NEW YORK CITY, March 19—“Trump, Bernie, Clinton all the same—racist terror is the name of the game!” Over 30 Progressive Labor Party members and friends made a revolutionary uproar at an anti-Donald Trump rally and march. While nearly 2,000 demonstrators called out only Trump for his vicious racism against the working class, a multiracial PLP exposed the endemic racism of the profit system and all of its stooge politicians: conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans and “democratic socialists.”
The rally began with speeches by immigrants’ rights fighters, students and various organizations. As they spoke, we distributed 500 CHALLENGEs. We also contributed chants that changed a reformist political tone to a communist one.
Shut This Racist System Down
Trump is the most open and obvious racist in the current president campaign, and his attack on Muslim, Latin, and immigrant workers and youth must be countered wherever he dares to show his garbage-spewing face. Even if he never gets elected, Trump is helping mobilize the anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist fervor needed by the main wing of U.S. capitalism for the next global war to control Middle Eastern oil. But Democrats Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are playing their own deadly roles in luring workers away from rebellion and into the voting booth (see CHALLENGE, 3/23). It is the task of communists to expose all of capitalism, not just one particular puppet.
That’s what we did as the crowd marched through Central Park and across 59th Street and passed numerous upscale hotels and restaurants, including some owned by Trump. Our bullhorn finally gave out, but our chants stayed strong. When PLP called out the whole system as racist with the chant, “This whole damn system—shut it down!” a large number of youth and workers joined our contingent. When communists bring forth a sharp line, the working class more often than not responds with enthusiasm. (One Bernie Sanders supporter did try to shut us down—unsuccessfully.)
Tension from the police rose as the march exited the park and entered the streets of Manhattan. They began to form a solid ring around us, hassling us to quicken our pace. We boldly responded with the chant, “NYPD, KKK, How many kids did you kill today?” As the march headed south onto Madison Avenue, passing Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Chanel, we defiantly chanted, “Capitalism means we’ve got to fight back!” All eyes and ears were on us, in the stores and in the streets. But the excitement was short-lived. As the march approached 57th Street, the police forces multiplied. They used their Long Range Acoustic Device, a sonic weapon, to warn us to stay on the sidewalk and not impede foot traffic. The cops arrested three protesters and pepper-sprayed the crowd.
Shut Down Highways, Not Just Shopping
At the same time, another anti-Trump rally blocked traffic on a highway in Arizona in an attempt to stop thousands from attending a pro-Trump event. Disrupting upscale shopping on Madison Avenue was certainly an intense experience, but it was not sufficiently militant to point us toward the actions we’ll need to take to shut down capitalism. The Arizona protest was a bolder step in that direction.
Don’t Vote, Organize for Communism
Fundamentally, the fervent support for Sanders and Trump stems from the same source: The working class is fed up with capitalist politics. Both the racist supporters of Trump and liberal backers of Sanders are deceived in trusting  “maverick” politicians to have working-class interests at heart. The working class wants change, but electoral politics can only preserve the capitalist status quo—while giving workers the illusion of having a choice. The big capitalist bosses at ExxonMobil, JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup will make sure that the next president will continue to protect the interests of U.S. imperialism, as the rulers advance toward a broader global war. As an international working class, we must break out of the jail of electoral politics. We must organize anti-racist, anti-sexist fightbacks in our schools, jobs and streets. By continuing to fight racist tuition hikes, mass deportations and state-terrorist drone strikes, we’ll continue to show the bosses they cannot get away with violence against the working class.
There’s an alternative to the Clinton/Trump/Sanders/Cruz clique of ruling-class misleaders. That’s Progressive Labor Party. We stand for communism, a world system where all workers and youth will work together to meet our class’s collective needs. PLP continues to show that no matter our race, gender or nationality, the working class is united in a common struggle—the struggle for workers’ power. Don’t vote—organize for the long haul, for communist revolution!