If the workers of the world want to win, all they have to do is recognize their own solidarity. They have nothing to do but fold their arms and the world will stop. The workers are more powerful with their hands in their pockets than all the property of the capitalists. --Joe Ettor (IWW labor organizer)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IASdERt3-m0
Sunday, February 4, 2024
The Crises of U.S. Capitalism, Foreign and Domestic, Grow in Intensity
3). “Eagle Pass: Republi-Fascist Neo-Nullificaton v. Federal State Authoity at the Southern Texas Border”, Jan 26, 2024, Paul Street, The Paul Street Report, at < https://paulstreet.substack.com/p/eagle-pass >.
4). “DeSantis pledges 1,000 Florida National Guard troops in support of Texas Gov. Abbott’s anti-migrant campaign”, Feb 2, 2024, Jacob Crosse, World Socialist Web Site (WSWS), at < https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/03/lmnl-f03.html >
Introduction by dmorista: The crises and contradictions of U.S. Capitalism and those that infect the U.S. ruling class continue to become more severe and more acute. We are seeing a variety of crises overseas with the U.S. supporting the reactionary forces in two relatively major wars, in Ukraine and in Israel. President Biden, long-time toady and servant of Zionist interests, has now ordered what promises to be the first of a series of regional Middle Eastern aerial attacks, starting last Friday. On the first day the bombing raids were on 7 places, with 85 targeted installations, U.S. aerial forces launched over 125 munitions at those targets (presumably all “smart bombs” of one sort or another). The forces involved included B-1s that flew all the way from bases in the U.S. to attack these places.
The crises that are plaguing the U.S. also include unprecedented levels of domestic political strife, mobilization of vigilantes and the use of State level police and national guard units by reactionary state regimes particularly that of Greg Abbott, in Texas. Liberal commentators have noted that Biden, never particularly popular with many Democratic Party constituencies, has been hemorrhaging support since the beginning of the current Israeli War with its ongoing horrific attacks on civilians (mostly women and children) in the Israeli campaign against Gaza. This was emphasized with interviews with the Mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, a man of Arab descent, who declared that Biden's support of the Israeli campaign in reducing Gaza to ruins had decimated his support among the Arab-Americans of Dearborn and other communities in S.E. Michigan.
Paul Street, who is one of the intellectual leaders of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, led by Bob Avakian, has contributed many trenchant essays about the reality of the so-called democracy in the U.S. Here in Item 1). “The U.S. Bourgeois Democracy ….”, he has continued his litany in which he ha repeatedly pointed out the many ways in which the constitutionally mandated political system in the U.S. favors the right-wing. The right in the Red States has severely gerrymandered the districts and ruthlessly purged Democratic leaning voter populations, to the tune of around 8 million people nationwide. In this essay Street debunks the hopes of many liberals enumerating several political forces in the U.S. that have proven to be impotent in opposing the growing fascist menace here. These are the:
Six Failed Saviors
1). Anti- and Non-Trump Republicans: 2). The Legal System:3). Congress:
4). The Media:5).The Dismal Weimar Dems:6).The Bourgeoisie
In Item 2). “Why Wall Street is ….” Charlie Sykes does a fine job of explaining why the Business classes cannot be depended upon to oppose the rising tide of Fascism in the U.S. Sykes is more restrained in his criticism of the U.S. political and socioeconomic apparatus than Street is, but represents a realistic view of the limitations of The Bourgeoisie, from Street's 6 Failed Saviors.
With the massive amounts of money provided by the reactionary / fascist rich, the far-right has maintained a very active agenda of political stunts and more serious actions. At this time the struggle is between the rabid reactionary forces of Texas, led by Greg Abbot the Governor, and the less dedicated and virulent federal forces commanded by President Biden. The focus of the struggle for the past few weeks is at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas. Thepark lies along the Northern Shore of the Rio Grande and has been a favored place for people who wade / swim across the river to enter the U.S. The importance of this political confrontation is noted by Paul Street in Item 3). “Eagle Pass: Republi-Fascist Neo-Nullificaton ….” in which Street notes that:
“Those who laugh off the notion that the United States could descend into something somewhat or very much like a civil war pitting the authoritarian Republi-fascist sections, states, and forces of the country against the late bourgeois democratic and rule of law sections, states, and forces of the country might want to look at the remarkable situation developing in Eagle Pass, Texas. ….
“At the heart of this extraordinary confrontation in Eagle Pass (and more broadly on the southern Texas/US border) is a brazen attempt by Abbot and his Republi-fascist Party to undercut the authority of the federal government.
“This is no small matter. For the first time in six decades, a US governor is defying the authority of the national government not merely with words but with the real threat of force. As Huffington Post reports:
“ 'Abbott’s declaration that that the Biden administration had “broken the compact between the United States and the States” by failing to “fulfill the duties” of protecting Texas from an “invasion” is an eerie echo of the political thought that gave rise to nullification and secession in the 19th century and resistance to desegregation in the 20th.' "
The current political effort by the far-right is a “convoy” of trucks and motor homes of MAGA activists who drove over the past week from Virginia Beach, Virginia to the Eagle Pass, Texas area, where they are meeting at a Ranch where a children's “home” is located. The “Organizers told the New York Post at least 700,000 people would attend the rallies—but NewsNation reported only about 50 cars, trucks and RVs joined the convoy as it drove into Dripping Springs, Texas, on Thursday, noting the group is hoping to add more drivers has seen supporters cheer them on from the side of the highway (multiple outlets reported seeing just a few dozen vehicles at other stops)” (“Is The 'God's Army' Border Convoy—With Only 50 Vehicles In Texas—A Bust? What To Know”, Feb 1, 2024, Zachary Folk, Forbes, at < https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacharyfolk/2024/02/01/is-the-gods-army-border-convoy-with-only-50-vehicles-in-texas-a-bust-what-to-know/?sh=1febe0ee4c0a >).
The current “armed standoff” at Shelby Park is the culmination of 3 years of Abbot's focus on the border: “.... since March 2021, Abbott, under the banner of an effort he dubbed 'Operation Lone Star', has sent state troopers and National Guard members to different parts of the 1,200-mile Texas-Mexico border; ordered state police to arrest migrants on suspicion of trespassing; lined the river at Shelby Park with shipping containers; ordered 70,000 rolls of concertina wire to be deployed along 29 miles of the river in Maverick County, which includes Eagle Pass; and erected about a dozen miles of border walls in different parts of the border at a price of $1.5 billion.” (See, “In Eagle Pass, a tense border standoff between Texas and the federal government is reaching a crescendo: A park on the Rio Grande is the new focus of a long battle over border enforcement that’s reached the U.S. Supreme Court”, Jan. 22, 2024, Uriel J. García, Texas Tribune, at < https://www.texastribune.org/2024/01/22/texas-border-patrol-immigration-enforcement-eagle-pass-park/ >).
