We need to understand what the liberals already know but are unwilling to admit publicly; liberalism is in a deep crisis. The liberal wing of the ruling class has caught itself on the horns of a dilemma.

On the one hand, the Liberals serve the interests of capitalism, in that sense the shift from Keynesian Liberalism to Neoliberalism comes about due to the economic crisis following the demise of Keynesianism due to stagflation in the 1970s.

On the other hand, the Liberal wing of the ruling class has to offer more than profits for capitalists; the nature of the bourgeois democratic system and their need for electoral legitimacy requires that something is provided for their so-called electoral base to keep them on side. Social liberalism needs to provide more than words, it needs to deliver for their base and neoliberal economic policies make that harder and harder to provide both due to less revenue from MNCs and the need to compete with other countries to provide employment and social security for its citizens. Yes, you can ensure more integration into the system by weakening the strangleholds of racism, homophobia and sexism in the countries where you live. But when push comes to shove, what are you offering besides words as standards of life are getting worse for your children as compared to when you were young?

How did they get here?

The shift towards neoliberalism (of which globalisation is primary process) marks the beginning of the problem. Multinational corporations and Transnational Corporations serve the interests of capital; free mobility of capital with few regulations replaced the need, at least temporarily, for inter-imperialist rivalries to take place on the battlefield. Contrary to what many believe, even though capitalism arises from the basis of nation states, it does not need nation states to survive (although they do remain useful in the event of an economic crisis when they can be bailed out in order to protect the international capitalist economic system).

Globalisation has provided for the increased production of surplus value internationally, the issue of realisation on the other hand begins to become problematic and that is what brings about further contradictions. Neoliberalism (like the Classic Liberalism of the 19th century) enables the elimination of regulations against free mobility of capital, in point of fact, it demanded incentives of national government for foreign direct investment in the form of free trade zones, removals of constraints to private capital’s entry into sectors that were often under state control forcing privatisation of energy, transport and water, it required the dismantling of regulations fought for by trade unions and the working class on conditions of work and health and safety regulations in the workplace, the destruction of industry and manufacturing in the advanced capitalist and its shift towards emerging capitalist economies and the capitalist periphery with the weakening of trade union movements in those sectors in the advanced capitalist world.

Export-led economic growth becomes the strategy of choice; somehow no one thinks about the obvious. Since costs are reduced through destruction of wage incomes (remember that the automobile industry in the US was shifted from Detroit to right to work states in the South initially before shifting to Mexico and elsewhere) the issue of realisation of profits will becomes an issue. If all advanced capitalist governments cuts wage incomes producing for export (rather than domestic consumption) as much as possible, where will realisation occur? Will governments be providing the primary source of sale for all production? Wages in emergent capitalist economies are also low (that along with access to cheaper raw materials are prime selling points), the wage incomes in advanced capitalist economies are shrinking … both intermediate good production as well as final goods production require sale. Intermediate good production is only part of the process; they enter into final goods production for consumption or for purchase by another intermediate goods producer (another capitalist) or are sold to governments (this is the case with military goods for example).

The destruction of the post-war (WWII) capital-labour accord decoupled wages from productivity and first led to stagnation and then to falling wages has impacted tremendously on the working class. The existence of the welfare state eases the impact of decreasing numbers of jobs with every recession. But increasing attacks on the welfare state, the shift in ideology towards viewing the unemployed as scroungers on a supposedly generous system begins with Reagan and Thatcher; it is continued by subsequent governments in the US and Britain.

Decreasing incomes for the working class (due to weak unions, larger numbers of unemployed to play off against the employed, the shift towards more precarious jobs begins with subcontracting and shift away from long-term job contracts, the replacement of skilled labour by unskilled labour across employment), to cover for the collapse in wage incomes for the majority and decreased welfare state expenditure, easy access to expensive credit subsidised declining wages and provided realisation of profits. Consumer capitalism required that working class people actually had the incomes to ensure sale and hence realisation of surplus value; this stimulated growth and production of both intermediate and final goods production. The crash of 2007-8 marks the end of that process; shifting manufacturing and industry to the capitalist periphery, deregulation of the finance sector (it was under Clinton that deregulated of the finance sector arose, that Walmartisation of the job market is began), the destruction of working conditions and wages, have increased the dangers of crisis. Gordon Brown’s belief that Boom and Bust have been conquered has shown itself to be a serious delusion.

