Impeach Trump Now! Protest Outside Nancy Pelosi's SF Office

Impeach Trump Now!
Close the Concentration Camps!

Protest at Nancy Pelosi's Office
90 - 7th St. San Francisco, CA
(Get off at Civic Center BART, 5 min walk from there)

This moment in history demands heroism — to defend democracy, to defend immigrant rights, to defend humanity against Trump’s tyranny.

IMPEACHMENT OF TRUMP MUST START NOW

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
— Frederick Douglass, West India Emancipation speech, 1857

The historic failure of the Democratic Party in Congress to defend democracy from Trump’s attacks means that only an independent movement can defeat Trump. Trump must resign or be removed — we must mobilize to force Congress to start impeachment NOW.

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We are living at a moment in history that demands real heroism. The president of the United States has been turning his office into a tyranny; and each day he moves closer to consolidating his power. What we have had is anything but heroism; instead we have seen almost complete support from the Republicans for Trump and the Democrats refusal to do anything to stop him. The movement can build the heroic leadership that is needed, only by breaking free of the stranglehold of the Democratic Party leadership that has misled our movement to retreat and rely on false promises of bureaucratic procedures.


Cynical maneuvers and taking the path of least resistance will never defeat a tyrant. Our movement needs courageous young leaders prepared to embrace the struggle and take up the torch of the greatest heroes for freedom, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. ...Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. ...Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
—Frederick Douglass,
West India Emancipation speech, 1857

The danger of Trump becoming a dictator is not sometime in the future —it is already happening. The election of Trump was the most important victory of the far-right since World War Two: his reign represents a transition to 21st century fascism if he and his movement are not defeated.

During Trump’s two and a half years in the White House, we have seen his ‘Muslim-ban,’ his response to Charlottesville and encouragement of violent white nationalism in the US, his brutal border policies and ‘warehousing’ of refugee children taken from their families, the manifestations of his contempt for what he calls ‘shithole countries’ impoverished by imperialism, the deliberate wrecking of the nuclear deal with Iran and other international agreements — and right now, at one and the same time, the growing danger of war with Iran and Trump’s most direct threat yet to the constitutional limits on his power. Trump’s presidency has coincided with the racist Brexit plan in Britain — pulling Britain out of the European Union mainly as an attack on immigration — and has emboldened the growth of far-right and neo-fascist movements and governments across Europe. Every day Trump is president brings more death and brutality against immigrants at the border and in his concentration camps; every day brings increased threat of terror by racists and neo-fascists who grow in confidence as they feel the ascent of their movement. Every day Trump is president is a heightened danger of a world war in which atomic weapons would be used for the first time since World War II.

The question is not whether Trump is dangerous or whether he committed impeachable acts. The real question is who is going to stop him and when? Our movement must answer this question with urgent, bold and decisive action.

The Resistance has already shown we have the power to defeat Trump. Immediately after Trump’s inauguration, millions of people across the globe filled the streets in a massive outcry of humanity against a racist tyrant and for a future of freedom and equality. Our collective power, rooted in international solidarity, was palpable and we were winning real victories. The massive occupations at airports across the country defeated the first Muslim ban, stopping deportations, building sanctuary communities; high school walkouts, and mass actions at college campuses for immigrant rights, public education and against racism provided decisive leadership to the national movement. In confrontations between gangs of Trump-supporting thugs and militant anti-fascists determined to defend their local communities against fascist violence, some of the bravest fighters of the Resistance showed they were willing to place their own bodies on the line to prevent Trump’s vision from being made real.

Trump remains in power only because of the movement’s reliance on treacherous politicians who have wobbled between treating Trump as an invincible monster, then as an incompetent clown, not to be taken seriously — all the mistakes made by the German Left in the 1930s that helped pave the road to Hitler’s rise to power and ultimately to the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. The feeble acts of resistance by these politicians under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi have been more about theatrical posturing and election gimmicks designed to give false comfort to the Democratic Party base and suppress the movement, not serious attempts to defeat Trump. The constant wavering between treating the situation as ‘business-as-usual’ and ‘a constitutional crisis’ and ‘the sky is falling’ has paralyzed the Resistance for far too long.

Every deportation that has been prevented or stopped in progress, every racist, tyrannical executive order we have halted or rendered unenforceable, are the result of heroic actions of people, trusting their own political instincts, acting on what they know to be true and right, and ignoring all the politicians’ bad advice calling for moderation, patience and respectability. Stories of these acts of courage have spread like wildfire as a beacon of hope amidst the constant barrage of horrors of the Trump presidency. These acts of heroism must be broadened, and adopted as the method of our whole movement. We must learn again to trust our organized independent mass actions as the most effective method of struggle to defeat Trump.

