Against Trump’s xenophobic assaults on the working class and the cries to “defend democracy”

Presentation of the leaflet on Trump's attack on immigrant workers and the responses

Faced with the round-ups of undocumented immigrants and the deployment of military forces in Los Angeles against those protesting against this new ‘exploit’ of Trump, one of our close supporters living in the United States took the initiative to write a leaflet that he proposed to distribute to those around him. The ICC fully encouraged this initiative. We believe that the document finally drafted by this comrade fully corresponds to the ICC's analysis of these events and to the necessary denunciation of the sordid game being played by the various forces of the bourgeoisie in this situation: both the cynical brutality of the police and military repression and the hypocrisy of those who denounce it in the name of ‘defending democracy’. This document provides a very valid analysis of the historical causes of the Trump administration's policy, a policy that is part of the growing chaos into which a rotten global capitalism is sinking deeper and deeper. The document also clearly highlights that the persecution of immigrants is an attack on the entire proletariat and that only this class can provide an immediate and historic response by mobilising on its own ground against the growing barbarism of the capitalist system. It is for all these reasons that we endorse this document and consider it a first statement by our organisation on the social confrontations currently taking place in Los Angeles and many other cities in the United States. The document rightly points out the current weakness of the proletariat in the United States. This is a reality, but the many strikes and mobilisations that have taken place since 2022 (massive strikes in the automotive sector in 2023; at Boeing factories and among dockworkers in around 40 ports on the East Coast in 2024, etc.)prove that the working class of this country has the capacity to wage large-scale struggles and, when the time comes, to join the struggle of the world proletariat for its emancipation.

ICC

Against Trump’s xenophobic assaults on the working class and the cries to “defend democracy”:

The working class must develop its own struggle!

 

Since assuming office in January, Donald Trump has massively escalated a campaign of terror against some of the most precarious workers in the United States, threatening to rip people away from their families and communities under the pretext of a lack of proper documentation. And he accompanies this with his trademark revolting rhetoric: a constant deluge of lies, conspiracy theories and xenophobia flows from the White House, stoking divisions in the working class whilst ICE agents menace those among us least able to fight back. Divide and rule is the name of his game. But if, as the cliché goes, the US is a “nation of immigrants,” we can add that migration has always been the condition of the working class. Workers have, since the dawn of capitalism, been forced to move from place to place according to the whims of capital - or, as is increasingly the case today, to flee the devastating wars and instability of a system rotting on its feet. So we must be absolutely clear: Trump’s campaign of terror against undocumented workers is nothing less than a direct attack on the US working class – a class of immigrants! According to the historic watchword of the workers’ movement in this country: An injury to one is an injury to all!

Trump’s proposed budget brings a withering assault on the working class

As Trump tries crudely to turn US workers against one another, his proposed budget would take a chainsaw to the class: almost $1 trillion in cuts to medicaid over the next ten years along with similar attacks on SNAP, federal student loans and federal employee pensions. And all this while allocating at least another $350 billion for the military and immigration enforcement.

And the reality is that it will not stop here. Faced with a deepening economic crisis and an ever-weakening position on the world stage, the US bourgeoisie – no matter which party is in charge - can only respond with biting attacks on the working class and increasingly irrational attempts to maintain the global reach and influence of US imperialism. Whether in Europe, the South China Sea, the Middle East or Africa, the future can only bring more and more demands for the class to sacrifice its living standards in the interests of our class enemies.

Defence of democracy and xenophobic populism – twin poisons for the working class

For the more ‘rational’ elements of the US bourgeoisie, Trump’s erratic and unpredictable international maneuverings - which are shaking up alliances once fundamental US imperialist strategy - are a serious concern. The fact that he has been able to secure much greater support from the military and intelligence services threatens two bulwarks against his influence during his first term. Above all however, Trump’s authoritarian tendencies provide the perfect opportunity to suffocate in the noxious fumes of the call to “defend democracy” any independent working class response to his vicious assaults.

