And now, humanity faces the Trump scourge!
By Yorgos Mitralias
Let's start with the basics: If Trump is a fascist, and he is. If he exercises absolute control over the Republican Party totally devoted to him, and he does. If he has full power, holding all the levers of power, i.e. the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court, and he does. So, his second presidency will make the United States look very much like a one-party country! And will also make Trump a quasi-dictator. And the terrible consequences of all this are practically known in advance...
Firstly, such a regime is destined to last indefinitely. For it gives way only under duress, usually after its overthrow, which is often violent. Moreover, Trump has repeatedly said that, once in the White House, he will not (re)make the “mistake” of leaving it, which he did in 2021, after his supporters' failed (golpist) assault on the Capitol.
Secondly, such a regime doesn't “calm down” or “appease”, because it keeps its racist, barbaric and inhumane promises, as indeed Trump keeps repeating before and even after his election victory. Consequently, any attempt to soften and appease him is a dangerous illusion that only perpetuates him in power, paralyzing his opponents.
Having said that, it has to be said that the scale of Trump's victory, or rather Harris's defeat, combined with the collapse of the Democratic Party and the current absence of credible forces to its left, means that the mass of Trump's opponents are now stunned, dejected, tired, disoriented and therefore unable to react, at least in the street and for a while.
However, this “paralysis” of Trump's opponents is unlikely to last forever. Firstly, because calls for calm and obedience to Trump from the Democratic Party leadership are unlikely to be heeded, coming as they do from leaders who are now discredited and in crisis. Secondly, because the country is still deeply divided, and we are not (yet) witnessing a strong swing in American society in favor of Trump. And that's because Harris's defeat was not due to an increase in the number of Trump supporters compared to 2020 (he actually lost 2 million votes), but rather to his opponent's loss of 14 million votes compared to Biden's 2020 presidential result.
So, as Trump has just promised, once he's installed in the White House, he'll open the hunt for migrants, including those born in the United States. We can already imagine how this gigantic migrant hunt will unfold: all over the country, the police and...the army will be employed to arrest anyone who is a little more... tanned than the others, and park them in (concentration) camps pending their deportation to the unknown. Given that this operation will target millions of human beings (perhaps more than 15 million!), we can imagine that virtually all American citizens will be at least eyewitnesses. It will then be impossible for them to close their eyes and pretend they don't see. How many of them will take action to save their hunted relative, friend or neighbor? Even a minority will be enough for this opposition to Trumpism to see the light of day.
But it's not just about hunting immigrants. As Trump takes action, American citizens will have to choose between remaining paralyzed and submitting, or taking action and creating pockets of resistance. There will be no shortage of opportunities: the implementation of Trump's promises to deprive women and the Lgbt community of their rights, the radical “downsizing” of the public sector and the army (layoffs of tens of thousands of civil servants, teachers and military personnel), drilling of all kinds that pollutes and destroys the environment and national parks, attacks on unions and the repression of strikers, and so on. Confronted not with Trump's delirious declarations but with his deeds, we can believe that at least a strong minority of American society will not remain apathetic but will react...in deeds.
Indeed, we can be relatively optimistic because Bernie Sanders ' electoral campaigns have left their mark, forming a young generation of radical activists who have already proved their worth, for example by taking the lead in major popular mobilizations against American complicity in Israel's genocide of the Palestinians. A young generation of left-wing activists who could join forces with the new avant-grades of a reborn North American labour movement. And let's not forget that the Democratic Party's grassroots base is currently “orphaned” by the bankruptcy and discredit of the party's doubly aging leadership...
In short, the country remains more divided than ever, and even if the spectre of civil war has receded after Trump's ample victory (which we hadn't foreseen), the “pacification” of American society is only temporary, and the framework for its future explosion that we presented in our previous article remains entirely relevant.
In the meantime, we can be sure that Trump's isolationism and protectionism will wreak havoc almost everywhere in the world. And no doubt, especially in China and on our old continent of Europe, whose political leaders, even those on the far right who share Trump's ideological leanings, and also the bourgeoisie, are already rightly worried about this trade and economic war that Trump seems determined to unleash very soon.
So here we are, facing the spectre of the (nuclear?) war that extreme protectionist policies have often unleashed in the past. A scenario of pure political fiction? We don't think so, given the determination of the entire American establishment, without exception, to settle accounts with the Chinese scarecrow. But also, given the nightmarish characteristics of the character who now holds all the levers of power in the world's leading superpower...
However, while we wait to see if Trump will follow through on his protectionist and “pacifist” “logic” in the ongoing wars of extermination being waged by his friends Netanyahu and Putin in Ukraine and Palestine, we can be totally sure of his determination to do everything in his power to crush all those who are waging the most important war of all: the war against the climate crisis! Trump's climate denial alone, and his actions in support of the dizzying acceleration of climate catastrophe, would be enough to make him the greatest criminal in the history of mankind!