Several other states have sent small numbers of troops or state police to work with Abbot's program In Item 4). “DeSantis pledges 1,000 ….” the author notes that the state police and state controlled national guard troops sent to Texas include:
“On Thursday (Feb 1, 2024 dm), Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that he would authorize the deployment of up to 1,000 Florida National Guard soldiers to Texas. The move was in support of Donald Trump’s election campaign and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s war on immigrants and usurpation of federal authority over the US/Mexico border. ...
“Thursday’s announcement by DeSantis is just the latest in a series of troop deployments Republican governors have authorized in the last year in furtherance of Abbott’s anti-immigrant Operation Lone Star. Last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office confirmed to Newsweek that the state had already deployed 100 National Guard troops in support of Lone Star. A spokesperson for North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum confirmed to Newsweek that '125 soldiers from the 817th Engineer Company' were currently deployed to the border.
"Several other governors have dispatched troops to Texas since Abbott initiated Operation Lone Star in 2021. Last summer, Govs. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Arkansas) and Kristi Noem (South Dakota) deployed 80 and 50 National Guard soldiers to the Texas-Mexico border, respectively. Sixty-one soldiers from the Nebraska National Guard were also deployed last year to the border.” (See, “DeSantis pledges 1,000 Florida National Guard troops in support of Texas Gov. Abbott’s anti-migrant campaign”, Feb 2, 2024, Jacob Crosse, WSWS, at < https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2024/02/03/lmnl-f03.html >)
Items 5). “Protest Convoy Headed to Southern Border ….” & 6). “The ‘God’s Army’ Convoy Says ….”, report some details on the “God's Army Convoy” that arrived at the Eagle Pass area today. Two other parts of the convoy are heading for border areas farther west, namely Yuma, Arizona and San Ysidro, California. It is amusing to read their reports that the original hype for the Convoy, as reported on Fox News, predicted that 700,000 people would come to Eagle Pass. In fact at a rally at Dripping Springs, Texas there were only about 50 vehicles, and their drivers and passengers. Clearly the participation prediction was hugely over optimistic. There is a lot of video on the web showing a few trucks and motor homes, painted with Trumpian MAGA imagery, passing along the highways from Virginia Beach to Southern Texas. Handfuls of flag waving MAGA supporters are standing along the sides of the roads here and there saluting them as they pass.
+ now openly channels Hitler by saying that: Marxists, socialists, and communists are “vermin” who need to be “rooted out of the country;” the greatest threat to the Fatherland “comes from within;” nonwhite immigrants are “poisoning the blood of the country”?
+ has made political “retribution” a cornerstone of his campaign?
+ opens his 2024 campaign rallies open with singing by incarcerated January 6 putschists, who he calls “patriots” and promises to pardon once he returns to power?
+ continues to advance the Big and multiply disproven (more than 60 times in the courts) Hitlerian Lie that the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from him by “the” – get this – “radical Left,” his absurd term for capitalist-imperialist Democrats?
+ ludicrously claims that Marxists have taken over the American educational system?
+ calls for the extra-judicial execution of suspected shoplifters?
+ pledges to build giant concentration camps for “illegal” migrants and asylum-seekers?
+ says his former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair should have been executed for reassuring China that the US would not start a nuclear war after January 6?
+ threatens to invade Mexico?
+ wants to invoke the Insurrection Act to crush protests on the day he’s inaugurated for a second time?
+ says he wants to be a “dictator for one day” (whatever the F that means) because “I want to build the wall and drill, drill, drill”?
And so what if his first administration was a long rolling fascistic nightmare (see the third chapter of my most recent book This Happened Here for an exhaustive record) predictably culminating in an attempted coup?
Despite all this and more disgusting to mention, the loathsome ogre Trump, reasonably described by Noam Chomsky in January 2020 as “the most dangerous criminal in human history,” is sitting pretty for a second presidency starting on January 20, 2025.
One by one the imagined American checks and balances that supposedly provide great barriers to his return to power are crumbling.
Who or what is going to stop him?
Six Failed Saviors
Anti- and Non-Trump Republicans
Anti- and non-Trump Republicans? Seriously? They have for all intents and purposes been drummed out of the now post-republican Republifascist Party. The Republican establishment has congealed around the Malignant One. As the political analysts Lakshya Jain and Arman Thomas note in a recent New York Times Op-Ed:
“The former president now controls the Republican Party by virtually every conceivable measure. He has a commanding lead in fund-raising and polling. His policies are a beacon to which most conservative lawmakers orient themselves in affairs both foreign and domestic. His endorsement remains the single most coveted asset that any Republican could hope to brandish in a primary race, and he has already received support from an overwhelming majority of prominent elected Republicans….more than 80 percent of Republicans elected to the 118th House cast doubt on the 2020 [presidential election] results during the 2022 midterms, along with 17 of the 20 Republicans who won Senate seats and 13 of 18 Republicans elected to governorships…Trump has not hesitated to punish perceived disloyalty, even after he departed office. When the House impeached him for inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6, just 10 Republicans voted in favor. But by the next congressional term, eight of those 10 had left office, either retiring or losing primaries to Trump-endorsed challengers. Tellingly, one of those candidates was Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President…It’s not a coincidence that the two survivors…did not have to go through partisan primaries; they narrowly advanced through top-two systems that allowed independents and Democrats to cross over for them.”
Meanwhile, nearly the entire Republican policy establishment has now signed up with the Amerikaner fascist MAGA crusade. Project 2025, a sweeping plan for the Christian white nationalist/neofascist takeover of the federal government under Trump has been developed by The Heritage Foundation, a longstanding Republican think tank, in partnership with 80 Republican policy groups including Turning Point USA, the Conservative Partnership Institute, the Center for Renewing America, and America First Legal. Former Trump appointees and allies are prominent atop these and other “conservative” groups that have signed up with the campaign for a Trump dictatorship.
Trump’s sweeping victories in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary show that, barring death or a crippling illness or injury, he’s the 2024 Republican presidential nominee, ready to benefit from the right-tilted US Electoral College, which effectively requires Democratic candidates to win the national popular vote by at least 4 percentage points to keep or gain the White House.
The Legal System
What about Trump’s much ballyhooed legal problems? Will prosecutors, judges, and juries save us from a second and much worse Trump administration? Not likely. The January 6 insurrection leader Trump has not been charged with insurrection, the one crime that would constitutionally preclude him from regaining the presidency. Trump’s big money legal team, largely paid for through his massive dark money campaign finance war chest, is (with help from enablers, allies, and bumblers in the “justice system”) successfully delaying key proceedings long enough for him to possibly avoid any verdicts before the 2024 election. It’s not clear that guilty verdicts in any of his cases would cost him the contest with Biden
If Herr Donald is re-elected (currently a 65% probability), he will of course deep-six all federal cases against him and pardon himself along with many other Republi-fascists. He will handily nullify the state-level cases against him.
