National Day of protest | Cut ties with Trump’s America

protest | 1pm Sat 24 May @ State library

CARF is joining Students for Palestine, Victorian Socialists, Free Palestine Melbourne and Labor Against War to coordinate a national day of action against Trump on 24 May - we want you to join us in building it. We’re demanding that our government end its military and political support for Trump’s America. The Melbourne rally will take place at 1pm Saturday 24 May, at the State Library.

Why should you attend?

Over the past 3 months, we have witnessed what feels like a relentless barrage of attacks on the oppressed. The abduction of Columbia University Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil was quickly followed by that of Tufts University student Rumesya Ozturk. Both were taken by masked men and disappeared to ICE facilities in Louisiana. There are no claims of any criminality on the part of Khalil or Ozturk - Trump simply claims he is able to do this because they were oppositional to American foreign policy i.e. the policy of facilitating a genocide in Gaza. 

On top of the targeted deportations of Palestine activists, undocumented migrants have been picked up in sweeping raids. Most infamous is the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, an undocumented migrant whose deportation to El Salvador had been barred in 2019 due to fears of persecution but who has been sent “by mistake” to the hell-hole that is the CECOT mega-prison. Trump is resisting any efforts to return him to the USA.

We have also seen attacks on women and trans people. An egregious example is the proposed Texas law that would make identifying as transgender a felony punishable by jail time.

What has any leading Australian politician said about these attacks on the fundamental rights of the oppressed? Short answer - nothing. The long answer is that at the second leaders’ debate of the federal election, Albanese said he “trusts” Trump!

We need to protest against Trump to stand in solidarity with the people of America who are fighting back against him, as well as to be a bulwark against the far right in Australia.

We know that far right politics have an audience in Australia. One Nation received 7% of the vote is polling at 7% and Trumpet of Patriots polled is polling at 2%. It was reported in the Guardian that Gina Rhinehart remodelled her Perth headquarters after the MAGA movement, including a plaque with a quote by the head of DOGE Elon Musk. And why wouldn’t Rhinehart love to apply the methods of Trump and DOGE to Australia? Destroying the EPA and all environmental protection would be a boon to the mining magnate, and the banning of union agreements in the federal public service would drive down wages and conditions. It would send profits skyrocketing.

We shouldn’t think that Australia is immune to the far right virus that is taking hold across most of the world.

Luckily we have begun to see some flickers of resistance in America. On 5 April there was a national day of action that saw hundreds of thousands of people come out to protest across over 1,200 locations. Again on 20 April we saw another nation-wide spate of protests as part of the ‘50501’ movement - 50 states, 50 protests, 1 movement. These protests condemned the racist deportations, the dismantling of federal agencies and the threats to higher education.

In Australia we need to build the national day of action on 24 May. We know there are politicians like Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson who want to import Trumpism into Australia. We know that Australian billionaires like Gina Rhinehart and Anthony Pratt would love to remodel Australian politics further in the interests of the rich and powerful like Trump and Musk are doing. And we know that it will take a fight to end Australia’s ties with America; Trump has attacked women, migrants, trans people and the whole working class while Albanese refuses to say anything that could jeopardise AUKUS. We need to end AUKUS and break the US alliance.

Trumpism has global impacts in giving confidence to the far right around the world. The resistance must be global too.

We are organising protests for 24 May in major cities across Australia: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra and Wollongong.

Join the local campaign and help build a movement that can fight Donald Trump.