{"id":13724,"date":"2025-02-27T00:00:49","date_gmt":"2025-02-27T05:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=13724"},"modified":"2025-03-06T21:12:15","modified_gmt":"2025-03-07T02:12:15","slug":"each-blow-against-oppression-advances-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2025\/02\/each-blow-against-oppression-advances-us-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Each blow against oppression advances us all"},"content":{"rendered":"

M<\/span>ake no mistake, the Trump administration\u2019s attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives are an attempt to discredit the project of antiracism as such.<\/p>\n

These attacks represent a further intensification of the U.S. capitalist class and state\u2019s war on the existing Left, on emergent left-wing possibility, and, most crucially, on the already heterogenous working class.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s <\/span>threat<\/span><\/a> to deport millions, including international activists, and especially university students, who\u2019ve supported the Palestine solidarity movement speaks for itself. So, too, do the virulent and sweeping <\/span>attacks on trans and gender non-conforming folks<\/span><\/a>. These seek not only to deny healthcare, legitimizing the U.S. status quo of material disinvestment in social reproduction for all working class people, but also to police our bodies and our gender expression so as to reinforce the bounds of <\/span>hetero- and homonormativity<\/span><\/a>. Even Trump\u2019s offensive against what are intentionally limited D.E.I. initiatives is not just about dismantling this or that program. It is an effort to consolidate the current <\/span>racial regime <\/span><\/a>of U.S. capitalism.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Adopting and militarizing the very identitarian language that he supposedly rejects, Trump is seeking to roll back even the minor and already strictly limited concessions that have been wrung from the U.S. capitalist state. These were not beneficent gifts handed down by philanthropists; they were the products of years of struggle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just that the Trump administration is seeking to discredit any and all struggles against exploitation and oppression and to rev up the authoritarian capacities and reach of the capitalist state. The blatant targeting of immigrants, queer and trans folks, and those who are racially oppressed, reveals that, whatever its internal divisions, one of this administration\u2019s most coherent projects is to displace the crises endemic to capitalism onto already vulnerable populations. The problem, Trump is attempting to tell exploited U.S. workers, is not capitalism and its all-consuming, socially destructive prioritization of profitability above all else. Rather, it\u2019s those supposedly <\/span>undeserving sections of the proletariat<\/span><\/a> that are the problem, or left-wing forces that have compromised the security of the U.S. working class with their calls for equality. Such an argument is as old as capitalism itself.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n