Fri., Jan. 31, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to refuse to hear further witnesses in the impeachment trial of Trump, clearing their path to acquit him on Wed., Feb. 5. Conducted by craven fascist Republicans, this trial seriously undermined the rule of law; and it legitimated the dangerous idea that truth has no role in governing, with the result being that whatever Trump, or any president, says and does, goes.

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Note from authors: As developments have continued and as our understanding has deepened, substantive changes have been made to some parts of this article since it was posted here at OpEd News on Sunday morning, February 2. The updated article can be found at https://revcom.us/a/632/the-senate-vote-a-vctory-for-fascism-en.html.

Friday, January 31, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to refuse to hear further witnesses in the impeachment trial of Trump. Every Republican senator, with two exceptions, voted against hearing witnesses. They did this despite the fact that John Bolton, one of the former top officials of the Trump/Pence regime, had offered to testify. By all accounts, Bolton was ready to verify that Trump had personally admitted to him withholding military aid to force Ukrainian president Zelensky to publicly announce an investigation of Trump's political opponent Joe Biden for corruption. In other words, Bolton would give first-person direct evidence that Trump was corruptly and illegally using the power of the presidency for personal gain to discredit his main political rival in the upcoming presidential election.

Prior to this, a large part of Trump's defense had rested on the fact that no witness had yet been able to testify that Trump had directly stated to them his motive for withholding aid. Why? Because Trump refused to cooperate at all with the impeachment inquiry, forbidding anyone in his administration from testifying. In other words, Trump's lawyers and Senate Republicans had said that Trump should not be impeached because there were no direct eyewitnesses; now, when a credible eyewitness presented himself, they refused to let that witness testify and scurried to end the trial!

This cleared their path to acquit Trump this coming Wednesday, February 5. Before the trial began, the Republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said he would not be impartial and was coordinating everything with Trump.

A Big Step Toward Fascism

An acquittal of Trump on these terms is a big step toward a fascist America. Conducted by craven fascist Republicans, this trial seriously undermined the rule of law; and it legitimated that truth has no role in governing, with the result being that whatever Trump, or any president, says and does, goes.

This is a further leap toward fascism, which is, in short, a different form of rule by the ruling capitalist class-a blatant dictatorship of open terror and violence by the state, and the discarding of what are supposed to be civil and legal rights as well as what have been traditional bourgeois democratic principles and norms of governance.*

Ominous Implications

This vote is a defeat for the rule of law.

Despite the existence of people with direct knowledge of what happened wanting to testify to a crime committed by a high official while the trial is still going on, the Senate refused to allow it. One of Trump's lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, literally mounted the defense that if Trump, or any other president, "does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo [a deal] that results in impeachment." This because, he said, "Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest."

What does it mean that the president now gets to define what is legal or not, depending on whether he or she believes that their being elected is in the public interest? How is this different from the president being "a law unto himself"? This argument from Dershowitz gives legal expression to Trump's bogus theory that--to quote him directly--Article 2 of the Constitution means that "the president can do whatever he wants." This is the unvarnished version and real meaning of the theory of the "unitary executive" put forward by the fascist attorney general William Barr. And now the Senate has effectively enshrined this. What can not be done on such a basis?

This vote is a defeat for truth.

Bolton's testimony could have helped get to the truth of what actually happened and could have opened up the way for others to testify, and for evidence of even more criminal activity by Trump and his fellow fascists-in-power to emerge. Faced with this prospect, the Republican senators moved to block this as soon as possible. Bolton is coming out with a book soon that reportedly includes some of the things he would have testified to in the impeachment if witnesses had been allowed. But it is now far from certain that Bolton's book will even see the light of day, as the White House could move to invoke its "national security" power to censor the key portions of it or even the whole book. What does it mean to the ability of people to know the truth when the executive power can openly and without penalty suppress evidence of its own corrupt and illegal activity?

A Victory for Fascism

This is a victory for fascism, not only because the denial of truth and rule of law were given official sanction by the trial proceedings, but because the whole terms of the impeachment further solidified the advance of fascism. If Trump is acquitted, and even more so if there is not significant opposition in the streets, many who pinned their hopes on impeachment will be disillusioned while others will plunge headlong into the elections without stopping to examine what really happened and why, and the conclusion from this for what needs to be done to stop the consolidation of fascism.

