SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
fascism
How to Fight Trump Without Caving to Corporatists
Can the progressive movement display leadership and vision in forming a united front at a time when those qualities seem to be lacking elsewhere?
May 19, 2025
RICHARD ESKOW: In a recent column you asked, “What’s preventing a united front against the Trump regime?” You say, “America desperately needs a united front to restrain the wrecking ball of the Trump regime.” I get the “wrecking ball,” but why do we need a united front? What’s wrong with a multi-pronged approach from various groups and actors?
NORMAN SOLOMON: There’s a serious lack of coordination at the political level. The Democratic Party is a constellation of 50-plus state and other local parties, and there are many organizations which are—or should be—independent of the party.
To the extent there is any governing body, it's the Democratic National Committee. The DNC should provide leadership at times like these. But there’s still no leadership, several months into a second Trump regime that’s much worse than the first. There's energy to oppose, but it’s uncoordinated.
Rethinking the Left and the Party
ESKOW: Here’s a challenge. For too long, the American left looked to the Democratic Party for leadership and guidance instead of considering it an instrument that’s available to movements. I think a lot of people assume that “a united front” against Trump means making the left fall in line yet again behind the institutional party’s corporate, so-called “centrist” politicians.
SOLOMON: It’s dubious, and not very auspicious, to follow “leadership” that isn’t leading. I think your word “instrument” is an excellent one. The left should consider the Democratic Party a tool that not only can be used but, under this electoral system, must be used to stop the right and advance progressive causes. No other party can win federal elections and stop what has become a neo-fascist Republican Party.
Most of the people who serve as administrative or elected Democrats consider social movements subordinate to their electoral work. They see progressives—the grassroots activists, the ones with deep concerns, who do research, who communicate, who organize in local communities, who provide hope—as fuel for them to win elections.
That's backward. Campaigns and candidates should be subordinated to progressive social movements, not the other way around. That's how we win. Change doesn't come from the top. The great advances—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, antiwar, gay rights, civil rights, women's rights, reproductive freedom—came from people who weren’t held into check by the party apparatus. They came from the grassroots, the social movements.
Big Money, Big Problems
ESKOW: Progressives inside the party have told me how complicated it is to work within the party. Each state party has its own rules and its own representatives to the DNC, and there are also other appointed members and other centers of power. They’re up against complex machinery whenever they try to change anything.
Worse, the party allows dark money in its primaries and is heavily reliant on it in general elections. Party operatives—thousands of them, in think tanks and consulting firms and so on—depend on that money for their livelihood.
Kamala Harris raised more money than perhaps any candidate in history. I think that money actually hurt her. It dissuaded her from saying the things she needed to say to win, whether she meant them or not.
How can a popular front incorporate and influence a party that’s dominated by big donors? Isn't that the elephant in the room?
SOLOMON: Well, certainly the money is huge, but we want to be realistic without being defeatists. With the state supreme court election in Wisconsin a few weeks ago, Elon Musk literally tried to buy the election and failed. That was a victory against the tide of big money. But yes, money typically correlates with victory.
I attended the DNC’s so-called Unity Reform Commission meetings in 2017, when the power of the Bernie Sanders forces was at high ebb. The party’s centrists, corporatists, and militarists felt it necessary to give the left some seats on that commission. But they kept a voting majority, which they used to kill some important reforms for transparency and financial accountability.
Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, who was then the Clinton-aligned chair, helped defeat those proposals. And what happened to her? She became deputy chief of staff in the Biden White House, then effectively ran Biden’s reelection campaign. And, after Biden belatedly pulled out and left chaos behind, suddenly Jen O’Malley Dillon was running the Harris campaign.
As you said, a lot of money was sloshing around. It’s hard to spend a billion dollars-plus in a few months and not have a lot of pockets being lined. Lots of it goes to consultants who broker deals, hire other consultants, and arrange TV advertising. They love advertising because it's easy and you don't have to relate to people. (Note: Many consultants are also paid a percentage of each ad buy.)
Meanwhile, we heard afterwards that African-American organizers in places like Philadelphia had been asking Where's our help? Where are our resources?—while TV stations in their states were filled with Harris ads.
That’s not to villainize Jen O’Malley Dillon. She's just an example. Certain people will always win. They’ll always make tons of money, no matter what happens on Election Day.
Would the Party Rather Lose Than Change?
ESKOW: Let me underscore that point about insiders. I think they would all prefer winning to losing. I don't know anyone who’d rather lose. But their incentives are misaligned. There are times when, consciously or not, they feel there are worse things than losing. Take Bernie Sanders, whose policies and fundraising model threatened the Democratic ecosystem that feeds them. In a choice between winning with Bernie or losing—even to Trump—they’d rather lose. Their incentives make losing preferable to turning the party over to unruly Sanders types like—well, like you.
