Note: These remarks were made at the “Detroit Fights Back! Community Forum which took place on Saturday April 12, 2025.

The gathering was hosted by the Anti-Fascist Organizing Coalition (AFOC). This forum was chaired by Yvonne Jones of Moratorium NOW! Coalition and addressed by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire. Russ Bellant spoke on the Trump World: Leaders in Ideologies for Militarizing the Streets. Jim Sutton addressed the audience on the struggle between Christianity vs. Christian Nationalism. Later Dr. Ismail Noor spoke on the link between zionism, fascism and imperialism. Finally, Em Barnes outlined steps to be taken in the upcoming weeks and months.  

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Since the concluding months, weeks and days of the first administration of President Donald Trump, there has been clear indications of a threat to fundamental norms which ostensibly guide the political system in the United States.

Amid a general wave of mass demonstrations and rebellions during the summer of 2020 in response to the police execution of George Floyd in Minneapolis and other incidents of racist violence, Trump evoked the Insurrection Act of the early 1800s when African enslavement was enshrined in the constitutional framework of the U.S.

Image: George Floyd

For months prior to the November 2020 elections, the Trump administration and its supporters were saying that if they lost the elections, it would only be due to massive fraud. The followers of Trump, the MAGA Republicans, are still maintaining that the 2020 presidential elections were stolen.

The January 6, 2021 neo-fascist insurrection at Capitol Hill provided a glimpse of the willingness of the modern day far right to use violence not just against the oppressed peoples and those with whom they disagree politically, but to seize control of the state in order to purge undesirable elements from positions of authority. This removal of large segments of the population extends far beyond those in political positions, the threat has been extended to millions of immigrants, African Americans, Latin Americans, people whose ancestry can be found in various regions of Asia and the South Pacific.

Outside during the US Capitol during the January 6, 2021 attack on the building (Licensed under Creative Commons)

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In regard to foreign policy, the myth that Trump would focus more attention on the economic problems of the U.S. and withdraw from the permanent wars that have raged over the last three decades and more, has been eradicated since the president took office, the administration has threatened to seize control of Greenland, Canada and Panama. The Trump White House has demanded that the Ukraine government, which is almost totally dependent upon Washington for military and political support, must sign over control to the U.S. all of its strategic minerals. The current administration is suggesting a complete reconfiguration of the U.S. relationship with the UK and Western Europe. Even the NATO states are being compelled to spend additional amounts of their budgets on military expenditures.

Since April 2 when the unprecedented draconian tariffs were enacted through executive orders, the economic uncertainty within the world capitalist system has accelerated. The massive losses on the global stock markets coincide with the firing of thousands of federal workers. In addition to the illegal and unjustified termination of federal employees, others are being impacted severely such as colleges and universities, the humanities, service employees and industrial workers.

Greater levels of repression are evident wherever we look. The withdrawal of government assistance from higher educational institutions is designed to force censorship over issues such as the genocide in Gaza and other foreign policy questions which divide people in the U.S. International students are being kidnapped off the streets because they have engaged in protected speech in solidarity with the plight of Palestinians. People have been detained and deported to a notorious prison in El Salvador simply because they come from Venezuela and have tattoos.

These efforts utilizing executive orders and a compliant MAGA-dominated Congress represents an escalation in the efforts to silence the people in the U.S. who do not agree with the direction of the current administration. Trump has suggested that there may never be another election. He has stated that he is looking into extending his term of office beyond the next four years. These comments have not been refuted by any Republican member of his administration and Congress.

There were over 77 million people who voted for Trump in the last presidential elections. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate are dominated by the MAGA Republican cult surrounding Trump. If these forces can be mobilized and organized into an armed fascist movement the threat of another civil war would be upon us.

Some Historical Aspects of the Struggle Against Fascism

Since the conclusion of the Civil War (1861-65) there have been racist organizations which have engaged in violence against African Americans and other oppressed peoples in the U.S. Efforts to form trade unions have been met by violence since the late 19th century.

The Ku Klux Klan, a violent white supremacist group, was formed by one of the wealthiest men in the South during the mid-19th century. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a slave trader and later Confederate general, was the founder of the Klan. The organization engaged in violent and political actions aimed at repressing the aspirations and status of the African American people in the decades after the war between the states.

Between the 1880s and the Great Depression of the 1930s, it is estimated that more than 5,000 African Americans were lynched in the U.S. These extra-judicial killings were mainly carried out in the South, nonetheless, lynchings occurred in many other regions of the country. There was never an anti-lynching law passed during this period in the U.S.

In the state of Michigan, the Klan was very strong in the 1920s. In the city of Detroit in 1924, Charles E. Bowles, who was supported heavily by the KKK, almost won the mayoral race through a write-in campaign. He would have taken office if 15,000 write-in ballots were not disqualified. Later in 1930, Bowles ran again and won the mayoral elections. However, Bowles was recalled several months after his election due to corruption allegations.

The Black Legion, another violent racist organization, was a split from the Klan and was involved in numerous beatings and killings during the 1930s. The organization, like the Klan, received backing from wealthy interests committed to undermining union organizing and the struggle for civil rights. The Black Legion not only opposed Black people, they disliked Jewish Americans, immigrants from the southern and eastern regions of Europe, Catholics and trade unionists.

Image: A photo of Black Legion’s uniform and weapons, posed by policemen after arrests (Public Domain)

In fact, Malcolm X contends in his autobiography that his father, Rev. Earl Little, was murdered by the Black Legion in Lansing during the fall of 1931. Little had collided with whites in the Lansing area in the early 1930s when he and his wife, Louise, were members of the Garvey Movement.

During the 1920s and 1930s there were groups in the U.S. that openly expressed sympathy for the fascist movements which took control of Italy and Germany. Benito Mussolini, the leader of the National Fascist Party, took power in 1922 and remained until his overthrow in 1943 and eventual execution in 1945.

A quote attributed to Mussolini suggesting that fascism is defined by the merger of the corporations and the state, was echoed recently by Elon Musk. A Nazi salute documented in photographs was given by Musk. The leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) clearly subscribes to a fascist ideology.

When Adolph Hitler was made Chancellor of Germany in January 1933, it would take less than two months before he was able to consolidate political power. All other political parties were outlawed while the Nazi Party confiscated the wealth of targeted groups such as Germans of Jewish descent. The Third Reich prepared for war and invaded numerous European states and eventually the Soviet Union.

German fascism like its counterpart in Italy motivated its followers through myths of past greatness and the potentialities for the future. Mussolini wanted to rebuild the ancient Roman empire. Hitler created similar myths while calling for an alliance with the Italians and the Greeks. Despite their delusions of grandeur, the fascist regimes of Italy and Germany brought about the Second Imperialist War which resulted in the destruction of their own countries and the deaths of 70-85 million people.

We Need to Build a Broad-based Alliance Against the Fascist Threat

Similar rhetoric is heard on a daily basis in the U.S. from the Trump administration. The MAGA movement wants to return to the days of legalized segregation, gender discrimination, the elimination of trade unions, civil rights organizations and anyone in opposition to the authoritarian trajectory of the state.

Therefore, we have no alternative to organizing and mobilizing the people against the current administration. We must build a united front to beat back the existing fascist threat.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of the Pan-African News Wire. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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