Governments bail out the banks and finance capitalism, then use the increase in government deficits to justify an attack on welfare states and the public sector furthering privatisation of resources, the nature and conditions of work becomes far more precarious, wage incomes continue to decrease. These policies are carried out by the liberal wing of the ruling class whether Tory or Labour, Republican or Democrat; neoliberalism is accepted mainstream economic policy.

So there is a contradiction between the needs of the capitalist economic system (which I feel the need to remind people is an international capitalist system) and the needs of the citizens of the states of the various countries.

Where are we? Or is that they?

All of the above has created alienation of the working class from mainstream political parties and have led to a polarisation among the working class towards the right and the left; the centre cannot hold in this situation as it is the liberals that have created this mess and do not have obvious options in terms of national economic policy or they would have advocated them by now. The fact that the Liberal wing of the ruling class rejected Bernie Sanders’ reintroduction of FDR’s New Deal (let’s be real folks, these are liberal, not socialist, economic policies) with a good slant on environmental issues, single payer healthcare (long overdue), and direct government jobs creation as unrealistic, tells us quite clearly that they are neither going to abandon neoliberalism nor return to Keynesian liberalism and have no coherent ideas how to address this crisis besides standing behind policies that have cost them an election they should have won easily.

This contradiction is especially strong in the advanced capitalist nations of the US and the EU as it is there that the attacks on working class gains have been undermined to support an international capitalist system. It is there that the contradictions are demonstrating themselves clearly and this can be seen in two recent processes: the Brexit referendum in Britain and Trump’s election as President in the US. The Presidential election in Austria also provides an example of this phenomenon where mainstream candidates of the Social Democratic Party and the People’s Party lost to the extreme right (Norbert Hofer of the Freedom Party) and a former Green running as an independent (Alexander Van der Bellen). While the hard right candidate lost both the initial election and its repeat, this is part of the same process. The process is one of deepening polarisation between the left and the right with the centre or mainstream losing ground.

Social Democracy in Europe shifted first to liberalism (Keynesianism) and then to Neoliberalism. Carrying out policies which impacted on its base it started to lose its support to the rise of the Pink Tide in Europe (think of Podemos in Spain, SYRIZA in Greece, Die Linke in Germany, and the Red-Green Alliance in Denmark). The only one of these parties to win power was SYRIZA whose revolt against the austerity imposed by the Troika has now resulted in its introducing austerity policy against its own base. Dodging the question of membership in the Eurozone and having no policy in place when the Troika called its bluff has led to the disintegration of left-wing principles in this party.

In France, Marine Le Pen is expected to win the Presidential election next year (the candidate of the right, François Fillon, is pro-EU, neoliberal, and socially conservative pushing the family values crap, France’s Christian roots (opposing abortion for example), supporting French national identity, and a hard line on Islam and Immigration. He is so socially conservative that Marine Le Pen was able to criticise him from the left on abortion rights and gay rights and against antisemitism (this says a lot as her father was a holocaust denier. The question arises would you vote for either of these people? If these two are the final choices in the Presidential election, who would you vote for?

Italy in many senses is an extreme version as the current Democratic Party (Partito Democratico, PD) is the bastard child of the old Communist Party of Italy which following the collapse of the old political order became first the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS; social democrat), then joined the Olive Tree Coalition (with centre right and other centre left parties) and then finally the Democratic Party (PD) with each step bringing them further and further to the right and towards neoliberalism. The defeat of Renzi’s constitutional referendum may appear to be part of the same process as we have seen in the US and Britain if you look at the situation superficially. Yes, it could be argued that this is a rejection of the elites, but it is far more complicated as right-wing parties opposed the referendum due to it being Renzi’s constitutional reform (and they are a part of those elites) and the left (including remaining left-wing parties and the left-wing trade union, CGIL) opposed due to the non-democratic nature of the proposal which called for increasing the power of the Executive in Italy (which btw is something the right-wing has been fighting for since before Berlusconi) and the elimination of a democratic elected Senate. Cinque Stelle opposed the referendum as well in the hopes of overtaking the PD. Given the political situation in Italy, things will get more complicated as Cinque Stelle will certainly gain from the referendum defeat, but this is part of a long term struggle in Italy and strengthening the executive will (given the current climate) only have wound up strengthening the right. A stronger executive in Italy endangers democracy, it does not protect it. So, the referendum result doesn’t really fit in to this narrative, but understand that Italy is far more likely to move right that left and Cinque Stelle is not a leftist party (in fact, it rejects the labels of right and left and refuses to say they are anti-fascist, which in a country with Italy’s history, still existent fascist parties and “post-fascists” having participated in several governments of the right is saying something).

