Donald Trump made one of his election planks an opposition to the US getting involved in foreign wars. Instead, he seems to be going to war with America. First we had his threats to Mexico and Canada, with whom he had formed the US-MCA, in his first term, but which he now has decided was badly negotiated, so he tore it up. That was followed by his threats to turn Canada into the 51st state of the US, and to take over Greenland, as well as to send troops to take over the Panama Canal. Finally, having gone to war, personally with Elon Musk, as the feud erupted amongst the thieves in their kitchen, as well as having wrecked the US economy, with his crazy trade war, Trump has now sought to distract attention, from the fact that its all collapsing around his ears, by declaring war on California!
As with most wars, Trump, of course, found a pretext for launching it, and sending in the troops. California, though, is not some “Poor Little Belgium”, its the fourth largest economy in the world, in its own right, were it an independent state. Trump's pretext, is that his policy of launching pogroms against Latin American workers in California, via the Federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), has come up against resistance. Trump seems to be using the play book of his friend and ideological soul mate, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his genocide against Palestinians, just as, we saw, that US police had learned their tactics in choking the life out of black people they arrest, from training by Zionist authorities in Israel, which sparked the Black Lives Matter, protests under the first Trump Presidency.
Its notable that Trump decided to launch his invasion of California, the largest state, wealthiest state, and stronghold for the Democrats. California, prior to European colonisation of North America, “was one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse areas in “pre-Columbian North America.” (Wikipedia). It was colonised by the Spanish, and became part of Mexico, when Mexico won its independence from Spain. Not, surprisingly, therefore, there are many Mexican and other Latino Americans living in California. It was only ceded to the US, by Mexico, as a result of the US's own war of expansion, against Mexico, in 1848, as the US, also, stole other bits of Mexican territory, such as Texas. Of course, when ICE goons launch their raids, now backed by other goons from the Department of Homeland Security, they are not really bothered whether those they round up are “illegal immigrants” or not.
The intention is only to sow division and fear, much as happens with the raids by the IDF in the West Bank, or as with the “climate of fear” created by UK immigration officials and police dawn raids. Its been seen time and again, as with the anti-Semitic pogroms of the last century. The intention is to cow a section of the population, whilst appealing to the basest sentiments of another part of the population, attracted to such racists ideas, and strong arm tactics. The important question, then, is how the working-class and its leaders respond to such attacks.
In California, one of the leaders of the working-class, there, responded correctly, by physically standing in the way of the attacks launched by Trump's goons. David Huerta, President of Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West (SEIU-USWW), was arrested, last Friday, on a worksite, where he was acting as a community observer, for obstructing the raids. Huerta's union organises many of those low paid workers in California that do all of the jobs in which Latino workers predominate, and without which the US economy would grind to a halt. He has also acted to galvanise Democrats around the question of migrant rights, showing the importance of connecting industrial and political struggle.
But, the political response of Democrat leaders such as Governor Newsom – idiotically referred to by the infantile Trump as “Newscum” - also shows why the linking of these industrial struggles, with political solutions is necessary. Newsom, and LA Mayor, Bass, whilst both opposing Trump's declaration of war on California, and his invasion of the state, have both done so, in mealy mouthed, bourgeois-democratic terms, at the same time, giving Trump further fuel for his fire, by talking, as he does, about the role of anarchists, use of violence and so on. The violence has come from Trump's invasion of California, and the launching of racist pogroms against Californian workers. Organising, and physically resisting those violent pogroms, as Huerta and others did, is precisely the right response, just as, in the 1960's, black communities had to organise to defend themselves against racist attacks, forming their own self-defence units, and militia like the Black Panthers, fully in accordance with the best traditions of American Revolutionary struggle, as developed against the British in the 18th century. Trump, of course, only wants white supremacists in funny hats to have the right to form their own militia, to come out to support him, when he seeks to carry out his coup attempts, as on January 6th.
