1. I have come to realize that the rule of law should never be taken in a cavalier way. It isn’t simply a superstructural phenomenon that obediently dances to the tune of the economic base and assiduously follows the dictates of the dominant class in a social structure. Nor by the same token does it enjoy full autonomy from the economic and class relations that shape society.

The rule of law is, instead, a contested terrain. On the one hand, it can, and usually does, sanction awful practices. Evidence of this reality abounds in our country’s history as well as the histories of other countries, capitalist and socialist alike. But, on the other hand, it can protect individuals and people from arbitrary power from above as well as expand and deepen the formal and real boundaries of freedom. Both sides of this phenomenon should figure into our thinking and practice.

2. The testimony last week by former FBI Director James Comey was a dramatic and chilling piece of evidence that Trump and gang are a clear and present danger to the rule of law and the institutional structures of our democracy. It is easy at such moments of high drama to either become an onlooker parsing every twist and turn in Washington politics or to consider all of it a distraction from current battles on the streets — over income inequality and wage stagnation, immigrant roundups and deportations, health care legislation, racist police brutality, and the like.

But we have to resist this temptation. The battle to defend democracy and its institutional structures against an authoritarian president is of overarching importance. It doesn’t eclipse other democratic and class struggles, but, by the same token, how it is settled will either expand or narrow down the parameters that will frame them. Imagine, for example, if Trump were able at his whim to replace sitting judges. Or delay elections. Or declare Washington a protest free zone. Or revoke voting rights for whole sections of people. Or suspend investigations of White House wrongdoing, as he attempted to do in his meeting with Comey.

Thus, Trump’s attack on democratic governance isn’t an issue for Washington insiders alone. It bites us all. And it requires no less than an aroused and massive movement to resist any efforts – even the smallest — to hollow out our democracy and its institutional structures.

3. Movements in an authoritarian direction are far easier to resist and reverse in their early stages than later on when they gather steam and momentum, sometimes as a result of an invented crisis or sudden shock. Our job, therefore, is to keep Trump and his motley crew on the defensive, while being prepared at the same time to respond quickly and demonstrably to any power grab by them. And, hopefully, the support of people in high places, the corridors of power, and the mass media will do likewise.

4. Comey is against Trump, and I’m happy about that. While Comey is a member of the “deep state,” as I’m frequently reminded by commentators of the right as well as the left, he is also a patriot, as he understands that term, and a defender of bourgeois democratic governance and institutions. Both put him at loggerheads with Trump and his authoritarian brand of politics. Sometimes we forget that politics is messy and full of contradictions – a place of peculiar and impermanent bedfellows who find common cause, even if they don’t share the same motivations and aims. An opponent one day can become a friend the next.

In fact, during periods of progressive advance in the 20th century, social movements utilized such contradictions and temporary alliances to good effect. If we are smart, we will do much the same in these perilous times.

4. A recent article in the Washington Post returned to the much discussed subject of the makeup of Trump’s voters. The authors in their analysis stitch together statistical evidence to make the case that the majority of Trump supporters in last year’s primary and general election were other than working class.

“In short,” they write, “the narrative that attributes Trump’s victory to a ‘coalition of mostly blue-collar white and working-class voters’ just doesn’t square with the 2016 election data. According to the election study, white non-Hispanic voters without college degrees making below the median household income made up only 25 percent of Trump voters. That’s a far cry from the working-class-fueled victory many journalists have imagined.”

What I found interesting here is that even if their analysis is spot on, (and one could quarrel with their methodology), what goes unaddressed is the qualitative dimension of white workers’ voting decisions, that is, what accounts for the fact that a substantial section of white workers across income and education lines cast their ballot for Trump?

Not since the arch-segregationist George Wallace ran in the Democratic presidential primary in 1968 has a presidential candidate – now president – been so outspokenly, brazenly, and defiantly racist, misogynist, and anti-immigrant. So much so that to suggest that Trump’s message of in your face, unfiltered hate didn’t figure into the voting calculus of white workers who supported Trump bends credulity.

