisis is an unawareness of the key role white supremacy is playing now in the U.S. DSA is still a mostly white organization, despite the unprecedented barrage of attacks being launched against people of color. The shortcomings are two-fold. 

 

First, there is a failure to appreciate the internalized bias prevalent among white intellectuals. We may think our politics purges us of everyday prejudices. It does not.

 

Second, DSA is plagued by economist reductionism that downplays the devastating impact of racist ideology on the working class. This is a basic reason why DSA is not viewed as a home by thousands of activists in BIPOC organizations who are otherwise supporters of democratic socialism. DSA alienates by its arrogant adherence to a race-neutral, purportedly class focus, not granting the centrality of white supremacy.

 

In addition, DSA purports to be a socialist feminist organization, but in this respect its practice is wanting.  Our internal culture and organizing abound with such patriarchal attitudes as arrogance, competitiveness, and interpersonal venom. Toxic behavior is socially condoned, as are white supremacy and classism. All interfere with our ability to organize. To embody our values and be true to our “big tent” identity, DSA must foster the “soft” qualities of tolerance and dialogue, qualities essential to the project of building a broad, anti-authoritarian coalition.

 

In summary, we argue that DSA lacks a viable strategic perspective on how to build power: a Gramscian understanding of the political terrain on which we struggle, with an analysis and long-term strategy for how to best situate ourselves on that terrain, choosing battles that we have the best chance of winning and avoiding those that lead to almost certain political defeat. We also need to see our internal political and democratic cultures as works in progress, with much room for improvement.

 

North Star’s Role

 

North Star has assets it can bring to bear on the challenges DSA and the Left face. Among us are veteran organizers located throughout the country with contacts in the progressive, civil rights, labor, feminist, and environmental movements.

 

Given the above, North Star understands its role in DSA as:

 

·      Developing organizational clarity on the imminent danger of a neo-fascist seizure of political power, and the concomitant loss of American democracy, as the defining feature of the political moment;

·      Urging DSA to play a constructive role, as the primary focus of its work, in organizing a broad progressive coalition that can expand towards the political center to oppose that neo-fascist danger;

·      Rejecting attacks on elected officials who are the public face of DSA;

 

Conclusion 

 

North Star’s next steps include:

 

·      Canvass our email list to determine interest in promoting a unified center-left alliance to defend democracy;

·      Urge our members to collaborate outside of the discussions on this listserve;

·      Participate more actively in DSA chapters, publications, and other bodies such as commissions and working groups;

·      Reach out to supporters of other organizations to determine interest in this effort;

·      Study race/class alliance messaging;

·      Be trained in the Deep Canvassing method.

 

We must not fail to take this opportunity to act in defense of democracy. It is a pivotal point in the struggle for human needs, human rights, and global sustainability, without which there can be no democratic socialism.

 

…………………

Approved by the North Star Caucus Steering Committee 12/26/2021

 

 Approved by vote of the membership,  12/31/2021

Indefinite Detention is Fascism

Trump Wants To Detain Migrant Families Indefinitely

Migrant families would face indefinite detention under new Trump rule. NYT: “The Trump administration unveiled a regulation on Wednesday that would allow it to detain indefinitely migrant families who cross the border illegally, replacing a decades-old court agreement that imposed a limit on how long the government could hold migrant children in custody and specified the level of care they must receive. The White House has for more than a year pressed the Department of Homeland Security to replace the agreement, known as the Flores settlement, a shift that the administration says is crucial to halt immigration across the southwestern border. The new regulation, which requires approval from a federal judge before it could go into effect and was expected to be immediately challenged in court, would establish standards for conditions in detention centers and specifically abolish a 20-day limit on detaining families in immigration jails, a cap that has prompted President Trump to repeatedly complain about the “catch and release” of families from Central America and elsewhere into the United States.”

What is Fascism ?

Henry Wallace. Vice President of the U.S.  1941- 1945.

Resist Trump and Fascism

New York Times.  Jan.4, 2017

When Liberals Criticize Liberals About the Election

And don't consider the consequences to the Latino Community.

Dissent Magazine has posted an article entitled, "The End of Progressive Neoliberalism,"
https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/progressive-neoliberalism-reactionary-populism-nancy-fraser
Since Dissent does not permit comments on their articles, I will post my response below.

Thank you for the piece, The End of Progressive Neoliberalism by Nancy Fraser from Dissent. I wondered how folks such as the writer justified the position of not organizing all available forces to defeat Trump.  It is good that you came out of the closet. I think you represent many, I have been looking for someone to speak up from this perspective ( not my own).

From your essay you seem to consider the contamination of our politics by the Clinton, neoliberal machine as a greater danger than the potential victory by Trump and his neoliberal proto fascists.

I have some issues of dissent from your piece. There is a left in the US.  Weak, yes, but it exists. For example the CCDS says of the election,

“”The movement for justice and progress in the U.S. has suffered a great setback. And the depth of the reactionary movement that led to this setback was underestimated by most on the left. It’s necessary to reflect on what it has taught us and about our shortcomings but it’s also vital to assess our strength to meet this great challenge.”   I think they are referring to your position  when they say,

“And the depth of the reactionary movement that led to this setback was underestimated by most on the left.”

Democratic Socialists of America’s position is here:

http://www.dsausa.org/we_fight_for_socialism_dl_npc

There were a good number of socialists ( not liberals) who worked night and day to defeat Trump including myself.  Most did so on some form of this perspective.

http://www.dsausa.org/trump_racism_and_the_left_dl

While you make good points in criticizing liberals  ( you call them  progressive neoliberalism), I encourage you to continue to explain your own view.

I will use data from California  in response since I know the data from here more than national data. The Trump election is most likely going to eliminate health care for some 2-4 million children, in particular the children of the undocumented.  Some 2-4 million workers ( immigrants) now face deportation.  At least 40 % of these are parents of U.S. citizen children.

These and other consequences are described here:

http://www.dsausa.org/tags/strategic_racism