Protesting Trump at Ted Cruz fundraiser in Houston, Texas, May 31, 2018

YES, BOO... AND ORGANIZE TO DRIVE OUT THIS REGIME

by Coco Das

On May 29th, a few days before Trump was to attend a Ted Cruz fundraiser in Houston, I received an email message from Houston Women’s March. The subject line of the email said, “Don’t boo. Organize.” The email offered Houston Women’s March supporters a “better deal” than Trump and Cruz’s $5,000 to $100,000 contribution fundraiser. Instead of paying thousands of dollars (which I doubt few women's marchers would even think of doing), people could come to a party for Houston Women's March volunteers to fuel a blue wave in November and in 2020. The fundraiser where Trump would appear was in the afternoon, and the Houston Women’s March party would take place several hours later in the evening.

Although there was no mention of it in the email, I can only guess the "Don't Boo" command referred to the protest being called for outside of the fundraiser, where people would indeed come together and collectively, visibly, and loudly express their outrage at this regime. If Houston Women's March wants to call that "booing," so be it, but let's put this into some context, using just a few news items from the same week as Trump's visit.

(Don't boo) at the fact that 700 migrant children have been torn away from their parents or adult guardians at the border, as a matter of official policy, and plans are being made as we speak to hold these children on military facilities because the temporary shelters holding them are reaching their full capacity.

(Don't boo) at the tragedy, on the heels of Trump calling deported immigrants "animals," of Border Patrol shooting and killing a young Guatemalan woman, Claudia Patricia Gómez González, who fled desperate conditions in Guatemala with the hopes of finding a job here.

(Don't boo) at the forced patriotism and suppression of dissent and free speech that the NFL, caving to pressure from Trump, has instituted with its vote to punish players for kneeling during the national anthem.

(Don't boo) about Trump’s new domestic gag rule, which imposes rules that will cut women off from birth control and preventative reproductive care and does not allow health care providers to even mention abortion or refer women to safe abortion providers ... a Handmaid’s Tale nightmare in the making.

(Don't boo) at the revelation that the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria has exceeded 4,600, and (Don't remember) Trump’s racist tweets in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria and (Don't say) that the regime’s criminal neglect has left much of the island without electricity, clean water,or medical care and has a genocidal logic.

Not that Houston Women's March is alone in this attitude. After every significant protest, the drumbeat begins of whether a mass outpouring of people in the streets will translate into “real political" power, by which they mean electoral power. Many, if not most of the Women's March organizations have fallen for this tactic, diverting the energy of the women's marches into electoral goals instead of a sustained, non-violent mass movement that could stop this regime. But history has shown us that people in the streets is our power. People in the streets is what compels change. People in the streets is how we say, "we refuse to accept what you're doing, and if you dare to continue you have to contend with us."

What difference would it have made for Houston Women's March to call their supporters out to protest in the afternoon and have wine and cheese at their volunteer party in the evening, to refuse to set up a false dichotomy between protesting and organizing? What if they called on all of their allies to join them in publicizing this protest? Perhaps, then, hundreds of people would have shown up to voice their outrage, instead of a few dozen. Perhaps then, the Trump motorcade would have met a mass of people refusing to be silenced and complicit, refusing to be "good Germans." Perhaps the media would not have been able to ignore it and that would inspire people all over the country to do the same when Trump,or Pence, or any of these heartless bullies comes to their town.

What are we organizing for if it is not to stop this regime at the soonest possible time, before it consolidates its power and brings on a nightmare for all? As Refuse Fascism’s Call to Action states, “If we think that the normal processes of the 2018 or 2020 elections will, by themselves, redress the situation that humanity faces, we are not understanding the determination of these fascists in power to shatter norms – even though they have been doing so for over a year.”

To the Houston Women's March and all of the Women's March leadership refusing to call their supporters back into the streets, here is my plea. Get out there and start booing again. Do better, for the sake of all of the lives being destroyed right now and the lives yet to be saved.