Trump wins; we fight on, harder than ever!
Trump and Biden puppets with blood on their hands at a demonstration protesting RIMPAC in San Diego, Calif., June 30, 2024. (Tyrell/Cancel RIMPAC)
From the Secretariat of the American Party of Labor–
Donald Trump has been re-elected President of the United States. Although the election results for the U.S. House of Representatives have not yet been fully tabulated, the Republicans now have majorities in the Senate and the Supreme Court, and can be said to control all branches of the federal government.
Trump’s re-election is yet another step towards open barbarism and the institutionalization of a reactionary form of politics representative of the general decline of the American capitalist system. Trump’s victory opens a new period of potential violence against minorities, women, all marginalized peoples, and the working class at large, necessitating the organization of immediate resistance.
“The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.”
–Antonio Gramsci
As some seem to have forgotten, Trump’s previous term was marked by policies that served to enrich the capitalist class, caused setbacks in civil liberties, pursued imperialist geopolitical goals which are partially to blame for today’s genocide in Gaza, and racist immigration regulations which ripped apart working-class migrant families. While the American people rejected Trump in 2020, as demonstrated by his loss in the popular vote, progressives have unfortunately failed to address the underlying material conditions which bolster Trump’s popularity by settling for neoliberal candidates and policies which continue to drive increases in economic inequality and social degradation. At a time when many working-class Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, are stuck as permanent renters, and have seen real wage decreases among rising inflation and costs of living, it should be no surprise that they have broadly rejected the neoliberal policies of the Democrats and that so many refused to participate in the electoral process.
Key to fighting against this current iteration of reactionary politics is understanding that it has developed due to the increasing inevitability of crises within both society’s economic base and social superstructure. American capitalism has long supported its continued growth and profit rate through the expansion of its markets globally, however in the current period of resistance to American imperialism, in addition to increased competition with other imperialist forces, American capitalism’s ability to expand has become limited.
American capital simply cannot continue to manage its internal contradictions, as the need to continuously increase its profit margins leaves less surplus time and revenue to be devoted to maintaining the complex ideological apparatuses which previously built a false trust between the working class and the bourgeois system. As a result of this dissipation of its hold over social life, capital is resorting to simpler and more direct modes of repression and control.
But Trump provides no answers to these contradictions. His disastrous and fascistic economic and social policies are bound to destroy the American economy. His tariffs will hike up prices and his planned deportations will overextend the budget, cripple the labor pool, and create a humanitarian crisis.
With this understanding of the true weakness of the capitalist system’s grip on control, the lesson that must be learned from the progressive movement over the last four years is the urgent need for organization and program. There is no longer any election to wait for, there is no longer any time for procrastination, and there is no room for compromise with the growing fascist cancer in this country. Bourgois elections were never going to save the American working class, but in today’s period of crisis these elections have also stopped buying us time.
Throughout the 2024 presidential campaign, many “progressives” sought compromise with reactionary sections of the population in an attempt to present themselves as “reasonable” and “rational,” yet in doing so, shifted rightwards on key policies regarding immigration, foreign policy, social program spending, and countless working-class issues, in favor of bourgeois and petit bourgeois interests. By capitulating in this way, they failed to present a true alternative to the current system which is destroying the lives of everyday people or the reactionary, nationalistic, and chauvinistic “solutions” of fascism. In the coming period of necessarily heightened resistance, socialists and progressives cannot back down to right-wing policy positions and goals.
Further, socialist and progressive forces must boldly present alternative solutions, which point to the contradictions of today’s society as potential moments of rupture from this monstrous capitalist system. Between the vast build up in the capabilities of the productive forces over the last decade, with the development of technologies like AI in particular presenting the possibility for going beyond capitalist production more easily than ever before (but which, under the reign of the bourgeoisie, is instead being used to further exploit and disenfranchise workers), to the current state of social degradation which has destroyed people’s trust in bourgeois institutions, we find a plethora of opportunities for organizing a real opposition to the barbarism of our oppressors. This real opposition can however only be created by abandoning the mediocre goals of liberalism, and the limits which parties like the Democrats have placed upon purportedly progressive movements.
In the face of Trump’s victory, democratic-minded, progressive, and socialist forces must come together to relentlessly fight against fascism’s rise everywhere it rears its head. Plainly stated, when the contradictions of capital show themselves and the workers radicalize, there must be a communist party present and prepared to meet them.
The American Party of Labor has previously stated that “no matter who wins, we fight on.” These words are truer now than ever before. That is why we must organize and heighten our solidarity with workers, LGBTQIA+ people, immigrants, people of color, disabled people, and all other marginalized groups fighting for their rights and very survival.
The American Party of Labor will be on the front lines to combat any and all fascists in the ongoing struggle of class war, until the working masses ultimately deal the death blow to capitalism and reaction. That is our mission. All power to the working people!