BY MICHAEL SCHREIBER
This article contains revised and updated segments of the article printed on Election Day, Nov. 5
It should be clear that President-elect Trump is a scoundrel—a racist, an abuser of women, a pal of white supremacists, and a wannabe authoritarian strongman. How did it happen that he came out on top in the 2024 election?
Some people, of course, were duped by Trump’s lies or accepted his racist and hyper-nationalistic arguments. Yet, according to polls, millions did not vote at all, which should put to rest the notion that there was a massive turn to the right by the U.S. working class.
Nevertheless, Trump, like a carnival barker, was able to lure many voters into his tent with the vision of a glittering future once he is re-installed in the White House. He won over a sizable contingent of workers primarily by his promises of more jobs and lower prices.
Trump’s main recipe to gain more jobs is to boost U.S. industry by imposing huge tariffs on foreign-made products. “We will not let countries come in, take our jobs, and plunder our nation,” Trump declared. “The way they will sell their product in America is to build it in America, very simple.” Trump said that he would impose a 60% tariff on products from China—the leading foreign supplier of the United States—and tariffs as high as 20% on goods from other countries. Left unsaid has been the degree to which Trump’s added tariffs would contribute to inflation and probably trigger retaliation by other countries.
At the same time, he affirms, the Trump White House would nurture U.S. industrial production by slashing taxes and regulations, and expanding fossil fuel production with an environment-be-damned “drill, baby, drill” policy. The promised windfall in profits for the industrial corporations would then supposedly trickle down to working people—although in the past, such policies only meant that the rich got richer.
To sweeten the mix, Trump has scattered a few extra crumbs for the masses by vowing to eliminate taxes on tips, overtime, and social security.
Trump has also singled out immigrants as a scapegoat for the country’s economic and social problems. Crime, unemployment, excessive drug use, and the alleged consumption of pet cats were all chalked up to an “invasion” of the United States by immigrants. As a remedy, he pledged to “seal the border” by restarting work on his “Wall,” while undertaking what his campaign said would be “the largest deportation operation in American history.”
Also on the cutting board will be legions of so-called “rogue bureaucrats” and “enemies” within federal departments, funding to schools that teach about trans rights and “critical race theory,” and numerous environmental protections. Meanwhile, the danger to reproductive rights will be greatly magnified.
Of course, Trump is liable to be confronted by many obstacles in achieving his stated goals. For one thing, he is sure to encounter strong headwinds in the tightening arena of inter-imperialist protectionist policies and trade wars, as well as military unrest on several continents.
Rana Faroohar, writing in The Financial Times on Nov. 3, pointed out, “Partisan politics will not end with this election; indeed, they may get worse. Productivity is slowing, the population is ageing, … and the country faces competitive threats from China and other emerging markets, which are increasingly banding together in their own post-Washington consensus alliances.”
Although it is too early to predict exactly what measures Trump and his allies will be able to push through, and what the consequences will be, there can be no doubt that the working class and oppressed people will be the losers—unless they fight back.
In the wake of the election, commentators in the liberal media have been screeching about how the Democrats need to “regroup” in order to win back the working class to their voting rolls. But history shows that when the chips are down, the Democrats as well as the Republicans always sacrifice the interests of working people in order to enable Big Business to keep humming smoothly and profitably. Despite their partisan spats, especially at election time, both parties ultimately serve the interests of the wealthy, not those of people who must work for a living.
In order to repel the attacks of the Trump administration—as well as to achieve demands for meaningful change—our best course is to stay in the streets. We need to build giant protest movements that can make it clear to the profit-hungry rulers of this country that if they don’t fulfill our demands, they will be swallowed up by rebellion.
Ultimately, the systematic oppression of U.S. working people will only change when the victims, in their millions, break with the two big capitalist parties and build their own independent party. We need a working-class party—led by a militant, democratic, and rejuvenated union movement—that fights every day for the oppressed and exploited and looks to the inauguration of a workers’ government.
