Trumpism and its limits
From the December 2024/January 2025 issue of the Socialism Today magazine
“It is time to study Caligula. That most notorious of Roman emperors killed what was left of the republic and centralised authority in himself. Donald Trump does not need to make his horse a senator; it will be enough to keep appointing charlatans to America’s great offices of state. Rome was not destroyed by outsiders. Its demolition was the work of barbarians from within… To judge from what Trump has done within a fortnight of winning the presidency, his path is destruction”.
This was the gloomy prognosis of the Financial Times US editor, Edward Luce, writing on 19 November 2024. Others, including Donald Trump’s own former chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly, have described Trump as a fascist. Large sections of the capitalist class are obviously dreading the consequences of Trump’s second term in the White House. Millions of working-class Americans feel the same, but the reasons for their trepidation are very different.
Capitalist opponents of Trump are frightened that he could damage, or even destroy, the current international order – and the US state institutions – through which the US capitalist class rules. In opposing Trump, Marxists do not give one iota of support for the existing ‘world order’, or the Democratic Party government which maintained it on behalf of US imperialism over the last four years.
Globally Democrat President Joe Biden has ruthlessly defended the interests of US capitalism, including by arming the Israeli government’s murderous assault on the Palestinians and Lebanese. Domestically, the bottom two-thirds of income groups were worse off at the end of Biden’s term than at the beginning. Despite cultivating a false pro-union image, he carried out vicious anti-union measures, including banning a national railroad strike and imposing a rotten deal. The profits of the oil and gas industry tripled while Biden was in office, while deportations were higher than under Trump’s first term.
Many pro-Democrat capitalist commentators have despaired at the alleged racism, misogyny or stupidity of working-class voters who cast a vote for Trump. But their own expectations are what could politely be called ‘stupid’: expecting voters to back Kamala Harris when she was offering more of the same, and asking them to ‘feel the joy’ about it. ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ was a phrase originally coined by an advisor to Democrat President Bill Clinton during the 1992 presidential election. That election took place in a downturn, whereas now the economy is growing, but for working-class Americans it feels like a recession. Polling suggests that more than 80% of those who considered the economy the most important issue in this election voted for Trump.
Nonetheless, many did vote for Harris despite their anger at the Democrats on the economy and other issues, because they wanted to stop Trump, frightened by his crude racist, divisive rhetoric. Clearly Trump’s victory will give more confidence to far-right and racist thugs. It is also clear that the Trump administration could attempt to carry out brutal anti-migrant policies. Both will need mass working-class mobilisations against them.
Limits of reaction
It would be wrong to conclude, however, that the vote for Trump represented, in the main, support for his reactionary rhetoric. For example, in June of this year, national opinion polls showed that 70% of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or the majority of instances. The ballots to enshrine abortion rights in state law taking place on the same day as the presidential election confirmed that polling. In eight of the ten states voting on the issue, a majority supported abortion rights. Of those eight, a majority of people in five of them also backed Trump.
In the US, which never had a mass social democratic or Communist party, the ‘duopoly’ has been in existence longer than universal suffrage. Historically, the absence of such a party exerting pressure on the capitalist class was an important factor in the far more limited welfare state won by the US working class compared to Britain and other Western European countries. It also allowed the US’s highly dysfunctional electoral and legal system to develop all kinds of grotesque excesses. However, in Europe the transformation of social democratic and most Communist capitalist workers’ parties into unalloyed capitalist parties – epitomised by Blair’s transformation of Labour into New Labour – meant that politics has been ‘Americanised’.
This did not take place against the background of growing prosperity for the majority. On the contrary, in the US, in real terms, the wages of seven out of ten workers have flatlined for half a century since the 1970s. Had the division of wealth in the US remained at post-war upswing levels for the past half a century, $50 trillion more would be in the pockets of the bottom 90%! The same process has taken place in European countries, combined with a relentless undermining of the ‘social wage’ – public services, benefits and so on – that the working class won in the decades after the second world war. Added to that have been repeated shocks: the 2007-08 Great Recession, the pandemic, and the inflation surge, which have further lowered living standards.
