The Internationalist No. 46 January-February 2017 50¢ Post-Traumatic Election Shock Defeat Trump … And the Democrats Fight for Workers Revolution The following article was is- Internationalist contingent in sued as an Internationalist Group 2015 May Day march in NYC. leaflet on November 10, two days class against us, the workers and after the U.S. elections. oppressed. The effect of Tuesday’s elec- For many the election result tion was a thunderbolt in the was like a horror film, a scene out night sky. After all the media Internationalist photo of The Night of the Living Dead. happy talk, even into the early The message: Be afraid, be very evening, that Democrat Hillary afraid. In school Wednesday, La- Clinton was a shoo-in – the first tino students fearfully asked their woman president following the teachers: what will happen to me, first black president – suddenly it will my parents be deported? Im- was clear that Republican Donald migrants rights activists reported Trump was elected. The racist, a torrent of phoned death threats. sexist, immigrant-bashing, wom- Groups of racists yelled “time to an-molesting Trump would be get out of this country” at ran- the next CEO of the United States dom Middle Easterners. Muslim and commander-in-chief of U.S. women feared to wear the hijab, imperialism. By the next morn- the Islamic head scarf. A promi- ing tens of millions were asking, nent African American spokes- in deep shock and disbelief, how man, former Obama advisor could this happen? And in Mus- Van Jones proclaimed it was the lim, Latino, African American #Whitelash, recalling the racist and immigrant families there was backlash against the civil rights raw fear. movement. So what is to be done? The Soon protests began: thou- big business media are all praising Fight Back – But How? sands of young people across the “orderly peaceful transfer of the country have been marching. power.” President Barack Obama For Workers Action to Stop Deportations – The most common slogan was says of Trump, “We are all now “Not My President,” along with rooting for his success.” In her Build a Revolutionary Workers Party! “Dump Trump” and “Racist, sex- concession speech, Clinton said, ist, anti-gay, Donald Trump go “We owe him an open mind and the chance no! Those who are targets of the victori- league.” The Democrats hand over the reins away.” But Trump is the victor in the bour- to lead.” That tells the billionaire bully he ous race-haters and labor-haters must fight of power “graciously” because they and the geois elections – always rigged to ensure can walk all over opposition. We say hell them down the line, or else we will pay “big Republicans all represent the same capitalist continued on page 2 Cops, Feds, Pipeline Companies – Get Out of Indian Lands! The Battle Over Standing Rock JANUARY 7 – The struggle over the Dakota Now, with winter storms and the elec- Access Pipeline (DAPL) in North Dakota is tion of DAPL investor Donald Trump as not just against a profit-greedy consortium of U.S. president, the battle continues. The oil companies. It poses a battle against a rul- announcement by the U.S. Department ing class which established its sway through of the Army on December 4 that it would enslavement of African Americans and geno- not grant the pipeline builders a neces- cide against the Native American peoples, sary easement (permit) to drill under Lake and has persecuted them ever since. The Oahe, a dammed section of the Missouri 1,172-mile pipeline would cross the Missouri Terray Sylvester/Reuter Terray River, was met with elation in the three River just north of the current boundaries of camps of several thousand Native Ameri- the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, poten- can and other protesters who had gathered tially polluting the water supply to the popu- near the site at the mouth of the Cannonball lation in case of a spill. With country sheriffs River. People shouted “Mni wiconi” – wa- and state police acting as guard dogs for the ter is life – the watchword of the protest. oil companies, the standoff quickly became Standing Rock Sioux tribal authorities de- a conflict over Indian rights facing powerful clared that they and “all of Indian Coun- corporations and the racist repressive forces try will be forever grateful to the Obama of the capitalist state that does their bidding. Administration for this historic decision.” In this battle, class-conscious workers and They also urged protesters to return home Protesters face off with police near site where pipeline is slated to cross the revolutionaries must stand squarely on the as soon as possible. Other tribe members Missouri River next to the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. side of the Standing Rock Sioux. continued on page 10 can’t admit this, writing