As I wrote recently, the opportunists, including those that ludicrously describe themselves as “Marxists”, or even “Trotskyists”, and who sought to have workers passively vote for the bourgeois Harris, even as she had been part of the Biden regime that had attacked workers in the US, and facilitated the genocide against Palestinians, would only lead workers to disaster. Those opportunists distorted the words of Leon Trotsky, writing about such conditions to try to turn him, also, into some kind of passive, moraliser, content to settle for the lesser-evil. Trotsky, certainly objected to the sterile and idiotic positions of the Stalinists, in Germany, who sided with Hitler, in his attempt to remove the government of Bruning, via a referendum, but that did not mean that he sided with the bourgeois Bruning, and his attacks on German workers, which opened the door to Hitler either!
He wrote,
“The Social Democracy supports Brüning, votes for him, assumes responsibility for him before the masses-on the grounds that the Brüning government is the “lesser evil.” Die Rote Fahne attempts to ascribe the same view to me – on the grounds that I expressed myself against the stupid and shameful participation of the Communists in the Hitler referendum. But have the German Left Opposition and myself in particular demanded that the Communists vote for and support Brüning? We Marxists regard Brüning and Hitler, Braun included, as component parts of one and the same system. The question as to which one of them is the “lesser evil” has no sense, for the system we are fighting against needs all these elements. But these elements are momentarily involved in conflicts with one another and the party of the proletariat must take advantage of these conflicts in the interest of the revolution.”
In other words, neither he nor the Left Opposition, could advocate simply voting for the bourgeois Bruning, as a lesser-evil to Hitler, which is what the opportunists have proposed in relation to a vote for the likes of Harris. To do so, could only tar them with the same brush, when that government proceeded to attack workers, and, thereby, created conditions in which a demoralised working-class, opened the door to fascism, which would not limit its tactics only to the confines of bourgeois-democracy, and the ballot box. The likes of Harris, and likewise bourgeois politicians such as Newsom and Bass, with their routine attacks on workers, in defence of the interests of capital, can never provide a solution to the attacks by the likes of Trump, and, indeed, it is the failure of their politics over the years that created the conditions for Trump to be elected in the first place, just as happened with Hitler, Mussolini, and is happening in Britain and Europe, today.
But, as Trotsky points out, it is idiotic not to differentiate between the two, to not understand who the immediate, more vicious enemy is. It is Trump. The likes of Newsom will not provide any effective answer to that with their pleas not to resort to violence, not to physically organise to stop the attacks, but, instead to sit back and wait for him to sue Trump in the courts! Down that road lies only prevarication, delay, defeat and demoralisation. By the time the battle is lost, there would be no possibility of mobilising workers to resist.
But, millions of US workers, even just in California, who whilst they continue to be deluded and retain illusions in the Democrats, are ready to stand up and fight. As Huerta and others have shown, they are already doing so, even without any significant political leadership. Trump had obvious reasons for launching his attacks against migrant workers, and for doing so in California, provoking a confrontation also with its Democratic governor, and legislatures. But, he has, also, in doing so, made a grave mistake that socialists must ensure he pays for. He is not attacking just migrants, he is attacking migrant workers, who are themselves organised in trades unions, as well as also forming distinct working-class communities. In other words, they have the capacity to use their bedrock labour movement organisations, in the unions, to organise their resistance to Trump's attacks.
In the 1930's, when US car workers at Ford and elsewhere, faced violent attacks by fascist goons sent in to break strikes, they responded by creating their own defence squads, armed with pick-axe handles, baseball bats, as well as, where they could get them guns. In the 1980's, when striking US miners faced similar attacks, they responded in the same way. As described earlier, in the 1960's, when black communities faced attacks, they organised on a community basis into the Black Panthers. Migrant workers in California have the advantage, today, that they can use their union organisation to quickly establish effective defence squads at their work places, but, they can also, use that organisation to create defence squads and workers militia to defend their communities too, particularly as Trump's next tactic will be to seek to mobilise all of those right-wing militia, the Proud Boys and so on to attack migrant communities.
In these conditions, the weasel words of the likes of Newsom and Bass, and no doubt more will come from Democrat leaders in Congress, not only offer no way forward, but only act to demobilise and demoralise the struggle against Trump in a dangerous way. But, the millions of workers who continue to have those delusions in the Democrats, do see the need to stand up and fight now. It is up to Marxists in the US, to stand alongside them, and assist them in that fight. As Trotsky put it,
“If fascism comes to power, it will ride like a tank over your skulls and spines … Only a fighting unity with social democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, communist workers; you have little time to lose.”
