The People’s Congress of Resistance joined hundreds of protesters outside Trump Hotel on June 28 to voice their opposition and anger at the favor-buying going on inside the hotel, just the kind of behind-closed-doors negotiations between the upper levels of the political elite and the corporate donors that has led to repeated attempts to destroy the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, and Medicaid, among other government social programs that benefit ordinary people.
Protesters drew lines connecting the two phenomena, chanting “Our government is not for sale, the Trump Agenda is going to fail!” and “Billionaires are getting paid, thanks to cuts from Medicaid!” The People’s Congress of Resistance was represented by several of its convening organizations, including Justice First and the Party for Socialism and Liberation.
Inside the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump was holding his first re-election campaign fundraiser. The cost to breathe the rarified air of the hotel’s dining room was $35,000 per plate. That’s more money spent on a single meal than 99 million people in the U.S. make in an entire year.
Of course we know that the price tag did not pay for the food, but for the political influence that such a prestigious “donation” provides its contributors. Three hundred of the richest lobbyists in Washington together contributed roughly $10 million to Trump’s re-election campaign. They are now owed favors by President Trump, who seems keen to deliver them as part of the wholesale class warfare unleashed by his Agenda against ordinary working and unemployed Americans.
The extreme irony is that this fundraiser happened on the eve of a U.S. Senate vote on a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, more colloquially known as “Obamacare.” This is such a heartless, nonsensical, and deeply unpopular bill that only 35 percent of Trump’s own party supports it. The passage of this bill, which would make cuts made in the name of “responsible spending,” would mean the end of Medicare and Medicaid as we know it, and deprive up to 23 million Americans of their health insurance in next several years.
A Congress of Resistance, not a Millionaires’ Congress
The People’s Congress of Resistance is convening at Howard University on September 16-17, and one of its driving forces is the incredible disconnect between the interests defended by the Millionaire’s Congress on Capitol Hill and the pressing needs of the vast majority of U.S. society. That the U.S. Congress is unwilling and unable to defend our interests has only been highlighted by its behavior since the 2016 election, when it has failed to mount any kind of effective resistance to the Trump Agenda – even the healthcare bill in question is failing due primarily to internal disagreement within the Republican Party about precisely the best way to go about depriving millions of people of health insurance, and not due to any effort on the part of Congressional Democrats.
The question of health care will surely be on the minds of all attending the People’s Congress of Resistance – not merely how to preserve the mediocre corporate-serving Affordable Care Act, but how to win a real health care system for the people–not one that caters to the interests and profit margins of corporate health care and pharmaceutical industries.