Current state-level efforts to keep him off presidential ballots on Fourteenth Amendment grounds are unlikely to survive the scrutiny of the monumentally corrupt and illegitimate US Supreme Court that Trump and former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell created during the rabid dog’s first sick presidency.
Trump has found the prosecutions and lawsuits against him to be a polling and fundraising windfall. He delights in using them to sell the paranoid-style narrative that he and by extension his followers are being persecuted by a “deep state” that has “weaponized the criminal justice” in pursuit of a “radical left” agenda. (Never mind that his campaign promised to weaponize the Department of Justice and other arms of government against his political enemies.)
If he had been serious about preventing the fascist Trump from returning to power, the spineless US Attorney General Merrick Garland would have appointed a special prosecutor much sooner than November of 2022. He would have made sure that Trump was charged with insurrection.
Congress
Looking for the US Congress to save the day? Good luck with that! The Congress had a chance to prevent the orange Third Reich enthusiast from coming back into power after January 6 but the Senate was unable to convict Trump after his second impeachment in January of 2021. Too many Republican Senators feared political and physical retribution from Trump’s fascist base.
The House is gerrymandered to the right and may increase its slim Trumpist-Republi-fascist majority in 2024-25. The election line-up for the Senate contests favors the return of a Republi-fascist majority in the powerful upper chamber of Congress, itself a right-tilted and absurdly malapportioned monument to Minority Rule
The Media
Think the media is going to save us from a second Trump nightmare? Think again. Sure, MSNBC talking heads will issue the usual liberal and progressive-sounding warnings about authoritarianism and even now fascism (it’s hard to avoid the F-word when Trump is openly channeling Hitler), bringing on the usual elite academic suspects like Ruth ben-Ghiat (NYU) to tell us how Trump is walking in the footsteps of Mussolini and Hitler. Great, but the main media trend is already discernible: normalizing the American fascist creep with the usual both sides-ism and horse race coverage and with nauseatingly vapid commentary from unmitigated morons like the New York Times’ uber-dufus David “the Republicans are the party of the working-class” Brooks. The mainly “liberal” Democratic owners and managers of a dominant mass media that has been normalizing nihilistic violence and sadism and selling these pathologies to children (as the brilliant left cultural theorist and social critic Henry Giroux has been observing for years) on multiple platforms for decades has little business being shocked by the ascendancy of an openly violent right-wing politics in the US.
The Dismal Weimar Dems
How ‘bout ‘dem dismal, dollar-drenched Dems under “Genocide Joe” Biden? Are you dreaming that those capitalist-imperialist assholes are going to save the day and stop the Malignant One ? Hope on! Like his fellow Neoliberal Democratic presidential predecessors Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the imperialist warmonger Biden has demonstrated yet again that the not-so leftmost major party’s progressive-sounding campaign rhetoric is disingenuous cover for a firm underlying dedication to American capitalist Empire and Inequality, Inc. The deeply conservative, bumbling, and epically uncharismatic incumbent Biden was already in deep trouble with core Democratic constituencies – young adults, Blacks, Hispanics, and progressives – even before he wrapped his arms around Israel’s fascist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pledged full support for Israel’s criminal campaign of genocidal ethnic cleansing in Gaza. He was already incredibly unpopular before the southern US border crisis hatched a full-on fascist-secessionist Nullification rebellion – replete with an armed standoff between state and federal forces and 25 Republi-fascist state governors backing the maiming of Latin American women and children by fascist razor wire – in Texas.
Sleepytime Joe is polling well below the tangerine-tinted tyrant nationally and in the handful of “contested” or “swing” states that absurdly determine presidential outcomes under the archaic, democracy-flunking US Electoral College. He is looking very Jimmy Carter-like as his campaign gears up to absurdly portray his blood-soaked ruling class presidency as the last defense of “democracy.”
The Bourgeoisie
Hey, what about the business class? They’ll save the day, right?
Know any more good jokes? A recent column by Charles Sykes, editor of the anti-Trump Republican Website The Bulwark and a frequent MSNBC talking head, is titled “Why Wall Street is Surrendering to Trump.” Sykes rightly mocks the “resistance fantasy” that “the nation’s economic elites — the titans of Wall Street, the beautiful people of Davos, the economic masters of the universe— would, in our moment of peril, mount the barricades to defend democracy.” To which Sykes asks, “Have you met these guys?.” Further:
“For about five minutes after January 6, it seemed that the business community had, in fact, found or fabricated a moral compass. ‘There are some members who, by their actions, will have forfeited the support of the US Chamber of Commerce. Period. Full stop,’ the chamber’s vice-president, Neil Bradley, declared when the group announced a ban on contributions to representatives who had voted against certifying Joe Biden’s win. There were full-page ads and ringing declarations. ‘This is not who we are as a people or a country,’ insisted Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan…Ah, but…the Chamber quietly dropped its ban on election deniers. The cash still flows. And last week in Davos, we found out how far Dimon had evolved on extraneous details like the peaceful transfer of power and attempted insurrections. Dimon now says that Donald Trump was right about lots of things and, like other moguls, is now okay with either Biden or Trump. ‘My company,’ he said, ‘will survive and thrive in both.’”
Sykes rightly finds this bourgeois comfort with fascism unsurprising. He quotes a recent remarkable Financial Times commentary by Edward Luce on how Big Business within and beyond Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy welcomed and applauded the rise of European fascism in the 1930s. Just as the capitalist elite calculated that far right racist palingenetic nationalist authoritarianism served its bottom line in the 1930s, Wall Street today is “quickly making its peace with the twice-impeached, disgraced, indicted, authoritarian fraudster” who “poses a threat to democratic norms and is a cancer on the national culture” because Trump promises to be friendly to corporate and financial interests by reducing taxes and slashing regulations. Even if the Lords of Capital might personally prefer what Sykes calls “a less fascisty [Republican] option,” Trump is “good for the bottom-line, and that, after all, is the business of business. In their world, the trashing of constitutional norms is simply collateral damage.”
Wealthy business class Trumpers know that Trump’s populist talk is just “red meat for the masses” (Luce) and that a Trump47 presidency will be “better for business than Biden” since the tangerine-tinted fascist will “cut the top tax rate” and “boost the fossil fuel industry and commercial real estate. The assumption of business leaders that Trump will fulfil these promises is almost certainly right.”
At the same time, Trump’s chances of returning to power are good and business elites want to make sure that they have “a seat at the table.” They know that critical “access” to a victorious Trump regime and party will be denied to capitalists who dared oppose the wannabe strongman for life. (They have good reason to fear retribution. Read Sykes’ essay for more details on how Trump and his party are ready, willing, and able to “punish ideological dissenters in the private sector.”)