Some of these voters, I’m sure, agreed with every word that Trump uttered; others only with some of the hateful notes that he struck in his speeches; and still others, while not signing on to Trump’s vile message of hate, liked what he said on other matters. What stands out here isn’t a class in revolt, but an implosion of class understanding and retreat into white, nativist, masculinist identity and thinking. Even among the group who were motivated to vote for Trump for reasons other than his rhetoric of hate and division, they were still objectively throwing significant numbers of their class brothers and sisters under the bus.

In doing so, they, along with the other white workers who hitched themselves to Trump, violated an elementary maxim of the labor movement: An Injury to One is an Injury to All.

Or to put it a little differently, if we understand that class consciousness isn’t some ill defined anger at “elites” in high places, but rather is a mode of thinking that at its center includes, among other things, a keen awareness of the organic interlocking of class and democratic struggles (against racism, sexism, nativism, homophobia, and more), one thing seems obvious: the class understanding of this group of white workers was nowhere to be found in their political and voting calculus. No supporter of labor should attempt to sugar coat this in the name of a specious partisanship.

Moreover, it is wrongheaded to argue that Hillary and the Democratic Party are singularly responsible for this turn of events. Such a posture is of little help, eliding as it does such things as the rise of the right and its reshaping of public discourse in a backward direction, the atomizing and disaggregating role at the mass level of neoliberal financialization and globalization, and the decline of working class collectivities — robust democratically driven unions in the first place.

Nor does such an analysis factor in the impact of relative advantage of white, male, and U.S. born workers in the workplace and society over workers of color, women workers, and immigrants, the intractability of segregation — especially in housing and education, the backlash to the breaking of long standing racial, gender, and sexual barriers, and the migration of workers and their families from the Global South in search of a livelihood to the core countries of capitalism.

Finally, consideration has to be given to the long term marginalization — partly self-imposed — of the left since the 1970s.

I would add that any hope of escaping the nightmare of Trump’s presidency and resuming the forward march of the working class and progressive movement will turn in no small measure on squarely facing the reality of the rise of retrogressive thinking among too many white workers and the confluence of factors that explain it.

5. The latest terrorist attack in London should be a reminder that the broad democratic and progressive movement (from Democrats to the radical left) can’t yield the issue of terrorism and its interpretation to Trump and the right in general. It must offer its own analysis and practical solutions. To cede this ground to the far right, who have turned the exploitation of senseless human tragedy and people’s understandable fears into an art form to promote their backward, inhumane agenda, would be a huge mistake. Terrorism isn’t likely to go away soon.

6. Left-center unity is a key strategic concept of STRUGGLE. It isn’t a final destination or a resting point. To the contrary, it is a dynamic vehicle to turn broad popular and working class unity from a wish into reality.

7. I have said before that fascism isn’t around the corner. In fact, the journey down that path isn’t easy, smooth, or inevitable. A lot of ducks have to be in a row at the level of the state and society. And it carries great risks and consequences. But this hasn’t stopped loose talk about the fascist (or neo-fascist) danger being imminent. This wouldn’t bother me too much were it not for the fact that it removes from the public conversation what is a more likely, that is, a push toward some intermediate position between where we are now and full-blown fascist government. It is this danger and the ways to prevent it that should preoccupy us.

A first take: Yesterday’s disastrous — no hyperbole — announcement to withdraw from the climate change accord is of a piece with other retrograde statements and policy decisions over the past month by Trump and his acolytes. Trump, after some mixed signals in his first 100 days, appears to have made, not surprisingly, a devil’s bargain with the likes of Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon, and other right wing authoritarians in his administration and a fraction of the capitalist class, especially connected to the fossil fuel and military and military related industries.

While it’s never easy to divine what’s going on in Trump’s head, it is obvious that in decisively casting his lot with these miscreants he is endangering the lives of tens of millions and the sustainability of the planet. He is also taking a sledgehammer to our democracy. In his immediate crosshairs is the well being and safety of immigrants, people of color, and the poor. No deed is too dirty for Trump and his motley crew.