Only a mass movement, independent of the Democratic Party and fighting by any means necessary can defeat Trump and deal a decisive blow to the neo-fascist movement that is growing up around him. WE MUST BE OUR OWN HEROES. OUR LIVES AND THE FUTURE OF HUMANITY DEPEND ON IT. It’s time to bring the tyrant, Abuser-in-Chief, Donald Trump to his knees.

The failure of the Democratic Party & the urgent need for an independent movement

The impeachment of Donald Trump should have begun when thousands of children were separated from their families at the border and imprisoned in concentration camps. More than 14,000 children remain in I.C.E. custody, including an increasing number of infants. Children are regularly beaten, sexually assaulted, forced to sleep on cold floors with aluminum blankets in cages, called ‘ice boxes.’ Many will never see their parents again because I.C.E. had no intention of reuniting them and did not keep records. In the last six months, six children that we know of have died in I.C.E. custody. Trump’s crimes against humanity, attacks on basic principles of human rights and democracy, obstruction of justice, are obvious for the whole world to see, and are even more clearly evident from the information already available in the redacted Mueller report. His crimes and abuses of power have created a scandal for the United States around the world and more than meet the legal criteria of “high crimes and misdemeanors” to be qualified as impeachable offenses. He is now accusing Mueller and the others involved in his investigation of treason, in effect blithely threatening his critics with execution. And yet he remains in office.

Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership are failing this moment in history. Right now they are following a deadly path of similar parties in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, who also rolled over and played dead in the face of authoritarian attacks on democracy based on racism, xenophobia and misogyny (the historic program of fascism updated to our times). Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership ‘strategy’ of endless delay, is a policy of normalizing a tyrant and setting up a situation in which Trump could call off the next election or refuse to leave office if defeated.

Speaker Pelosi agrees that Trump has committed impeachable offenses, but refuses to back impeachment. Instead, she is engaged in a cynical losing electoral strategy of appealing to right-wing voters to gain their votes back from Trump in 2020. Trump’s election was based on racism, immigrant-bashing and misogyny. His supporters voted for him to defend white privilege and to advance the cause of religious groups opposed to the rights of women and LGBT people. Campaigning to win back Trump voters is the same policy of the left in 1920s Italy and 1930s Germany. They are equivalent to leaders in 1930s Germany who claimed to be against the Nazis, but said nothing about defending Jews against Hitler. Candidates involved in such a ritual of cynical electoralism must not be supported.

The other argument against impeachment that “we can’t talk about impeachment at the same time as talking about programs like healthcare, etc.” is just another excuse for anti-impeachment Democrats and “Socialists” (Bernie Sanders is one of the worst!) to not fight racism. It’s obvious to anyone that if the Democrats are not capable of defending against Trump’s fundamental attacks on democracy, they are certainly not capable of winning universal healthcare, and other social programs. The only way the Democrats could win back votes of those Trump supporters is by becoming equally bigoted themselves. Actually winning the program the Democrats claim to support requires speaking openly about racist inequality and fighting to get rid of Trump.

Nancy Pelosi’s notion of having a lot of hearings with the aim of exposing Trump and turning out democratic voters, without impeachment, is ridiculous and amounts to nothing but a diversionary tactic. Trump has made clear he will make it impossible to obtain any documents, while blocking the testimony of key witnesses. The truth is that the most likely way to get those documents and force these key witnesses to testify is to begin the actual impeachment process. In reality the “hearings without impeachment’ policy has merely been a scam — a policy of endless delay — in which only hearings are permitted which few people will ever watch because the Democrats have made clear in advance that their hearings will have no practical purpose in the fight to defeat Trump, but are merely a part of the Democrats electoral strategy.

The truth is that this Pelosi policy is a scam - a scam of her own caucus, scams of the Democratic Party base, and a scam of the American people. This scam is motivated by fear that any real exposes of Trump that could excite and inspire the masses of people who would inevitably watch actual impeachment hearings, would broaden and radicalize the movement against Trump.

The myriad of excuses, arguments and maneuvers to avoid impeachment, overly-complicated in order to look clever and politically savvy, are not just cowardice and stupidity on the part of the Democratic Party leadership. They are part of a more conscious treachery, especially on the part of a leader as smart and capable as Nancy Pelosi. When it comes down to it, the Democrats are more afraid of our movement than they are of Trump. They are afraid of dealing with the question of racism, immigrant rights, inequality, because they are fundamentally afraid of building up the only force that can defeat both Trump and his racist movement: a mass movement led by black, Latina/o, immigrant, Muslim communities and youth.