There’s a lot more to say on the topic of the business class’s relationship to fascism past and present than Sykes and Luce let on. They fail, for example, to note the fundamentally anti-democratic and authoritarian nature of the capitalist system, which has always been compatible with slavery, fascism, and other forms of despotism. They say nothing about how that system produces fascism in part by systematically undermining and mocking popular sovereignty and rendering transparently inauthentic and manipulative the democratic rhetoric of politicians. (They say nothing, of course, about how the Western capitalist ruling class saw Hitler’s Third Reich at first as a welcome bulwark against the world’s first socialist state, the Soviet Union). But they’d lose their audience and positions at The Bulwark and the Financial Times if they went that deep and Marxist into the matter. Their candor on the moral nothingness of the American bourgeoisie (“the trashing of constitutional norms is simply collateral damage” for Jamie Dimon et al.) is (I think) refreshing.
Who will stop the fascist creep in the world’s most dangerous nation? Only an organized mass of people who refuse to live in a fascist America and are prepared to shut down business (rule) as usual. The goal of such a rebellion must be more than simply blocking the formerly republican Republi-fascist Party from returning to the White House. It must confront also the underlying capitalist system that breeds fascism “like white on rice,” producing perverted binary choices like either the fascist menace Donald “Poisoning Our Blood” Trump or the bloody imperialist “Genocide Joe” Biden atop the world’s most dangerous state!
Revolution anyone? Under bourgeois/capitalist rule, Marx and Engels noted in 1848, “all that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and [humanity] is at least compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life and his relations with his kind.” It is long past time to shed ourselves of the addictive religion of melting, late bourgeois democracy, whose farewell tour is coming soon to a telescreen near you.
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Why Wall Street is Surrendering to Trump
Former President Donald Trump arrives for a press conference at 40 Wall Street on January 17, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
We learn from history that we do not learn from history — Friedrich Hegel
One of the fondest bits of resistance fantasy has been the notion that the nation’s economic elites — the titans of Wall Street, the beautiful people of Davos, the economic masters of the universe— would, in our moment of peril, mount the barricades to defend democracy.
To which a reasonable person might have responded: Have you met these guys?
For about five minutes after January 6, it seemed that the business community had, in fact, found or fabricated a moral compass. “There are some members who, by their actions, will have forfeited the support of the US Chamber of Commerce. Period. Full stop,” the chamber’s vice-president, Neil Bradley, declared when the group announced a ban on contributions to representatives who had voted against certifying Joe Biden’s win.
There were full-page ads and ringing declarations. “This is not who we are as a people or a country,” insisted Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan.
Ah, but.
The chamber quietly dropped its ban on election deniers. The cash still flows. And last week in Davos, we found out how far Dimon had evolved on extraneous details like the peaceful transfer of power and attempted insurrections. Dimon now says that Donald Trump was right about lots of things and, like other moguls, is now okay with either Biden or Trump.
“My company,” he said, “will survive and thrive in both.”
The Financial Times had only nice things to say about Benito Mussolini in a June 1933 supplement entitled “The Renaissance of Italy: Fascism’s gift of order and progress”. Trains were running on time, investment was humming and friction between capital and labour was a thing of the past. “The country has been remodelled, rather than remade, under the vigorous architecture of its illustrious prime minister, Signor Mussolini,” wrote the FT’s special correspondent.
“Today’s America offers a reminder,” he notes.
Why is Wall Street so quickly making its peace with the twice-impeached, disgraced, indicted, authoritarian fraudster? Let’s divide the reasons into three buckets:
Venality, rational self-interest, and fear.
Let’s start with the obvious: Big business knows that Trump poses a threat to democratic norms and is a cancer on the national culture. But he’s good for the bottom-line, and that, after all, is the business of business. In their world, the trashing of constitutional norms is simply collateral damage.
So, as Matt Yglesias notes in his Slow Boring newsletter, it is not shocking that “rich businessmen remember they're Republicans.” Even though they might have preferred a less fascisty option, “they’re now reconciled to riding with Trump, who they see as a non-optimal candidate, but a lock for the nomination and perfectly capable of beating Biden.”
“And beating Joe Biden really is the important part…”
Forget the eyewash about the border or concerns about the tender feelings of the MAGA masses, he writes. “What Jamie Dimon really wants is the return of business-friendly regulations that will make more money for him personally, for his shareholders, and for his friends.”
None of this is particularly mysterious. Writes Luce:
[For] all his faults, Trump would be better for business than Biden. Trump cut the top tax rate and improved their bottom lines. He is promising to do the same again. Trump’s railing against corporatism is just red meat for the base. He would also boost the fossil fuel industry and commercial real estate. The assumption of business leaders that Trump will fulfil these promises is almost certainly right.
They are also unfazed by Trump’s threats of big tariffs and renewed trade wars, because “less globalisation is a price worth paying for lower taxes. It seems that almost anything is.”
Elites tell themselves other stories too: They want a seat at the table. They want to be in the room where it happens. They want access. And they know that if they fail to fall into line now, they risk being cast into outer darkness. Or worse.
So, they are afraid. But perhaps not afraid enough, telling themselves that Trump’s “bark is worse than his bite.” In their boundless self-regard many of them (like their counterparts from the last century) seem to think that they will be able to control him or limit his damage. In his first term, the guardrails held, they tell themselves, so how bad could it be?
But Trump is openly promising a regime of retribution; and this time around he will have far more weapons to wield. As Protect Democracy warned last week, “A second Trump administration will seek to pierce the independence of federal agencies to expand presidential control over their activities.” That includes the DOJ, FCC, FTC, SEC, IRS and all the vast net of regulatory powers that can be aimed at both individuals and corporations who fall out of favor.
As both Trump and Florida’s Ron DeSantis have signaled, there is a ravening appetite on the right for the use of government power to punish ideological dissenters in the private sector. As the Protect Democracy report noted, “Trump made several attempts, with varying degrees of success, to crack down on the media during his first term.”
As a 2016 candidate, Trump threatened to block the merger of AT&T and Time Warner because CNN was “wildly anti-Trump” and, after he became president, the Department of Justice challenged the deal. The New Yorker reported that Trump ordered top aides to “get this lawsuit filed…I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”
But the media is far from the only industry that Trump 2.0 could target. DeSantis famously went to war with Disney; and the Trumpian right seems spoiling for a fight with businesses that might take controversial positions on issues dear to the heart of the new MAGA elite.
Abuses of government power can take different forms, because government officials wield the power of the state in many ways. They employ rhetoric to influence a public debate, deploy administrative and agency power to gatekeep opportunities and launch investigations, and propose and pass laws that codify the rules of the game…
These include:
Rhetorical Threats: In response to a company’s (or company leader’s) disfavored speech or expression, a high-ranking government official may threaten that the government will take action to punish the company or make a statement directly intended to chill business expression. For example, in March 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) tweeted that she would work to “break up Big Tech,” in response to critical tweets from Amazon about the senator’s characterization of the company’s tax liability. That same year, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) warned businesses that they would face “serious consequences” for speaking out against a new voting rights law in Georgia and urged corporate America to “stay out of politics.”