off white blue- Muslims and Middle Eastern immigrants collar workers as racist, because it is their in particular may be singled out for attack. policies that are responsible. Liberal pun- Class-conscious militants should begin the dits like Thomas Friedman who pushed work now of building workers defense these policies are thrown into despair: “I guards, based on the mass organizations am in anguish, frightened for my country of the working class and oppressed, to and for our unity. And for the first time, counter this threat. Police killings of Afri- I feel homeless in America” (New York can Americans and Latinos should be met Internationalist Photo Times, 9 November). Pseudo-radical left- with massive labor mobilizations against ists who spout theories of “white skin priv- police terror, such as that led by the ILWU ilege” likewise seek to make white workers dock workers in Oakland, California on responsible for black oppression, when it May Day 2015 (and the example of the La- is this racist capitalist system that profits bor Against Racist Police Murder contin- from dividing white against black workers. gent in Portland that same day). While the “neo-liberal” liberals are Education workers should prepare to in despair, various reformists and liberal stop any attempt to seize undocumented “progressives” are arguing that the prob- students and their families. If a school lem is that Hillary Clinton was the wrong should shut down, and be backed by others, Democratic candidate. They say it should in response to the seizure of an immigrant Internationalists at April 14 “Shut Down Trump” protest. have been Democratic Party “socialist” family, it would send shock waves across white workers. No one could miss Trump’s Bernie Sanders, who posed as a “friend of the country. And Marxists not only defend Defeat Trump... blatantly racist appeals, and the 50% of vot- labor” and in early opinion polls did far bet- the right of free speech and assembly, we continued from page 1 ers who voted for him at the very least went ter against Trump than friend of Wall Street stand for the right of black self-defense the selection of a defender of capital – and along with that. The Ku Klux Klan and Clinton. But Sanders (who fulsomely sup- against racist attacks, in opposition to lib- he isn’t going away because thousands or various Nazi outfits enthusiastically backed ported Clinton) didn’t have a very different eral gun control advocates. In the present tens of thousands chant it. The slogans him. But the hard-core racist vote is much economic program because “neo-liberal- atmosphere, African Americans and others showed a yearning for Clinton (sometimes smaller – maybe a quarter of the electorate ism” is not a policy it is the current phase of would be well-advised to prepare to exer- explicit, like numerous signs in New York, – and has been violently attacking Obama decaying capitalism, in which driving down cise their Second Amendment rights. “Still Stronger Together”). And they ex- since 2008. Trump also won the votes of wages is dictated by the same falling rate of All of these practical steps for resis- pressed patriotic liberal democratic illu- better-off middle class sectors (the aver- profit that set off the 2008 crash. tance against racist reaction on the march sions – the idea that this is “our country” age Trump voter had a family income of Various reformist left groups pushed can only be a partial answer and point to when in fact it belongs to the capitalists. $72,000), as the Republicans generally do. Green Party candidate Jill Stein, whose the ultimate solution: workers revolution. So the issue is posed: it is urgently nec- But what put Trump over the top were eco-capitalist program offered nothing to Whether a Donald Trump or a Hillary Clin- essary to fight back, but how? With right- the others, residents of rural towns whose workers, spelling calamity for steel and ton (or Barack Obama) is in the Oval Office, wing Republicans in control of all three youth are leaving because they have no coal workers in the name of supposedly the capitalist system will inevitably contin- branches of government (executive, legisla- future there, and workers who have seen fighting climate change. Others put for- ue to generate racism, poverty and war. We tive and judicial) – from the White House to their industries decimated and their cities ward their own candidates with a laundry denounced Clinton’s policies in Syria and both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court devastated. The rage against Washington list of illusory demands on the capitalist Ukraine for threatening military confron- and most state houses – even staid Demo- comes from victims of the 2008 crash and state (see “Left Green Dream of People- tation and even full-scale war with Russia.