We cannot advise workers to simply swallow the poison being administered by the bourgeois politicians such as Newsom, Bass, or Harris, but they are not our immediate enemy, Trump is. The solution lies not in a delusional belief in bourgeois-democracy and the power of the ballot box, or the impartiality of the bourgeois state, but, as Trotsky says, in building a fighting unity, in action of all workers to defeat Trump's attacks. As Trotsky wrote,
“When one of my enemies sets before me small daily portions of poison and the second, on the other hand, is about to shoot straight at me, then I will first knock the revolver out of the hand of my second enemy, for this gives me an opportunity to get rid of my first enemy. But that does not at all mean that the poison is a “lesser evil” in comparison with the revolver.”
Out of this fighting unity, and the creation of workers' defence squads, and workers militia, the day to day activity of Marxists, in such defence will enable them to expose the true nature of the bourgeois Democrat politicians, such as Newsom. Unfortunately, given the state of US politics and its labour movement, currently, that will probably mean only a continuation of that political struggle inside the Democratic Party, much as happened in the French Socialist Party in the 1930's, or as happened inside the British Labour Party. But, what we really need, everywhere, is the creation of mass communist parties, which can act to draw workers away from their current attachment to the bourgeois workers parties.
As Trotsky put it, in relation to fighting fascism in Germany,
“Election agreements, parliamentary compromises concluded between the revolutionary party and the Social Democracy serve, as a rule, to the advantage of the Social Democracy. Practical agreements for mass action, for purposes of struggle, are always useful to the revolutionary party...
No common platform with the Social Democracy, or with the leaders of the German trade unions, no common publications, banners, placards! March separately, but strike together! Agree only how to strike, whom to strike, and when to strike! Such an agreement can be concluded even with the devil himself, with his grandmother, and even with Noske and Grezesinsky. On one condition, not to bind one’s hands. ”
There is a difference between, today, and the 1920's and 1930's. In the 1920's, and into the 1930's, global capitalism faced a crisis of overproduction of capital, as it had expanded faster than the supply of labour-power, causing wages to rise, squeezing profits. The solution to that came from the technological revolution that peaked in 1935, which replaced massive amounts of labour in production, reduced wages and the value of labour-power, as well as the value of fixed capital, at the same time as massively raising the rate of turnover of capital, and, thereby, the average annual rate of profit. The same process occurred in the 1970's and 1980's, which led to a series of similar huge class battles during that period too.
In the 1920's and 1930's, there existed huge mass communist parties, that won the votes of millions of workers, as well as even bigger, socialist parties from which they had recently split, and which, themselves, still claimed adherence to Marxism. The organised struggles of those workers, led by these “Marxist” parties, clearly posed a threat to the rule of capital, not only seen in the Russian Revolution, but, also, in the German Revolutions in 1918 and 1923, as well as the creation of workers councils across Italy, in the 1920's, and the mass strike wave in France, in the 1920's, the General Strike in Britain, and the Spanish revolution in the 1930's. The question of which class rules had been placed on the table, clearly, in a way that not even the struggles of the 1970's, and 80's had done. But, we are even further away from such conditions today.
For one thing, unlike the 1920's/30's, or 1970's/80's, we are not in a period of the long wave cycle characterised by a crisis of overproduction of capital. Since 1999, we have been in a period of upswing, similar to that of the 1890's, or 1950's, but those periods continued for twenty years before they began to exhibit the signs of an impending crisis of overproduction of capital. Compared to the early 1960's, unemployment rates are still relatively high, so that, even though we see growing signs of a shortage of labour, and rising wages, it represents no significant threat to profits, or, thereby, to capital. Although we are, indeed, more than twenty years on from the start of that long wave upswing, the reality is that in the decade prior to it, large amounts of money-capital was already being diverted away from productive investment/capital accumulation, and into purely financial and property speculation, i.e. into the purchase of existing fictitious-capital, the main form of wealth of the modern ruling-class. That limited the vitality of the new long wave upswing.