SOLOMON: I think that's a fair point. Remember, when Bernie was at high ebb in primaries, a lot of traditional Democrats on Wall Street and elsewhere were quoted as saying if Sanders is the nominee they might go with Trump.
Imagining a “Popular Front”
ESKOW: Let's try to envision a popular— well, I call it a “popular front.” I don't think others use that term, but I think of the wartime alliance under FDR that included everyone on the left—including Communists, socialists, mainstream labor, radical labor, moderate Democrats—everyone. From the radical left to the center, people made common cause against fascism. I think there is common cause again. You can see it in the threats to the judicial system, to media independence, educational independence, and other pillars of civil democracy. Those pillars were already tattered, and many are already broken, but what remains is endangered.
How can the left build that alliance without either surrendering leadership on its ideas or being subsumed by the “Vote Blue, no matter who” rhetoric that always gives us the same failed party leadership?
SOLOMON: It's a challenge. To use a word that might seem jargony, we should take a dialectical approach. We should look at these contrary, sometimes seemingly contradictory realities and see them all. Fred Hampton was a great young leader of the Black Panther Party, murdered with the collusion of the FBI and Chicago police. There’s video of him saying that nothing is as important as stopping fascism because fascism is gonna stop us all. Malcolm X said that if somebody is holding a gun on you, your first job is to knock the gun out of the hand.
The right is holding a gun on you. There are neoliberals and there are outright fascists. Neoliberalism is a poison. It’s a political economy that makes the rich ever richer and immiserates everybody else, while destroying the environment and creating more and more militarism. But the fascists are holding a gun to our head.
We have an opportunity to creatively acknowledge that two truths exist simultaneously in 2025. We have a responsibility and imperative to join with others to defeat this fascistic group, which means forming a de facto united front with militarists and corporatists. And, at the same time, we need to fight militarists and corporatists.
So, there we are.
A Time for Left-Populism
ESKOW: This may be blue-sky thinking, but it occurs to me that the progressive movement can display leadership and vision in forming that front, at a time when those qualities seem to be lacking elsewhere. It could build a broad alliance while simultaneously attracting people to the left’s ideas and leadership. We wouldn’t try to subordinate people to our will in this alliance, as has been done to us in the past. Instead, in this admittedly optimistic scenario, some people will be attracted by the left’s vision and leadership.
SOLOMON: Absolutely. One of the recent dramatic examples is AOC and Bernie going to state after state, often in deep red districts, and getting huge turnouts. In 2016’s primary, Bernie went to the red state of West Virginia and carried every county against Hillary Clinton.
These examples undermine the mainstream media cliches about left and right because they’re about populism. It's about whether people who are upset and angry—and a lot of people in this country are—are encouraged to kick down or kick up.
The right wing—the fascists, the militarists, the super pseudo masculinists—they love to kick down. That's virtually their whole program: attacking immigrants, people of color, women, people who have been historically shafted. Progressives should kick up against the gazillionaires and the wealthy power brokers who hate democracy.
ESKOW: That kind of populism resonates. Expanding Social Security resonates. Healthcare for everyone resonates. It resonates among self-described conservatives, Republicans, whatever, as well as liberals and progressives. We could be saying to people, “They’re distracting you. It's not trans kids who are ripping you off and making your life so miserable. It's those guys over there.”
It’s been striking to see how passive the party was in the face of this year’s onslaught, and how passive so much of it continues to be. The right got off to a running (or crawling) start on demolishing what remains of democracy. And yet, we were flooded with Democratic operatives like James Carville, who openly use the phrase “playing possum” when describing how the party should respond. Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader of the House, said we can't do anything because we don't have the votes. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer helped pass Trump’s budget.
It felt like the party leadership had wiped its hands and walked away from the catastrophe it helped create. People who want to fight Trump will also have to fight this inertia—even though many of the party’s presumptive presidential candidates are distinguishing saying, no, no, I'm going to come out swinging. I'm going to be the candidate who comes out swinging against the right.
I always tell people that if they’re going to work in Democratic Party politics, they should heed the biblical injunction about the world: be in it, but not of it. And I think that activists should go where their inclinations and their talents lead them. They should follow the path that calls out to them.
Working Inside the Party
ESKOW: But if people are called to do Democratic Party activism, what exactly does that look like, given what they’re up against? What’s the mechanism of activist involvement?
