International Socialism Project

Trump, and Biden before him, have used charges of “antisemitism” against all pro-Palestinian protesters to justify violently cracking down and expelling students who had taken part in opposing Israel’s genocide in Palestine.  Trump has ratcheted up punishment to detention and deportation, using the Cold War era “Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952″—which allows the State Department to deport non-citizens who it deems pose a threat to “U.S. foreign policy.” This was a key tool used in the persecution and deportation of communists during the McCarthy era, which for good reason has been likened to the witch hunt against pro-Palestine activists today.

Throughout US history, the only way democratic rights have been expanded is through mass struggle—from the Civil War to the labor upsurge of the 1930s; from the Civil Rights movement to the fight for marriage equality—and it’s the only way they can be won today. 

It is true that O’Brien’s two meetings with Trump and the Teamsters’ contribution to the GOP don’t constitute a formal endorsement. The question is: what kind of message does it send?

The real “strategic impasse” is that of those socialists who, finding themselves adrift and without serious organization, joined DSA in a vain hope that it could be influenced to become something it was never been set up to be.