More significantly, when even that vitality was enough, under those conditions to cause interest rates to rise, and consequently to send asset prices crashing, in the global financial crisis of 2008, the response of states has been to squash any potential economic vitality, via measures of austerity, and physical lockdowns of economies, at the same time as depreciating currencies vie the massive increases in liquidity (QE), so as to divert those money tokens into the further purchase of financial and property assets, draining money away from the real economy. So, this period of long wave upswing has been different from all others, in being deliberately suppressed, and so drawn out over a much longer period, suppressing, also, thereby, the usual rapid rebuilding of workers' confidence, organisation, and political development. In short, as set out before, the ruling class does not need fascism, in current conditions to suppress a revolutionary proletariat.
Even in the 1930's, the ruling class came to see that their belief that they could control and tame Mussolini's fascists, and Hitler's Nazis, had been mistaken, but a mistake they had been forced into given the choices that faced them. The ruling class, in the 1980's, although it resorted to the strong states of Thatcher in Britain, and Reagan in the US, was not at all tempted to repeat the mistake, when faced with powerful working-class opposition. Still less is that the case today. The ruling class is a global class of owners of fictitious-capital (shares, bonds, and there derivatives), obtaining their revenues from interest/dividends, rents and realised capital gains. They depend upon the profits of corporations, out of which these interest/dividend payments and rents are deducted, being able to expand, with the least amount of additional investment of money-capital by them to finance it. That means a need for globalisation, for reducing the costs and frictions of trade, for the creation of larger single markets, and free trade agreements and so on. All of that is quite at odds with the programme of the likes of Trump, or his proteges across Europe, who have pursued the opposite agenda of petty-bourgeois nationalism, Brexit and so on.
Trump, Farage, Starmer and their ilk are not pursuing the interests of the ruling class, but of their own electoral base, the reactionary nationalist petty-bourgeoisie. As Marxists have long known, there is a clear distinction between the government of the day, and the ruling-class and its state. That is particularly true in conditions where political parties have become increasingly divorced from their class bases, and politicians have become simply careerists, who treat it as a job like any other, a political caste. It is what Boris Johnson and Liz Truss discovered, as well as Trump in his first Presidency, and that Salvador Allende discovered in the most brutal manner, in 1973. It is why it is stupid to talk about political parties “taking power”, simply as a result of winning an election. The power resides permanently with the ruling-class and its state, until such time as that state is overthrown by a new revolutionary class. Governments, merely take office, temporarily.
Consequently, as with the first Trump Presidency, his actions are not those implemented on behalf of the ruling-class, and in many instances, are contrary to those interests, as were those of the British government in carrying through Brexit, and so on. That does not mean, as those examples, show, that the government cannot carry out such actions. The point is that there is a limit to which they can be implemented, without the state itself intervening to protect the interests of the ruling class, as happened with the coup against Allende, and as was talked about in relation to a coup against the Wilson government in Britain. The state is always there, to frustrate and impede any actions by governments that are detrimental to the interests of the ruling class, as a supplement to the general levers the ruling class can pull, such as capital strikes, use of its mass media, attacks on the currency and so on, via the financial markets.
When, the German ruling class believed it could control Hitler, it miscalculated, but it had opened the door to him, in the first place, and resorted to his regime as the necessary solution, given the circumstances. Its not at all clear they would have chosen differently had they known they could not control him, when in government. Certainly, the ruling class knew what to expect when Hitler and Mussolini backed Franco in Spain, and yet, the ruling class saw no reason to oppose Franco, given the alterative of the workers taking power. As Trotsky again noted, in relation to the social-democracy,
“The thousands upon thousands of Noskes, Welses, and Hilferdings prefer, in the last analysis, fascism to Communism.”
So, the social-democratic governments in the 1930's, sat on their hands, and refused weapons to the elected Republican government in Spain, as Franco backed by Hitler and Mussolini flattened their cities.
But, we do not have revolutionary proletariats about to challenge for power, we do not even have social-democratic parties of the type that existed in the 1920's and 30's, representing workers. Those parties became purely bourgeois workers parties, and, in the case of the Labour Party, it is, now, not even that, having itself become a petty-bourgeois, nationalist, workers party, much in the spirit of the Tory wing of the Conservative Party, or UKIP. So, the ruling class has no need of fascism, which itself requires the ruling class to mobilise the state in support of it, to succeed in seizing power.
