Jonathan P. Baird

As we approach another May Day, the origins of that holiday remain largely unknown. Almost no one knows this holiday dedicated to international labor solidarity came out of the Unites States. That history got buried and remains untold. Growing up, I mostly remember May Day as a Soviet celebration with big parades in Red Square. Missiles, tanks and troops paraded before authoritarian leaders like Leonid Brezhnev.

May Day, the international workers’ day, has such a different start-up story. In the late nineteenth century, the American working class constantly struggled to gain the 8-hour day. Workers toiled six days a week, for 60 to 70 hours. Factory workers often had 80 to 100 hour a week schedules. Conditions were very unsafe. There was no OSHA. Death and severe workplace injuries were common.

In 1884, a national federation of unions announced a campaign to establish an 8-hour workday by May 1, 1886. Rank and file workers poured into the Knights of Labor, then the largest labor organization in the U.S., passed resolutions and set up committees to prepare for a general strike to demand the 8-hour day.

In April 1886, thousands started demonstrating for reduced work hours. Chicago was the heart of the movement. 1000 brewers reduced their hours from 16 to 10 hours a day. Bakers who formerly worked 14 to 18 hours won a 10 hour day. Furniture workers won the 8-hour day for 10 hours pay.

The strike movement raised additional demands besides the 8-hour day, A six point Manifesto drafted by Albert Parsons and August Spies, two revolutionary leaders of the movement, demanded “equality without distinction to sex or race”. Many workers saw the political dimension of the struggle. The fight was a class struggle of the workers as a class against the employers as a class.

On May 1, 1886, 350,000 workers in 11,562 establishments all over the country went out on strike. Every railroad in Chicago shut down and most industries in Chicago were paralyzed. By May 3, more and more workers were joining the strike. That day, however, the police fired on a crowd that was attacking strike breakers at the McCormack Harvester Works, killing four and seriously wounding many.

Organizers called a rally for the next day in Haymarket Square in Chicago to protest police brutality. It was rainy and only around 1200 people attended. As the rally was almost ready to break up and only about 300 people were still there, someone threw a bomb into the ranks of the police, killing one and wounding about 70. Seven later died. To this day no one knows who threw the bomb. The police responded by firing into the crowd, killing one and also wounding many more.

Haymarket justified an intense round of red scare repression. Cops rounded up hundreds of radicals, meetings were broken up and the Socialist press was seized. The authorities called out the Militia to break up any labor gatherings which were deemed “dangerous’. Employers organized in associations to blacklist strikers and institute yellow dog contracts forcing workers to swear they would never join a union.

The police arrested eight anarchist leaders. The evidence against them was their ideas. There was virtually no evidence tying the defendants to the crime. Only one of the eight, Samuel Fielden, was even at Haymarket when the bomb exploded. After a trial, a jury found them all guilty and four were sentenced to death. A year later, the four, Albery Parsons, August Spies, Adolf Fischer and George Engel were hanged.

The executions aroused people all over America. While the repression dampened union organizing, many felt class anger. For years after, there were memorial events for the Haymarket martyrs all across the country.

Haymarket is widely considered the origin event of International Workers’ Day. The events of 1886 linked May Day in the minds of workers with the struggles and sacrifices for a better life. In 1888, the American Federation of Labor called for a massive demonstration to be held on May 1, 1890 calling again for the 8-hour day.

In 1889, the Paris Congress of the Second International (an international organization of Socialist Parties and trade unions) adopted a resolution making May Day an international holiday. They called on workers everywhere to demonstrate international labor solidarity and to fight for the 8-hour day. Demonstrations and strikes on May 1, 1890 accompanied this new holiday. From this time on, May Day was firmly established as a workers’ holiday.

Workers and people on the left in America celebrated May Day for years. In the 1930’s, May Day drew together the struggles of the U.S. working class against unemployment and for industrial unionism, against Jim Crow racism and for full equality, and against fascist aggression and for peace.

Since at least the 1950’s, the American ruling class has done an effective job disappearing May Day as a workers’ holiday. In 1928 President Hoover set aside May Day as Child Health Day. In the later 1940’s-early 1950’s, McCarthyism terrorized people on the left ruining many lives in the process. In 1958 Congress designated May 1 as Loyalty Day. Then President Nixon made May 1st Law Day.

Part of the effort to erase May Day was the creation of Labor Day in September. Congress first passed that legislation in June 1894. May Day is an official holiday in 66 countries and it is unofficially celebrated in many more. Labor Day is not celebrated outside the U.S. except in Canada. It is an apolitical excuse for a three day weekend and a pale shadow of May Day.

In our era, I think May Day should be resurrected as a worker holiday. It is so much more than a celebration of spring, maypoles and fertility. Workers fought for the rights and dignities we enjoy today. Our ruling class in 2026 doesn’t want workers to remember that.

