A man holds a an anti-leftist sign at a rally for Charlie Kirk in Lansing, Michigan, on September 15, 2025 [Emily Elconin/Reuters]
Charlie Kirk's assassination has become the pretext to accelerate a pre-existing fascist agenda. This crackdown targets a broad spectrum of dissent, from leftist organizers to mainstream institutions.
Originally published in CAARPR.
There have been many analyses that have been put forth that Trump and his minions represent an attempt at a fascist takeover at worst, and a turning back of the clock in terms of the trade union movement, the women’s movement, the Black liberation movement, every progressive movement that has occurred in the United States over the last couple of centuries at best. They’re attempting to turn back the clock on all of those movements to bring us to a point where we have no democratic rights whatsoever to organize and protest for systemic change or the progressive elimination of the status quo.
From their own declarations and proclamations, we know that Trump and his minions are racist to the core, anti-union to the core, anti-LGTBQ, anti-women, and anti-immigrant. In a word, none of these movements have any rights that Trump and his minions feel bound to respect. In fact, they don’t even acknowledge the right of these movements to exist. They want to criminalize all opposition to the status quo and the backward reactionary policies of the Trump regime.
We must put the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the context of where the Trump-led ultra right is and where they want to go. Historically the only thing I think that we can compare this with is the burning of the Reichstag in Germany right before Hitler took power.
That is not to say that I think that the fascist movement in Germany and the Trump-led movement in the United States are historical twins. There are many differences. But the point I want to make is about their use of the same tactics and strategies for creating a moral and political climate conducive to political terrorism. And we don’t have to speculate as to what that political terrorism is going to look like, whether it’s going to look like Nazi Germany or whatever. What we need to do is focus on what it is in fact right now.
What it is in fact right now is that Trump is acting like a dictator. He is acting by means of executive fiat and by eliminating the checks and balances between the three branches of government. He’s ignored court orders. He’s vilified judges who go against him. He has a vendetta program in action for punishing his political opponents, particularly those who were opposed to him overthrowing the elections in 2020. He pardoned 1,500 insurrectionists, who were responsible for the murders of several people and the vandalizing of the halls of Congress. He’s definitively come out against free speech on the part of the press, public figures and entertainers. So, these are actions that Trump has perpetrated in the past and as President of the United States, is currently engaged in.
We can talk about the coming of an oppressive police state. But we should be focusing on how Trump is executing a police state right now and what we need to do to stop it. It is clear that the corporate media, the Democrats, and unfortunately some forces in the progressive people’s movement are capitulating instead of fighting back. They’re capitulating by focusing their response to this assassination by condemning political violence as a general concept, divorced from the reality that we presently face, which is one of unchecked power for the ultra-right.
Domestic terrorist acts, including mass murders, that have been perpetrated in the United States since 1995 have come overwhelmingly from the right. We’re not just arbitrarily saying this, this is true from Timothy McVeigh to the present. While President Obama was in office, nine Black people were killed at Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina. Whether these white terrorist acts claim the lives of white children, as in the case of Timothy McVeigh, or Black people, as in the case of Dylann Roof, the terrorists were usually white and driven by right wing racist politics.
The Trump forces have made it clear to us that just as Hitler used the Reichstag to blame the communists, Trump is using this assassination to blame the left. And what is the left in his opinion? Everyone who doesn’t agree with him. It includes news commentators, comedians, the Democratic Party, any and everybody that doesn’t agree with him. He has made that clear. Our duty and responsibility as a movement to stop Trump is to stay focused on his actions and not be distracted by his proclamations and declarations, which are clearly designed to mislead us.
Here’s where our focus should be. ICE is currently illegally occupying Chicago, poised to attack protesters and kidnap immigrants, and in fact has murdered one immigrant already, Silverio Villegas-Gonzales. ICE has used pepper balls and teargas on protesters at the Broadview ICE facility here in Illinois. Trump has also identified New Orleans, Baltimore, Memphis, and other cities as places where he will carry out the same policies, if he’s not carrying them out already. Los Angeles and D.C. fought back when their streets were occupied, and they’re still fighting back. Chicago is fighting back, although seemingly Trump backed down from military occupation, he’s gone full steam ahead with ICE. Baltimore is poised to fight back. Memphis is fighting back.
Of course we support the people’s movement forming the broadest united front and fighting the political thuggery and storm trooper tactics of Donald Trump and his minions on every level by every means necessary. This is why we must focus on putting masses of people in the streets to stop these vicious and deadly attacks against democracy. We support using every legal means available to us, and we also support using civil disobedience to the extent necessary, to stop Donald Trump in his tracks.
We’re not condemning or being critical of people who have denounced the use of political violence in general. We’re just saying that such denunciations don’t make clear what the battle lines are between our movement and its enemies. In this moment, they are killing us, we’re not killing them.
We can’t wait for things to get worse before we fight for things to get better. The watchword for us is now is the time. This narrow now is the time to act, not some projected future which we won’t see if we don’t act now.
Resist Now! All Power to the People!
Frank Chapman is the executive director of the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (NAARPR),
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