In a lose-lose election for workers, Donald Trump’s victory marks the toxic divisions within the U.S. working class and a massive defeat for finance capital, the main wing of the U.S. capitalist ruling class. Trump’s “America First” platform to pull back from NATO and the war in Ukraine will undermine the Big Fascists of finance capital as they lurch toward war with their imperialist rivals in China and Russia. For workers, the dark night of capitalism in decay—with no mass communist movement to fight back--
The next four years will expose the limits of liberal democracy, where the brutal reality of capitalist dictatorship is veiled by mythical “rights” and “the rule of law.” Regardless of who’d won the election, the worldwide crisis of capitalism would force the U.S. bosses to move faster toward full-blown fascism. A President Kamala Harris would have spelled disaster for the international working class, from Gaza to the U.S.-Mexico border. What Trump’s victory reveals is the bosses’ ability to win tens of millions of workers to open racism and sexism and to scapegoat immigrants, the most vulnerable sections of our class. It shows just how much struggle lies before us.
In this period of extreme instability, the role of Progressive Labor Party becomes even more crucial. The history of Nazi Germany and fascist Japan tells us that communism is the only way to smash fascism. We can’t rely on the bosses’ politicians or media or courts to protect us. Only communist revolution can secure an antiracist, anti-sexist society that serves workers’ needs.
Trump’s win and world war
No matter who’s in the White House, the declining U.S. empire is on a collision course toward World War Three. There are flash points everywhere we look: Eastern Europe, the South China Sea, the Middle East, the Horn of Africa. According to CEO Jamie Dimon of the main wing JPMorgan Chase, "World War III has already begun" (Economic Times, 10/29). Though Trump fronts for the Small Fascist, isolationist, more domestically oriented bosses, he won’t be able to stem the tide of global instability or the sharpening imperialist competition for maximum profit.
In his first term, through threats and broken treaties, Trump showed disdain for the European Union. He sowed division and dysfunction in NATO and the United Nations, U.S.-dominated institutions that were already fracturing. This time around, Trump’s version of “strong man” rule will strengthen the Small Fascists within the EU and intensify “nationalist and anti-immigrant political currents … throughout the continent…The possibility that Europe will splinter, with each nation cutting its own deals with Washington, appears real” (New York Times, 11/8). This could embolden the BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), already “a powerful counterweight to the West” (New York Times, 11/8). In the view of the Council on Foreign Relations, the main wing’s leading think tank, “What the world is witnessing today is akin to what theorists called ‘total war’ [read: world war], in which combatants draw on vast resources, mobilize their societies, prioritize warfare over all other state activities, attack a broad variety of targets, and reshape their economies and those of other countries” (Foreign Affairs, 10/22).
As capitalism spirals toward world war, the working class will pay in both “blood and treasure.” The bosses will force young workers to be their cannon fodder while slashing programs like Social Security and Medicare to pay for bigger militaries. The Council on Foreign Relations has endorsed a proposal to increase U.S. defense spending from 3 percent to more than 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (Foreign Affairs, 11/8).
Trump’s win and splits in the ruling class
All politicians are so many capitalist puppets. They have no principles or morals. While they may pretend to believe in certain ideologies, in reality they sway in the wind to mobilize the working class behind the section of the ruling class they are currently serving.
Over the last decade or so, the Democratic Party has been the face of finance capital, of the multinational oil companies like Exxon Mobil and the big banks that finance them (JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America).With the Trump takeover, the Republican Party has been hijacked by the isolationist bosses in domestic energy and a segment of the tech and finance industries. Come January, this wing will control the White House, both houses of Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court. While only time will tell how this tension will play out, it’s safe to say the main wing will not go down without a fight. However the liberal bosses respond, the role of Progressive Labor Party will be crucial in defeating all the faces of capitalism and winning the world the working class deserves: communism.
Trump’s win and the U.S. working class
Finance capital’s whirlwind effort to “get out the vote” and defeat Trump was unprecedented. The ruling class spent a billion dollars on campaign staff, concerts, celebrities, and a non stop barrage of commercials. They enlisted ex-generals, traditionally neutral, to speak out against Trump. They rolled out Oprah and Beyonce—all for nought. With votes still being counted, Trump has already surpassed his 2020 popular vote against Joe Biden. He ran stronger in all 50 states and across most demographics—most dramatically among Latin voters, but also Black men, young people, rural and suburban voters. He won half of those who consider themselves “pro-choice” (usnews.com, 11/12). With his war against the “elites” bankrolled by Elon Musk, the richest person in the world, Trump won by putting racism and sexism front and center. His gutter appeals had even more resonance this time around because workers in the U.S. are despairing and infuriated with how the profit system—under mostly Democratic control for the last 16 years--has failed them at every turn. We must not lose sight that millions of workers who voted for Trump did so out of their hatred for the horrors of capitalism, even if they don’t yet have the class consciousness to act on it.
While the “Trump wave” might seem overwhelming in the election’s immediate aftermath, this wasn’t a landslide. His popular vote margin projects to about 1 percent, the tightest presidential election since 2000. While Trump gained about three million votes over his last run, the bigger reason he won is that Harris lost nearly six million voters who backed Biden (usnews.com, 11/12). Overall turnout was down. In significantly Black counties containing Chicago, Philadelphia, and Detroit, close to two million people who voted in 2020 stayed home (NYT, 11/11). All told, more than one of three registered voters—more than 70 million people—saw no point in turning out. Many of these workers can and must be won to our Party to become the future gravediggers of capitalism.
Call to Action
Our Party must see this election as an urgent call to action, as a clear and present danger but also a tremendous opportunity. As the Democratic Party tries to discipline its ranks and regain its base on the slippery slope to fascism and world war, we must continue to expose the liberal bosses as the greatest danger to our class. We can do that only if we immerse ourselves in reform struggles and help to build a mass movement.
Whether the fight is for reproductive rights or against anti-immigrant racist terror, we can share our vision for a communist future only when we stand with workers on the front lines of the fight. The workers of the world have lived in a dark night since the Soviet Union and China slid back to capitalism. But the dark night shall have its end—if we commit to building a mass communist alternative. Fight for communism! Join PLP