Administrative Tools: A government official may propose using the executive branch’s administrative or investigative power in retaliation for viewpoints it opposes….
Legislative Power: A lawmaker may propose legislation or initiate an investigation directly targeting a company as a result of its expressed views. For example, in 2018 the Georgia legislature voted to strip out from a larger bill a proposed tax exemption on jet fuel, originally intended to benefit Delta Airlines, in retaliation for the company’s decision to eliminate a promotional discount for National Rifle Association members following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
In a second Trump term, this would be mere child’s play. But, by then, there will be little that the business elite can do about it.
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Eagle Pass
Dear readers: I’ll put up Parts 2 and 3 of my series titled “In Defense of Bob Avakian and the Revcoms” in coming days but first I want to publish the following reflections on a remarkable and so far underestimated story unfolding now in Republi-fascist Texas….
Those who laugh off the notion that the United States could descend into something somewhat or very much like a civil war pitting the authoritarian Republi-fascist sections, states, and forces of the country against the late bourgeois democratic and rule of law sections, states, and forces of the country might want to look at the remarkable situation developing in Eagle Pass, Texas.
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Right now, at this very moment, Eagle Pass is site for an armed showdown pitting the nativist, Christian Republi-fascist governor of Texas, Greg Abbott against the US federal government under the listless Democratic Party president Joe Biden. In a park along the Rio Grande, National Guard soldiers under Abbott’s command are facing down federal troops in a struggle that has massive implications for the legitimacy of the nation’s federal-state constitutional set-up.
For the last week, Texas National Guard troops have blocked US Border Patrol agents from entering a patch of the US-Mexico border where a large number of migrants have crossed.
The White House and its US Department of Homeland Security want to remove lethal razor wire and other barriers that Texas has put up to block migration. The Biden administration cites threats to migrants’ safety as a major concern behind its attempted intervention. It does so with good reason. As local southern Texas media report:
“On Jan. 12, a woman and two children drowned in the [Rio Grande] river after members of the Texas Military Department denied U.S. border authorities access to give humanitarian aid to the group, which were found in distress [near] a migrant processing center [that] was recently seized by the Texas Military Department on orders from Gov. Greg Abbott … U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who represents the district neighboring Eagle Pass, spoke to PBS Newshour about the incident: ‘…if they would have just allowed the Border Patrol to do its work, we would not be talking about…[how] a mother and an 8-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy…drowned, as other ones have drowned.’”
The White House calls Abbott’s lethal military moves to bolster the border “cruel, inhumane and dangerous.”
At the heart of this extraordinary confrontation in Eagle Pass (and more broadly on the southern Texas/US border) is a brazen attempt by Abbot and his Republi-fascist Party to undercut the authority of the federal government.
This is no small matter. For the first time in six decades, a US governor is defying the authority of the national government not merely with words but with the real threat of force. As Huffington Post reports:
“Abbott’s declaration that that the Biden administration had ‘broken the compact between the United States and the States’ by failing to ‘fulfill the duties’ of protecting Texas from an ‘invasion’ is an eerie echo of the political thought that gave rise to nullification and secession in the 19th century and resistance to desegregation in the 20th.”
The Texas Military Department and its far-right commander Abbott are defying not just the US president but also the US Supreme Court, itself divided along with the entire US judiciary between fascist and nonfascist elements. Three days ago, a divided high court issued a one-page order directing Texas’s fascist governor to let federal forces into Eagle Pass while a lawsuit over the matter between the Department of Homeland Security and Texas carries on in lower courts.
The order removed an injunction imposed by the Fifth Circuit US Court of Appeals, which forbade federal authorities from removing the barriers at Eagle Pass. The Fifth Circuit is a notorious Federalist Society bastion of Christian Republi-fascism, closely allied with Abbott’s war on abortion, civil rights, and immigration, and with “red” (try brown as in brownshirts) Republi-fascist states effort to challenge the power of the supposedly leftist (LOL) federal government. .
The Supreme Court’s order was opposed by four of its five Christian fascist members: Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Only Amy Coney-Barrett held back.
Abbott and his party’s overlord Herr Trump could give a flying fuck about rulings that contravene their neo-Nazi Amerikaner-fascist agenda. Fresh from big caucus and primary victories in Iowa and New Hampshire – clear demonstrations that the formerly republican and now Republi-fascist Party is his plaything three years after January 6 – the now openly Hitlerian Trump channels Mein Kampf by calling his “Marxist” political enemies “vermin” and saying that nonwhite immigrants “poison the blood of our country.” He is quite naturally aligned with his fellow far-right nativist Abbott, who packs migrants into buses and dumps them in blue state cities.
Recall that Trump as US president told US Border Patrol agents that he’d pardon them if they shot asylum-seekers, called for electrified border fences, and told one of his hate rallies that he loved the image of migrants running in fear from “big snarling German Shepherds.”
Meanwhile, with white nationalist Fatherland/FOX News putting on Republi-fascist politicos absurdly accusing Biden of being “allied with the big Mexican drug cartels” (!) the Malignant Orange Menace is using his grip over the Republi-fascist party to make the far right-controlled US House block Senate Republicans from “working with Democrats” to secure a “deal” the upper chamber’s Republicans call “a once-in-a-generation opportunity for a conservative border security bill.” So what if the fascism-appeaser Joe Biden is ready to conciliate the rightmost major party’s border revanchism to keep the American Empire properly equipped for fomenting war and genocide abroad? Dear Leader Donald demands the denial of any perceived bipartisan victories for his 2024-25 presidential opponent. The Trumpified House Republi-fascists’ mission is to prevent any “normal” parliamentary resolution on this and other issues, feeding chaos meant to grease the skids for Donald “Take Down the Metal Detectors” Trump’s return to power.
Don’t look for Biden to do what Dwight Eisenhower did when Arkansas’ racist Governor Orval Faubus defied federal rulings on public school desegregation in 1957: send in the US military to demonstrate the supreme power of federal over state government. “Genocide” Joe is a brazen backer of fascism in Israel/Palestine and a chickenshit appeaser of fascism in the United States. He will not likely heed the call of some Texas Democrats for him to (in Yahoo News’ words) “seize control of the Texas National Guard and make it comply with a recent Supreme Court order allowing the president’s administration to remove razor wire set up by Texas along the U.S.-Mexico border.” That’s just not who Weimar Joe Biden is, as we have seen in many instances including his despicably lame response to the Supreme Court decision ending women’s constitutional right to an abortion.