What unites these far right candidates?

Candidates from the far right are advocating nationalism against internationalism as the solution to the economic crisis, blaming immigrants and foreign governments and treaties for domestic economic problems, they rely on xenophobia, racism, Islamophobia (antisemitism is part of the package in some of the rhetoric but not in all of it), and the rejection of the EU (in European countries). The social conservatism that marks Trump’s agenda is not held by Marine Le Pen, but is instead held by the mainstream right-wing candidate (Fallon).

While all this polarisation on the left and the right that is happening is beginning to feel like the political climate of the 1920s and 1930s. There are similarities, a strong economic crisis in the advanced capitalist countries which the liberal wing of the ruling classes is unable to address. There is the strong polarisation in the electoral political arena where the centre has lost ground to both the far right and the far left. However, there are some significant differences between then and now.

There are members of the left in Britain that advocated Lexit (a Left exit), arguing that Brexit would weaken the EU and the hands of the right; they viewed Brexit as a working class revolt and that it strengthened the hand of the left. Their voices were drowned out in a sea of right-wing xenophobia and lies and Brexit won not because of a left-wing upsurge, but due to a portion of the working class shifting right and voting on xenophobic and racist lines (working class members of the Labour Party (LP) voted for the most part to remain in the EU; those that had walked out of the LP due to its triangulation to the right and adoption of neoliberalism, first went to the British National Party and then to UK Independence Party). Forced to deny the increasing racist and xenophobic attacks and their normalisation due to the racist and xenophobic discourse of the referendum itself, those advocating Lexit have found themselves unable to analyse the increased power of the right-wing in British politics as they are looking for left-wing increases in strength.

Yes, Jeremy Corbyn is still the leader of the Labour Party (in fact he won the leadership with stronger numbers than before), the question is whether there is a commensurate upturn/increase in left-wing and successful trade union activity as part of Brexit (there isn’t). Corbyn faces strong opposition from within the Labour Party due to right-wing machinations against Corbyn. This strengthens the right, not the left; the Tories not Labour.

The question of whether (or not) this upsurge in left-wing activity needs to happen now in order for Corbyn to win the majority of votes in England and Wales or will it happen as part of Corbyn’s victory (Labour winning Scotland is not on the cards as the Scottish Nationalist Party clearly is dominant in Scotland politically and is to the left of LP currently)? Will it happen at all? If not, the possibility of Corbyn winning the majority of votes in England and Wales, dims. Looking around for proof of a left-wing turn in the working class and an increase in class struggle at the moment with the UKIPisation of the Tory party (by far the most right-wing government of living memory; yes, it just keeps on getting worse) is like looking for a rainbow in the midst of a pile of mud.

There is a discussion on the left in Britain on whether we are moving towards fascism and what would modern fascism look like? Neil Faulkner and Phil Hearse agree that there is currently a crisis in Capitalism, that there is polarisation happening between the right and left and that we should be strongly alert to rising right-wing authoritarianism. Does rising right-wing authoritarianism mean that we are moving towards fascism? A primary difference is the weakness of the Left and the organisations of the working class; fascism sprung out of a fear of the hard left and it was a real threat. This is not really a factor today as much; yes, there is polarisation between the left and right and the mainstream liberal wing of the ruling class is in crisis, but the left and the organisations of the working class really are far too weak to engender the creation of fascism by the ruling class like in the 1920s and 1930s.

The current weakness of the trade unions was brought about by two things: 1) a series of defeats for the Trade Union movement (see e.g., the UKMiner's strike); and 2) by the deliberate shift of industry and manufacturing to the emergent capitalist economies and the capitalist periphery part of whose purpose was to break Trade Unions as well as cheapen costs of production for capitalists in the advanced capitalist world. We do not have trade unions that are strong enough to actually threaten the system or are willing to do so. So in Britain, the transport unions are powerful and are acting to protect jobs and work conditions, but mainstream unions in the public sector seem unwilling or unable to engage except for 1 day strikes and demonstrations; public sector workers have been on the hard end of the stick of austerity.

