After the US elections, we can turn Marx’s formula about history repeating itself around: the first time that Trump got elected, it was seen as a real farce, a caricature of the democratic process, that a borderline personality, a madman who speaks the language of the pub, could even become a candidate, let alone president of the world’s first superpower; however, now, the second time that Trump has been elected, it can only be seen as tragic. Tragic that Democrats could not come up with a serious alternative to his and their own positions; tragic that voters seem to have forgotten what the first electoral cycle with infamous riots in January meant for our prospects for a democratic future. However tragic, it cannot be seen as surprising that Trump won: polls showed a tight race, which in the end made the gap between the candidates larger than expected. Democrats lost some 15 million (!) votes from 2020, while Republicans retained a similar number of voters this time around. It was surprising for some that 53% of white women and large percentages of groups of people of colour embraced the Trump as alternative, which will most probably ran against their own social interests.
Now we face Trump’s Republicans in all seats of power, the judicial, legislative, and executive: namely, not only did they win the presidential elections, they enjoy a comfortable majority in the Senate and Congress, and already secured their majority on the Supreme Court.
There is one major warning and lesson to be issued here, namely that Trump won this election with a few major differences compared to his first electoral success: he and his close team of associates and lobbyists have by now acquired valuable political experience and thus expanded their network of influence. Also, over the past 8 years Trump has managed to hegemonise the Republican party, or, in other words, Trump has no opposition within his party. This is a Trump’s party and Trumpism has become its official language. Not only that, now we face Trump’s Republicans in all seats of power, the judicial, legislative, and executive: namely, not only did they win the presidential elections, they enjoy a comfortable majority in the Senate and Congress, and already secured their majority on the Supreme Court. This means that Trump will have much more free hands to extend his ideological, political, and economic power, and whatever his politbureau decides to do.
At the same time, what can be expected is a radicalisation of what existed already under the Biden administration: first of all, a continuation of anti-immigration policy and expansion of police and camps on the borders with Mexico; second there will be further curtailing of environmental protections, which means that fossil fuel companies, fracking, and big mining business opened their champagne bottles yesterday; high-tech and financial capital are also contentedly patting themselves on the back. They can all expect further tax breaks and incentives given by the state and protection from competition across the oceans. Most notably, we can expect a decent payback to Elon Musk due to his X-campaign for Trump, which was one of the decisive factors in mobilising undecided voters and tilting swing states. Furthermore, we can expect higher tariffs in international trade, which will intensify stagnation, especially in the European Union, and in China.
In terms of foreign policy, there is no major difference to be expected; even if the war in Ukraine might come to an end a few months earlier than otherwise, Trump’s pro-Israeli politics means that the horrific array of war crimes, displacement, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian will continue for quite a while, and at their expense. Both wars will be ended, so it seems at the moment, at the expense of the weaker. Neoliberal austerity and attacks on the already meagre social systems in the US will continue. It won’t come as any surprise that the most threatening aspects of expanding dispossession and neoliberalism with an etatist face will be the intersectionally oppressed: working people, women, people of colour, and LGBTQ+ groups. The latter will be pitted against one another in the long march against political correctness and cultural wars.
We are observing the final normalisation of rightwing authoritarianism, with the comfortable support of the mainstream media, major companies, and the financial aristocracy.
All in all, it is safe to conclude that Trumpism has never been a measurement of people’s (dis)like of his persona. It is rather a symptom of the crisis of the liberal centre and capitalism, a symptom that is there to stay even if those in the Democrat centre don’t want to see it. It is a ruthless sign of the new times, of a new type of leadership that emerged in order to protect the system, which “is too big to fail” despite the awareness that the historic time of the US empire has well passed. The future is more bleak today than it was yesterday, not only for the oppressed in the US, but for the world in general.
Finally, what has been a great disappointment in the last sequence is a weakening of the leftwing grassroots campaigns that go beyond a mere opposition to Trump, which all contributed to shrinking of the horizon of an alternative future. This horizon’s absence was accompanied by a substantial emptying out of any alternative program by Democrats themselves. Their scandal is best described by Kamala and Biden’s warmongering stance that amplified wars, their support for and enabling of war crimes in Gaza along with the dehumanisation of the Palestinian people; their neoliberal economics kept impoverishing American people. All this is connected to the skyrocketing debt that is left unaccounted for.
We are observing the final normalisation of rightwing authoritarianism, with the comfortable support of the mainstream media, major companies, and the financial aristocracy. There is no more outcry among the Western politicians, only congratulations. Such circumstances do not call for despair but for resistance. To articulate the demands and aspirations of all those that either voted for the false alternative or found no party able to address the most burning issues, and potentially participate in the transformation of the world that we live in.
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