Protest Trump’s inauguration and build mass struggle to defeat capitalism and racism

Text of a Socialist Party Scotland leaflet

20th and 21st January, 2017, will see hundred of thousands of students walk out across the US. They will be joining millions who will take to the streets to protest Trump’s right-wing, billionaire agenda in some of the biggest protests since the Vietnam war.

We need to build a mass movement of resistance from Day 1 of Trump’s presidency. An injury to one is an injury to all. If we let the politics of capitalist politicians like Trump divide us, singling out the most oppressed communities to attack first, they will come after us all.

That’s why we have to organize the strongest possible united mass movement internationally. The Trump administration is planning aggressive right-wing, pro-corporate attacks including.

• Cutting all funding to Planned Parenthood and block access to reproductive healthcare for millions of young and low-income women.
• Deporting millions of immigrants, especially targeting youth currently protected by the DACA program.
• Encouraging racial profiling by the police and other security forces, especially of Muslim communities and youth of colour, while expanding private prisons.
• End health-care coverage for millions of young people and low-income families.
• Gut environmental protections, ramp up fossil fuel production, and expand pipeline construction

Fight for Socialism

The US presidential election showed we can’t rely on the capitalist politicians to stop Trump. If we look at history, from the Civil Rights movement to the struggle for women’s rights, it was always ordinary people getting organized and building mass movements that changed history.

It’s not enough to just oppose Trump’s agenda or call people to stand up to it. Our generation is coming of age in an era of global crisis. Capitalism has created a world torn apart by inequality, wars, racism, and the corrupt domination of a billionaire elite.

This week’s pre-Davos summit report shows capitalism’s reality. The world’s eight richest billionaires control the same wealth between them as the poorest half of the globe’s population. Building a powerful, united movement to stop Trump means demanding what we need:

• A future free from racism, sexism, inequality, and environmental destruction!
• A political revolution against the billionaire class and a socialist alternative!

Socialism means, rather than a world run for profit, a society based on public ownership and democratic planning of the major parts of the economy and resources for the benefit of the majority.

Many of the protests in the US are being called by Socialist Students and Socialist Alternative, co thinkers of Socialist Party Scotland and the Committee for a Workers’ International, CWI. 40,000 attended protests called by Socialist Alternative in the hours after Trump was elected. (see picture)

The CWI is organising protests across the world over the inauguration days. Socialist Alternative’s Kshama Sawant, a socialist city councillor in Seattle, has been to the fore in the successful movements of workers and youth for $15 an hour, Black Lives Matter and winning victories on rent control and investment in affordable housing in Seattle.

Kshama and Socialist Alternative called on Bernie Sanders to continue running as an independent after the Democratic primaries, continuing his political revolution against the billionaire class. This would have shaken the ruling class in the US and undercut support for Trump and most importantly laying the basis for the creation of a mass party of the 99% to fight wall street.

Socialist Alternative and support for socialist ideas is growing fast in the US as searching for an alternative to Trump and capitalism grows even more widely.

Scotland

In Scotland, Socialist Students and Socialist Party Scotland have mobilised protests against Trump. A mass internationalist movement against this bigoted billionaire needs to be linked with the fight against cuts, austerity privatisation and low pay.

The Tories, SNP and Labour, whose politicians may attack Trump’s bigotry, are implementing vicious Tory cuts. We also need to build a mass political alternative, with socialist policies, for the 99%.

Join Socialist Students and Socialist Party Scotland. Contact us to find out more about Socialist ideas. socialiststudentsscotland@gmail.com Call 07927342060

Join us for protests against Trump’s Inauguration Friday 20th January. 

• Aberdeen contact Aberdeen Socialist Students on 07804905830 to meet on campus for Bridges not Walls event 3.30pm Wellington Suspension Bridge with Socialist Students speaker. 
• Glasgow 12pm outside Glasgow Uni Library called by Socialist Students 
• Glasgow City Centre 5:30pm Donald Dewar Statue (Socialist Student contingent meeting near statue from 4:45pm) Socialist Students speaker
• 
Edinburgh 6pm Wellington Statue. 
• 
Dundee 5.30pm City Square