The hard left today is weak, fragmented and has nothing on the revolutionary socialists in Germany in 1919 for example; they are not a credible threat to the ruling class at this time and the broad-left parties of the pink tide while able to take votes from degenerated social democratic parties in Europe are not a significant enough threat to warrant a fightback. An additional point so far is the lack of militant paramilitaries that existed among the right and the left in the period of the 1920s to 1930s; many already trained militarily during WWI.

An additional issue relates to economic policies; rather than strong government intervention in the economy which was being advocated by the left in the 1920s and early 30s as opposed to free market capitalism which led to the Great Depression and which was unable to eliminate the crisis. While initially Mussolini advocated free market economic policies, he latter shifted towards strong government intervention with capitalism controlled by the state rather than vice versa; Mussolini came to power in 1922 advocating strong state intervention and corporatism (wherein agricultural landlords and agricultural workers, finance capitalists, industrial and manufacturing workers and capitalists come together for the good of the country sharing “common interests” ... -- this is not only an argument used by the hard right, liberals have employed it as well -- think of it as an extreme harmony argument that we are all in this together – clearly it is not an argument where class conflict is accepted). Fascists strongly opposed trade union organisation and used violent force to break trade union struggles and meetings of the hard left.

Today’s fascists while utilising nationalist rhetoric and talking national economic policies are not necessarily taking this route of strong government control over the economy and some of them are openly neoliberal. It is not the economic policies that determined whether something was fascist; it is the nature of the political movement itself. But, in the same way that the Nazis used the Treaty of Versailles, I know for fact that Golden Dawn is using the Memoranda of the Troika to organise against austerity. We had the pleasure of the right blaming the EU on all problems that Britain is facing economically rather than the ConDem and Tory governments that introduced austerity.

Does that mean that we are not in a proto-fascist situation? Certainly not. The reality is that the right is winning this polarisation away from the centre; whether they will move towards a full fascist solution to the situation is the question. They may not need to move towards violence to achieve their aims; that depends on the nature of the fightback and the success and/or failures of their keeping power when their economic policies do not work and whether divide and rule is not strong enough to counter rising opposition.

Trump

The election of Trump (like Brexit) marks a shift to the far right in American politics. While I do not think that Trump himself is a fascist; instead I think he is a right-wing populist. However, there is no question that he has support among fascists in the US (both traditional members of the KKK and neo-Nazis, but also supporters in Alt-Right (Steve Bannon who was the executive chair of Breitbart News a far right news and commentary website and who was Trump’s Campaign manager from August 2016 and has been appointed as Trump’s Chief Strategist is a clear example of the fascists around Trump). The close relationship between them is extremely troubling as they clearly share the project of the normalisation of racism, fascism, misogyny, Islamophobia and antisemitism. Trump’s private security went over and above the call of duty against protesters during the campaign in several places and is primarily composed of former law enforcement officers who have a strong paramilitary feel to them.

One interesting thing that should be noted is the direct participation of the right-wing of the ruling class in Trump’s nominated cabinet. Normally they work through intermediaries like members of Congress and PACs to push their agenda; so this is a shift and it is not a corporatist shift in that all sectors of the economy are represented like in Mussolini’s fascist Italy where right-wing workers (never trade unions) had a voice. Needless to say, we are in a dangerous situation.

In a period of enhanced racial tensions where police officers are killing people of colour on the justification that they were “afraid for their lives,” Trump’s unwavering support for the police and his sneering at the Black Lives Matter movement (which honestly was not given sufficient support by either of the Democratic party candidates) from the pulpit of the presidential candidate (now elected President) legitimises these murders and increases racism. His misogyny (and his history of sexual assault against women) combined with his shift towards an anti-choice position (and choice of Tim Pence) reinforces the argument that women’s bodily autonomy is not a human right and is a legitimate choice. The appointment of women to his cabinet does not change his general perspective on women. His view of Mexicans as rapists and criminals with threats to deport those with criminal records (it is not recent immigrants that may have criminal records, deporting American citizens to Mexico is not possible, his threat of a registry of Muslims (which would be unconstitutional as religious persecution is illegal; but he could do this as part of a xenophobic prevention of migration rather than as an attack on a specific religious group; so block migration of people from countries that are predominantly Muslim like Syria, Egypt, Malaysia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), his antisemitism has revived the Jewish bankers meme and swastikas are appearing on the walls of synagogues and on streets. This will come as a shock to many Jews who have thought that the US was beyond this behaviour; but the normalisation of antisemitism has led to these things.