There are even some saying that this will be good for the Democrats in the next election who are either missing (or willfully blinding themselves to) the grave consequences of this whitewash--or they know better and are covering it up.

First, the Democratic leadership refused to impeach for almost three years-and then when they did, they only did so when their then-leading candidate, Biden, was being attacked, and the foundational legitimacy of their elections was being torn up. More, the whole Ukraine affair reflects differences Democrats have with Trump/Pence over national security, especially concerning Russia.

But they didn't indict Trump for the many crimes that violate U.S. and international law and which are also outrageous abuses of power--to take just two of those crimes: the separation of immigrant children from their parents along with putting them in cages, and the turning away of refugees seeking asylum. By not indicting Trump on these broader grounds, the terms of the impeachment left the broader interests of humanity out of the picture, with the result being that his whole fascist program is further legitimated.

Second, the Democrats dared not sound the alarm on or act themselves in any way commensurate to the fascist danger they know is posed by the Trump/Pence regime. A recent revelation from theatlantic.com illustrates this:

During the course of the impeachment, Hillary Clinton's Democratic vice presidential nominee, Tim Kaine, was quoted as having said in 2016, "President Obama called me last night and said, 'Tim, remember this is no time to be a purist. You've got to keep a fascist out of the White House.'" (emphasis added) Not only did Obama (as well as Kaine and Clinton) hold this opinion of Trump back at the time of the election, Obama went on right after Trump's election to say that he and Trump were members of the "same team" running a "relay race," that the election was an "intramural scrimmage," and that we should root for Trump's success. (In bringing on fascism?)

Why did they not say this out loud and act accordingly? Because to call this out for what it was would draw the wrath of Trump and his organized and mobilized fascist social base and talk of civil war--with no small number arming and preparing (witness 22,000 in Richmond, Virginia, at a gun rally during the impeachment proceedings); and because to bring out and act on the real stakes could arouse and mobilize masses of people, who then might look more deeply at what has given rise to this fascist regime and the reality that the Democrats really don't have answers to the problems that this system generates, which is why Obama remains the president who has deported the most immigrants.

The Democrats do have serious differences and conflicts with the Trump/Pence regime and in many ways are themselves under direct threat by it. The attempt to impeach him was real and marked a heightening of those conflicts. Trump has directly and in very vicious terms threatened some of them, especially the lead prosecutor, Representative Adam Schiff. But those top Democrats, who knew and know the real danger that Trump and this whole fascist regime represent and not only do not shout it from the rooftops but don't even dare to utter out loud what they say behind closed doors, are just as guilty as the Republi-fascists of suppressing the truth and blinding people to the real stakes of what is happening.

And, they did make a serious case around the particular incident of Trump trying to extort Ukraine to go after Biden and obstructing justice, but they did not connect the dots to the whole agenda and the stakes, and openly call out this regime for its fascist character, lest they shake people's faith in that system and its "proper procedures"... and spur people to take to the streets in genuine resistance. For that could get out of hand.

Yet, these conflicts at the top of the ruling class and their representatives in government, with reverberations all the way down through different sections of the people, remain intense and there is every likelihood they will grow even more so, especially as the now even more emboldened regime runs totally rampant. People broadly need to recognize that these conflicts provide openings for the mass struggle from below to powerfully impact and take things much further in the needed direction of defeating this fascism, and not just vainly trying to stay its hand. But that can't happen if people remain on their couches, literally twiddling their thumbs on their phones! Or, just putting all their hopes and energies into elections in November.

What Must Be Done Right Now

All last week, people demonstrated in Washington, DC, demanding Trump's removal. These demonstrations were badly needed, but far too few people participated or supported these demonstrations through funding, publicizing, etc. Imagine the difference it might have made had tens and hundreds of thousands been sitting in at Senate offices, taking over the streets, and demanding the removal of this regime and making clear their determination to refuse to accept a fascist America. While nothing is certain, even in the short term it might have resulted in two Senators voting differently and a whole process where even more of the truth began to spill out.

