It's Time for a New "America"

The United States has declared war on the United States.

The so-called War Department’s major charge from the “Commander in Theft” to 800 military leaders in Quantico, VA this past September 30, 2025 was to fight “the enemy within.”

Days prior, Trump issued an executive order designating “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organization. Antifa is alleged to be behind violence and terrorism, including armed standoffs with law enforcement, organized riots, violent assaults on ICE agents, and threats against political figures and activists. Then on September 25, Trump in a Presidential Memorandum connected disparate incidents like the attempted assassination of US Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the two assasination attempts on Trump, the 2024 murder of a senior healthcare executive, and so-called riots in Los Angeles and Portland, to claim this was organized political violence from the Left–even though research shows around 80 percent of political violence in the past twenty-five years came from right-wing organizations and persons.

Not only that, but the memorandum claims “common threads” animate “Antifa” such as “anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity,” and hostility toward “traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”

Let’s get into this.

Antifa means antifascist. There is no such organization called “Antifa.” No structure, no meetings, no bank accounts. Antifa is a red herring. A total distraction. All made up.

Being antifascist would include millions of people in the country, like the progeny of the over 16 million people who served during World War II to stop fascism in Europe and Asia (those who served included 500,000 Spanish-surnamed with the majority of Mexican descent). Democrats, Republicans, independents, third party members–and I’d venture to say some MAGA people–are anti-fascist. From conservatives to communists.

Antifascism is in our blood.

Fascism is the rule of the few for the few instead of a government of the many for the many. It is by nature authoritarian and tyrannical. The ruling few in the United States are the 1 percent that control about 31 percent of the total wealth in the U.S., some $52 trillion. They use both the Democrat and Republican parties. This is not to disparage voters in any party. We have been pushed into a two-party system for generations, which keeps the wealthy in power. Most Republicans, however, have now become part of the cult of Trump, a billionaire who has done more for billionaires than any other president.

This ruling class is united around two key aspects. One, to maintain maximum profits in big commerce and finances at all cost, while stealing from the public coffers as much as possible. Second, to fragment and scatter the working class (those forced to work for them to survive) by pitting races, ethnicities, sexes, genders or gender-nonconforming, documented or undocumented, against each other.

This is capitalism.

Which brings me to the next point: To even say anti-capitalism as an indicator of “domestic terrorism” is nonsensical. Fascism arises from capitalism: Cyclical economic crises, wealth gaps, corporate power. Look how it arose in Italy and Germany. Capitalism is the birthplace of any and all fascism.

Saying anti-Christian is an indicator is also ridiculous. Of course, nobody should target Christians based on their faith–or any other religion, or anyone with no religion. But Christians, like anyone else, should be challenged when need be, not with violence but full and clarifying discourse.

Now let’s be real: It’s Trump and the MAGA movement that’s driving Christians against other Christians. They are generally for Christian Nationalism, a contradiction in terms as far as Christ is concerned. Jesus Christ moved away from the “chosen people” or preferred nations, or “races” for that matter, to the idea that all people can be saved.

The nationalism part is not just dividing Americans against Americans, but Christians against Christians. Between “Red” and “Blue” Christians; documented or undocumented Christians; white Christians over Christians of color. It derides Christians who believe in caring for the poor and the despised, and instead pushes fabricated stuff such as going against abortion and Queer/Trans people. Those are issues Christ never touched upon. Christ, according to the Gospels, railed against the rich and powerful more than anything else. His two commandments, which summarized all previous commandments, had to do with loving God above all else and loving your neighbor as yourself. They are about love, not hate.

Trump and MAGA also push Christians against everyone else. Trump (a lousy Christian if ever there was one) and Christian Nationalism are in fact aberrations.

I also want to break down the concept of “anti-American.” First, the term America is for the whole Western Hemisphere, divided between North, Central, and South America. The United States of America is only part of this. But I will use this term to point out that in this country there are many “Americas.”

For example, there’s an “America” that pushes authoritarianism to keep the system of the wealthy getting wealthier and the poor poorer. And there’s an “America” that is inherently anti-fascist, that is for freedom of thought, speech, and actions (without hurting others). For freedom from fear and want. For freedom from a poisoned environment as well as deteriorating economic and political realities. An America that includes full and decent healthcare for all, quality education, and the chance to thrive, not just survive.

That’s the “America” I’m fighting for.

It’s not enough then to be antifascist. We have to be pro-people, pro-planet, pro-creativity & arts, pro-peace. This is the highest morality and one that is pro-family, pro-community, and pro-individual liberties. I’m for an America that keeps our dignities intact, that aligns resources to needs, that says we all deserve decent and healthy lives whether we can afford this or not.

An “America” that can be part and parcel of the U.S. Constitution.

Let me explain. In my 2020 book, “From Our Land to Our Land” (Seven Stories Press), in one of the essays I said that for Indigenous people (and I’m Indigenous through my Raramuri and Nahua roots from Chihuahua and Guerrero, Mexico) the Constitution was at best a limited warranty. The original peoples of the land (this is before borders so that includes my ancestral lineage) did not need a document to give them rights and responsibilities. Before the conquests and colonialism, they had complex sophisticated systems on how to live and regenerate. They understood they were related to everything and everyone. They protected and expanded on nature, their own unique personal natures, others and all life, and the Divine.

The Constitution was created under certain historical conditions: A powerful section of landholders in the late 1700s broke the bonds with the British Monarchy. The document established how the new country would be governed. To summarize, the mode was democracy, the means a republic with three equal but separate branches of government. The so-called founding fathers relied on Greek/Roman traditions, English and other European jurisprudence, and even the “Great Law of Peace” of the Iroquois Confederacy (the Haudenosaunee). Some say the Constitution is “sacred.” It’s not. It has flaws. Many of those who pulled it together and/or voted for it were slaveholders and for Indigenous genocide. White men of property were the initial benefactors. This stained their efforts.

Nonetheless, the Constitution has some powerful ideas.

Such as “We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.” Great concepts. The document also allows for amendments to be added or removed, implying it’s a living document not encased in stone from other times or circumstances.

Take Amendment IX: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” In other words, the people had rights not spelled out and the document could not override such rights.

It’s clear to me the current administration, the majority in the Supreme Court, and their lackeys in Congress, are going against the spirit and letter of the “law of the land.”

I therefore ask: Who’s “un-American”? I say it’s Trump and his cronies!

I remain unapologetically antifascist, like millions in this country and the world. And I’m not for violence or terrorist acts. We must also reimagine and renew what “America” must be. One in which the wealth of the land as well as the mental and manual labor of the people benefit the land and the people. One that holds everyone, all humans, animals, and the natural order, the way Mother Earth holds us without borders, belief-systems, or human-made narrow boundaries.

This is the “America” we should all be fighting for. Not with firearms, but with poetry, art, song, dance, theater, and the greatest imaginative protest movement against fascism the world has ever seen.