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Nikos Anastasiadis
The events surrounding the inauguration of the new US president, Donald Trump, are being discussed in every corner of the world.
Trump proclaimed that “the golden age of America begins right now” because he “was saved by God to make America great again”.
He had all the echelons of US capital on his side, while the international far right rejoiced.
On the other hand, the Nazi salute of Elon Musk, the ‘first buddy’ as he is called, has shaken millions of people around the world. Comparisons to the Nazis’ rise to power in the interwar period are widespread, and even former Trump allies have called him a ‘fascist to the core‘.
So what will be the hallmarks of Trump’s new term?
A flood of executive orders
Trump knows he has little time before real problems come knocking on his door. He wants to make the most of the momentum generated by his spectacular comeback, so he is launching a communications “blitzkrieg”. Immediately after his inauguration, he signed a series of executive orders. The main ones are:
- He declared a state of emergency on the southern border to deal with immigration.
- He froze the right to citizenship for children born in the United States to parents who are not citizens or legal permanent residents.
- Signed an order to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement and the World Health Organisation.
- Declared an energy emergency to increase oil and gas production without restrictions.
- Signed an order saying “it is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female” on official documents. “These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality,” ending Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programmes.
- Pardoned over 1,500 supporters arrested for the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack, including members of the fascist groups Oath Keepers and Proud Boys.
- He issued an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America”.
An important “detail”, however, is that these presidential orders do not have the force of law.
In essence, they represent the president’s view of how existing laws should be interpreted or applied. Legal objections have already been raised to a number of executive orders signed by Trump, and some are almost certain to be upheld. For example, the right to citizenship for children born in the country is enshrined in the US Constitution. Changing the Constitution requires a 2/3 majority in both the House and the Senate, which Trump does not have. So this executive order is really a communication firework, so that Trump can convince his base that he is “doing what he promised”.
On the other hand, some of these measures will have immediate application – for example, members of the fascist groups that organised the 2021 Capitol attack have already begun to be released from prison.
Finally, the most important measures announced by Trump will be judged in practice. The “largest deportation programme in American history” he announced is no easy task. The record for deportations during a presidential term is held by the Obama administration. Trump did not even break that record in his first term. Either way, a massive deportation programme will provoke strong opposition and protests from large immigrant communities in the country. At the same time, it could potentially cause serious problems in the functioning of the economy, as migrants, especially those who are undocumented, perform a critical part of the production process that is impossible to fill – especially at a time when all employers are complaining about the ‘labour shortage’.
A mere repetition?
In fact, Trump’s announcements for his new term are not much different from what he said he would do in his first term. In his first inaugural address he also promised to stop migration, impose tariffs, restore America’s prestige, etc. In his first term he also withdrew from the Paris Agreement and other similar international forums, fully supported Israel’s agenda in the Middle East, tried to make deals with leaders of “enemy countries” like Putin and Kim Jong Un, etc.
This does not mean, of course, that Trump’s second term will simply be a repetition of the first. This time his rhetoric on the above issues is much sharper, and the international situation is much more explosive (after the Ukraine and Palestine crises, but also with the intensification of the trade war with China for world domination).
But the reality is that Trump has little room for manoeuvre on the economy, which is key to his appeal. In the inaugural address, the most tepid applause was for anti-inflation measures. The wealthy attendees do not really bother with “secondary” issues. After all, they have ensured that the new administration will continue the policy of tax breaks for their class (costing the budget billions).
In fact, Trump is presenting tariffs as a magical measure that will bring prosperity back to working people. Nothing of the sort will happen, as tariffs will increase, not decrease, inflation (as the price of imported goods will rise), and the only chance of the US being a “manufacturing nation” again is if workers’ wages approach Asian levels, which is obviously unattainable.
“Dictator on day one”?
