Why We Are Marching on the RNC
Why we’re marching on the RNC
The Democrats bear the main responsibility for the genocide in Palestine. Israel’s daily massacres are the culmination of President Biden’s previous three years of warmongering. The Minnesota Anti-War Committee calls on anti-imperialists and the peace movement to join the March on the DNC in Chicago on August 19. This will be a historic protest as Gaza burns and the Democratic Party splinters. But today, we are likewise protesting at the RNC against the policies of Trump and the Republican Party.
Trump was so pro-Israel as president that Zionists named an illegal settlement after him. During his term, he moved the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem despite the fact that Palestine also claims Jerusalem as its capital, and he greenlit Israel’s annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights that it has occupied since 1967. He also pushed normalization agreements between Israel and some Arab governments while totally denying Palestinians a voice. These actions all lay the groundwork for Israel’s abandonment of any facade of a “peace process,” and ultimately led to the genocide we see today. Trump nowadays even argues that Biden isn’t giving Israel a free enough hand to “finish the job” in Gaza.
In other areas, Trump sometimes pretends to be anti-war (especially around Ukraine) but his record when in power shows him to be no less imperialist than Democrats.
Despite his supposed sympathies for Putin, Trump pulled the U.S. and NATO out of missile proliferation treaties with Russia, ramping up tensions that set the stage for the war in Ukraine. Trump once criticized the U.S. role in Syria, only to carry out his own vision of illegal occupation that he openly branded as “keep the oil.” Trump tore up the nuclear deal with Iran and assassinated one of its top leaders, sent U.S. mercenaries to overthrow the Venezuelan government and imposed brutal sanctions on both countries, inflicting humanitarian shortages on hundreds of millions. Trump’s trade war against China even hurt the supply of medical equipment to the U.S. during the early pandemic. In Afghanistan, Trump dropped the “mother of all bombs” as part of an unprecedented bombing campaign.
The Trump administration also carried out immigration policy that can only be described as imperialist as well as racist. The increased militarization of the southern border saw the former president spew disgusting comments describing Latin American immigrants as “drug dealers,” “criminals” and “rapists,” bolstering the countrywide persecution of those deemed “illegal” by ICE. This included the Muslim ban that contributed to racist, Islamophobic repression. Meanwhile, it was Trump’s sanctions and other imperialist practices that drove mass migration from targeted countries in the first place.
No matter who’s in power, we need to keep raising the people’s demands: no more wars, imperialism or militarism, at home or abroad! Money for human needs, not for war! Legalization for all! End U.S. aid to Israel and FREE PALESTINE!