Meanwhile, his trip abroad last week — not to mention his long standing connections to Putin — gives every indication that his intention is to align his administration with right wing authoritarian, militarist, hyper-nationalist leaders and regimes in the world.

Fascism isn’t around the corner in my opinion. In fact, the journey down that path isn’t easy, smooth or inevitable. Among other things, it would be sure to meet massive resistance, as is evident from the current opposition to Trump coming from varied quarters, classes, constituencies. But at the same time, tendencies in that direction are unmistakable.

What makes things worse is the obsequious role of Republicans in Congress, although that is changing a bit and could change more under the impact of mass pressures, events, revelations of wrongdoing, and any erosion of Trump’s base.

If anything positive can be teased from this situation, it is this: the recent political thrust of Trump — his doubling down in a backward, reactionary, authoritarian direction — will come back to bite him sooner than he realizes. He doesn’t understand that what he is doing will likely greatly energize and broaden the opposition to his presidency and policies.

What to do? More of the same for sure. But that isn’t enough in these new circumstances. The struggle against Trump has to be raised to a new level. People not yet active have to be drawn into practical actions of one kind or another. Preparations for next year’s elections have to be stepped up. The vote has to be protected and expanded. The investigations into Trump-Russia ties and election manipulation has to be continue without White House interference. The immediate targets of Trump’s policies have to be defended. Coordinated mass actions on a bigger scale have to be organized. And, not least, anything that narrows down the opposition to Trump has to be rejected.

1. In the last two decades of the 20th century, two seismic events occurred. First was the rise of the right in the U.S. and the ascendancy of neoliberalism across the capitalist world, which became the grease for the retreat, transformation, and taming of social democratic and liberal politics. The other was the sudden and unexpected collapse of the Soviet Union, which had been the mainstay of the communist movement and world socialism from its inception.

2. Any accounting of successes in restraining Trump has to go beyond the seemingly obligatory invocation of the “Resistance Movement.” Give it its due for sure and find ways to expand its reach and depth too.

But an analysis should also include the positive role of the Democratic Party and the mass media, the rifts, even if small, in the GOP, and the discontent with Trump that is growing in elite circles in the state, courts, and economy — not to mention Trump’s breath-taking incompetence, indiscipline, out of control ego, and habit of putting his foot squarely in his mouth. In some ways, he is his worst enemy.

Which goes to prove once again that the process of social change is complicated, contradictory, and full of surprises and paradoxes. It doesn’t come, as much as we might wish, in pure and neat forms. Not one class — the working class — here and another class — the capitalist class — there. Not the people at one pole and the elites (and “establishment”) at the other. Not actors with impeccable credentials and unimpeachable aims on one side, while nothing but bad actors with scant possibility of a change of mind on the other.

In other words, if we are looking for simple and cut-and-dried explanations and schemes, we aren’t going to find any. And if we do, we would probably do ourselves (and others) a favor by digging a little deeper.

I post this every Memorial Day to remember my friends whose lives were cut short in the Vietnam War. Let’s continue to lift our voices against the insanity of war and insist that peace be given a chance. Too many flowers have gone. SW 

Today, I will again lift a pint of ale in memory of my three friends and their comrades who died in Vietnam.

I honor them without honoring the aggressive and unjust war in which they fought.

I don’t know what their reasons were for joining the military, maybe it was simply that the draft gave them no choice, but it really doesn’t matter. What I do know, f0r sure, is that their lives were unnecessarily cut short.

As a young peace activist in the late 60s, I probably didn’t always make a distinction between the soldiers fighting the war and the war itself. The soldier and the general were equally responsible as I saw it.

But I think differently now. I place the main responsibility for war on its architects in high places and a social system – capitalism – whose logic is to expand, dominate, and make war.

Ricky, Tuna and Cotter — my friends, all of whom were good at merrymaking — were at the bottom of the food chain of war making, nothing but cannon fodder, They were working class kids whose lives didn’t count for much in our government’s war plans. None of them were born with a silver spoon in their mouths, which is why in no small measure they ended up with a gun in their hand so far away from their homes.

