NJ: Students, Workers Protest Inauguration

NEWARK, NJ, January 20—It rained, and we marched. PLP members worked with a developing Newark-based organization that has sprung up largely in reaction to Donald Trump’s racist immigration policy, to organize a rally, a march, and a general assembly to coincide with now President Trump’s inauguration.
While it literally “rained on our parade,” this rain did not dampen our revolutionary optimism in the face of the potential for a fascist Trump regime to lobby a laundry list of ruthless policies against the economic interests of the working class across the globe.
The rally was held at Independence Park in the Ironbound section of Newark, and it boasted about 60 people in attendance. The event was scheduled to coincide with a walkout planned at East Side High School at 2 pm.
East Side students did not walk out, as they were possibly demoralized—their action to oust Superintendent Cami Anderson did not result in reversing the move towards the privatization of public education in the city. However, many joined the rally and march after school let out at 2:40pm. A representative of the Newark Student Union speak to the crowd, encouraging students that this is not the time to lay down. Instead, he shouted, “It’s time to fight back!”
During the rally and the march, PLP members played significant roles in engaging Newark students and residents, encouraging people to join the march and moving the conversation to the left. When a PLP member took the bullhorn, he emphasized that Trump is simply “a manifestation of capitalist ideologies,” connecting the content of Trump’s rhetoric to a criticism of the capitalist system that perpetuates this type of discourse. The audience responded well to this analysis and the argument that Hillary Clinton is not a favorable alternative, citing the racist and sexist policies that she has endorsed throughout her political career.  When PLP members had the opportunity to lead chants during the march, these truncated articulations of our line worked to energize the protestors, moving them away from popular liberal slogans, such as “dump Trump” and “Donald Trump has got to go,” to chants that promoted the power of global working class solidarity against the reactionary nationalism of a Trump administration. Marchers quickly got on board when PLP members shouted “If Trump wants massive deportation, we say working people have no nation;” and “Asian, Latin, Black, and White, workers of the world unite!”
The march was capped off with a general assembly held at Rutgers-Newark. By this point, much of the crowd had dispersed, and representatives of the various groups that sponsored the march primarily populated the room. PLP members bringing out our communist line. While one group promoted socialists to run for elected office, PL’ers accurately cited the failure of electoral politics as a vehicle to bring forth revolutionary change. That said, the political direction that this new Newark-based group will take in the coming months is not yet clear. It is up to the PLP working within the organization to bring forth an analysis of the state’s relationship to the ruling class power.
Our demonstration in Newark may not have been the size of those in other cities on this day, but it did represent the start of something here on the ground. In The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) Marx wrote, “irrespective of the fact that it is always the bad side that in the end triumphs over the good side. It is the bad side that produces the movement which makes history, by providing a struggle.”
Trump, and the fascist regime his administration represents, will intensify class struggle around the world. PLP will fight alongside working people, engage with them politically, learn from their experience, and share our communist line. We cannot be the “tail that wags the dog.” We cannot wait for students and workers to come to us to learn that the only solution is communist revolution.