The inevitable resulting rage against the elites has led to the hollowing out and even the shattering of traditional capitalist parties. Lacking independent workers’ parties, the rage of the majority has been expressed through the means available. Where viable left alternatives have begun, albeit briefly, to come into existence they have gained considerable support – including support for Jeremy Corbyn in Britain and Bernie Sanders in the US. In their absence right populists have been the main available tool.
Is Trump a fascist?
In the US that has meant Trump being re-elected, this time with around 2.5 million votes more than his opponent, yet with over four million votes less than Biden won in 2020. In many ways the Democrats lost the election rather than the claimed Trump ‘landside’. Second time around the Republican Party has been further hollowed out, and is far more dominated by Trump’s MAGA movement. Already his series of hardline appointments, seemingly decided purely on the basis of their personal loyalty to him, seem to indicate his determination to free himself of the shackles that constrained him in his first term.
However, none of this means it is accurate to describe Trump as a fascist. The fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s mobilised mass movements – made up of large sections of the ruined middle classes and elements of the unemployed and lumpenised working class – which were used by the capitalists as battering rams to physically smash up the organisations of the working class. When they came to power, they installed totalitarian regimes that extinguished the workers’ organisations and all elements of democracy. Fascism was victorious on the basis of the defeat of several waves of workers’ revolutions, the result of mistaken leadership and especially the false policies of Stalinism.
Today we are in an entirely different situation. On the one side the working class, while it has started to re-enter the scene of history, is not yet even beginning to challenge for power. On the other side Trump’s support, like other right populists, is overwhelmingly electoral, with so far very limited capacity to mobilise on the streets, never mind having an organised armed wing. True, Trump called for the ‘march on Washington’ in January 2020 to try and overturn the 2019 presidential election result, but the numbers who participated in the attack on the Capitol Building were in the thousands rather than the tens or hundreds of thousands. It was dwarfed – a hundredfold – by the numbers who marched against Trump and his policies while he was in office. Nor did Trump’s ‘attempted coup’ have the support of any significant part of the state machine.
Trump, and others of his ilk around the world, undoubtedly represents a threat which the working class needs to mobilise against. None, however, have been able – or even attempted – to crush the organisations of the working class. Sooner or later, they have faced increasing mass working-class opposition, such as Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Javier Milei in Argentina. The same will certainly be true for Trump in his second term far more than was the case last time. Fear that Trump’s recklessness will provoke mass movements against him, radicalising millions of Americans, is central to why serious representatives of capitalism are scared by his presidency.
The capitalist class and the state
But on both domestic and international issues, how far will Trump really be outside of the control of US capitalism? Marx and Engels explained how the state – including governments, but also the apparatus of the police, army, judiciary and law – arose from the irreconcilable class antagonisms in society, appearing to rise above society as a ‘neutral’ force for keeping order, but in fact acting in the interests of the dominant class.
In the Communist Manifesto, they declare that “the executive of the modern state is nothing but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie”. In reality, of course, the actions of any government can only be a better or worse approximation of the interests of the capitalist class as a whole. Trotsky, writing about the Communist Manifesto, made the point that when a government “manages affairs poorly” the capitalist class “dismiss it with a boot”. In a sense that is what happened to Biden, forced to withdraw from the presidential race at the last minute by huge pressure from big Democrat donors. Similarly, in Britain, key sections of the ruling class moved at a certain point to defenestrate both Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss. In a different form this could well be the fate of Trumpism, even before the next election. Edward Luce draws a despairing analogy with the monstrous Roman Emperor Caligula, but after four years he was assassinated by a section of the state machine, in a conspiracy of Praetorian Guards and Senators.
Of course, there are times when the class struggle becomes so intense that as Engels explained, the state, while ultimately acting in the interests of the ruling class, nonetheless, “acquires for the moment a certain degree of independence of both of the warring classes”. In the future, faced with growing class conflict as a result of the inability of capitalism to take society forward, the capitalists are far more likely to try and resort to such ‘Bonapartist’, dictatorial regimes than they are to allow fascism to come to power. The twentieth century experience of allowing mass fascist movements to consolidate power in Germany and Italy was a brutal teacher for the capitalists. The threat of socialist revolution was, for a time, brutally crushed but the capitalist classes lost control of their state to the vicious adventurers at the heads of the fascist movements. The result was the unprecedented death and destruction of the second world war and, in its aftermath, a weakening of capitalism internationally with the strengthening of the Stalinist bloc, cutting off half the globe from imperialist rule. In addition, in the advanced capitalist countries the main social base for fascism – the middle classes – is far smaller today than in the 1930s.
