Workers Voice

Pentagon & Capitalist Rulers Allowed the Storming of the Capitol

The only thing more disgusting than the fascists who stormed the Capitol is the big business media endlessly replaying and publicizing their victory. Corporations and politicians are given airtime to claim their opposition but they have been and still are the main source of funding and support for the fascists. The fascists are celebrating the endless replay of them entering and holding the Capitol for four hours while they paraded around their racists Nazi signs and slogans. This has emboldened them to undertake further actions which they are again openly planning, this time with more focus on the seats of state governments.

Let’s be clear: this was allowed to happen not because a few Capitol police were sympathetic to the fascists (given a choice, the police will always side with the fascists). Evidence shows that the government and the Pentagon, at the highest levels, decided in advance to allow the scene at the Capitol to give the fascists a victory.

This violent assault was planned openly for weeks. They were allowed into D.C. and allowed to go to the Capitol. The Mayor had asked for troops and Trump and others were on the phone with the generals delaying. The Mayor certainly did not delay it. Even when a mere 340 National Guard troops were finally okayed, they stayed away from the Capitol until 5:15 PM.

Whether this was meant to be a dress rehearsal or more, it was not an insurrection with millions rising up for them. But it was certainly a step forward in the building of a fascist movement.

Fascism is not just a bad set of policies, it’s a bludgeon used to rescue capitalist profit.

Fascism is not just a bad policy cured by “good” politicians. It is a way to defend profits at a time when the capitalist system is in crisis. The German Nazi regime was a capitalist government dedicated to preventing workers’ power in the face of a depression. It was used to crush workers’ support of socialism.

In periods of relative stability, politicians take advantage of the low consciousness of workers to promote faith in capitalist democracy. But when deception fails, when they can no longer fool workers into believing that billionaires deserve private islands while millions of children starve, they will resort to open terrorism. This is what the history of fascism teaches us.

Independence from Democratic Party is urgent

It’s important to fight any setback, especially against the fascists. We must defend every right that we’ve won through struggle. The issue is how. We cannot depend on the Democratic party because they ultimately answer to their capitalist backers. They fund liberal and fascist politicians, one more than the other depending on which way the winds blow.

Even Biden admitted that Trump’s white supremacist shock troops were treated with kid gloves while Black Lives Matter protesters were met with brutal repression. But his answer is to call for “equal treatment before the law” as if Nazis and anti-racists were equal. Biden’s plan to “Unite America” is just another way of saying that he can work with the right-wing forces as long as they don’t give Wall Street the jitters.

Mass Mobilizations are more important than ever

The U.S. ‘left’ wasted four years waiting for the Democratic party until the tremendous Black Lives Matter protests broke out over the summer. As Workers Voice pointed out often, this was four years that Trump used to build his fascist movement. Anti-Trumpism was reduced to ridiculing the man himself, ignoring how effective Trump’s ploys were among many backwards workers. We urged mass street mobilizations to oust Trump. Even if he were replaced by Pence, the balance of power in the class struggle would have propelled the movement forward.

There’s no better time to hit the streets than now. Leave the parties of Wall Street and the Pentagon behind. The only force capable of defeating fascism is the collective power of working and oppressed people, united in motion. United, we can never be defeated.