I will always wonder what kind of lives they would have lived has they safely returned. With no hero’s welcome, no counseling waiting for them, no easy slide into a well paying job, I can’t help but think if they would have had the internal resources and support to come to terms with their war experience and live productive lives?

I easily (perhaps unfairly) doubt it, because each of them was not that different from me, and I have no confidence at all that I could have made that transition. It was hard enough to grow up in the 1960s without the ghastly and up close bloodletting of Vietnam on my emotional resume.

I wish, though, that they had a chance. I wish that their lives hadn’t been wasted doing things that no one should be forced to do. I wish that they had the opportunity to live long and, to the degree possible, joyfully.

I miss them. I celebrate them. They were “my buddies, my friends.” I wish they could join me at the Bronx Ale House today for a pint in their honor, although knowing them, I suspect, a single pint wouldn’t quite satisfy them, or me for that matter.

I also wish that we would toast to the millions in our generation who opposed the war. Some of them lost their lives, some of them went to jail, and some of them were scarred by the experience. They, too, deserve to be honored. In choosing to oppose the war, it was our generation’s “Finest Hour.”

Finally, I like to think that the four of us would clink glasses to the people of Vietnam who suffered so much during and after the war, and who are now rebuilding their country in conditions of peace.

Maybe that would be too much to expect. Unfortunately, I will never know. They will join me only in memory this afternoon. I wish it were different, but I will treasure their memory anyway, as I wash down my pint of ale.

Today would have been the 87th birthday of Armando Ramirez. But two months ago he quietly bid farewell to this world — a world that he loved, but also gave his energies and spirti to change for the better. In his final moments, he was listening to his favorite folk songs, sung by two of his children.

Armando was my pal of forty years. Someone I could lean on, and I like to think he could do the same. I miss him dearly and daily.

Though we were living on opposite ends of the country, we talked frequently on the phone and few things gave me more pleasure than to hear his voice. Our conversations were never long. And sometimes we talked nonsense, although in the past year we inevitably gravitated toward the elections.

And of course basketball, a game we loved, often came up. So much so that when we were both living in Detroit we were fans of the famed Southwestern High School high school in our neighborhood.

Armando, perhaps more than anybody I know, was extraordinarily kind, generous of spirit, and modest. Bullshitting and name dropping to impress others were not in his DNA. He was also, over a lifetime, a warrior for justice and socialism and a member of the Communist Party. If the term “genuine article” has any meaning, he embodied it. He’s on my Mt. Rushmore of beautiful people and will stay there forever.

Of course, my affection for him was no more than that felt by others who met and loved him too.

His life journey began in Chicago’s “back of the yards” neighborhood and eventually took him to Detroit, where he was first a Communist Party organizer and then an auto worker, at GM and at Ford. He told me more than once that his political education largely took place in Detroit. There he was involved in a whole range of struggles — against plant closings, the organization of Mexican Industries, the election campaigns of Mayor Coleman Young, and much more. He was no Monday morning quarterback.

He knew socialism had no delivery date, but no doubt he wished it would have arrived before he departed this world. Nonetheless, he was happy in the good fight, shoulder to shoulder with the class and people of which he was a proud son.

When I saw him last, in Oakland in January, I told him that I would come back when the weather  warmed up — he hated the cold — and that we would sit on his daughter’s deck. And the deal was that he could regale me with stories and I would drink some good red wine and probably get a little tipsy. He liked the bargain, and I did even more.

Two weeks ago, we planted an apple tree in my daughter Julia’s backyard in memory of Armando. Our small ceremony included short remembrances by each of us and a toast or two. We also buried a tennis ball — he loved and played tennis well into his early 80s — with the tree. And songs he knew and loved well filled the air: De Colores (Joan Baez), Guantanamera (Cubans around the world), Deportee (Arlo and Emmy Lou Harris), and Long Way Around (Dixie Chicks). The rain that fell blended with our bittersweet tears of love and sorrow.

After the planting, we went inside, enjoyed some homemade (and very good) Mexican food plus drink, and shared more memories of Armando.

Armando will never disappear into the recesses of our memory. He will remain, presente!