Movement leaders in the US say Trump’s agenda will be met with a strong fightback

Hundreds of people gathered at the People’s Forum in New York City on November 8 for a panel discussion which featured 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐒𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐦 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐃𝐞 𝐥𝐚 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐳, who ran against both Trump and Harris in a explicitly socialist campaign, 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫, 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢-𝐰𝐚𝐫 𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐍𝐒𝐖𝐄𝐑 𝐂𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐄𝐮𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫, 𝐣𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐁𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬, 𝐉𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐃𝐚𝐲 𝐋𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐫𝐠𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐳𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐞𝐭𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 with extensive experience organizing undocumented immigrant workers, and 𝐌𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐎𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐧, 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭, which has played a central role in the Palestine solidarity movement across North America.

𝐋𝐚𝐲𝐚𝐧 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐢𝐡𝐚𝐧, 𝐄𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞’𝐬 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐮𝐦, opened up the discussion. “We, the workers, the social movements, the immigrant families, the young people, the anti-war movement, the working class as a whole, we are faced with many urgent questions,” she said.

“How will we confront this continual rise of the right? Will we be driven by fear and apathy or pessimism? Will we stay home? Or will we organize our forces and chart our own path forward? Will we follow the lead of the Democratic Party and mourn their loss? Or will we assert that we reject the billionaire agenda no matter which party is executing its orders?”

Speakers put the blame for Trump’s win not on a shift to the right by working class people, but on the failures of the Democratic Party. 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐝𝐢𝐚 𝐃𝐞 𝐥𝐚 𝐂𝐫𝐮𝐳 spoke to what she called the “scapegoating of working class sectors” by the Democrats.

“They are saying we have to blame Black men, that we have to blame Latino men, that we have to blame immigrant communities, that we have to place judgment on those who didn’t go out and vote,” she said.

In reality, according to De la Cruz, “it is the spinelessness of the Democratic Party that has brought us here.”

“While Trump won this election, we cannot pretend that the Democrats have not allowed and conducted attacks against the working class people for decades,” De la Cruz said. “If we think about the last 16 years, the Democratic Party had power for 12 of those years, and they didn’t do anything. Not a single thing to protect or expand our rights. In fact, they sat back and watched how our rights were placed on a chopping block and said, we can’t do anything about it.”

𝐓𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐬, who himself comes from a migrant background and was undocumented, spoke not only of the fear that exists within immigrant communities of Trump’s anti-migrant policy promises, but also the resolve to fight back. According to Torres, for the past few months, immigrant day laborers within the NDLON network were very scared of what would happen in the event of a Trump win. Trump has promised to deport between 15 to 20 million people in the largest mass deportation in US history, a policy which could result in family separations affecting up to 1 in 3 Latinos in the country.

But this did not paralyze these communities, who instead came together in a renewed resolve to “start organizing for real,” Torres described. Communities began to ask one another, “What does that mean when we say the people save the people?”

“We made a decision that it was about time to organize local communities in popular committees across the country,” Torres said. “We decided to organize popular assemblies across the country. In around one month we organize almost 25 assemblies across the country. And now we have almost 45+ committees led by workers, led by undocumented people, led by people that really are directly impacted.” Torres also mentioned that NDLON is working closely with the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement (MST) in Brazil, speaking to deep ties of international solidarity.

According to Torres, “most of the committees have lost their belief and hope and the Democratic Party or the Republican Party.”

“By now it is time to organize, and we just have us, and we don’t have no one else,” Torres asserted.

According to 𝐄𝐮𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞 𝐏𝐮𝐫𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫, Trump’s policy promises to round up migrant workers should be a call to action for a mass movement to defend immigrant communities. This movement can find inspiration from the history of the movement for the abolition of slavery in the United States. Puryear recalled the history of the Fugitive Slave Act, which imposed harsh punishments on those who sheltered runaway slaves. But this certainly did not stop abolitionists and anti-slavery activists from protecting slaves anyway.

“Whether or not the law said one thing, there was a higher law: that they had to fight against slavery no matter the risk,” Puryear described.

“So [abolitionists] formed things called vigilance committees, all across the country, that said that when a fugitive slave is brought before the bar into the courthouse, we will go to the courthouse and we will physically resist the imposition of returning them back. That we will physically remove them from the courthouse if we have to, and put them on the Underground Railroad and send them to Canada. And maybe we won’t succeed. Maybe we’ll be beaten. In many cases, these were serious tussles. People were pulling out guns. Maybe we’ll even be killed. But we would rather risk our lives than allow our formerly enslaved brothers and sisters to be taken back.”

There are parallels between the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and Trump’s promise to remove tens of millions of migrants from the country by force, Puryear argued. And the historic tasks of the mass movement, therefore, are similar to those shortly before slavery was abolished. “You can say it’s scary, and it is scary. You can say it’s odious, it is odious. But when they start bringing the trucks around to round people up, you can also say, I’m going to step outside of my door and I’m going to link arms with my neighbors. And if you’re going to throw them out, you better throw me out with them because we’re standing together no matter what,” Puryear said.

𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐁𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 also echoed this same militant fighting spirit, rooted in the lessons of past movements. Becker drew attention in particular to the movement that arose after 2016 in opposition to Trump’s first election.

“There’s another side to the question of what is to be done, and that is what is to not be done,” Becker said. “Let’s learn the lesson of the first Trump administration when Trump came into office. So many people went to the airports because he said, we’re going to ban Muslims from coming into the country. Massive protests on Inauguration Day. We outnumbered Trump supporters. This was the anti-Trump resistance,” he described.

“But what happened? The Democratic Party completely co-opted that movement, completely took over that movement, because they said you have to resist Trump, the person, which meant that the best and practical way to do it, is to get rid of Trump by electing the Democrats.”

This co-optation marked the end of this mass movement, which because merely a “tail to the Democratic Party,” Becker described.

According to Becker, “the problem isn’t just Trump. The problem is the capitalist system and the ruling class parties. The Democrats and the Republicans are not an opposition to capitalism. They are the voice of capitalism.”

Becker spoke to the need to “build a political program” independent of the two establishment parties, which speaks to the needs of the masses of people.

𝐌𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐚𝐦 𝐎𝐬𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐚𝐧 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 spoke to the way that the movement in solidarity with Palestine has given people in the US renewed political clarity regarding the similarities between both major parties. “Our task is to draw more and more people into our struggle against the shared enemy, the shared enemy of the Palestinian people, the shared enemy of the working people of the world, and the shared enemy of working people in the United States,” which is the US ruling class, Osman articulated. “Our task is to build power. Our task is to unify our efforts, because this is the only thing that’s going to give us the force to transform this system.”