The following report was prepared for a D.C. club conference.

Comrades, we have opened this year under very different and difficult conditions from the previous four years. The Republican Party, led by its fascist MAGA faction and backed by the most reactionary sections of the ruling class, has taken over all sectors of the federal government. Within the first 48 hours of the Trump presidency, his team has spearheaded an all-out assault on programs supporting federal workers, immigrants, reproductive rights, the trans community, diversity programs, and the environment. Our club membership in the District of Columbia consists of many people within these groups who are being attacked, and we must do everything in our abilities to defend those facing repression from the new administration.

The fascist danger is not a joke nor something to take lightly. Not only is the fight to maintain D.C.’s Home Rule in the crosshairs of the new administration, but also our basic constitutional rights. Some of our members are already feeling the effects of the new McCarthyism, largely stemming from our advocacy for ending the genocide in Palestine. We must intensify our struggle to defeat this new Red Scare with a mass movement to defend our basic democratic rights. We must organize as partisans of the working class embracing the science of Marxism-Leninism.

This past year was filled with victories and setbacks for our movement. The party in D.C., starting in 2023, was able to play a leading role in organizing thousands of D.C. residents by bringing international solidarity into the basic life of the city. Though we were unable to secure a ceasefire resolution in the D.C. Council, we were able to bring together a mass coalition of community organizations, faith leaders, labor unions, small businesses, neighborhood commissioners, students, and others into the fight against the genocide in Gaza. We should give thanks to the comrades who participated in these efforts, whether small or large. We must also strengthen the relationships that we built in the community through these struggles for the upcoming fights.

The party also played a major role in securing the right to social security, such as the Social Security Fairness Act pushed by the Alliance for Retired Americans, and participated in the organizing of barista workers in Compass Coffee United. The latter was met with a major union busting campaign and the firing of a few of our comrades.

In addition, the Claudia Jones School plays an important role in educating the community on important issues of the day and continues to have a mass presence and name recognition in the city.

Finally, we were able to bring back our Paul Robeson Peace & Justice Awards Gala after a nearly 20 year absence.

Let us not forget the days of Jan. 6, 2021 when MAGA forces tried to overthrow U.S. bourgeois democracy and replace it with a fascist dictatorship. Those same fascist forces, some of which were incarcerated during the Biden administration, were just given a full pardon — a slap on the wrist — by Trump. A large section of those forces were in organized fascist organizations like the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys. Some of them came to D.C. to terrorize the community months before the events of Jan. 6. With Trump’s pardon, he is showing the country that he supports white supremacist terrorism and wants his fascist shock troops, like Mussolini’s brownshirts, ready to install a dictatorship through political violence. Additionally, on behalf of the fascist-led D.C. Police Union, Trump pardoned the D.C. police officers responsible for Karon Hylton-Brown’s death, a young Black D.C. resident murdered in 2021. Having these violent forces back in the public puts all of us at risk.

With many issues facing us this year, Home Rule may be the most important to us as a club here in the District of Columbia. Enacted 50 years ago, Home Rule has been under severe attack over the past two years, with over one hundred different bills and resolutions aimed at undermining the law which allows the District to have local government (though without full voting representation in the Congress). One of the bills, mockingly referred to as the “Bowser Act” (after Mayor Muriel Bowser), was sponsored by GOP Sen. Mike Lee from Utah in the 118th Congress. It failed but has been reintroduced. If made law, it would repeal the Home Rule Act of 1973 and likely would have re-established the pre-Home Rule arrangement, with the city controlled by commissioners appointed by the President. Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde from Georgia proposes paving over of the Black Lives Matter designation on 16th St. near the White House. These neo-Confederate white supremacists want to push us toward Jim Crow 2.0, but we say, “We are not going back!”

As a result of the election and these attacks from the previous Congress, D.C. organizers, formerly with the #HandsOffDC Coalition, formed the Free D.C. Project. Its objectives are to organize a critical mass of the D.C. population into noncompliance with the policies of the new administration. Our party leadership has determined that this must be a priority for our club’s work in the coming years. We are encouraging everyone to not only get activated within the committees and ward teams of Free D.C., but to actively apply our Communist plus by fighting for working-class leadership, and help build this new movement throughout the entire region.

Although D.C. Home Rule is our first line of defense, we see that the attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are causing immediate chaos among the federal agencies. The federal workforce contributes to a major part of D.C.’s local economy. Trump and Musk aim to make extreme cuts, leading to a possible unemployment crisis in the District, in addition to a constitutional crisis due to the illegality of these mass layoffs. Our club needs to play an active role in supporting these workers, helping them get organized in order to keep their jobs and fight for equality within their bargaining contracts.

In addition, the rights of trans people are under attack from the onslaught of executive orders. Hospitals and clinics around the country — including our own Children’s National Hospital — are complying with Trump’s demands by denying gender-affirming care. Moreover, GOP Rep. Nancy Mace from South Carolina has pushed for an anti-trans policy in federal buildings by banning people from using the bathroom aligned with their gender identity. Since the District of Columbia is largely made up of federal buildings, this would deeply affect the LGBTQ+ population and ultimately put people in danger. The administration has also ordered incarcerated trans women to be moved to men’s prisons and to be forcibly de-transitioned by removing their access to hormone therapy. The male chauvinist attacks on the so-called “woke gender ideology” and “transgenderism” continues the book-banning assault on public schools.

In D.C. and beyond, bodily autonomy and reproductive rights as a whole are under threat. Project 2025 explicitly outlines plans to restrict access to critical healthcare, like abortions. Trump has already reinstated the Mexico City Policy, ending international aid to NGOs doing any reproductive health work. Further plans include reversing FDA’s approval of mifepristone and misoprostol, these medications being life-saving necessities in some cases.

Finally, Trump recently announced a major shakeup at the Kennedy Center where he claimed to remove several members of the board of trustees and named himself as the new chairperson. He claimed this was in response to featured drag shows “specifically targeting our youth” at the Kennedy Center. We need to show that we do not support these fascist directives and will not comply with them. We must defend our youth and incarcerated trans populations and push back on the major institutions that bend under pressure from the new administration.

We have a lot of work ahead of us, comrades. It’s time to tighten up our party here and begin to strengthen the fight back. We are the first line of defense on many of the issues mentioned, so let’s make sure to organize our workplaces, show up at our local elected officials’ offices, encourage the party nationally to lobby legislatures to stay out of D.C. affairs, protect our neighbors, and support each other.

The struggle continues!

Long live the working class of D.C.!

Long live the Communist Party of the District of Columbia!

Image: Free D.C. at the People’s March by Free D.C. (X); Top left: Community organizer Dante O’Hara and author Esther Iverem present the Paul Robeson Peace Award to Anyssa of the Palestinian Youth Movement (left) and the Paul Robeson Justice Award to Mo of Harriet’s Wildest Dreams (right), Bottom left: Gala emcee and author Esther Iverem presents journalist Chuck Modiano with the Paul Robeson Journalism Award, Right: Singer and activist Luci Murphy presents the Paul Robeson Award to community organizer Reverend Graylan S. Hagler, photos by Thomas Reed / People’s World; Federal workers at OPM in D.C. let DOGE know they are ready to fight by AFL-CIO (X)

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