We demand that student activist Mahmoud Khalil be released from detention by the Department of Homeland Security. Everyone in the United States has the basic right to criticize foreign governments, the US government, and other powerful institutions. All people must have the right to organize and peacefully protest. Free speech and collective action — for Palestine or any other cause — has never been considered “material support” of terrorism and to construe it as such to prop up an arrest and immigration prosecution is a blatant attempt to cancel the First Amendment. And Donald Trump has promised that this is just the first of more such arrests to come.
Let’s be clear about what is happening: the Trump regime’s kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil on Saturday is a direct assault on all of our basic rights.
The Trump regime’s repressive moves are disturbing and dangerous. But they are also — both for the government’s broader agenda and for the Zionist project — an incredible blunder. History has shown time and time again that governments resort to repression out of fear of the people and their movements, not out of strength. The kidnapping of a Palestine solidarity activist involved in the student encampments shows that these encampments were a direct threat to Zionists, that they are now using state repression to contain. History also shows that when governments and their allies resort to repression and movements fight back by defending their basic rights, those movements build support for the underlying cause they are fighting for. The labor movement teaches us this, the civil rights movement teaches us this, and the antiwar movement teaches us this. In calling out the repressive actions of the Trump regime and Zionists today, we build support for the Palestinian people at the same time.
It’s up to us — tens of millions of people, disgusted by what this authoritarian administration stands for — to fight back. Only a wave of popular opposition against the Trump regime in the coming months can stop it from escalating these assaults on our freedom.
To build that wave of opposition we need to hone in on the immediate fight. We are now engaged in a struggle to defend basic rights of free speech and association. Today the attack is being made against a Palestine solidarity activist, but tomorrow the attacks will be extended to labor organizers, liberal intellectuals, religious minorities, neighborhood activists, and more. The fight to defend our rights must be front and center as we organize ourselves.
How can we build this kind of opposition to Trump and to its attacks on our basic rights? We start with the tens of millions of people who are opposed to Trump and his regime. We can add to them the tens of millions of people who did not vote in 2024 and the millions more who voted for Trump reluctantly. These people belong to the mass base of people who abstained or voted for Trump as a protest against the administration of Joe Biden. They did not vote for what Trump is delivering now. That means that a real majority can be built against what is unfolding.
We need to use tactics that pull this majority together. We need mass mobilizations that bring in people who haven’t participated before; actions that expose the criminal moves of the Trump administration to polarize the public against Trump rather than activists; discussion and resolutions in our unions and community groups to build awareness and action around assaults on our rights; and pressure on political and civil leaders to stand up to what Trump is doing and spark further public controversies about the government’s actions. All of these steps must follow two rules: number one, they must bring in the maximum number of people possible; and number two, they must be guided by principles of nonviolence and mass action.
Building a majority in society against the Trump regime means we also need a broad alliance of organizations and people with a wide array of political views; this includes the labor movement, the left, liberals, moderates, and the politically disaffected. This year is an all-hands-on-deck situation.
DSA can make an important contribution to this work. As one of the largest mass membership organizations with thousands of engaged and experienced grassroots activists, we have a large national network to draw on. We need to mobilize our members and prepare them in turn to mobilize their friends, family, neighbors, and coworkers quickly. We need to ask more of our members, too. We need everyone’s help in the work of crafting our tactics to respond effectively to conditions now, and whatever may come next.
We are in an unprecedented moment in our lives as political activists. But we must unite around a plan of mass action in the defense of our basic rights. A government that abducts and attacks outspoken individuals and declares war on democracy is a government that is going to lose. As we look fascism in the eye and defend the rights of all to engage in political struggle, we courageously recommit to the broader struggle all socialists are part of, to build a better world for everyone, free from oppression, exploitation, and alienation. Solidarity to the Palestinian people, to Mahmoud Khalil, and to the international working class!
