Lenin the often insightful analyst and leader of the Russian revolution said that politics begins where there are millions. Over the past month we saw the materialization of that observation as the politics of racism and anti-racism commanded the attention of the world, energized millions and turned politics as we had know it upside down.

In such moments, Lenin also would say that the challenge for activists is to turn a spontaneous uprising (any uprising that reaches the scale of millions has a spontaneous element to it) into a durable social movement able to combine and move from one to another form of struggle, as conditions change and new opportunities arise.

The guy wasn’t perfect, far from it. But, to use an old expression of my parent’s generation, he was no slouch.

In thinking about Trump’s rally and death march tonight, which will give new meaning to ugly, ignorant, and desperate, I keep in mind that Trump and his brand are on the defensive and losing support. They’re not surging. Over the past few months, his combination of bullying, lying, and sheer incompetence in the face of multiple and devastating crises has managed to piss off lots of people at the grassroots and elite levels. His road to reelection is a much steeper climb now.

Postscript: The rally was a flop.

As a country, we are confronted by two contagions. One is a virus that goes unseen by the naked eye, unknowingly invades the body, attacks the immune system, and can bring death in its wake; the other is white in skin color, dresses in a blue uniform, carries extraordinary fire power on his person, and makes a habit of killing Black men for no reason other than their Blackness.

Both contagions, if they are to be vanquished, and they can be, require the concentrated attention of all decent minded people from all walks of life.

The rebukes of Trump by General James Mattis and other top military officers for his threat to deploy the military to put down protests had to give Trump some second thoughts about any consideration of remaining in office by extra constitutional means. People sometimes forget that if such an attempt backfires, its conspirators are in very deep sh t!

Political approaches that narrow the necessary broad front of struggle against Trump in the name of “class politics” or “class de-alignment” are not only mistaken, but could be harmful if taken seriously by too many people. Luckily, most people and organizations have no desire to dabble in such politics at this time. Too much is at stake, and especially on election day.