While there is disagreement among the political elite about Trump, the fear of our movement they have in common. Trump’s supporters believe they can only hold society together by scapegoating immigrants and they have found Trump to be the most successful at this. They believe immigrant bashing is more important than even economic growth, healthcare, etc. in holding together an increasingly unequal, divided, and frustrated society — or rather holding together its white population on a relatively safe, conservative basis, preventing as much as possible the danger of integrated struggle against the powers that be.

There is also a wing of the political elite that realize the importance of economic growth, oppose world war and understand the danger that Trump poses. But they are not prepared to give up the option of relying on a mass movement of the far-right to use against a movement on the left should they need it. So rather than defend the world against a racist tyrant and the very real possibility of nuclear war, they prioritize keeping our movement paralyzed while keeping the option of fascism in their back pocket.

For all these reasons, there is no approach limited to electoralism that can defeat Trump. If the Democrats continue with their current policy, they will not only get Trump elected again in 2020 just as they did in 2016 by not taking seriously his threat against democracy; they will pave the way for the growth of and consolidation of fascist movements and regimes in the U.S. and around the world. To defeat Trump the job of the movement is to mobilize into action the majority of the American people who were against Trump in 2016 and are even more so now. Our movement must be unequivocal in our demands to impeach Trump, convict Trump, and remove Donald Trump from office.

For all politicians, now is the test. If they want the people opposed to Trump to vote in 2020, they must start impeaching Trump now. In and out of Congress, anyone who regards the defense of democracy, civil rights and immigrant rights as important must have a policy of only supporting candidates prepared to be openly critical of Pelosi’s opposition to impeachment, and who are prepared to impeach Trump now based on the information available now. Impeachment is the only procedure provided in the Constitution designed to protect the people against a tyrant. If Pelosi gets away with her suppression of impeachment, she will have created a situation in which the Constitution will no longer have any means of preventing a tyrant from coming to power. Everything will be reduced to simply a question of whether impeachment will help the opposition party get votes in the next election.

Pelosi, Sanders, and their ilk are rendering the impeachment provisions of the American Constitution a dead letter, never to be used again. Pelosi says impeachment started against a president by an opposition party may cost her Democrats some votes in 2020. Sanders and his minions assert that if we’re talking about impeachment, we’re not talking about healthcare and other important issues. The obvious problem is that both these arguments will always be true. Impeachment of a sitting president will in reality always be begun by the opposition party. And if Sanders’ even stupider argument is taken seriously, in any situation in which the impeachment of a tyrannical president is necessary, “talking about impeachment” will, in Sanders’ ridiculous terms, “distract” from talking about other issues. Thus Pelosi and Sanders, between them and their uncritical followers, have eliminated once and for all any constitutional measure to combat a tyrant.

The reality is that only a party and a leadership that can defend democracy against Trump by every means available — including impeachment — can possibly lead the struggle necessary to defeat the massive, historically accumulated economic and political powers that oppose universal healthcare, immigrant rights, a real fight against racism, and the mass struggle against the imperialist policies that lead to war. A party in leadership not prepared to rise to this historical challenge does not deserve the support of the electorate in 2020 and is already working very hard to disorient and demoralize its most active and idealistic voters.

The Democrats must rise to the occasion and stand up to Pelosi and this dangerous policy. But they are only as strong as the movement. Only mass independent action of the Resistance can hold their feet to the fire and give them the courage to take the heroic stand that is needed. If they refuse to do this, they must not be supported.


To defeat Trump, we must build the immigrant rights movement: to defend immigrant rights, we must defeat Trump

All over the world, the struggle and bold leadership of immigrants and refugees who are breaking down national boundaries every day, are bringing millions of people into the struggle for immigrant rights. Immigrant-bashing is the only real strength of the Trump regime, the true source of the fanatical devotion of his followers. But it is also Trump’s greatest weakness. It is the issue that can tear him down just as quickly as it built him up.

The migrants in the caravan, through their massive march for freedom, are the most dynamic force in the movement against Trump. Despite being the number one target of Trump’s immigrant-bashing, the people of the caravans have shown far more courage in standing up to Trump than any of the politicians. Record numbers of people from Central America and Mexico, especially women and children, continue to join the march to cross the border and are forming new caravans that are on their way now. None of Trump’s series of draconian attacks have been able to stop this mass march of people yearning to breathe free. The spirit of active support and international solidarity among peoples across borders, for this ongoing march, is stronger than any racist and wrong governmental attacks to stop this exodus towards freedom.