Trump and his regime aren't attacking the FBI for this ugly history of spying, dirty tricks, smear campaigns, and violence against opponents and critics of this system. They're not slamming its role as one of the rulers' key tools of suppression and control. And they're not going after the FBI simply to discredit Mueller's investigation and create a justification for firing him if the Trump/Pence regime deems that becomes necessary.
They're attempting to turn the FBI into the regime's Gestapo--wholly beholden to the Trump/Pence executive branch and its fascist core, one where Trump will have the "absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department." As revcom.us wrote in "The Firing of James Comey: The Dangers, the Openings, the Need to Act":
In firing Comey, Trump is not simply seeking to block investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election in favor of Trump, along with possible collusion by people close to Trump. He is flouting and shredding norms established in the wake of the 1972-1973 Watergate scandal and resignation of then-President Richard Nixon--who had fired a special prosecutor investigating criminal activity on the part of the Nixon election campaign, including a subsequent cover-up.
More ominously, Trump is seeking to bring a key element of the repressive apparatus of the state, the FBI, under the air-tight control and deployment of the regime. To remove the slightest independence the FBI might have and to be able to wield the FBI to target, harass, and suppress any and all enemies of the regime's designation. This is part of the direction and momentum of fascism. The FBI is no friend--it is a monstrous enemy--of the people. But Trump's maneuver poses real dangers to the people.
A Trump purge of the FBI, firing Mueller or shutting down his investigation could represent another, very dangerous leap toward full-out fascism. Some of its targets may be members of the ruling establishment--leading Democrats, liberal-leaning institutions, prominent figures. But the sharp edge of fascist repression will also be turned up against the masses of people and their organizations. Both are part of attempting to stomp out opposition and lock down society. (See, "'It can't happen here'? Sorry--It IS Happening Here. In One Year, the Trump/Pence Regime Has Made Huge Leaps in Forging the Repressive Machinery of a Fully Fascist Society.")
In "Some Points on Strategic Orientation for the Next Period," by the Central Committee, Revolutionary Communist Party, USA, attention is drawn to Bob Avakian's crucial observation in "The Fascists and the Destruction of the 'Weimar Republic'... And What Will Replace It" (one of the excerpts in The Coming Civil War and Re-polarization for Revolution in the Present Era):
Sharpening Divisions at the Top, Potential for Upheaval From Below[B]esides attacking people who are genuinely opposed not only to this fascism but to the capitalist-imperialist system as a whole, one of the main lines of their assault is (to use a very relevant analogy) viciously going after the Weimar Republic (the bourgeois-democratic republic in Germany after World War 1, which was replaced and forcibly abolished when Hitler and the Nazis came to power in the 1930s)....
Going after the equivalent of the Weimar Republic in the U.S. today, the Democratic Party and the "Liberals" and so on--attacking them as nothing less than traitors"-is part of an overall program aimed at silencing and outright suppressing, including through the force of the state, any group or section of society, even within the ruling class, that would pose an obstacle to the implementation of the program that the Christian Fascists, and forces in the same general camp with them, are very seriously seeking to impose on the U.S. (and indeed throughout the world). There is, and for some time there has been, a very definite, conscious and concerted effort by the forces in that general fascist camp to systematically attack not just communists, or anarchists and other radicals, but liberals, mainstream ruling class liberal politicians--attacking them as having been nothing less than traitors, from the time of the cold war to the "war on terror." [bolded emphasis original, italicized emphasis ours]
Mueller's investigation and Trump's attacks on it and the FBI represent a sharp battle within the ranks of the U.S. ruling class. This isn't a battle for truth and justice. This is a battle among oppressors over how to cohere and rule U.S. society, how to maintain their system's legitimacy, and how to advance the interests of U.S. capitalism-imperialism.
The escalation of Trump's assaults has sparked broad anger and concern. The Democrats are trying to resolve this crisis in ways that strengthen their system, and that keep the outrage and actions of the people within its channels. This is tied in with focusing people's anger against Trump around his alleged Russian connections and his supposed "lack of patriotism." This keeps things within a framework of ultimately defending, rather than questioning and even resisting, the imperialist system that brought forward the Trump/Pence fascist regime. So the Democrats are demanding the Mueller investigation continue, directing people's hopes and energies toward the 2018 elections, and remaining largely silent about Trump's attacks on the FBI.
As revcom.us wrote earlier this year:
Even though these are largely the terms of opposition right now, there is the turmoil at the top... there is the flux at the bottom of society... and there is no saying what potentially could come out of this situation if people do what is actually needed.
What is needed: As the Call to Action of Refuse Fascism states, to "ORGANIZE: working with all our creativity and determination toward the time when millions of people can be moved to fill the streets of cities and towns day after day and night after night, declaring this whole regime illegitimate--Demanding, and Not Stopping, Until the Trump/Pence Regime Is Driven from Power. This is what is needed, nothing less."
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