On the international level, democracy has long been the cry of US imperialism as justification for any and all adventures – from the First World War to Iraq and Ukraine. And of course, the same Israeli regime that targets hospitals, universities and children in its genocidal campaign in Gaza declares itself the “only democracy in the Middle East” – with the US backing it as such. Similarly, the US portrays its military interventions as having a humanitarian purpose – for instance to protect the rights of Kurds in Iraq, or women in Afghanistan. But for the liberal bourgeoisie this all goes out the window when it comes to the actions of the US or an ally like Israel. Domestically, despite all the false indignation of the Democratic Party, Obama and Biden are only just behind Trump in numbers of people deported – for this faction of the bourgeoisie too, it is important to ensure the constant terrorization of this sector of the population so that it remains most easily exploitable. Hence the Los Angeles mayor exclaiming first of all about the impact of mass deportations on the local economy. Finally, today the Democrats campaign for a “defense of democracy” against the authoritarianism of Trump.

This campaign is tailor-made to ensure that any opposition to Trump’s brutal cuts and militarized immigration enforcement is expressed only by workers as individual citizen voters taking sides in internal conflicts of the ruling class – and not as a class acting independently from, and militantly opposed to, all bourgeois parties. It is illustrative that those leading the charge for the Democrats against Trump are individuals like Gavin Newsom – who seeks the presidency for himself – and those of the ‘socialist’ left wing of the party who claim to ‘represent’ the working class. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others of their ilk - including those organizations who place themselves even further left: the DSA, PSL, CPUSA, RCA etc., which may claim to oppose this system but in reality present programs for its management and draw workers towards their dead end and sterile actions - are only at the forefront of the drive to smother workers’ struggle in the crib.

The working class should not forget that at the end of the day, although Trump is maybe the most repulsive representative of the bourgeoisie, what even the most left wing elements of the ruling class fear the most is their class enemy. And when the time comes, history shows that they will stand alongside their class brothers and shoot to kill for the sake of this dying system.

Trump is the product of a system rotten to the core

It is more than one hundred years since capitalism fulfilled its goal of dividing up the entire world into national markets and entered into its phase of decline. Ever since then, expansion for one national bourgeoisie can only come at the expense of another. Near constant imperialist war has been the consequence. But after a century of decline, this system and its ruling class are growing increasingly senile. The vile rhetoric of xenophobic nationalism, the demonization of immigrants, racial minorities, gay and trans people – long held tactics of a class determined to survive at all costs by dividing up its class enemy – have taken root with a vengeance across the world. And alongside them the most irrational conspiracy theories have found traction among even the leading representatives of the bourgeoisie. Finally, the world stage, once well policed by the US and USSR, has become highly chaotic. Thus the phenomena that are maybe most apparent in the US are not limited to it. The rise of Trumpist populism is not a blip or the result of the actions of a particularly repulsive individual – Trump is above all the product of a system in decline and a representative of a class unable to offer any perspective for humanity.

Only the working class has an answer!

The present wave of demonstrations sweeping this country have so far taken place on the terrain of the defense of democracy, or with the framing of the specific defense of the Hispanic population – as if the whole working class is not under attack! If things stay how they are, we can only expect the movement to peter out, with all energies funneled towards the political campaigns of the Democratic Party and the organizations of the far-left of the bourgeoisie.

Only the working class, united against all national, racial and gender divisions, is capable of bringing this barbaric system down. That is why, against the crushing attacks of the Trump administration, in the face of this campaign to line up behind the Democrats or their left wing accomplices in order to ‘defend democracy’ against him, and in light of the credible threat that capitalism will – through imperialist war, ecological destruction or social disintegration – destroy humanity, the only way forward is a united response of the working class independent from all bourgeois influences. The working class must fight back on its own terrain - beginning with the struggle for its basic economic interests and the expression of international solidarity with all sections of the class. It has been many years since the class in the US truly flexed its muscles and it will take a long time for it to find its feet. That is why it is essential that individuals who understand this burning necessity today must come together wherever possible, discuss the issues at hand, and integrate the lessons of past combats in order to prepare for these struggles of the future.

For the international development of the class struggle against all false divisions!

Against this rotten system that can only kill and destroy: the working class has another world to offer!

A sympathizer of the International Communist Current (ICC)

June 13th 2025

For information on upcoming online and in person public meetings to discuss these points and more, see the ICC website: en.internationalism.org From the rest of the world use: [email protected]