Meanwhile and as usual, nobody “red” or blue in the mainstream US media and politics culture says one word about the historical-material taproot of the southern border crisis: US-led capitalism-imperialism’s longstanding and ongoing bipartisan ruination of the lives of masses of human beings in Central and South America.
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DeSantis pledges 1,000 Florida National Guard troops in support of Texas Gov. Abbott’s anti-migrant campaign
A guardsman walks on rail cars with concertina wire along the Texas-Mexico border, Jan. 3, 2024, in Eagle Pass, Texas. [AP Photo/Eric Gay]
On Thursday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that he would authorize the deployment of up to 1,000 Florida National Guard soldiers to Texas. The move was in support of Donald Trump’s election campaign and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s war on immigrants and usurpation of federal authority over the US/Mexico border.
Flanked by dozens of Florida state troopers, DeSantis called for the states to “band together.” He promoted the Republican Party’s propaganda line that the flow of refugees across the southern border constitutes a foreign “invasion,” and pledged to “stop the invasion once and for all.”
DeSantis said the goal of the deployment was to help “Texas fortify the border, add barriers, and wire.” He also revealed that for the first time, Florida’s recently created civilian military force, the Florida State Guard, would be deployed outside the state, going to Texas to reinforce Abbott’s border mission.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at a town hall meeting in Eagle Pass, Texas, Monday, June 26, 2023. [AP Photo/Eric Gay]
Last week, in a 5–4 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled that federal Customs and Border Protection agents could remove concertina wire installed by the Texas National Guard along the Rio Grande River in order to gain access to the river and process migrants seeking to cross into the US. The Biden Justice Department had filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court to lift an injunction against US border agents taking down razor wire that had been imposed by a Texas state court and upheld by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Abbott had ordered barbed wire strung and buoys placed in the Rio Grande in defiance of federal immigration authorities. This was in line with his mobilization of the Texas National Guard to seize control of the border and block the US Border Patrol from gaining access.
In making his announcement on deploying Florida National Guard soldiers to Texas, DeSantis is joining virtually the entire Republican Party in thumbing his nose at the Supreme Court decision and challenging the authority of the Biden administration. The predominant political narrative of the GOP is that Biden and the Democrats are refusing to enforce immigration laws in order to abet an “invasion” of future Democratic voters.
Following the Supreme Court decision last week, Trump implored governors on his social media account to “deploy their guards” to Texas.
“We encourage all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of illegals, and to them remove back across the Border,” Trump wrote. Trump promised that on “Day One” of his second term he would work “hand in hand with Governor Abbott and other Border States to Stop the Invasion, Seal the Border, and Rapidly Begin the Largest Domestic Deportation Operation in History. Those Biden has let in should not get comfortable because they will be going home.”
In a letter released Friday, 24 out of 25 Republican members of Texas’ US House delegation encouraged Abbott to “hold the line against the Biden Administration and continue to do everything you can to protect our Southern Border.” They thanked Abbott for his “resolve” and pledged to stand with him “against this illegal alien invasion enabled by cartels and the Biden Administration.”
Far from an invading army, the vast majority of migrants coming to the US are leaving everything behind in the hopes of achieving the “American dream.” Unable to make a decent living in their home countries, or facing the threat of gang violence and political persecution, many have no choice but to make the perilous and dangerous journey, often from countries that have been devastated by US-backed coups, sanctions or military occupation.
Thursday’s announcement by DeSantis is just the latest in a series of troop deployments Republican governors have authorized in the last year in furtherance of Abbott’s anti-immigrant Operation Lone Star. Last week, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office confirmed to Newsweek that the state had already deployed 100 National Guard troops in support of Lone Star. A spokesperson for North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum confirmed to Newsweek that “125 soldiers from the 817th Engineer Company” were currently deployed to the border.
Several other governors have dispatched troops to Texas since Abbott initiated Operation Lone Star in 2021. Last summer, Govs. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Arkansas) and Kristi Noem (South Dakota) deployed 80 and 50 National Guard soldiers to the Texas-Mexico border, respectively. Sixty-one soldiers from the Nebraska National Guard were also deployed last year to the border.
DeSantis’ announcement came one day after Republicans on the House Homeland Security Committee voted to advance articles of impeachment against Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Despite the fact that under Mayorkas the DHS has deported and incarcerated immigrants at similar rates to those under Trump, Republicans have accused the secretary, the son of a Cuban Jew, and President Joe Biden of purposely planning an “invasion” of “illegal aliens” to “replace” native-born Americans.
Far from defending the democratic rights of immigrants or pushing back on this neo-Nazi “invasion” narrative, the Biden administration is doing everything in its power to appease its “Republican colleagues” in the hopes of securing the necessary votes to pass a $110 billion national security supplemental package that includes, most importantly for the Biden White House, over $61 billion in military aid to Ukraine for the war against Russia. The bill also includes $14 billion for Israel, currently engaged in genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, as well as billions for Taiwan to prepare for war with China and $14 billion to hire more US border police and expand the surveillance state.
The Republicans have balked at providing funding for Ukraine unless it is paired with billions more for the border police and the virtual abolition of the right to claim asylum in the United States. More than willing to throw millions of immigrants and their families under the bus in order to secure money for war, the Biden White House, along with senators from both parties, has agreed to a border deal that would provide “extraordinary tools for President Trump,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said earlier this week.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) told reporters on Thursday that the text of the border bill would likely be released this weekend and a vote in the Senate scheduled for next week. However, it is increasingly unlikely that the bill will become law, as House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Trump sycophant, signaled he would not bring it up for a vote in the House after Trump came out against the measure last week.
Many of Trump’s Republican allies have lent their support to a far-right “Take Your Border Back” convoy. The convoy is composed of the same human dust that participated in the January 6, 2021, coup and the aborted “People’s Convoy” against COVID-19 mitigation measures in the spring of 2022.
Participants in the convoy, which as of this writing include a few hundred fascists, Christian nationalists, Republican politicians and militia elements, held a rally on Thursday in Dripping Springs, Texas, about 220 miles east of the contested border town of Eagle Pass.
Speakers at the rally included several current and former Republican officials such as former Alaska governor and John McCain’s vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Texas State Rep. Carrie Isaac, and Chris Burr, a board member of the Republican Party of Texas. Several aspiring Republican politicians also spoke at the rally, including Victor Avila, a candidate for Texas’ 23rd District and former Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
Devin Burghart, executive director of Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, reported that during his speech, Avila revealed he had been endorsed by Ret. Gen. Michael Flynn, one of Trump’s top co-conspirators in the failed coup. Avila promised, if elected, to “start removing people,” adding that “it’s gonna be very difficult to get at 35 million illegals, but it’s gonna be one at a time, one at a time.”
