Anthony Boynton is largely correct about what has happened. The 
Trump/Vance/Musk Triumvirate are moving to reverse the entire "administrative 
state" that was instituted initially by the FDR administration. They are giving 
the capitalists a completely free hand, while using all forms of bigotry to 
hide behind these policies.

Boynton says, however, that resistance in the streets is growing. Maybe he 
knows something that I don't know. I have read some reports of a few protests, 
mainly of Latinos in Los Angeles, but at least here in the SF Bay area the 
movement in the streets is almost nonexistent. I went to a protest organized by 
the liberal group "Indivisible" yesterday. Here ( 
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2025/02/12/indivisible-protests-trump-musk-in-oakland/
 ) are a few photos. This was a weekly vigil these people have and I'd say 
there were about 30 people there. Shortly after Trump was inaugurated there was 
a protest ( 
https://oaklandsocialist.com/2025/01/19/protest-against-trump-in-san-francisco/ 
) in S.F. attended by about 2,000, largely the liberal crowd. There was 
recently a protest in S.F. by the Putin apologist group ANSWER and I was told 
about one or two hundred attended. (Now, after having spent the entire election 
period campaigning against Harris with hardly a whisper about Trump, these left 
hypocrites are thumping the tub about deportations, etc.) I am in touch with 
people in several E. coast cities and they tell me almost nothing is happening.

Meanwhile, the unions are typically totally missing in action. Boynton mentions 
the role of the Democrats, but we should not forget the role of the union 
leaders. As we know, Sean O'Brien, Teamster president, essentially supported 
Trump. Sean Fain, that great hope of the left, including several prominent 
socialists, recently penned a column in the WA. Post "I 'm President of the 
UAW. We're ready to work with Trump ( 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/01/19/shawn-fain-uaw-trump-trade/ 
)." And the AFL-CIO typically issues a few statements "in solidarity" with 
immigrants, and does absolutely nothing.

Trump appears to be extremely powerful, but he is actually extremely 
vulnerable. Undocumented immigrant workers, including farm workers, are 
starting to stay away from work out of fear of being deported. What would it 
take for the unions to mobilize those members who oppose Trump (and in many 
cases they'd be the minority) to go out to the fields, the meat packing houses 
and food processing plants with a call to go on immediate strike and their 
supporters will man the picket lines for them? What would it take to demand 
immediate end to deportations, immediate citizenship for all workers, union 
rights, a $30 per hour minimum wage, etc.? This would start to get an echo in 
the wider working class while at the same time empty out the grocery store 
shelves in a matter of days.

In the absence of this sort of approach, I think the best we can hope for is 
something like the French Yellow Vest movement.

John Reimann


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