The US presidential election has been a highly contentious one among both the democrats and the republicans; fewer citizens are members of either party (and can only participate in primaries if they are open primaries, it is those states where Sanders did well along with rust belt states) and there is high level of voter alienation. There are also high levels of voter suppression especially in Republican controlled states of people of colour; but this was also evident in the Democratic presidential primary where huge numbers of people were turned away. Voter suppression is done through demanding ID cards or drivers licenses of voters, purging people who have been to prison from voting rolls (given that Black men are disproportionally in prisons in the US, they are disproportionally impacted), black men with similar names are also purged from voter rolls. While white policemen (read as KKK) standing outside polling stations to prevent Black people from voting is still illegal; armed Trump supporters were standing outside polling stations in Virginia threatening people who went to vote proclaiming that they were “protecting Trump supporters voting.” The fact that Trump spread the lie that his supporters would be prevented from voting on Election Day provided the justification for this. This is extremely dangerous and in a country with racist violence and voter suppression (both historically and currently) like the US, it is extremely worrying.

How did Trump win? Trump won the right-wing of the so-called middle classes (and this includes 29% of women voters), Trump won the petit bourgeoisie, and Trump picked up a portion of the working class especially in areas facing long-term economic problems due to the destruction of industry and manufacturing. Moreover, Trump had the use of right-wing media outlets like Fox and right-wing newspapers and hard right websites like Breitbart. Several people have told me that what Hillary was saying was covered far less and more critically than Trump’s speeches on almost every channel. While certainly newspapers like the NY Times and Washington Post supported Hillary, this is in many senses preaching to the converted. Divide and rule works very well in the US with its history of slavery, genocide and apartheid.

Also saying that you hear that people want jobs and to make America great again fulfils two objects: 1) you reinforce to working people that your ideological position that it is only the private sector that creates jobs; 2) it reinforces American exceptionalism which has always been an important part of ruling class ideology in the US; the use of the name “America First” initially by Trump as an ideological rallying call tells us a lot. This group was an anti-war group in the 1940s; they were anti-war not because they were pacifists, they were supporters of the Nazis; Woody Guthrie has a great song about them and Charles Lindbergh (who was a member).

These results are very similar to Brexit in that it only required a portion of the working class to win. Trump won the electoral vote which is essentially undemocratic as states with smaller populations are over-represented compared to more populous states; electoral votes are the numbers of representatives and senators from each state the former depends on the number of people in the census. So while Hillary Clinton won the majority of voters, it was not in the swing states in which she needed to get the votes.

What is this result expressing? It is expressing several things. On the one hand, that the dislike, or the general social non-acceptability, of racism, misogyny, xenophobia, Islamophobia and antisemitism will be overridden in favour of the possibility that economic change is possible for a portion of the working class. Moreover, the right-wing media and the Republican party has been pushing a lot of these memes already; what Trump and the Republican congress and right-wing media has done is normalise this for the purposes of divide and rule. Even if these economic promises are only possibilities, it is important enough in a country where people have seen significant falls in income and employment due to economic policy of globalisation.

The right-wing of the US ruling class has been able to shift blame onto migrants and other countries for the economic situation in the US; that is similar again to Brexit. Also, we can see that running an election only on social liberalism with no changes in economic policy is not a vote winner when the possibility of blaming the other is reasonably handy.

We are seeing real disgust with the mainstream politicians and parties. The fact that in Britain it was the Tory government that introduced hard austerity and not the EU; that the Republican dominated Congress blocked much of the job creation proposed by Obama, is not what is important. What is important is the illusion of regaining some form of control whether that is against your neighbours that are people of colour or from the latest boogieman; in this case Mexicans, Islam and China.

What were the factors relevant to Trump’s victory?

The destruction of the post war capital-labour accord leading to stagnating and then falling wages (both real and nominal). The destruction of trade unions due to the deliberate dismantling of industry and manufacturing in the advanced capitalist world and its move to capitalist economies where wages and production costs are lower has undermined decades of struggle by the working class. Free capital mobility across the globe has brought about an extreme tension between the needs of the capitalist economic system for profit maximisation and states needing to cover the needs of the majority of the population at least on a basic level. This tension is especially significant for the liberal wing of the ruling class; they are in an ideological crisis and are wedded to neoliberalism which has destroyed the lives of large sectors of the working class. What we are seeing is more a crisis of the Liberal wing of the ruling class rather than the Conservative and right-wing of the ruling class whom are quite happy to utilise divide and rule to mobilise votes among white working class voters.

