Tens of thousands protest Trump’s fascism and imperialist plans

Members of the Communist Party USA and Young Communist League march in Washington on Jan. 18. | Courtesy of CPUSA

WASHINGTON—Republican President-elect Donald Trump’s fascism and his planned policies led tens of thousands of persons into the streets nationwide on January 18, two days before Trump’s presidential inauguration.

Their warnings: Trump is targeting women’s reproductive rights, LGBT people, political “enemies,” migrants—especially migrants of color—and the very existence of trans people.

The “People’s March” in D.C., with the former Women’s March at its center, drew advocates of a wide range of causes besides the headlined threats. “Our freedom, our future. We’re not going back,” read one big banner—-a common theme.

“It’s equal rights, as simple as that,” one woman from Columbus, Ohio, told People’s World.

There was also a lot of personal criticism of Trump. “President Felon,” read one handwritten sign. Another, adapting a saying from the Vietnam War protests of the 1960s, read “Trump is not healthy for plants and other living things,” complete with that sign’s daisy.

Another woman’s sign referred to Trump’s declaration he “would be a dictator on Day One.”

Her sign’s response: “Deport Trump/Drumpf back to Germany”—his father’s land—“on Day 1.” She shook her head and smiled but did not answer when asked if she thought Germany would take him back.

As dictatorial evidence, Trump’s staff prepared some 200 executive orders, many of them reversing Democratic Joe Biden administration policies, for him to immediately sign after taking the oath of office. They included release of those jailed for invading the Capitol and staging an attempted coup on Jan. 6, 2021and rollbacks of controls on carbon emissions which cause climate change and global warming.

More than 350 sister marches occurred in cities as large as New York (five marches) and Chicago (at least two) and one in downtown Philadelphia. They weren’t just in big blue cities and states. One was in deep-red Montana and another in even deeper-red Enid, Okla.

And 600 persons marched behind a Dixieland jazz band in Port Townsend, Wash., protesting Trump’s “anti-people policies” in general, People’s World former editor-in-chief Tim Wheeler reported.

D.C. organizers got a parade permit for 50,000 marchers. But temperatures began the day at 32 degrees and went down from there, cutting the size of the crowd down.

The point of this march, organizers said, was not just to show opposition to Trump and loathing for him personally, but to jump-start future organizing against his agenda and for positive causes, such as reproductive rights and combatting climate change, on the state and local level.

“At the People’s March, we are calling out the people who use their power to strip out our freedoms,” Women’s March President Rachel O’Leary Carmona told the D.C. crowd. “But before we fight for democracy, we have to fight our own despair. I have seen personally what can be done when we harness our defiance. Are we defiant today?” she asked twice. The crowd responded with cheers.

“That is how we take down fascists,” added Tamika Middleton, the Women’s March executive director who also served as emcee for other speakers and performers.

Middleton said the first step in the future organizing will be a mass zoom call the Women’s March will host on January 23. “Get the people’s toolkit. Please, get connected, join something,” she urged. Various causes set up tables, with literature and members to answer questions, along D.C.’s Mall.

A prominent cause among the marchers, at least in D.C., was a large group chanting “Palestine must be free.” It came on the eve of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.

The marchers still protested U.S. military aid to Israel. Majorities of both parties in Congress—but not the U.S. people, polls show—support the aid. “No more weapons, no more war. An arms embargo is what we’re for,” the marchers chanted.

And a big bedsheet banner led with the words “Starved, terrorized, killed.” Below were two pictures. On the left was the famous photo of Nazi soldiers marching a young Jewish child, hands on his head, off to the trains to take him to death camps. It was labelled “Warsaw, 1943.” The one on the right, with ruined buildings, read, “Gaza, 2024.”

Worker rights emphasized

One cause trumpeted in Chicago was worker rights.

The AFL-CIO did not formally endorse this march, unlike prior Women’s Marches. It also didn’t organize members to participate. Carol Rosenblatt, a News Guild member and former executive director of the Coalition of Labor Union Women, marched. So did five headquarters staffers from the National Domestic Workers Alliance and a busload of Service Employees members.

So did Faye Guenther, president of the activist 50,000-member UFCW Local 3000 in the Pacific Northwest. It just helped block a grocery mega-merger that would have created a monopoly there.

Guenther flew in from Idaho for the march.