Another ally in Trump’s coup plot and underling of Flynn, Ivan Raiklin, also spoke at the rally. Raiklin was the source of the “Pence card” memorandum that argued that then-Vice President Mike Pence had the authority to unilaterally reject electoral college votes from states Trump lost. Burghart reported that in his speech Raiklin ranted about “rooting out domestic enemies” and crushing “commies.”
One of the last speakers, Michael Yon, delivered an outright antisemitic screed that was virtually identical to the statements issued by gunman Robert Bowers prior to the Tree of Life Synagogue massacre. In his speech, Yon, a former Green Beret who was outside the Capitol building on January 6, claimed that a “main funder” of illegal immigration “is actually HIAS… The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. Jewish. Right?”
On Gab, the preferred social media network of neo-Nazis and white supremacists, Yon posted that Secretary Mayorkas “was a HIAS board member … before he came to higher position in US Government invasion operations. Mayorkas is himself a migrant and a traitor. Much as Hitler was.”
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Protest Convoy Headed to Southern Border Is Calling Itself an ‘Army of God’
Experts say that the Christian nationalist rhetoric adds a dangerous dimension to the standoff between Texas and the Federal Government.
A trucker convoy of “patriots” is heading to the U.S. border with Mexico next week, as the standoff between Texas and the federal government intensifies. The organizers of the “Take Our Border Back” convoy have called themselves “God’s army” and say they’re on a mission to stand up against the “globalists” who they claim are conspiring to keep U.S. borders open and destroy the country.
“This is a biblical, monumental moment that’s been put together by God,” one convoy organizer said on a recent planning call. “We are besieged on all sides by dark forces of evil,” said another. “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the sons of God. It is time for the remnant to rise.” (The remnant, from the Book of Revelation, are the ones who remain faithful to Jesus Christ in times of crisis).
Experts say that the Christian nationalist overtones in this rhetoric adds a dangerous dimension to an already fraught situation.
“When people believe that they are working on behalf of God, they might be willing to resort to relatively extreme measures,” said Ruth Braunstein, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut and author of “Prophets and Patriots: Faith in Democracy Across the Political Divide.” ”And so you have a politically volatile situation that could become much more so, in part because of this rhetoric.”
The organizers current plan is for the convoy to depart Virginia Beach on Monday and snake down through the southeast, stopping over in Jacksonville, Florida before making its way to several stops along the border. The convoy will then split up for separate rallies on Feb. 3, one near Eagle Pass, Texas, a second in Yuma, Arizona, and a third in San Ysidro, California.
A group of six patriot-world influencers, including Kim Yeater, who runs a self-empowerment self-help group and an anti-voter fraud group, started organizing the convoy around a month ago. “God’s army is rising up,” she said on the planning call. “We all have been chosen for this time.”
"God’s army is rising up," said Kim Yeater, one of the convoy organizers, on a planning call
The convoy was originally intended to send a message to the Biden Administration: “Secure Our Borders.” Its website calls on “all active & retired law enforcement and military, veterans, mama bears, elected officials, business owners, ranchers, truckers, bikers, media and LAW ABIDING, freedom-loving Americans,” to join the cause.
But recent events have significantly raised the stakes for the convoy. Two weeks ago the Texas National Guard seized control of Shelby Park in Eagle Pass, Texas—an epicenter of unauthorized border crossings—and erected razor wire around it, effectively limiting Border Patrol’s access to the area. It was an act of aggression in a simmering dispute between Texas and the federal government over who has jurisdictional authority over the border.
Days later, a migrant woman and two children drowned while attempting to cross the Rio Grande into Eagle Pass. The Biden Administration claimed that the Texas National Guard prevented Border Patrol from saving them, which Texas has denied.
Earlier this week, the Supreme Court ruled that the federal government—not Texas—had authority over the border, and that Border Control could cut down the razor wire. Texas has since doubled down on erecting razor wire, and officials said that they plan to “hold the line.” Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote a letter accusing the federal government of “breaking its compact between the United States and the States.” At least 16 Republican governors say they support him, as Biden faces calls from some Democrats to “federalize” the Texas national guard, which would remove it from Abbott’s command.
Retired military commander Pete Chambers gives a rundown of the situation in Eagle Pass, Texas, during a planning call for the convoy
These latest developments have aroused civil war fantasies on fringe forums, as well as on the social media accounts of GOP lawmakers and right-wing political commentators. On Thursday, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Newsmax host Carl Rigbie mused about the possibility of a “force-on-force conflict” erupting between the federal government and the Texas National Guard, The Daily Beast reported.
And this all means that the border convoy is garnering more interest than it might have done a couple of weeks ago.
The convoy’s crowdfunder on GiveSendGo has raked in more than $30,000 just this week, totaling nearly $50,000 by Friday morning. “Once willing to die defending this country, now willing to die protecting my family from what this country has become,” said one donor, who identified himself as a Navy vet. “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes,” wrote another.
Thousands of dollars rolled in on Wednesday, when Infowars’ Alex Jones interviewed one of the organizers, Pete Chambers, a former military commander who says he was a green beret. “There’s a war literally happening now for America,” Jones said.
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“We’re at 1774 right now,” said Chambers. He later drew a comparison with the Biblical story of Gideon’s Army; in the Book of Judges, the army’s faith in God allowed them to prevail over their enemy despite being vastly outnumbered.
Ads for the convoy have gone up on 40 digital billboards in Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and California, courtesy of a “private donor” whose identity organizers would not disclose.
In an interview with VICE News, organizer Scotty Saks, who is the host of “Sovereign Radio,” said the convoy has nothing to do with the ongoing fight between Texas and the feds. “We’re not really focused on that,” said Saks. “We’re staying the course about making this peaceful assembly as large as we can make it, to make a statement to federal, state, local officials that we don’t want open borders.”
But the temperature continues to rise around Texas’s border with Mexico. On Thursday evening, former president and current GOP frontrunner Donald Trump weighed in, calling on “all willing states to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of illegals.”
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With all this happening in the background, Saks, who is running PR for the convoy, may struggle to keep the demonstration contained and on message. Word of the convoy is spreading online—not as a straightforward border protest, but a massive show of support for Abbott. “Freedom Convoy to Aid Texas in Border Security as Abbott Defies Feds” declared conservative blog Headline USA. “Truckers Convoy Heads to Texas to Put a Stop to Biden’s Border Madness” wrote another right-wing blog.
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Saks stressed that the convoy and rallies are supposed to be peaceful demonstrations, but acknowledged that not everyone coming may be on the same page.
“We realize we may have infiltrators. There may be some people who try to subvert us, who jump in the convoy—provocateurs. We may have some, and they’re going to have to deal with our security team, they'll be asked to leave,” Saks told VICE News. “We won’t tolerate anyone brandishing a weapon or starting trouble, or making this more than what it’s supposed to be.”
We’re not going to make waves…This is just to make a statement, have music, pray,” Saks added. “It's only a call to arms if the people around us make it a call to arms.”