The undermining of social welfare state provision and privatisation of resources and some sectors of the public sector has impacted upon working class Americans (e.g., water, electricity). Low levels of welfare provision combined with workfare (introduced by Bill Clinton), the development of a school to prison pipeline especially for young black men and the private prison system in which prisoners are extremely exploited due to being forced to work to cover their maintenance in prison and with little remuneration has also removed jobs from those outside of prisons. Trump’s choices for Attorney General (Jeff Sessions), Education secretary Betsy DeVos and Health and Human services (Tom Price) are a racist and rabid xenophobe, a Calvinist opponent to public education and a rabid foe of women’s reproductive rights (we are talking birth control, abortion, and simple reproductive health care provided by Planned Parenthood). These picks will carry out Trump’s ideological war and attack on the state.

Separating the Prongs of Trump’s Policies

Social Ideological

We are in dangerous times as an understatement; the fact that the KKK says it will celebrate Trump’s victory with a parade in North Carolina (let’s not forget their endorsement of Trump) even if that parade is cancelled as the police were worried about violence in response to the demo, this is the far right in the US putting their hoods on and coming out of the closet. Moreover, open racism is becoming more common. Trump’s support for police murdering Black citizens should give everyone worries; stop and shoot is being justified by police so-called being “afraid” of black people. Black Lives Matter is a threat to the open racism used by the state and its agents and is an important part of the fight-back that will need to happen. This is already a violent struggle and Black people have known for quite some time that the police are not allies and calling them entails risks that you do not want.

Trump’s choice for Attorney General, Senator Jeff Sessions, is known to be one of the most right-wing and anti-immigrant members of the Senate (and that is saying a lot). He is well-known for red-baiting and called mainstream black civil rights activists in the NAACP as un-American (he didn’t call them commies); how will this man deal with Black Lives Matter? He was refused a federal judge position (he was nominated by Reagan) due to his racism. Trump has embedded a racist as Attorney General in the US and he will be there to push forward the anti-immigration agenda (he supports strict controls on entry and exit), the Muslim registry and to essentially keep the xenophobia and hate of immigrants on the agenda. Civil rights activists are worried that any small amount of criminal justice reform in a country which incarcerates so many would be off the table with Sessions as attorney general; addressing the school to prison pipeline which has destroyed the lives of so many black people will never be up for negotiation or addressing a system that is not working.

Additional problems relate to the choice of secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos whose life campaign has been to destroy the separation of church and state and provide funding for religious schools; she is not a supporter of public education and has been campaigning for private religious schools and academies to get federal funding.

Other important things that are relevant is the rise in sexism and misogyny over the past decade; this is evidenced not only in attacks on women’s reproductive rights, and attempts to redefine rape. While Obama passed the Lily Ledbetter fair pay act of 2009, this has not eliminated discrimination against women’s pay, the fact that women are over-represented in part-time unskilled labour, and are often on a completely different employment ladder than men are. Certainly part of the vote against Hillary was an anti-feminist reaction on the part of conservative Christians (but they were not voting Democratic Party anyway).

Trump’s choice of Mike Pence as running mate was certainly an attempt to get the religious right on board as they were noticeably uncomfortable with Trump. In fact, while Trump’s sexual assaults should have turned them off as “their women are their property;” in reality, they did vote for him (even in Utah where there was an independent Mormon running for President as they did not appreciate his version of misogyny). Mike Pence himself is a dangerous misogynist and is virulently opposed to women’s reproductive rights; it was in his state Indiana that Purvi Patel was sentenced to 20 years initially (the sentence has been reduced since then) for having a miscarriage after trying to self-induce an abortion.

Finally, the choice for Health and Human Services is a man named Tom Price is rapidly anti-abortion, sponsoring two personhood bills (Right to Life Acts) for zygotes to get full legal protection from the moment of fertilisation, supported the unconstitutional Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection ACT, opposed the ability to get an abortion on the ACA, opposed to free birth control, (nymag.com/...) he opposed a bill that prevented employers from firing workers for using birth control or having an abortion. He also supports, obviously, the defunding of Planned Parenthood. His opposition to Obamacare is almost mild compared to his desire to control women’s reproductive choices. This is part II of carrying out the religious rights agenda in addition to Tim Pence being Vice President; being part of a pay-off to the right-wing fundies for voting for Trump doesn’t please me in the least and I am certain that this is the case for all feminists (liberal, radical or socialist and whatever wave they themselves a part of). While overturning Roe and Doe may not be possible immediately as Kennedy will vote with the liberals even with Trump’s Supreme Court Appointment; the long-sought aim is within reach and we have quite a fight to go. Allowing abortion right to be remanded to the states means that women in large swathes of the US will not be able to access abortion and Price may actually get free access to contraceptives eliminated from health insurance provision and cutting funding from Planned Parenthood through Medicaid cuts will destroy poor women’s access to reproductive health care and cancer screening.

