Welcome back to The Beautiful Idea! We’re excited to bring you a jam-packed show today and we have some amazing content planned, so be sure to subscribe to the show and follow us on Mastodon and BlueSky.
In today’s episode, we feature:
But first, let’s get to the news.
We are now over two months into the second Trump administration, and already the regime has created a constitutional crisis and has begun to defy some court orders, openly calling for judges to be impeached, and issuing executive orders against law firms, while Trump moves to enrich himself and his cohorts, even performing a grotesque infomercial on the White House lawn for Tesla. This has been coupled with a sweeping ramping up mass deportations, slashing safety-net programs, re-organizing cultural and educational institutions across the country, firing swaths of federal workers, and attacking labor unions and collective bargaining.
Vicky Osterweil made some important observations recently, writing:
If we look at the current state of the fascist coup in the US, it is clear that they are making significant material progress while simultaneously losing more and more political and popular ground. The tariffs are a particularly extreme example of this contradiction: Trump has successfully claimed economic power over the entire globe exclusively to his person – let congress, the people, his allies, even his cabinet be damned – but stock markets are in freefall, he’s hemorrhaging support from the capitalist class and even his own people have started briefing against him. But this contradiction has been visible in almost all of his moves, as he successfully wields powers constitutionally and legally “unavailable” to the executive, but all the while popular discontent, protest and fury build at a rapid pace.
This contradiction will only lead to accelerating confrontations until it is resolved.
They really only had this two-pronged strategy – control the media and purge the government while robbing the till as fast as possible – but they attacked everywhere at once, as though they had much broader control of the situation. This blitz maximized popular resistance while actively demoralizing their base and their street forces.
In Congress, Republicans push forward on their proposed budget package, which would mean drastic tax-cuts for billionaires and corporations, $1 trillion for the Pentagon, $45 billion to expand ICE detention centers, while also cutting much needed medical and food programs and throwing basic social safety net programs like Social Security into chaos.
Meanwhile, the economy stands on the verge of a possible recession, as uncertainty in the market grows, and Trump continues to push through with tariffs, escalating a growing trade war – especially with China. How this will play out for poor and working people in the US remains to be seen, so be sure to listen later in this episode for more discussion on where this is all heading and the dystopian project underlying this push.
And as a recession lies on the horizon, the Trump administration continues to push for increased repression and authoritarian attacks on growing segments of society. Multiple international students living inside the US legally have been abducted from their homes and disappeared, as the state has moved to revoke the visas of international students across the US.
Even more horrifically, the Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act from the late 1700s, as justification for sending several hundred Venezuelan migrants to a super-max “anti-terrorist” prison in El Salvador, in an exchange for several million with the far-Right dictator of that country. Those sent to the prison, which is known for human rights abuses, will be used as slave labor. Recent investigations have found that the vast majority of those sent there have no criminal records, including a man who the only “evidence” of his membership in a gang turned out to be a tattoo that celebrated Autism Awareness. Another person sent to El Salvador, Kilmar Garcia, a union member living in Maryland that even the Trump administration admits was deported due a administrative error, has sparked widespread anger, protests, and calls for his release.
As It’s Going Down reported in its column In Contempt:
Protests and demonstrations in solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and others targeted by the Trump administration are spreading. Labor unions which several targeted students belong to have launched campaigns and organized rallies in solidarity. Trump Tower in New York was flooded by demonstrators with Jewish Voice for Peace, who shut down the lobby of the building, demanding freedom for Khalil and denouncing fascist attacks on Palestinian solidarity activists.
Demonstrations in solidarity with targeted students have been organized across the country, mobilizing thousands in rallies and marches on campuses and in city centers. Students have organized walkouts on campus and at Columbia university in New York, Jewish students carried out a lockdown and rally to demand freedom for Khalil.
Demonstrations and protests continue across the US against ICE. Students continue to organize walkouts against attacks on migrants, communities are banding together to denounce ICE raids, and rallies call for the closure of ICE prisons and to denounce collaboration with law enforcement.
In Tacoma, WA, hundreds turned out to demonstrate against ICE and to call for the release of union organizer picked up by DHS and held in detention. The Tacoma branch of the Industrial Workers of the World reported:
Today, we attended the rally at the Northwest Detention Center right here in Tacoma to support all immigrants detained in immigration detention. The labor movement showed up in force, multiple labor unions, community members and organizations demanding the release of immigrant union members and leaders, Lewelyn Dixon member of SEIU Local 925 and union leader Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez of Familias Unidas por la Justicia.
We know that these attacks against immigrant and undocumented communities as well as labor unions by the capitalist class have been happening for decades, even centuries at this point. They are systemic and structural, and are part of the root causes; capitalism, imperialism and colonialism. We continue the fight!
Most recently, in New York:
A mother and her three children who were taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents as part of a sweep in the tiny home town of the Trump administration’s “border czar”, Tom Homan, have been released following days of outcry from community figures, advocates and protesters calling for their freedom.
Over the weekend, about a thousand protesters marched outside Homan’s home in a small New York village, calling for the release of the family after they were detained last month.