At this stage, however, military police dictatorships are not on the agenda in the economically developed countries. Nonetheless, Trump could substantially increase ‘parliamentary bonapartist’ measures, concentrating powers in his hands, and stepping up state repression, but still within the framework of capitalist democracy. However, the degree to which he moves in this direction is not pre-determined, but will be decided in the struggles ahead, as will many other aspects of how much of Trump’s rhetoric becomes reality. They will include battles between different sections of the capitalist class within which, particularly in the US – a continent-sized nation – there are substantial divisions on what represents their ‘common affairs’.
Who does Trump represent?
Looking at the background of the billionaires who funded either Harris or Trump some things are clear. There were two sections of the capitalist class who overwhelmingly backed Trump: oil barons and, less significantly, casino owners! The self-interested reasons for both doing so are obvious. It also seems that many Texan companies, of all types, backed Trump. Clearly, these sections of the capitalists expect Trump to act in their interests. That does not at all mean, however, that they want Trump to turn every aspect of his electoral rhetoric into policy. Tax cuts for the rich and support for the oil industry is one thing, for example, but mass deportations would not be in the interests of the Texan bosses, when more than 20% of workers in the state are foreign born, among the highest level in the US.
However, the serious representatives of US capitalism recognise that a Trump presidency is not the ‘best representative’ of their common interests. That is indicated by the 83 billionaires who backed Harris, compared to only 52 for Trump. While the financiers and the tech industries, the most powerful players in the US economy, were divided, a clear majority of both backed Harris. Nonetheless, the capitalist class will now act to shape Trump’s presidency as best they can. Already the withdrawal of Trump’s first choice as attorney general, Mike Gaetz, is an indication that he is not getting everything his own way. The appointment of hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary, who has described Trump’s tariff threats as a “maximalist” negotiating position that could be pared back, is an early indication that Trump can be forced by the US capitalist class to step away from policies that are disastrous for them. It is also an open question how much, for example, of Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act Trump will actually dismantle, given that Republican districts have received more than 80% of the manufacturing investments made since the law was passed.
Nonetheless, while he may retreat from his most reckless tariff pledges, he will still accelerate the protectionist direction of US capitalism, which he pushed in his first term and has been further ratcheted up by Biden since. But this is inevitable regardless of who is in the White House. In today’s multipolar world, with China’s increased strength, and the US still the strongest global power but no longer able to dictate terms to the world, US capitalism has no choice but to start to raise barriers to its markets to try and block the further development of China.
However, whereas as Biden attempted to combine this approach with a maintenance of US dominance via the creaking existing global legal and economic framework established after the second world war, Trump wants to bypass, ignore or even attack that framework. Inevitably that will accelerate the decline of US global dominance. But his election is ultimately a reflection of the crumbling of the US-led ‘world order’. Whoever is in the White House, they offer only increasing disorder, war and conflict.
At the time of the Great Recession in 2007-08, the preparedness of US imperialism to act as the world’s banker, effectively underwriting China’s 2008 stimulus packages, acted to partially soften the full effects of the crisis. There is no prospect of that being repeated in the face of the next economic crisis. Certainly not with Trump, but in essence nor would it have been with Harris or Biden.
While being buffeted by events globally, Trump will also face major opposition to his domestic policies, many of which could be blocked when they have barely begun. For example, demagogically, he is currently threatening to send the National Guard to carry out mass deportations. Yet the National Guard is actually 54 different organisations, controlled at state level. This reflects the highly federal character of the US state. Would ‘blue states’ sign up to their national guards being used to carry out mass deportations? If they were initially tempted to acquiesce, they would be forced to retreat in the face of mass opposition among their populations.