But, as I wrote a while ago, that does not mean that Trump himself does not feel the need to organise a coup, precisely because of the opposition to him from the ruling class and its state. It is what he tried on January 6th and failed, precisely because, he was opposed by the state. Indeed, representatives of that state, in its military top brass, even talked about the requirement, if Trump proceeded, to have moved against him. In his current declaration of war against America, Trump, and his advisors have learned from that lesson. Rather than using his fascist bands, as on January 6th, he is using a legitimate cover to mobilise sections of the state itself to create the conditions, in which civil unrest is guaranteed, which will provide grounds for a further escalation, and, at some point, the mobilisation of those fascist paramilitary forces.
The legitimate cover, of course, is very thin. Trump sent in ICE, along with Homeland Security goons, itself showing that they anticipated provoking a response. By the nature of these agencies, ICE, in particular, they are the most likely to be sympathetic to Trump's racist, anti-immigrant agenda. As part of their daily function, they are brought into contact and conflict with immigrants. The fact of simply swarming into workplaces was designed to create panic, and resistance. The reports show that those detained have been badly treated and denied legal representation. This is in conditions where its already been seen that Trump has deported people without any grounds to El Salvador, and so on.
According to Trump, it was the deployment of the National Guard that brought the “violence” to a halt. Yet, MSNBC and others have reported that he posted this claim on his misnamed “Truth Social”, network, before the National Guard had even been deployed! Far from ending the violence, it was the deployment of the National Guard that has intensified it. Now, Trump is proposing sending in not just the National Guard, but also the Marines! In other words, reluctant to go to war anywhere else, Trump instead is just going to war with America. There is no reason for the ruling-class and its state, to move against Trump at this point, because, although such actions destroy the reputation of the US across the globe, as with its continued support for the genocide in Palestine, begun under Biden/Harris, at a time when that is being replaced by an increased turn towards China, and others, as a more stable pole of attraction, it does not, yet, fundamentally undermine the interests of the ruling class.
That may not remain the case. Financial markets have settled somewhat as TACO, means that Trump has capitulated on his tariffs against China, the EU and so on. The invasion of California, is no doubt part of the ploy to distract attention from that, and from Trump's feud with Musk. But, its unlikely that the trade talks with China will go anywhere beneficial to Trump, and the same is true in relation to the EU. Indeed, as I wrote at the start of the year, these dynamics, and geographic realities of the world economy, means that the EU is likely to draw away from the US, and closer to China/Eurasia. So, the next Trump tantrum is likely to see those financial markets sell off yet again, particularly given the huge rise in borrowing to finance Trump's tax cuts, as well as to finance increased EU/UK military spending, all of which, also, detracts from potential capital accumulation.
All of that, increasingly begins to challenge the interests of the ruling class. And, when combined with Trump's actions then, poking a stick at the sleeping giant of the US working-class itself, it does give that ruling class, and its state a reason for moving against him. US workers, should begin to organise to defeat Trump and his pogroms against migrant workers. We need Defence Squads, and Democratically controlled Workers Militia, protecting not only workplaces, but also, workers and migrant communities. Socialist cells should be set up within the National Guard, and the military, to discuss with the soldiers the reality of Trump's attacks, and to organise propaganda against it, to recognise the real enemy is Trump and his regime.
In the meantime, US workers need to black the supply of materials to the National Guard, and to other sections of the military and state, used to attack workers and migrants. We need mass and flying pickets, to blockade the National Guard facilities, as well as those of ICE and Homeland Security. Government workers, via their unions should take action to cut off the supply of energy and information to Homeland Security and ICE, as well as the National Guard that would be used by them to organise their invasion of California, and attacks on Californian workers. Workers and their unions across America, including in Canada and Mexico, should begin organising practical support and solidarity with their Californian brothers and sisters.
If Trump's attacks persist, we need to build that organisation of resistance and solidarity into an organised network of workplace committees, and local workers councils, and to organise for a General Strike, at least across Los Angeles, if not the whole of California.
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