Protest Trump – the billionaire bigot
By William Campbell, Aberdeen Socialist Students
Donald Trump’s state visit to the UK has begun, just under one year from his last visit in July 2018. The visit is to be hosted by the Queen with Theresa May in attendance, as one of her last acts as PM. Rightly Jeremy Corbyn is boycotting the visit.
Both Trump and his Tory allies that he will be meeting on the 3rd of June must be met with not just demonstrations and protests but walkouts of schools and colleges.
Trump represents an administration that has been attacking the rights of trade unions, women, LGBTQ people and immigrants, with his latest controversy being the detaining and separation of families at the US border and his unwillingness to step in to prevent General Motors, one of Americas largest manufacturing employers, from shutting down its seven plants at the end of 2018. We have also seen attacks on abortion rights in states like Georgia.
The trade war between the US and China continues to escalate. Donald Trump represents the utter bankruptcy of the capitalist system. Trump has also continued America’s participation of attacks overseas with bombing raids carried throughout the middle east as well as maintaining ties with corrupt oligarchs such as the House of Saud that reigns over Saudi Arabia.
The same oligarchs that recently held 37 executions of political activists with the youngest being 16-years-old, according to Amnesty International, that Trump has yet to speak about.
In the US, there has been a push back electorally through the rise of progressive politicians and members of the Democratic Socialists of America group within the Democratic Party, such as Alexandra Ocasio Cortez. Bernie Sanders recent announcement that he will to run for the presidential candidacy for the Democratic Party is also an example.
In Seattle, socialist Kshama Sawant is defending her city council seat from corporate candidates backed by Amazon and Jeff Bezos. There has also been a wave of strikes across the US showing the potential power of the working class.
In Virginia, a Republican stronghold who backed Trump in 2016, one of the largest strikes America had seen in decades has seen school teachers taking militant action.
Similar strikes have swept across the southern belt of the US in Oklahoma, North and South Carolina, Arizona and in Oakland on the west coast. In New England, 31,000 Stop and Shop Workers walked out and succeeded in voting some concessions from the bosses.
Socialist Party Scotland and Socialist Students will be organising, along with other anti-Trump groups, to build for a mass movement to reject the politics of Trumpism and austerity. To fight for a socialist alternative to austerity, poverty and war that continue to plague the world.
The capitalist agenda carried out by Trump, May and the representatives of the 1% who control and dominate society must be challenged with fighting socialist policies.