“If we ORGANIZE and REBUILD the labor movement, we will win. If we want things to be different in four years, IF we all want to be able to say NO to the greedy whims of the corporate billionaire class, we MUST REBUILD THE labor movement.  A union, a union contract, organizing a union, striking when needed, is the answer to the crisis we FACE,” Guenther said in part. The punctuation is hers.

“WHY A UNION????  The decline in union DENSITY can be directly connected to the problems we face TODAY. Unions, even when they are not perfect, move us TOWARD economic equality AND protect democracy.

“Only 1 in 10 workers have a union today, but we could change that, and we could do it quickly, if we act together. All of you can join the labor movement’s fight for equality and democracy. When you get home, unionize your workplace!”

“I’m angry and I’m scared” about Trump’s trampling of minorities, one SEIU Twin Cities member told People’s World. “I have an LBGT member and several people of color” among her extended family. Her colleague, who works for a non-profit organization in Rochester, Minn., worried about “the impact of the oligarchs” Trump is importing into the government.

Middleton devoted more time to a civil rights cause, “Free D.C.,” demanding Congress and Trump make the Nation’s Capital the 51^st U.S. state. “Free D.C.” had its own flatbed truck in the march, with a woman with a megaphone leading chants. There was no mention, however, of statehood for the almost three million people living in Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking “commonwealth.”

Under Trump and the Republican-run Congress, D.C. statehood’s off the table. Indeed, at least three House Republicans filed legislation in the last Congress to strip D.C. of its already limited home rule.

The signs were many and varied, with most, plus chants, pointedly blasting Trump and many hitting his fascist plans. The most hilarious one was a coat worn by Milton, an English Springer Spaniel, led by his owner, a lawyer from Virginia.

Milton’s sign read: “If you’re a fa(s)cist, your dog doesn’t like you.” In the haste of painting the phrase, his owner left out the first “s.”

Another was “Our bodies are not your property,” directed at both misogynist Trump in particular and Republican anti-abortionists in general.

Use all of the power

“We have to use all our power to resist the fascist Trump,” one marcher told People’s World. “If it takes coming up for arrest, that’s what I’d do.”

Referring to Trump’s vice-president, who was an Ohio senator, “We’re partially responsible for J.D. Vance,” admitted Scott, from Columbus, Ohio, who declined to give his last name. “And we’re trying to make sure that concerned people have both visibility and accountability” on various national, state and local issues.

“We recognize the danger Trump poses,” he added. “In Columbus, we have one of the highest rates in the country of police brutality, even higher than Chicago.” On the campaign trail in all three of his presidential runs, Trump has advocated turning cops loose, especially on protesters and people of color.

Trump’s “platform,” the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, goes even further. “Until there is…a massive shrinking of the administrative state” and complete and unfettered state and local control of law enforcement, “conservatives cannot unilaterally disarm and fail to use the power of government to further a conservative agenda,” it states. For “conservative” read the old Nixon slogan of “law ‘n order.”

Cops, of course, have a long-standing and nasty reputation of using government power to further a conservative—read “corporate”—agenda against workers and unions, too.

“We’re also fighting to keep Cuba of the ‘state sponsors of terrorism’ list,” Scott added. Just hours before, departing Democratic President Joe Biden removed that designation. Trump, who caters to the right-wing Cubans who now rule key Miami-Dade County in Florida, is expected to put it back on. “We’d like to see Trump keep them off” the list, said Scott.

And yet another declared: “Remember January 6, 2021. Never forget,” referring to the Trump-ordered U.S. Capitol invasion, insurrection and attempted coup d’etat to overthrow his 2020 loss to Biden.

“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty,” read another sign, quoting Dr. Martin Luther King. It was one of many King citations on handwritten signs during the march. This year, Trump’s January 20 inauguration coincided with the official King birthday federal holiday.

In an email, the Office and Professional Employees chose to honor Dr. King, and not mention the inauguration.

“Honoring Dr. King’s legacy means continuing the unfinished fight against racism and poverty until both are eradicated from American society. By continuing to organize, OPEIU works each and every day to bring about a future where all working people are treated with dignity,” it said.

It’s thinking about injustice and resistance that prompted the protests around the U.S.

“The choice is between a future rooted in fascism or a future rooted in feminism. Now let’s get to work,” Carmona closed.

PWW correspondent Taryn Fivek contributed the UFCW material for this story.

We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!

---

CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.