Similarly, in 2020, when Trump sent federal law enforcement agents – which were his to direct – to attack the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in Portland, arch establishment Democrat Nancy Pelosi had no choice but to reflect the general outrage, tweeting, “Trump and his storm troopers must be stopped”. Migration is one of many issues – including response to protest movements and strikes, abortion access, LGBTQ+ rights, and climate policies – around which there is likely to be open conflict between different states and the federal government as the centrifugal forces in the US intensify. Even Republican states could rebel against attempted diktats by Trump, if they did not suit their local interests.
Pre-condition for revolution
Lenin explained that splits at the top are a pre-condition for revolution, as the ruling class finds itself incapable of ruling in the old way and searches for different solutions. This pre-condition is already clearly present in the US and will develop further in the next period.
At the same time, we have seen the first beginnings of the working class re-entering the scene of history. In the last two years the level of strikes has been the highest since the 1980s. Polling shows trade unions are more popular than at any time in the last sixty years. No doubt some who have taken strike action voted for Trump in the presidential election. They did so primarily because he promised to ‘fix the economy’. When the reality of his brutal pro-capitalist policies become apparent, many of them will be in the frontline of the movement against Trump.
Trump, of course, will attempt to divide and rule, whipping up the most reactionary prejudices in order to maintain power. That can have an effect, but it is worth remembering that, when the BLM movement first erupted, 74% of Americans supported it. Support was lower among Republican voters, but a large minority – 40% – said they agreed with the protests. Later, when the movement ebbed, Trump’s racist rhetoric was able to have a bigger effect, but nonetheless, BLM showed that there is greater potential today than ever before for a united struggle of Black, white and Latino workers. Racist prejudices among white workers today are far less dominant than at the time of the US civil rights movement, for example. At the same time, while Black and Latino workers remain among the most oppressed, the wages of white workers have also been squeezed.
However, crucial to unifying the US working class will be the question of the forging of a political voice. One result of this election will be increasing questioning of the Democratic Party’s role, the results of its presidencies, pro-big business policies and repeated failure to enact reforms when it has had a ‘Trifecta’, the presidency and a majority in the two chambers of Congress. More than at any time for decades the conditions for the emergence of an independent workers’ party will develop in the next period. Such a party would need to fight for economic, social and environmental demands, linked to a programme for the socialist transformation of society. It would also need to raise a programme of democratic demands. These would include challenging the undemocratic electoral college, the unrepresentative senate, and the supreme court, and the sweeping away of all the barriers which stand in the way of candidates outside the duopoly getting on the ballot.
The organised working class will be the key force in the struggle against any attempts by Trump to further curtail democratic rights. Even in 2020, when Trump was posturing about refusing to leave power after losing the election, the workers’ movement began to debate the issue of a general strike. For example, the Rochester-Genesee Valley Labor Federation in New York State and local union federations in Western Massachusetts and Seattle passed resolutions calling for general strike preparations. Even the pro-capitalist tops of the US trade union movement discussed the issue. An AFL-CIO executive council resolution was passed which correctly declared that “democracies are not, in the last analysis, protected by judges or lawyers” but “the determination of working people to defend” them. It’s true that when interviewed about it, Michael Podorzer, a senior advisor to the President of the AFL-CIO, said that at the moment “a general strike is a slogan not a strategy”. However, had Trump’s attempted coup gained any traction, the potential would have been there for a general strike to become not just a slogan, but a reality.
Trump’s re-election is the start of a new chapter in world events. It will also mark the start of a new higher level of class struggle in the US. Even if the protests against Trump are not initially as large as in 2017, as his attacks become clear they will be far larger, and most importantly, involve greater sections of the working class. More than half a century ago, in a very different period of history, it was the mighty mass movements which engulfed the US in the 1960s and 1970s which won gains for women, black people and others. Today, however, unlike then, ailing US capitalism has much less room to manoeuvre; above all it is no longer improving the living standards of the working class. The struggles that will engulf the US in the coming period are therefore likely to rise to a higher level than in the 1960s, and create opportunities for the socialist transformation of society in the most powerful capitalist country on earth.