Resistance is bubbling across the social terrain, with literally millions of people across the US taking part in mass demonstrations over the past month against both Elon Musk and the Trump regime. One of the largest popular expressions of popular outrage at Elon Musk and the Trump administration, has been the explosion of the Tesla Takedown movement, which has held demonstrations and rallies outside of Tesla showrooms across the country since Trump came to power. On March 29th, thousands of people rallied outside of Telsa showrooms across the US in a day of action.
As It’s Going Down reported:
Over the past two months, Tesla stock has tanked, costing Musk billions of dollars, trade-ins of Tesla vehicles have skyrocketed, and boycotts in places like Germany, where Musk came out in support of the neo-fascist AfD party, has led to a mass decline in sales. Despite politicians and influencers rushing to encourage the MAGA faithful to buy Tesla vehicles, as Business Insider reported, “Tesla has lost so much value in such a short period of time that JPMorgan analysts said they couldn’t think of another comparable moment in automotive history.”
Trump officials have also pushed to demonize a growing chorus of sabotage, graffiti, and property destruction against Tesla vehicles, labeling it “domestic terrorism,” while predictably echoing far-Right conspiracies that such acts are being “funded,” as Trump has even floated the idea that anti-Tesla protesters would be sent to prisons in El Salvador, and Musk has claimed that the Trump administration would “go after” vocal critics of his company.
Increased authoritarian rhetoric from Trump, Musk, and pundits on Fox News, has galvanized a small segment of far-Right, neo-Nazi, and Republican groups to mobilize in public support of Musk and his increasingly unpopular attacks on working-class Americans, in an attempt to intimidate anti-Musk protesters. Already in Florida, a Trump supporter was arrested last week, after driving his car onto the sidewalk in an apparent attempt to injure anti-Tesla protesters, and in Berkeley, CA, a far-Right influencer clashed with demonstrators after he pulled a weapon on the crowd.
Despite the far-Right coming out in support of Musk, the number of anti-Tesla demonstrations only continues to increase, with protests taking place at hundreds of locations on March 29th. Calls for counter-protests by Trump supporters, neo-Nazis, and Proud Boys also failed to stop or intimidate anti-Tesla demonstrators, and generally, far-Right rally goers were vastly outnumbered when counter-protests did take place.
More anti-Tesla demonstrations are planned in the coming weeks, as Tesla stock continues to tank. Meanwhile, acts of targeted vandalism against Tesla show no signs of slowing down, as Tesla cars in various cities have been set on fire and damaged in a growing number of incidents. The state is also ramping up calls to charge those arrested for vandalism with “domestic terrorism.”
On April 5th, various progressive organizations, largely aligned with the Democratic Party, held massive “Hands Off!” demonstrations in over a thousand cities and towns across the US, mobilizing upwards of millions of people. While the protests are certainly a temperature check that Trump’s policies are largely unpopular, as many have pointed out, the attempt to herd us back into the Democratic Party is a dead end. As anarchist author Peter Gelderloos wrote:
It is insanely delusional to believe that the Democrat[ic Party is] capable of changing in a meaningful way, and it is insanely delusional to trust them. They are guilty of genocide, mass murder, mass incarceration, impoverishment, bloody wars, and oppressive politics. The system they uphold, the system they promise can be reformed if we just trust them one more time, has condemned this generation and the next one and the next one to a future of unimaginable suffering, danger, and poverty.
Occupations of campus buildings to demand divestment from Israel took place in Maine and at Columbia university, students occupied a building to protest the expulsion of pro-Palestinian students. At UCLA, hundreds of students rallied and took over a building and dropped banners during a demonstration against the UC board of regents.
In antifascist news, Proud Boys were confronted in the Pacific Northwest and neo-Nazis with Patriot Front were chased away by anti-Trump protesters in Rhode Island when they tried to hold a counter-rally. Demonstrations against MAGA fascists with Turning Point USA continue across the country, with communities holding counter-demonstrations in Memphis, TN against Kyle Rittenhouse and anti-trans grifter Riley Gaines in various cities. In Davis, CA, over 30 masked demonstrators confronted and tore down a Turning Point USA booth at UC Davis. In the bay area, residents organized a protest following a far-Right rally on a freeway overpass. In Colorado Springs, demonstrators rallied against a speaking event featuring MAGA fascist Steve Bannon. Also in Colorado, hundreds rallied and protested against white supremacist Jared Taylor, who was invited to speak on a local campus by a Turning Point USA activist. Finally in Green Bay, WI, hundreds rallied against an appearance by Elon Musk.
In repression news, in California, several protesters who occupied a building at Stanford in solidarity with Palestine last year, have now been charged with felonies. There’s also an update on political prisoner Casey Goonan, which you can read here.
Santa Rita Jail
5325 Broder Blvd.
Sam Beard, an activist in the movement to Stop Cop City, a host of the Party Girls Podcast, and also spokesperson for the defense fund for Luigi Mangione, issued a statement that they were visited by two FBI agents that were part of the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), hours before Beard appeared on NewsNation, speaking about the ongoing case of Luigi Mangione, who is accused of assassinating the CEO of United Healthcare. In a statement posted to social media, Beard stated: “This task force targeted me, not because of anything I’ve done, but for what I’ve said.”
A few shout-out and updates:
That’s gonna do it for us, enjoy the interviews and we’ll see you soon!