SOLOMON: I think the right wing has in the last decades been much more attentive and attuned to the reality that everybody in Congress is elected from somewhere else, not DC. You wouldn't know that when you talk with a lot of the Democrats and Democratic-aligned groups there. Some people in that bubble think that's where the action is, where power is wielded. But, as you say—to the extent we have democracy and there are still some democratic structures as of now—the action is in the grassroots, in communities.
There are well over 1,000 different congressional offices. Members of the House have district offices. They are, in a nonviolent way, sitting ducks to be confronted. Voters are facing questions of life and death, whether it's healthcare or the genocidal war on Gaza that the U.S. continues to arm, or so many other concerns. We could be confronting these people in Congress when they don't do what they should be doing.
Those folks are not gods. They should be confronted. And there's often a dynamic on the left where, if Congressperson X does some things that we appreciate and a couple of things that we think are terrible, there's a tendency to say, “Well, I appreciate the good things. I don't want to be mean just because I differ on one or two things.”
The right wing rarely takes that tack. They go to the mat. They fight for exactly what they believe. That’s been successful for them—very successful.
We have the chance to really make an impact right now. But we’re often told, “Cool your jets. You don't want to be divisive.” Bernie got a lot of that. AOC gets a lot of that. We’re told, “You don't want to be like the Tea Party from the last decade.” And the astute response is, “Oh, yeah, what a disaster. The Tea Party took over the Republican Party. That must have been just a terrible tactical measure.”
It's a way of being told to sit down and do what you're told. The right doesn't do that—maybe because, ironically, they have less respect for authority figures. We don't need deference to leaders who don't provide leadership.
Can We All Just Get Along?
ESKOW: On the right, the nastiness is directed against what was the institutional party establishment. But a lot of centrist Democrats, leaders and supporters alike, seem to get angriest at the left for bringing up certain ideas. It’s like we’re just like spitting in the punch bowl, that it's wrong and rude and who the hell do you think you are? The left has the ideas, but I also think we have to deal with a kind of professional/managerial class culture that can be quite hostile.
It feels like we have to say, “No, we're actually your friends, because a) we can help you and b) in your hearts, you want these things too. Don't be annoyed. We’re not ‘indulging ourselves’ by speaking up. We're helping.”
I struggle with that all the time. And I wonder what your thoughts are.
SOLOMON: That’s the corrosive culture of thinking the people in charge know best. That culture includes a substantial proportion of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. And it also happens because the financial and party pressures on elected officials are intense.
A few minutes ago I mentioned my admiration for Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and their anti-oligarchy tour. They've been great. But we should not erase the historical memory that, even after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate last summer and up until the day he withdrew from the race, Bernie Sanders was publicly adamant that Biden should stay in the race. AOC was adamant that Joe Biden should stay in the race.
That made no sense whatsoever. And as someone on the RootsAction team, that isn’t just hindsight. RootsAction launched the Don't Run Joe campaign at the end of 2022. You didn't have to be a rocket scientist or a political scientist to know that Joe Biden was incapable of running an effective campaign for reelection.
ESKOW: We also saw the Congressional Progressive Caucus leadership endorse Biden a year before the election, if I recall correctly.
SOLOMON: Oh, absolutely. The chair at the time, Pramila Jayapal, endorsed him two years ahead of the 2024 election day.
ESKOW: It’s also striking what wasn't said during those two years. We heard virtually nothing about Medicare for All, which went off the political radar. We didn't hear much about expanding Social Security. Joe Biden promised to expand it in the campaign and never said another word about it.
“Inside/Outside”
ESKOW: We could go on. But to me, and speaking of embracing contradictions, this speaks to the ongoing need for activists. Because here’s the ultimate irony for me about the phenomenon we've just described. Capitol Hill progressives, many of whom I respect, essentially replicated what party insiders did to them in 2015 and 2016 when they were told not to challenge Hillary Clinton.
SOLOMON: Good point.
ESKOW: It says to me we’ll always need outside activists pounding on the door, however annoying they may find us to be from time to time. It’s an “inside/outside” game.
SOLOMON: Jim Hightower said it's the agitator that gets the dirt out in the washing machine.
ESKOW: He also said there's nothing in the middle of the road except yellow lines and dead armadillos.
Call for an Emergency DNC Meeting
ESKOW: Let’s close with this. RootsAction has been calling for an emergency meeting of the DNC to address the crisis of fascism, or what I would join you in calling neo-fascism. What's the thinking there and what's the status of that?
SOLOMON: I think of a quote from James Baldwin. He said that not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed unless it's faced. We're in an emergency, and we're getting very little from what amounts to the party’s governing body, the Democratic National Committee—even acknowledging that it is an emergency. There's pretty much a business-as-usual ambience, although the rhetoric is ramped up.
