Large “Hands Off” Protests Across the US

Opinion | Tommy Johnson

The so-called “Hands Off” demonstrations which took place last weekend in every state and more than 1,200 cities across the US were well-attended. On the one hand, the demonstrations can be understood as having mass participation in opposition to the criminal gang of Donald Trump and Elon Musk, representatives of the most right-wing elements of the ruling class and hailing directly from their ranks. On the other hand, the demonstrations indicated an effort on the part of the Democratic Party mafia to traffic in the just struggles of the masses while bending them into a direction suiting the interests of their sections of the imperialist class. In this respect, the demonstrations represent the desperate efforts of the embarrassed and discredited Democrats to prepare for the next rounds of the electoral farce.

“Hands Off” is a popular slogan generally used by protest movements in the US to condemn its crimes of imperialist plunder and colonial oppression carried out abroad, and here the slogan has been distorted in a way which collaborates with US imperialist interests and the foreign policy of the Democratic mafia.

The politics of the march are considerably eclectic, but the tried-and-true reactionary style of the Democrats was present everywhere; one can examine the monopoly media coverage and notice the abundance of US and Ukrainian flags and the near total absence of Palestinian flags, even though the protests take place amid an all-time high in the support from students and workers for the Palestinian cause.

The use of Ukrainian flags in this instance is not the same—it does not represent the right to self-determination of the Ukrainian people, but the interest in only changing who dominates Ukraine over to the US from Russian imperialism. It is support for trafficking in their struggles via the US imperialist lackey Zelensky, who has made every indication that he will sell Ukraine to the US in exchange for military funding and support.

Other posters quite common at these events fantastically distort reality by comparing Donald Trump, a real estate billionaire-turned-politician, and his sweeping privatizations and cuts to public funding with communism. The same historically-illiterate positions are taken up from an imperialist and US chauvinist position against Putin, who is often portrayed next to images of comrade Stalin and the Soviet Union. The so-called liberal progressives use their counterparts to promote their ignorant anti-communism.

Working class participation was minuscule but present, mainly under the control and guidance of yellow unions, and working class leadership was absent. In the forefront of the marches were all the standard crusades of the Democratic mafia, the public causes they hide behind to appear progressive and those derived from their irrational infatuation with postmodernism. Of course, the main objective was to promote voting, while secondarily defending the besieged state-monopolies, indicating the desperation felt by the Democratic mafia to regain control over the state bureaucracy.

For the people it is another matter: there are those crushed under the rule of both political party mafias, who take the streets in justified opposition to Trump, which is quickly capitalized on by the Democrats. Opposition to the mass deportations of undocumented people is also jumped on by the Democrats—who have with every administration deported as many or more than their Republican counterparts.

The demonstrations were decisively “pro-America,” meaning pro-imperialism, and simply dissatisfied with the personality and political approach of Trump. The delusional notion of “saving American democracy” was a common refrain. US democracy was the most conservative in the era of bourgeois revolution—the fact that it was democracy which defended the existence of the already-outmoded slave system would mark its trajectory of presidential absolutism and a bloated executive.

On one hand, the people must fight for the preservation and extension of their democratic rights as part of their fight for political power, while on the other hand “saving American democracy” prevents and confuses this by demanding a reactionary clinging to the old-order, which has always been oppressive and restricted democracy.

Another common slogan is “End oligarchy”. This is no more progressive than the others, as it shifts the blame from capitalism and the US imperialist ruling class as a whole, putting it on one section of billionaires.

This is a favorite method of phony socialists, those who want to preserve the system of exploitation and the rule of the capitalists through the extension of social services. Their “socialism” desires to concentrate power and wealth into the hands of state-monopolies while protecting the capitalist class as a whole and preventing the workers from seizing power. In their sick imaginations, the radically opposed systems of capitalism and socialism can be combined into one, and their activity is always poised against real socialism. These types make a living off the fact that people experience want, and that they are forced to grovel for social services like beggars seeking hand outs rather that execute power themselves over a new state—one which guarantees work and other social necessities.

In Washington DC, the exception to the rule, a contingent of thousands of pro-Palestinian activists held a march loosely connected with the nationwide “Hands Off” activity. The group assembled on Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House and held a march to the headquarters for ICE. Support for political prisoners Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk, both currently held in ICE custody and fighting politically motivated deportation, could be seen on banners and signs.

The pro-Palestine event took a position against US imperialism, but like the larger rally suffered from the electoralism of some of its leaders, expressed in calls to lobby politicians, and the event lacked the combative militancy which has popularized the student solidarity movement with Palestine. The best indication of this is read in the conservative slogan “Let Gaza live,” which only considers the humanitarian side of the conflict, ignoring its national and class character, and of course falling short of supporting the armed struggle of the Palestinian people. For such conservative thinkers, it is easier to ask the enemy to stop than to stop them. The organizers, only prepared to speak and provide slogans which would not offend liberals, were unable to raise the consciousness of the crowd or express the militant energy and self-sacrificing bravery for which this movement is known.

The total numbers attending rallies across the country are estimated to have been in the millions, and the messaging remained largely in the suffocating grip of the Democratic mafia, who dream of turning all the righteous dissatisfaction with the Trump administration and the economic crisis (which they helped to provoke and use to crush the people) into election gains in the midterms with a strategic focus on the next round of presidential elections.

The millions in attendance were for the most part not of the working class, but mainly allies with a shared interest as they also suffer the crisis. The demoralized voters, the dejected college students and small business owners fearful of the economic effect of Trump’s policies, are easily wrapped up in the Democratic mafia’s class-collaborationist agenda. The events indicate that the frustration of the masses, in the absence of the leadership of the working class, will inevitably be crushed on two front—on one hand under the attacks on democratic rights, represented by both parties, and on the other, by the particular imperialist politics of the Democratic mafia.

Image: “Save Texas Schools” and “Hands Off” demonstration at the Texas Capitol building in Austin, TX

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