Credit: Christopher Penier
One Hundred Days of Assault: The War Against Free Speech in Revolutionary Times
In a Louisiana detention center, 1,000 miles from his family, Mahmoud Khalil was finally allowed to hold his 1-month-old son for the first time after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration’s efforts to separate them with a plexiglass barrier. The Columbia University graduate has been detained since March 8—the first person arrested under Trump’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters. Federal authorities seek to deport him, claiming his role in Gaza protests undermined U.S. foreign policy interests.
ICE denied Khalil’s request to attend his son’s birth. As his wife Noor Abdalla said: ” This is not just heartless. It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse.”
This cruelty isn’t isolated. Journalists are barred from the White House. Life-saving scientific research is shut down. Programs promoting diversity and anti-discrimination are banned. Law firms face sanctions for representing political opponents. These coordinated attacks reveal the nature of our moment.
The Last Stand of Private Property
When officials justify deporting Khalil because “no one has a right to a green card,” they reveal a fundamental truth: the ruling class no longer maintains even the appearance of democratic rights or economic incentives for those it can exclude. This marks a shift to naked force as the primary method of social control.
The advancement of automation and AI is revolutionizing production while creating millions of displaced workers. Since 1974, worker productivity soared while wages stagnated, with $50 trillion in worker-created wealth captured by the top 10%. In the pandemic’s first year alone, North American billionaires increased their wealth by $1.3 trillion.
Economic attacks have intensified with tariffs driving up costs for families while corporations receive tax breaks.
As the new class of displaced workers grows and begins to understand its collective power, the ruling class intensifies efforts to prevent unity. This is the development of fascism—the step-by-step move toward open terroristic dictatorship of corporate power carried out by the State apparatus.”
The Bipartisan Attack on Free Speech
The attacks on free speech, though accelerated under Trump, aren’t limited to one party. Both parties ultimately serve a system that puts profits over people’s needs, deploying force against movements that threaten the existing order.
The massive multiracial protests following George Floyd’s murder in 2020 demonstrated an unprecedented level of solidarity. Up to 26 million Americans participated in what became the largest protest movement in U.S. history. This unity terrified those in power.
The pandemic threw as many as 50 million people out of work, adding to decades of economic hardship among America’s working class. The protests that followed represented a direct threat to the system of divisions that has kept working people from uniting across racial lines. The battle for Black Lives Matter is part of our class going on the strategic offensive, aiming at the political superstructure that protects capitalism, inequality and private property.
Since 2020, dozens of states have introduced anti-protest legislation. The Trump administration has threatened foreign students who participate in demonstrations with deportation. Democratic officials have often joined Republicans in deploying militarized police against student protests.
As the April 2025 Amnesty International report “Chaos & Cruelty” details, the Trump administration has already torn communities apart through mass deportations, enforced disappearances, and harsh restrictions on asylum—all violations of international law.
As Trump admitted: “Opponents argue that law doesn’t give me the right to do this. Be quiet!” This reveals the open abandonment of legal constraints.
The targeting of pro-Palestinian protesters exemplifies this bipartisan assault. Republicans support the crackdown while Democrats refuse to defend speech that might upset powerful donors.
The Path to Mass Incarceration and Cuts to Basic Needs
Trump’s declaration to “take over the universities” reveals that suppressing student protests is a test run for broader authoritarian control. The Justice Department’s task forces monitoring “anti-American rhetoric” create infrastructure for mass persecution.
Suppressing public dissent allows the ruling class to advance harmful policies unchallenged, protecting corporate power and the private property system from democratic opposition.
This connection became clear when House Republicans passed their fascistic “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”. The legislation represents “the largest transfer of wealth from the working class to the wealthy in a single U.S. law.” While giving $1.5 trillion in tax breaks to the top 5%, it strips nearly 14 million Americans of health insurance by 2034.
The budget makes the biggest Medicaid cuts ever while gutting SNAP food assistance for nearly 11 million people.
The Revolutionary Path Forward
The assault on democratic rights isn’t happening because the system is strong but because it’s vulnerable to our unity. The technological revolution creates both crisis and possibility—the same developments driving millions into precarity make abundance possible for all.
Our response must build unity across dividing lines, recognizing that fighting for free speech connects to fighting for housing, healthcare, education, and clean water. The battle is part of a class struggle because the ruling class is the enemy of humanity and earth itself. Their frenzied attacks show weakness, not strength—they must resort to naked violence to maintain control.
Uniting for a New World
The technological revolution can supply abundance and has made distribution according to ability to pay obsolete. This is why the ruling class turns to fascism—to protect private property through force when economic bribery no longer works.
Our class must go from scattered economic struggles to united political struggles against the State. We must recognize that our diverse working class—from displaced tech workers to undocumented immigrants—share common interests in abolishing the private property relations that prioritize profit over people.
Victory requires political power to defeat fascism and organize the cooperative society we need. As the League’s Political Resolution states: “Whether in military war or political war, it is not possible to defeat an enemy without defeating that enemy’s strategy.”
We must unite not just to defend free speech, but to build a world where human needs come before profit, technology serves all rather than enriches few, and earth is protected not plundered. The battle for democracy is the battle for a new world—and that battle is ours to win.
ATTRIBUTION
Published on June 14, 2025
This article originated in Rally!
P.O. Box 477113 Chicago, IL 60647 rally@lrna.org
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