The DNC, which has 448 members, normally meets twice a year. If, in the midst of emergency year 2025, you remain committed to meeting only twice a year, you're conveying something very profound. You’re communicating that you're not operating in the real world of an emergency.
That's where we are right now. So, in partnership with Progressive Democrats of America, RootsAction has launched a petition (which people can find at RootsAction.org) urging the DNC to hold an emergency meeting. People can still sign it. And we know that the chair of the DNC, who has the power to call such a meeting, knows full well about this petition.
But right now it’s still business as usual. So, I think we need to ramp up these demands.
ESKOW: And meanwhile the party is at historic levels of unpopularity. You'd think that’s one emergency they would recognize.
SOLOMON: One would think so. The latest polling showed only 27 percent of voters had a favorable view of the Democratic Party. You would think that one or two alarm bells would go off. Maybe the “same old, same old” isn't going to do it anymore.
The above dialogue was adapted from a discussion on The Zero Hour podcast.
Keep ReadingShow Less
How Donald Trump’s Legal Framework Mirrors the Historical Architectures of Genocide
The structural conditions that have historically preceded ethnic cleansing are now observable in the administration’s deportation efforts.
May 16, 2025
I have taught AP U.S. history for years, as well as Government and World History courses. I have written an original curriculum for Honors Economics. I coached successful Public Forum and Policy debate teams for five years. In addition to my professional experience, I am a close reader of both historical scholarship and current events. The conclusions that follow are drawn from a systematic comparison of this year’s immigration and due process developments with established patterns in the historical record.
The federal government is executing a coordinated legal and administrative campaign aimed at the identification, arrest, and removal of millions of undocumented immigrants. These efforts rely on expanded authority for military and federal agencies, the criminalization of municipal noncooperation, and the systematic dismantling of legal protections previously afforded to vulnerable populations. Though presented as standard immigration enforcement, the structure and language of these measures reflect a state-directed attempt to displace a racially and ethnically defined group. The legal apparatus includes provisions for indefinite detention, the arrest of elected officials, and the use of private contractors to operate beyond traditional channels of accountability.
These policies are not theoretical. They are codified in executive orders, agency directives, and prosecutorial actions. The stated goal exceeds the undocumented population, and enforcement does not rely on individualized findings of legal status. It is categorical. The administration describes its targets as “invaders” and “vermin” and frames sanctuary jurisdictions as criminal conspiracies. These terms do not function as rhetoric. They define policy. Laws criminalizing refusal to comply with deportation efforts are designed to eliminate legal and institutional resistance.
The most effective deterrent to escalation remains noncompliance at every level of implementation.
What follows is a chronology of recent actions taken or proposed during the second Trump administration, aligned with legal precedents from early Nazi Germany. These are not metaphors. Each section pairs language from contemporary United States policy with that of the 1930s German state, using identical structure and phrasing where historically appropriate. The purpose is to allow for clear legal comparison of governance models used to execute racialized mass removal.
In January 2025, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 14159 titled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” The order suspended habeas corpus protections for undocumented immigrants, expanded federal authority over sanctuary jurisdictions, and authorized indefinite detention and mass deputization of local police under 287(g) agreements.
On February 28, 1933, Adolf Hitler enacted the Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State. The decree suspended habeas corpus, granted the central government power over state authorities, and permitted indefinite detention and mass deputization of local police to suppress declared enemies of the state.
In April 2025, the Trump administration began removing civil servants based on prior involvement in diversity or civil rights programs. A directive issued April 2 targeted officials for dismissal or reassignment solely for ideological nonconformity.
On April 7, 1933, Hitler’s regime enacted the Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service. This measure removed Jews and political opponents from public office based on ancestry or beliefs and mandated reassignment or termination for ideological deviation.
In May 2025, the Department of Justice ordered the identification of state and local officials who refused to assist with federal immigration enforcement. These officials were targeted for prosecution under statutes related to obstruction and harboring.
In March 1933, the Nazi regime began detaining opposition party members and regional officials who resisted centralized directives. Local leaders were prosecuted or removed for obstructing enforcement of national laws.
In February 2025, the Trump administration revoked federal support for PBS and NPR and initiated reviews of media funding for ideological violations. The stated aim was to eliminate sources of disinformation and enforce loyalty to national priorities.
In March 1933, the Nazi government enacted the Editors Law, revoked press credentials from noncompliant outlets, and placed all broadcast content under state control. The purpose was to remove disloyal voices and ensure total ideological conformity.
