January 21, 2025

Today, January 20, a vicious, racist, misogynistic, xenophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, antisemitic, fossil-fuel-loving, jingoistic bigot was sworn in as president of the United States.

What stood out the most in the new president’s program was the attack on current and future immigrants. In what has been characterized as more of a State of the Union address than an inaugural one, President Donald Trump presented a list of executive orders he would issue immediately. The largest number — from sending federal troops to the border with Mexico to promises to deport millions of undocumented people to the reinstatement of the “Remain in Mexico” policy — were directed against an important sector of the global working class — the migrant community.

Trump’s first speech of his second term stirred up the most vile stereotypes, portraying migrants as criminals whose presence constitutes an “invasion.”

Also in the list of executive orders to be implemented was a brazen attack on transgender and non-binary people, proclaiming the official U.S. government position to be recognition of “only two genders, males and females.” This order, along with a racist one ending “diversity, equality and inclusion” programs inside the federal government, have already been signed — on the Martin Luther King Day holiday, ironically, with Trump promising that King’s dream would somehow be fulfilled by his reactionary program. In fact, it is intended to roll back the gains of the historic Civil Rights Movement!

The hate-monger Trump took his oath of office with his hand on – not one, but two – Bibles, his late mother’s and the one President Abraham Lincoln purportedly used in his inauguration. References to the biblical god permeated the entire ceremony, from the invocation by Rev. Franklin Graham (son of the late Cold War evangelist Billy Graham) to Trump’s inauguration speech. Despite the token inclusion of a conservative, pro-Zionist rabbi in the benediction, the overall message had a right-wing Christian fundamentalist tone.

Both Franklin Graham and Trump himself, referring to the failed assassination attempt against him last year, claimed the president “was saved by God to make America great again.” (CBS News broadcast, Jan. 20)

“America First” — also the name of an outright fascist group active in the U.S. in the 1930s — was a running thread in the address. President number 47 repeated his pledges to take back the Panama Canal, rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” restore the name “Mount McKinley” to the renamed Mount Denali in Alaska and impose tariffs on all goods imported from other countries.

Patriotism was invoked, under the banner of “Drill, baby drill,” to justify new anti-climate measures. They include ending the “Green New Deal” — which was never really put in place to begin with — and reversing outgoing President Joe Biden’s mandate to build electric vehicles.

All in all, beyond all the chauvinistic drivel, Trump presented a pretty scary program. But declaring intentions is one thing. To carry them out Trump will come up against the resistance of millions of immigrants, LGBTQIA2S+ people, women, people of color and any workers who believe in solidarity against this reactionary program.

Millions of people worldwide have been inspired by the heroic resistance of the Palestinian people, who wrested a ceasefire agreement and prisoner release from the Zionist apartheid state and its powerful imperialist backers. Out of this inspiration arose international solidarity that will only grow stronger.

As the saying goes, “When we fight, we win!”