Economics (which is always Ideological)

What was unclear in Trump’s rhetoric was his economic policies to create jobs, huge numbers of jobs, was how he was planning to do this as there are contradictions in his economic policies. As someone that ran as a free-market nationalist, what was he going to do? There was no question that this job creation would be private sector focussed, but in what form would it take?

Irrespective of sneering at Wall Street Bankers, Trump has nominated Steve Mnuchin who spent 17 years at Goldman Sachs to the Treasury Secretary as well as ruthless foreclosing on homeowners and Wilbur Ross as Commerce Secretary. The latter has close ties to oil, extractive and gas industries and spent 25 years working for Rothschild bank; he specialised in getting distress businesses out of trouble by eliminating pensions and medical benefits for retired workers). What was Trump advocating besides divide and rule? He ran as an economic nationalist but as a free market version, the free market will create jobs, it is regulation that is hampering investment in the US. He is arguing that he will create jobs (guess what people want jobs) created through removing regulations on business and by forcing the MNCs to come back (not going to happen, production costs and all that; even with unions weakened they are expensive). As we know, free private markets only create the jobs that they need, not what governments need (see the contradiction above). Even with deregulation his strategy will not be successful. The forcing multinationals back home will not work either; even if they are forced to repatriate money back to the US, there is no guarantee that they will invest it there. This argument has been around for a while and even with the lower corporate taxes he is advocating, investment by the private sector occurs if they anticipate that there are profits to be made and requires strong guarantees of realisation by the state; this may work for the military industrial complex, but in a country where incomes of the majority have stagnated the issue of realisation is a strong one. He can try and export-led growth strategy (production for export) but that will limit the impact of growth on US workers as high wages are not relevant in this context as anyone in Europe can tell you. The issue is less that of growth, but more that of distribution and that has been going against the working class for quite some time.

Trump’s choice for Secretary of Labor is a man named Andy Puzder who is the executive of a fast food corporation who opposed government regulation of the labour market and minimum wages and will only accelerate the destruction of health and safety regulations in the workplace. If people that voted for Trump thought that he would put a person that actually will do something for workers in a position of power this will tell them differently (hopefully they are listening).

His choice of Washington Insider Elaine Chao as transport secretary to carry out his revitalised transport system and job creation programme of building bridges, roads, and rails through provision of tax credits for private investors is a flagship programme for Trump and bringing in Chao (who has worked as an investment banker as well as for the Heritage Foundation in addition to her history of “public service” in Republican Administrations in the Departments of Transport and Labor) will probably win her easy confirmation in the Senate. She is no friend of trade unions and organised labour and his tax credits for private sector to cover investment rather than actually the government or the states doing the investment and job creation themselves will drag the US further down the road to privatisation and deregulation to suit the needs of the corps and Trump himself.

As part of his economic policy Trump is advocating the strengthening of the hand of the oil and natural gas industry and production. Being a climate change denier himself, he has made certain that the people he has appointed (e.g., Scott Pruitt to head the environmental protection agency (EPA)) does not believe in climate change and will without a doubt be used to dismantle the EPA. This will have serious consequences for both the US (the Flint water crisis will be the first of many) and for the rest of the world. He will not implement the Paris COP agreements and will block other attempts to address climate change. The future secretary of state (if it passes Congress, Republicans are concerned with his close ties to Russia) nominated by Trump is Rex Tillerson the Chief of Exxon-Mobile; it is evident that US foreign policy will be strongly influenced by the Oil Industry (making our chant, “hell no! We won’t die for Texaco extremely pertinent) with strong climate change denial (not necessary based on their view that it doesn’t exist in this case, but that it may impact profitability of the oil industry). Trump’s nominee for secretary of energy is former Texas Governor Rick Perry who sits on the Board of Directors of Energy Transfers Partners (gas and oil pipelines) which is building the Dakota Access Pipeline; by the way Perry has been advocating closure of this department.