In May 2025, a Wisconsin judge was arrested for allegedly aiding an undocumented immigrant. Federal officials warned that similar acts of judicial noncooperation could be prosecuted as subversion.
In July 1933, the Nazi regime dismissed judges deemed politically unreliable and established special courts. Judges who issued rulings contrary to regime policy were disciplined or removed.
In April 2025, Trump officials proposed turning military bases into detention centers for families without legal review. These facilities would be operated by private contractors under emergency protocols.
In June 1933, Nazi authorities converted military and industrial sites into concentration camps. The camps detained prisoners without court oversight and were run by SS forces under emergency powers.
In May 2025, the Department of Homeland Security announced it was considering the arrest of Democratic members of Congress who protested at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. They were accused of obstructing federal officers and interfering with detention protocols.
In March 1933, the Nazi regime arrested parliamentary members and accused them of obstructing national authority. Resistance to regime policy was criminalized as a threat to public order.
Trump has constantly proposed legislation to end birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents. His proposals aim to redefine legal membership in the national community.
In 1935, the Nazi regime enacted the Reich Citizenship Law. The law stripped Jews of citizenship and redefined the legal criteria for national belonging.
The current phase of the Trump administration’s immigration policy reflects an early stage rather than a peak of repression. The legal and operational structure for targeted mass removal is being assembled through executive orders, bureaucratic purges, and prosecutorial test cases that redefine the limits of federal authority.
The scale of proposed removals exceeds historical precedent but has not yet reached full execution. Institutional resistance is inconsistent but has not been eliminated. Local and state officials retain procedural leverage if they choose to apply it. The most effective deterrent to escalation remains noncompliance at every level of implementation.
The policy direction is explicit. Continued repression is not a possibility but a stated intention. The presence of Latino Americans in federal agencies and military institutions has not prevented policy targeting based on national origin or perceived foreignness. Participation does not provide exemption from removal. The structural conditions that have historically preceded ethnic cleansing are now observable. The determining factor will be whether enough people act before enforcement becomes normalized.
Keep ReadingShow Less
The Trumpian Nightmare Must End Before It Gets Worse
A fascist monster who demonizes migrants, exacts revenge on his perceived foes, actively destroys the rule of law, and whose real agenda is not “America First” but rather “Trump First” is in charge of today’s United States.
May 14, 2025
We are nearly four months into the Trump administration, but sometimes it feels like the orange man has been president forever. This is because Donald Trump’s second term is a nightmare that keeps getting worse and worse.
First, you have the chaos that Trump has unleashed around the world with his uninformed and simplistic views on international trade and trade policy and threats to Greenland, Canada, Panama, and Mexico; then his all-out assault on civil society and the very fundamental principles of U.S. democracy; and then the daily and exhausting bullshit that comes out of his ignorant mouth, which he uses as a diversion to distract citizens and the media alike from his actions.
But it is the horrible combination of lawlessness and incompetence, fear and cruelty of Trump 2.0 that creates the feeling that time has stopped. Time flies when things are good and we are having fun. But if we are in distress and pain, time slows down.
Trump is waging a war on the poor, seeks to destroy the environment, abuses power in order to target his enemies, and tears families apart with his mass deportation agenda precisely because he has a passion for cruelty.
Trump’s politics are repellant. They are straight out of the fascist playbook. They are dressed in fear and hate, cruelty and vengeance, with lies and corruption being both cause and effect of his leadership style.
Trump is using fear as a political tool with citizens, Congress, courts, business, universities, and the news industry. He uses denigrating and dehumanizing language to promote hate in order to create a divided United States.
Trump's anti-immigrant policies are rooted in racism and, sure enough, want to make eugenics great again. Offering special immigration status to white Afrikaners, on a refugee program that has essentially been suspended for all other groups, speaks volumes of who the orange man is and what he stands for.
But Trump’s signature is cruelty. Indeed, in Gaza, Trump did not see immense human suffering, let alone a genocide in the making, but “underdeveloped real estate,” as Robert Kutner so astutely observed. Trump is waging a war on the poor, seeks to destroy the environment, abuses power in order to target his enemies, and tears families apart with his mass deportation agenda precisely because he has a passion for cruelty.
Umberto Eco claimed that “there was only one Nazism.” But the great Italian scholar and best-selling author went on to add that “the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change.”
To be sure, a fascist monster who demonizes migrants, exacts revenge on his perceived foes, actively destroys the rule of law, and whose real agenda is not “America First” but rather “Trump First” is in charge of today’s United States.
I have no idea how the Trumpian nightmare is going to end. But it will surely get worse as time goes by if Americans do not rise up against the orange man’s fascist regime.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular