By David Sole
It would be a great mistake to think the election of Donald Trump on November 5 was “the will of the people.” Certainly, he garnered a majority of votes nationwide along with sweeping the Electoral College. Understanding the class nature of the capitalist society in the United States reveals something else.
The two major parties in the election, the Democrats and the Republicans, fought in a campaign more bitter than those elections from many decades’ past. Both of these parties are controlled by different factions of the billionaire class. But the 2024 contest saw the Republican faction determined to drive back all of the gains poor and working people have achieved over the past 100 years.
The ultra-right-wing agenda, as summarized in the Heritage Foundation Project 2025, details how they intend to proceed to destroy unions, civil rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, environmental protection and much more. The follow up Project Esther, released by the Heritage Foundation, lays out a plan to destroy organizations and individuals who support the Palestinian people against the zionist settler-colonial genocide.
This faction of the ruling class has never reconciled to the union gains and Social Security of the 1930s, nor the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s or women’s rights and LGBTQ+ advances. The collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and socialist governments in Eastern Europe gave them confidence that they could roll back the clock to a time of unbridled capitalist control of the government and global economy.
The other faction of the billionaire class, gathered around the Democratic Party, doesn’t really object to unbridled capitalism in theory. They welcome big tax breaks for the wealthy and an end to environmental or civil rights restrictions on their corporate enterprises. How they differ from the ultra-right is that they are deeply worried that rolling back the clock will generate massive resistance and uprisings by the people to defend our rights.
This grouping of the ruling class worries that such struggles, as seen in the 1930s and 1960s, would, at least, disrupt the record profits they are currently raking in even with minimal union and civil rights in place. At most, this faction is concerned that uprisings, driven by repression, could explode into more revolutionary movements that could challenge their capitalist system itself.
The national election is fundamentally a fight between the two capitalist factions spending hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars to rally the public for their candidates.
For the next period we will hear endless discussion on why Kamala Harris lost to Trump. Central to the loss was the fact that the “liberal” faction of the ruling class needed to mobilize and inspire the voting public but dared not promise too much economically. After all, the billionaires don’t want to promise so much that the people might go beyond voting for these promises and go into the streets to fight for them, too.
Harris pledged $25,000 for new home buyers. But past experience with the Hardest Hit Homeowners funds showed that the distribution of these funds was severely limited, bureaucratically obstructed and often diverted away from homeowners into demolition of homes of evicted poor people.
There certainly was no pledge to institute free national health care or a rise in the minimum wage. Empty promises by the Democrats to lower prices jacked up over the past few years by price-gouging rang hollow. Rolling back prices would require price controls and, especially, battling the giant oil, pharmaceutical and agribusiness companies bloated with obscene profits.
The Dems also pulled their punches in attacking Trump. Project 2025 became a major topic, but only in the last 4 months, or so, of the campaign. That document was released as early as January 2024 but got no attention. And Trump’s fascist nature and plans were also evident early in 2024 but didn’t get popularized by the Democrats also until after August.
Meanwhile the ultra-right faction of the ruling class, knowing they cannot defeat a united working class, has amplified every way to divide poor and working people. Racism and white supremacy have been fundamental to maintaining the rule of the capitalist class in the U.S. over decades and even centuries. Trump also embodies misogyny and anti-LGBTQA+ rhetoric. Add to that promotion of anti-Muslim and anti- Latinx immigrant campaigns. And, of course, there is anti-unionism. These are necessary to prevent effective working-class resistance.
What will be the tactics of the “liberal” Democrats to confront the Trump agenda and protect our rights? It will, no doubt, rely on numerous legal challenges. But the courts already have shown that they are slow to act, mostly ineffective and often hostile to the workers and oppressed.
The Trump-dominated U.S. Supreme Court has already granted him immunity in advance and surely will fail to defend our Constitutional rights against the corporate agenda.
Nor should we expect the local police forces to protect the people’s rights. Trump already has pledged to grant immunity to all police who are filled with racism and white supremacy. As commander-in-chief, Trump will also have authority over the U.S. military and state National Guard forces. He has promised to use the military inside the United States to put down any protest movements.
We only have ourselves to rely on. It is certain that the whip of Trump’s reactionary program will inevitably provoke resistance. This will be scattered at first. As resistance transforms into rebellion, broader forms of organization can and will emerge.
In late 2020, as Trump threatened a coup if he lost that election, a number of city and state central labor councils passed resolutions threatening to call a general strike. In January of 2024 a group of activists issued a call for the formation of an Anti-Fascist Organizing Committee. It got limited attention mainly due to the vast majority of the labor movement being drawn into supporting the Democratic Party electoral campaign. Those days are over!
Labor activists, civil rights organizations, women’s groups, LGBTQ+ rights groups along with environmental activists and anti-war/anti-imperialist formations must find a way to pull together and provide leadership to what will become a tremendous fightback against racism and reaction.
To find out more about the Anti-Fascist Organizing Committee go to: https://fighting-words.net/2024/01/27/anti-fascist-organizing-committee-launched/
Sign the Anti-Fascist form here: https://tinyurl.com/yepzzbn7
Part 2 – Both U.S. Ruling Class Factions Want World Hegemony
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