In a Friday morning appearance on Fox Business, GOP Congressman from Texas Keith Self, who has promoted the convoy, suggested that as many as 700,000 vehicles could participate and echoed organizers, saying it is intended to be a peaceful demonstration.
Saks says that organizers have been in contact with local law enforcement along the convoy routes and in rally locations. Additionally, the rallies will take place on private property, which he says will empower event security to remove any troublemakers. The locations for the Arizona and California rallies haven’t been posted yet.
The Texas rally is taking place in Quemado, about a 25-minute drive from Eagle Pass, at the “Children’s Cornerstone Ranch,” which provides ministerial services to kids.
Some have suggested online that the convoy is a “psyop,” stacked with undercover agents, designed to lure well-meaning “patriots” into a violent event—which is what a quarter of Americans believe happened with the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
“Don’t go. Remember Jan 6th. Don’t fall for it again,” a user wrote on the far-right forum patriots.win.” I don’t care how peacefully you assemble. Some Fed will instigate violence and MAGA will be blamed for it. If one shot is fired, everything is over. You know it will be fired.”
But the narratives inherent to Christian nationalism offer moral justification for engaging in violence, says Braunstein, and in the context of the escalating drama over the border, that makes some of the organizers’ rhetoric concerning. Braunstein cited polling by Public Religion Research Institute finding that nearly a third of Republicans believe that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country.”
The same study found that number jumped by ten percentage points when combined with Christian Nationalist ideology, and belief in racist “replacement theory” that suggests that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.”
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The ‘God’s Army’ Convoy Says Militias Can Join But No Big Guns, Please
Organizers of the convoy have tried to distance themselves from extremist elements, but their own militia connections are making it hard.
A member of Constitutional Patriots New Mexico Border Ops Team militia is pictured on patrol at the US-Mexico border near Mt. Christo Rey in Sunland Park, New Mexico on March 20, 2019. (PhotPAUL RATJE/AFP via Getty Images)
The “God’s army” convoy making its way to the southern border is definitely not a militia, and wants absolutely nothing to do with militias or other extremists.
Except, that is, for the militias and extremists who are joining up with the convoy—and the organizers who have extensive ties to militias and the patriot movement.
On Wednesday, someone identifying themselves as a member of the Nebraska Constitutional Militia announced on the convoy’s channel on Zello, a walkie-talkie app, that they’ll be at the border this weekend. “We’re there to support you guys. Any help you guys need, let us know,” they said, adding that they intend to stay peaceful. John Walz, a candidate for the Nebraska House, announced on his social media that he’s joining up with the Nebraska Constitutional Militia, and will convene with convoys for rallies on the weekend.
Another person on Zello indicated that a militia from California was planning to join the convoy. The militia in question did not respond to VICE News’ request for comment. Someone else on the channel identified themselves as a member of a 3% militia group, and asked if it was still OK for him to join up.
Although organizers previously described themselves “not militia friendly,” they’ve changed their tune a bit. One of the admins for the Zello channel said that it was fine for the militias to come, but only if they remained peaceful. They added that “side arms” were welcome, but said militia members should plan to leave their guns in their vehicles during Saturday’s rally. Organizers have also asked people to leave their long guns at home.
Militia and extremist involvement is just the latest development in the potential slow-rolling PR nightmare convoy organizers have been scrambling to prevent this week. Six patriot-world influencers organized the convoy over a month ago—weeks before simmering tensions between Texas and the Biden Administration erupted into a standoff and drove intense interest in the convoy.
Those organizers seem to be doing what they can to distance themselves from any possible messiness, such as violence or bad optics, that could unfold at the border in the days or even weeks ahead.
They’ve been trying to temper expectations, repeatedly stating, for example, that the convoy is not going to the border: Instead, they say it will rally at the Cornerstone Children’s Ranch, a 10-acre private property in Quemado, 20 miles from Eagle Pass, which is the epicenter of the standoff. Organizers plan to hold a “spiritual revival” on Saturday. Some convoy participants have expressed confusion and disappointment over the location and planned activities. “I would love to see a million Americans show up at the border and link arms, but that’s just me,” streamer Oreo Express said on their livestream on Thursday.
“Nobody associated with this convoy is going to Eagle Pass, period,” said Kim Yeater, one of the organizers, on Zello on Wednesday. “There is no desire to conflict with the National Guard, or interrupt their operations or anything.”
“I would rather see the convoy stay away from the border, but just bring attention to it,” Yeater said. It’s worth noting that although the Cornerstone Children’s Ranch is 20 minutes from Eagle Pass, it’s about 500 feet from the border with Mexico.
Additional rallies will take place simultaneously at private properties in Yuma, Arizona, and San Ysidro, California. On Thursday, a group split off from the main convoy, which is currently in Dripping Springs, Texas, around 23 miles east of Austin, and headed to Yuma. A pep rally is planned at a brewery in Dripping Springs on Thursday night.
Organizers have suggested that there may be separate groups of protesters or convoys who will rally in Eagle Pass, but it’s not clear who those groups are. Last week, Joshua Feuerstein, a radical far-right preacher and GOP candidate for the Texas House, announced on social media that he was ready and willing to lead “an armed civilian militia to the border” though it’s unclear where those plans currently stand. Meanwhile, a self-described “progressive evangelical group” is also heading to Eagle Pass, with the goal of countering the Christian nationalist rhetoric of the “God’s Army” convoy.
For all their attempts to pre-emptively whitewash the event and separate themselves from any extremist elements, some organizers have indicated previously that they had no qualms about buddying up with militias.
Devin Burghart, Executive Director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights, has been cataloging evidence of one of the organizers’ extensive ties to the militia movement. Burghart surfaced a December conversation between organizer Johnathon Alexander and Take Our Border Back Steering Committee member Mark Anthony, in which they discussed the need for Trump to “call up the militias” and deploy them to the border.
Alexander has also been photographed over the years wearing various militia uniforms, sharing videos from militia training events, and posing for photos with known militia members and anti-government extremists, including Ammon Bundy.
Extremist leader Mike Forzano, who goes by “Mike America” on social media, has also taken on a leadership role for the convoy and rally, though he doesn’t appear to be an official organizer. He heads a southern California group called “Exiled Patriots,” and has brawled with leftist protesters, shown up to rallies armed with knives, and spearheaded violent anti-LGBTQ rallies that brought together Proud Boys and white supremacists.
Forzano released a video Wednesday laying out rules for this weekend’s rally, and says that for the last few days he’s been staying at the ranch where the convoy will take place.
And, one of the admins for the Zello channel is AJ Andrews, who identifies himself as the founder of the National Patriots Coalition, a 3% group. Andrews ran communications for a massive pro-gun rally in Richmond, Virginia, in January 2020, according to a report by On The Media’s Micah Loewinger.
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