REVOLUTION 97

What is wrong with those Latinos—and, yes, there are more than a few—who are supporting Trump, and his racist attacks on immigrants?

What is wrong with those Latinos—and, yes, there are more than a few—who are supporting Trump, and his racist attacks on immigrants?

This is Bob Avakian—REVOLUTION—number Ninety-Seven.

In my message Number 73, and again in number 90, I talked straight-up, without pulling any punches, about the maddening and heartbreaking fact that among Black people, who have suffered so terribly for so long under this system, there are too many who have gotten into the hating on immigrants—something pushed by the aggressive racist and all-around fascist, Donald Trump. I emphasized how this racism against immigrants is completely opposed to the fundamental interests of Black people.

At the same time, there is the striking fact that, among a significant number of Latinos in this country, there is actually support for the attacks on and persecution of immigrants, including those from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. What can explain this?

One part of this is the thing of “closing the door behind you”—that is, second and third generations of immigrants who have established a certain position within this country, and have the narrow-minded attitude that the presence of newer immigrants (and being associated with them) will threaten their position. (This reminds me of Supreme Court “Justice” Clarence Thomas, whose rise within this system was based, to a very significant degree, on the struggle of Black people against discrimination and oppression, and who then turned around and opposed things like affirmative action, from which he actually benefited.)

There is also the fact that some of the people who have come from countries in Latin America were right-wing reactionaries to begin with—including, for example, some of those who fled Cuba after the forces led by Fidel Castro came to power there in 1959.

A significant number of immigrants from Latin America have gotten swept up in Christian fundamentalism. As opposed to “mainstream” and “liberal” Christianity, Christian fundamentalism is an extremely reactionary force which seeks to impose a Dark Ages, Christian fascist system of rule over society, based on a literalist reading of the Bible, with the terrible oppression and atrocity that is advocated and insisted upon in the Bible. (If you read the Bible with an open mind, to see what it is actually saying, you cannot avoid the fact that the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, but also in the New Testament, advocates all kinds of horrific relations and actions, including the slaughter of innocent people who do not bow down to “the one true god.” Insisting on applying a literalist reading of the Bible means insisting on enforcing all kinds of horrors—and that is what Christian fundamentalists stand for and seek to impose on everyone.)

A defining feature of Christian fundamentalism is patriarchal male supremacy—which is a big part of the explanation for the support among Christian fundamentalists for Donald Trump, who openly acts out of and advocates aggressive misogyny (hatred of women) along with overt racism.

This is yet another profound indictment of this system of capitalism-imperialism—that a supposed “answer” it provides, to the oppressive conditions it has imposed on masses of people, is a Dark Ages, mind-numbing and oppression-reinforcing religious fundamentalism!

The significant numbers of people in Latin America embracing Christian fundamentalism is part of a larger phenomenon of the growth of religious fundamentalism in many poorer countries in the Third World (Africa, the Middle East and Asia, as well as Latin America). While I cannot get into a full analysis of all this right here, there is the basic fact that, particularly in the absence of a powerful revolutionary alternative, in the short term the devastation of countries by capitalism-imperialism, and the dislocation and chaos in the lives of masses of people, throughout the Third World, has fed the growth of Christian, Islamic and other religious fundamentalisms. This has also created conditions for the growth and impact of criminal cartels and gangs among the poorer sections of the population—whose way of life, and ability to maintain a more or less stable existence, has been shattered—something which has also happened among sections of Black people and others in the U.S. and other imperialist countries.

So, these are some of the main factors driving some Latinos in this country to support the fascist Donald Trump, and even join in his attacks on (newer) immigrants.

There is also another part of the overall picture that needs to be spoken to. And that is the fact that the whole history of enslavement of African people, and the continuing murderous oppression of Black people, right down to today, has always been, and remains today, a defining feature of this country. With regard to immigrants, there has also been—and continues to be—the reality that one of the main aspects of the “price of acceptance and integration” into the “mainstream” of American society is distinguishing and distancing yourself from, and actively despising, Black people.

This is, so to speak, the “other side” of the picture of too many Black people hating on immigrants. More fundamentally, it is the terrible reality of this system, with its thoroughly rotten foundation and putrid relations and culture.

And all of this plays into the long-established practice of this system and its ruling class: turning the oppressed against each other, as a key part of maintaining and enforcing this monstrosity of a system.

As I emphasized in message 94, for the masses of people overall, their fundamental interests, and the way out of all the madness, does not lie with fascism—or with any form of this system which has, for so long, oppressed and terrorized Black people, and others, in the most unspeakable ways.

For all those oppressed, and above all those most viciously discriminated against and subjected to constant degradation by this system—Black people as well as Latinos, and those newly coming into the U.S. from countries plundered by the system of capitalism-imperialism—the only real, positive resolution to all the madness and suffering that people are continually put through by this system is: uniting as a powerful force for the revolution to overthrow, abolish and thoroughly uproot this monstrosity of a system, that causes so much unnecessary suffering for so many—and bring into being, in its place, a radically different and much better system.