Watching a president threaten to end an ancient civilization so that it never will return was sobering. It may have been the worst thing an American President ever said. That same president calls any Democrat who disagrees with him a radical leftist. The irony is that few of the Democrats who oppose Trump are radical. Most are scared of that label and run away from it like it was a poison snake.

Democrats’ biggest problem is their timidity and lack of vision. It is hard to say what the Democratic Party even stands for and that is its biggest weakness. Too many Democrats want to stand on being anti-Trump as if that is enough self-definition. For much of the party, in contrast to the Republicans, taking a strong stand on anything is anathema.

Centrist Democrats, allied to corporate money, attack the progressive wing of the party whether the issue is Israel/Palestine or abolishing ICE. This has gone on since at least the Bill Clinton years and even earlier. I would suggest that Democrats should ignore those attacks against the progressives because now is a time we should be thinking big. We need to be giving voters, especially young voters, powerful reasons to cast ballots.

The historical example that comes to mind is FDR. Coming out of the Great Depression, the Roosevelt administration advanced a bold vision for the country. The New Deal was a massive reinvention of America. FDR created the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, the Social Security Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the National Recovery Administration and the Federal Housing Administration, among others.

To win over masses of people and to end the fascist threat represented by MAGA, Democrats should pursue a radical, democratic socialist vision. Since Democrats will be accused of being radical leftists anyway, how about delivering something genuinely progressive. The world (not just the U.S.) needs a renewed democratic socialist agenda led by people of high moral character, intellect and dedication. Such an agenda could include items like the following:

• Universal health care. It is way past time for America to guarantee health care to all. Too many people have no access, no insurance or inadequate coverage. America has the capacity to make universal health care happen.
• Making housing a right. It is a disgrace that the wealthiest country in the world tolerates homelessness like we do. We could provide low-interest, long-term loans to encourage home construction and ownership. We could address crushing rents.
• Federal jobs program. With millions scared by AI, we could advocate for expanding and protecting jobs to pursue full employment. Like the Works Progress Administration in 1935, we could employ millions in public works projects, including building infrastructure, schools and the arts.The tech broligarchs don’t own us and their agenda is not what the people need.
• Supreme Court reform. We must add at least four seats to the High Court. As Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse has shown, the Court has been captured by extreme right wing billionaires. Without court reform, all progressive change would get blocked in defense of the billionaires’ interests.
• Addressing climate change. Instead of pretending climate change is not happening, we should be investing in alternative energy like wind and solar. Getting away from fossil fuels is essential to human survival on the planet.
• No more imperialist wars. Trump betrayed his promise to avoid forever wars. Democrats must oppose the Iran war and any future unnecessary conflicts that only benefit the military industrial complex. We must advocate for massive cuts in war spending, Restoring respect for democracy and human rights as American goals and values is critical. We must stop allying with autocracies.
• Advancing voting rights. We must fight for maximum turnout of all who are eligible to vote. Republicans have sought to narrow and eliminate the right to vote, especially for minorities. No to Ctizens United and yes to publicly financed elections so dark money can no longer buy who wins elections.
• Abolish ICE. We must try and stop ICE from disappearing people with no due process. We must oppose mass incarceration and unjustified deportations of people with no criminal record. We don’t know half of what this renegade agency has done. ICE cannot be reformed. We need an entirely new approach to immigration that includes a pathway to citizenship.
• Dismantle racial capitalism. Since the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade, capitalism has perpetuated racial hierarchies to extract, exploit and profit. We must devise strategies that respond to the ways racism and colonialism are embedded in political and economic structures.
• Oppose sexism, heterosexism and scapegoating of sexual minorities. We must oppose all discrimination. Tolerance and “live and let live” should be watchwords for our new society.

This agenda is an example of what a renewed democratic socialist platform could look like. Socialism admittedly has a checkered history but it could be adopted to incorporate the best of American tradition. Respect for the rule of law, multi-racial democracy, due process and the First Amendment should all be part of a new libertarian democratic socialist vision.

Just as is true with capitalism and its many forms, socialism also comes in many varieties. No doubt there are many Democrats who won’t like seeing the party move left but to beat back fascism, Democrats need to fight back more aggressively while offering more to the people. That is the way to win voters, not offering empty platitudes as centrist Democrats always do.

I get sick watching Democrats who don’t react to fascism. So many say nothing. When they don’t call it out they guarantee it will come back in a worse form. It is easy to think Donald Trump is as bad as it can get but Nick Fuentes and other Nazis are waiting in the wings.

Government has been entirely corrupted by the Trump regime. Look at the DOJ, the CDC or the EPA. These agencies need to be gutted and rebuilt from scratch. We are at a place where America needs a new vision. Democrats must be the party to make that happen. Big change, based on advancing the interests of working class people, is the way forward.