What is very different from his previous inauguration is the absence of a movement. After Trump’s election victory in 2016, a huge movement rose up, with massive demonstrations on election night and the huge feminist march on 21 January 2017, which attracted 500,000 people in Washington DC and a total of 3-5 million across the country. This was followed by major strikes and the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the killing of African-American George Floyd by a police officer. The demonstrations following Floyd’s murder were the largest in US history.
This time the response is much smaller (at least for now). There are two main reasons for this.
The first has to do with the fact that Trump has been portrayed as a “fascist” by the Democratic establishment in its attempt to convince people to vote for the “moderate centre”. But experience has shown that Trump has pursued policies that are aggressive but not structurally different from those of the Democrats. In this way, by implementing right-wing policies themselves, the Democrats have managed to “normalise” Trump, despite their “anti-right-wing” rhetoric.
The second has to do with the fact that while very important movements have developed in the US in recent years, they have failed to coordinate, organise and find political expression. This limits the momentum of these movements and hinders their development.
Despite the fact that he has said that he will only be a “dictator on day one”, there is a widespread fear that the US is moving towards a “fascist dictatorship”.
There is obviously a positive basis for this concern, as it reflects the instinctive reaction of large sections of the population to Trump’s far-right agenda. However, the objective conditions and the balance of forces for this to happen do not currently exist. Trump is an authoritarian far-right leader and a real danger for workers and oppressed people in the USA and around the world. But he cannot disband democratic institutions, nor can he smash working class organisations and completely ban their mobilisations in the way that fascist dictatorships did in the inter-war period.
Finally, while in the interwar period German, Italian, etc. capital was prepared to support fascists to stop the rise of communist movements and to head off the threat of revolution, today there is no indication that the capitalists are prepared to support any fascist aspirations of Trump, because they are not fearful for the survival of their system in the absence of mass revolutionary parties or the prospect of revolutionary upheavals in countries like the USA.
In this context, posts by MERA25 Germany talking about “US-led fascism” and articles like the ones published in the left-wing Journal of Editors in Greece, calling us to “evacuate the planet” or presenting Trump as the new “Hitler“, instead of helping to understand the phenomenon so that it can be dealt with practically and politically by the movement, cause panic and confuse people.
From decline… to Mars?
Trump promised that “from this moment on, America’s decline is over.” None of the policies he has announced can do that. As we have analysed before, the USA has entered a period of historic decline as its economic dynamism loses ground to that of the new rising imperialist powers, first and foremost China.
Nor will it solve any of the major problems facing the US at home. The much-touted creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), headed by Musk, supposedly to save taxpayers from public sector waste, will not result in money being returned to workers and the poor. It is telling that while Musk is announcing $2 trillion in cuts from the public sector, Trump has announced a manned spacecraft mission to Mars, which NASA says will cost half a trillion dollars. And of course Musk will be part of those contracts. Take away their bread and give them circuses…
On foreign policy, Trump has said he wants to be remembered as a peacemaker, but at the same time he has said he wants to “expand our territory” – and has opened up talk of annexing Panama and Greenland. In fact, the only way Trump can slow the US’s downward slide to some extent is through coercion, with the use of military force. And that role is at the opposite end of the “peacemaker” spectrum.
The “golden age” will therefore turn out to be “fool’s gold”.
The social forces that are engaged in movements, struggles, the Left and all progressive people in the US and around the world are facing new challenges. The extreme right is on the rise internationally, threatening democratic rights, living standards and peace. We need a united front of forces to fight against it, with dynamism, but also with a calm and accurate assessment of the situation. Musk’s salute may not mean that we have a fascist government in America, but it will certainly encourage fascists around the world to step up their actions. The only way to counter the rise of the far right, whether it is “moderate” or fascistic, is with the method of the united front, involving all genuine forces, combined with the struggle for an alternative society. At the base of the growth of the far right is the crisis of the capitalist system. With political arguments, but also with mobilisation on the streets, if necessary, we must fight this battle with all our forces.