But that didn't happen. Now these next few days will very likely witness the culmination of a certain stage of this struggle concentrated around the impeachment. Those who went on Twitter last night to denounce the verdict have a responsibility to show up now in the streets, wherever you are. On Monday, senators will make final arguments on the case. Tuesday night, Trump gives his State of the Union speech, in which he will almost certainly take the offensive against those who impeached him. Then on Wednesday, the Senate will vote. At this time, fascist victory in the Senate seems all but certain.

But what people do--what YOU do--in the next few days will matter greatly to the future. It will make a huge difference whether people in their masses continue to sit passively, either absorbing themselves in the elections as a substitute for action or sit on their couches despairing for the future, or whether there is serious protest in the streets saying NO! and declaring determination to fight on, truly resist, and ultimately drive this regime out. It will raise a standard and challenge the tens of millions who do hate this regime but as yet do nothing, and it will give hope to those here and around the world who suffer its grave attacks and terrible injustices.

And as you raise your head and join others to act against the outrage of the impeachment trial and all that the Trump/Pence regime has done, dig deep and learn about the system and why it has given rise to fascist regimes here and around the world, why the future is in peril from climate change and the threat of nuclear war... and, seek the way out of this madness-the new communism developed by Bob Avakian. This is a radically different and better way the world could be and a plan to get there. At this moment when this system has spawned such horror and threat, is it not time you checked the breakthrough in human emancipation that is the new communism?

Finally, a word to those who see what is coming and despair of the future--yet do nothing. Those in the streets are at least as aware as you are of the dire consequences of this regime, and this whole worldwide surge of fascism, if nothing meaningful is done to stop it. But your despair is a luxury that cannot be afforded by the desperate refugee children torn from their parents and put in cages by your fascist government. Your despair is a luxury that the transgender teenager whose rights have been ripped away by your fascist government cannot afford. Your despair is a luxury that the women who will be forced to have children against their will by your fascist government cannot afford. Your despair is a luxury that the survival of the interconnected web of life on this planet, being mindlessly torn up and shat upon by your fascist government at an accelerating speed, cannot afford. Your despair is a luxury that the Black teenager beaten or murdered by the cop emboldened by Trump's urgings cannot afford. Your despair is a luxury that those in other countries under the heel of tyrants backed by Trump, or suffering from sanctions imposed by this regime or the drone strikes it carries out, cannot afford.

The monster is here, now; join those who are fighting it.

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* What IS Fascism? - a full definition:

Fascism is the exercise of blatant dictatorship by the bourgeois (capitalist-imperialist) class, ruling through reliance on open terror and violence, trampling on what are supposed to be civil and legal rights, wielding the power of the state, and mobilizing organized groups of fanatical thugs, to commit atrocities against masses of people, particularly groups of people identified as "enemies," "undesirables," or "dangers to society."

At the same time--and this can be seen through studying the examples of Nazi Germany and Italy under Mussolini--while it will likely move quickly to enforce certain repressive measures in consolidating its rule, a fascist regime is also likely to implement its program overall through a series of stages and even attempt at different points to reassure the people, or certain groups among the people, that they will escape the horrors--if they quietly go along and do not protest or resist while others are being terrorized and targeted for repression, deportation, "conversion," prison, or execution.

(Article changed on February 3, 2020 at 13:30)

(Article changed on February 3, 2020 at 13:47)

Authors Website: http://revcom.us

Authors Bio:

Revolution newspaper/revcom.us, the voice of the Revolutionary Communist Party, provides the foundation, guideline, and organizational scaffolding for the whole process of carrying out our strategy for revolution. Through publishing works of Bob Avakian, and through many different articles, interviews, letters, graphics, and other features, revcom.us enables people to really understand, and act to radically change, the world. It exposes why things are the way they are...it reveals why it doesn't have to be this way... it shows how we can act to bring about a real revolution. It is, and has to increasingly become, the scaffolding on which the movement for revolution is built, the means for people to get organizationally linked up to this movement. It is a vehicle through which new people can get a clear sense of the principles, aims, and methods of this revolution, and those who are already involved can wrangle with how to further build this movement for revolution. This newspaper is a guideline where today thousands, but soon tens of thousands and eventually millions, can stay connected and learn to act in a powerful and united way. It sets forth the larger goals of revolution and communism and the ways in which the struggles of today are connected to those larger goals. It enables people to grasp the scientific communist outlook and method, and to better understand the material basis that exists for getting to a radically different and better world.