Eleven years ago, when Donald Trump was first running for President, I wrote in the Concord Monitor about the question of whether he and his MAGA movement were fascist. At that time, I recognized that the word could just be considered a form of name-calling or insult. It has been loosely tossed around.

Recognizing the sloppy use of the word, I do think fascism is the right framework for understanding Trump and MAGA. As the writer John Ganz has said, fascism is a hypothesis. Fascism takes different forms in different nations but it is the best fit to describe what has happened in recent years in America.

Using the term doesn’t negate our hybrid situation where aspects of authoritarianism co-exist with aspects of democracy. Fascism has not been consolidated and it can still be opposed as evidenced by the massive No Kings demonstrations.

The word fascism has a European lineage but contrary to what Americans might think, it has an American variant. The scholar of fascism, Jason Stanley, has elaborated on America’s fascist origins. Unlike the European version of fascism with a tyrant-leader like Hitler or Mussolini, Stanley traces our leaderless fascism back to 19th century Jim Crow. For roughly 100 years in the American South, black Americans lived in a system where they were systematically abused and turned into second class citizens. Stanley cites W.E. B. DuBois, Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison as individuals who saw America as embodying a form of fascism.

What is critical in demarcating a fascist society is the creation of a division between an “us” and a “them”. The system of white supremacy (like the later Nazi system in Germany) effectuated such a distinction. After Reconstruction, Black people in the South were widely deprived of their right to vote. Slavery was replaced by a new system of absolute control enforced by lynching and mass violence. Law, particularly state laws in the South, reinforced white supremacy.

I thought of the “us” and “them” distinction with the birthright citizenship case, Trump v Barbara, currently before the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump through his Executive Order takes the position that babies born on American soil after February 19, 2025 would be denied citizenship at birth if neither parent is a U.S. citizen or has permanent immigration status.

It is hard to imagine anything that could do more to create a permanent underclass. Those babies would become stateless individuals outside constitutional protection. They would join other black and brown people relegated to an inferior status in America. A central MAGA mission has been turning back the clock on race to a time before the civil rights era.

Fascism thrives on racial distinctions. It is a devolution from liberal democracy where equality before the law, even if not practiced, was touted. The Nazis studied Jim Crow laws and admired the system Americans had set up in the South. Nazi authors saw clear parallels between the American “Negro problem” and their own “Jewish problem”. The Nazis lionized white supremacy and they seized upon American race-based immigration and citizenship laws. America was seen as the leader in race law-making. This background is thoroughly explored in James Whitman’s book, Hitler’s American Model.

Trump’s recent comments about Somalis were brutally racist, calling people “garbage” and claiming they “contribute nothing”. They follow his comments about “shithole countries”. He has repeatedly suggested the United States should seek more immigrants from Norway, Scandinavia or whites from South Africa. No one has more clearly articulated a white supremacist vision.

Another part of fascism is the creation of a mythic past (Make America Great Again). Things that MAGA doesn’t like are unconsidered unpatriotic, like Black history. I see the effort to ban critical race theory and to censor museums as part of the fascist re-write of our history. Honesty about racism is a no-no.

Anyone concerned about free speech should be opposing efforts to ban the teaching of critical race theory. MAGA is trying to reverse history and say, without evidence, that white men are victims of discrimination. Critical race theory is about understanding our legacy of institutional racism. MAGA and the Far Right are trying to dictate what we can remember. As Kimberly Crenshaw has said, “Critical thinking is kryptonite to fascism”.

Still, I would not see fascism as primarily a cultural struggle for power. And it is not simply ultranationalism or worship of a charismatic leader. What we are seeing in America is the Executive Branch taking power away from the other branches of government. There is an attempt by Trump to hoard excessive power. At the same time we are seeing the tech broligarchy accumulate unlimited privileges and wealth while rights are taken away from working people.

Fascism wants to replace democracy and pluralism with a monistic, total, authoritarian government organization that enables a massive crime spree by the super-rich. Trump is always talking about law and order but police action is only meant to be enforced against poor people. Law and order talk is a cover for his extensive efforts to loot government resources for his own benefit.

Project 2025 has been our Mein Kampf equivalent. If we are able to salvage democracy it will take years to recover from this entirely retrograde agenda. The damage done already has been enormous.

Historically, fascist dictators have wielded state power to create an economy that benefits the economically top 1% while crushing labor and the racial “other’. It is an elite-driven campaign to seize power. As is evident though, the people of the Unites States are engaged in a massive campaign to prevent the consolidation of fascist power.

I think the No Kings movement has been fabulous and I have no criticisms of it but I would make one suggestion. The problem we face is not so much a king as a fascist system. Even if Trump resigned tomorrow, we would face the same system. Maintaining and making real democracy requires systemic transformation. not simply removal of a king.