The question remains, what happens when his economic policies do not bear fruit (and they will not), when divide and rule is no longer working? What will be next? His choices in military posts and the CIA and NSA are rather scary people who believe in torture, extrajudicial killings, war crimes (his pick for secretary of defence General Mattis led the attack on Falluja, who think that the biggest danger to the US is Iran, who also think that spying on people on the internet is correct and who advocate turning over all information gleaned as part of corporate keeping tabs over your likes and dislikes to the NSA?

Militarism and American Exceptionalism

This brings us to the final part of Trump’s strategy (economic, ideological and nationalist). That is “rebuilding the American Military” as though this had disappeared since Bush and through Obama’s administration. As is usually the case with right-wing populist discourse, the military always serves an important role.

Trump has promised the wall on the Mexican border which may be a fence in some areas, he promised to rebuild the US military (I doubt he is meaning to refill it again after its being hollowed out under the Bush Administration by Cheney and Rumsfeld as that has made a mint for the Military Industrial Complex).

If he is planning on using military spending to create growth that will impact on the US economy, this has serious forwards and backwards linkages in that it stimulates industries that produce goods entering as raw materials and the tech also has civilian uses besides the military ones; not as much as they say, but it is there. It is one of the reasons why military spending has always been so high in the US; good for capitalism and good for the economy.

Trump’s three minute phone call to Taiwan already has set back US-China relations since Nixon. Again, this could be more sabre rattling, but using China as the reason that the US economy is in bad shape is a bit ridiculous as this nationalist ideology is a threat to global capitalism whose interests do not necessarily jive with US interests (in a case of the Corps versus the US domestic economy, we have seen who comes out first). So, while I expect sabre rattling, my worry is more localised (thinking of Latin America and ALBA rather than all out nuclear Armageddon with China). There is, of course, the Middle East …

As everyone knows, his choice for Defense Secretary is Marine General James “Mad Dog” Mattis. Mattis led the 1st Marine division during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He also led the Marines to retake Falluja from Sunni militants (we do know about war crimes in Falluja). He is very hawkish on Iran and in an interview that I watched with one of his colonels, the man actually talked about how the Sunni are closer to the west (the BBC journalist conducting the interview did not point out to him that ISIS and the Taliban are Sunni based movement); he is extremely worried about how political Islam may not be in America’s interest. He thinks that Iran is a bigger danger to the US than ISIS and al Qaeda. He also still hates the Russians (he and Trump have a difficulty there as China is Trump’s enemy). There are also some serious issues with allowing LGBT people and women serving in the military and opposed the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell. National Security Advisor, General Mike Flynn is a big supporter of cracking down on Islamic Militancy and seems to have no trouble keeping quiet about Trump’s plan to reintroduce torture as interrogation technique. He also seems to be a fan of conspiracy theories like Hillary Clinton sex-trafficking children … Mike Pompeo as CIA director (again opposing Obamacare is not the issue), is a tea party member and a representative from Kansas, he supports wide surveillance in the US with information to be given to NSA on all levels of surveillance, thinks that Snowdon should receive the death penalty and supports Guantanamo Bay remaining open for business. So, we are potentially in a very dangerous situation … and it will not only impact upon the US.

Conclusion

Whether Trump is a fascist (or not), whether we are in a proto fascist situation (or not), what we are in is deep trouble. While the right is getting stronger, the left is not. We are divided, weak and in no shape for a battle of this magnitude. The mainstream trade union movement is not strong enough. What has happened to the groups and people that were organised around Sanders? Are they still functioning? Have they taken a new form besides standing alongside Bernie? The waves of protests in opposition to Trump are excellent, we need more of them with clear proposals of fighting back and an understanding of what we want. A women’s movement that must be fighting outside of legally defined means needs to be created and ready to fight. It must work alongside people of colour and not be dominated by white liberal feminists who will be able to access their reproductive rights irrespective of them being out of reach of working class women. We need a real working class movement fighting back against further erosion of living standards and against racism, xenophobia, misogyny and homophobia. We need to self-organise together and stand together and fight.

We cannot count on the Liberals coming together to squash all of Trump’s appointments, forget them coming up with an economic agenda that actually can help their base of supporters enough to overcome voter resignation and to fight back. This is part of the point when we say the centre cannot hold and the left are unready and needing a movement to fight back.