Tensions and confrontations within the United States, expressions of the putrefaction of the capitalist system

As we indicated in our press, the return of Trump, that resentful braggart propelled to the presidency by the populist wave, represented a serious political setback for the bourgeois factions which, since the implosion of the Soviet bloc and the slow disintegration of the Western bloc, had been struggling to maintain a coherent defence of the needs of American national capital, in terms of both domestic and foreign policy. Trump 2 reflects a considerable loss of political control by the bourgeoisie of the world's leading power. On the foreign front, eight months after coming to power, he has radically shaken up US foreign policy, calling into question historical alliances as well as economic globalisation and the institutions that manage it. He dismisses international law, signed agreements and treated international consultative bodies (such as the UN) with disdain, brutally asserting that only his will, based on American military power, carries decisive weight. Domestically, unlike during his first term, when the presence of a number of generals in key administrative positions and the actions of the secret services had succeeded in mitigating the impact of his decisions, this time he chose the members of his administration and the directors of the main security agencies on the basis of a single criterion: loyalty to him. As a result, no one is now moderating the brutality of his attacks on the ‘deep state’ through the dismissal of tens of thousands of civil servants or the closure of federal agencies, or his attacks on the Democratic ‘political elites’. Trump's aggressive policy doesn’t hesitate to undermine the political and judicial institutions of the bourgeois democratic state. But these are the most sophisticated tools for ensuring the domination of the ruling class, which until now had more or less succeeded in containing and limiting violence between rival bourgeois factions. Trump’s approach is rapidly fueling internal tensions and threatening to bring them to a head. For the bourgeoisie, this amounts to shooting itself in the foot. Let us illustrate this with a few recent examples.

By manipulating crime statistics in certain regions of the United States and exploiting the turmoil caused by his immigration enforcement agency (ICE) rounding up illegal immigrants, Trump, this so-called ‘apostle of peace,’ is behaving like an arsonist in his own country, fueling chaos and tensions between factions of the bourgeoisie. Thus, after deploying the National Guard (which also included Marines) to restore ‘law and order’ in Los Angeles (California) in June, Washington D.C. in August, and Memphis in September, he is now threatening to send the National Guard to Chicago and, eventually, to states such as New York, California, Oregon, etc. — that is, territories governed by Democrats — to impose his law and denigrate Democrats deemed ‘irresponsible.’ Thus, continuing his open challenge to the judicial power of bourgeois democracy itself, he has brought 500 members of the Texas National Guard to Chicago and, moreover, is calling for the imprisonment of the Governor of Illinois and the Mayor of Chicago, who protested against Trump's ‘invasion’. These measures represent a break with the so-called rule of law of bourgeois democracy, which hitherto maintained the appearance of social cohesion essential to the functioning of national capital.

This obsessive resentment on the part of the Trump 2 administration, which has been strongly present from the outset, has intensified in recent months with the order given to the Department of Justice to “investigate, disrupt, and dismantle” the groups and funding sources of its political opponents, accused of encouraging political violence and “domestic terrorism.” This desire for revenge and elimination of its opponents was legitimised by the murder of Charlie Kirk, a Christian activist and MAGA mouthpiece, on September 21. During a tribute held in a stadium in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump, speaking before thousands of supporters on a stage decorated with political and Christian images and symbols, declared: “I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them.” The day before, he had already demanded that his Justice Department prosecute his political enemies, including California Senator Adam Schiff, former FBI Director James Comey, and New York Attorney General Letitia James[1]. It was a repugnant display that expresses the level of irrationality in American politics today.

Another example was added on 30 September during a meeting, convened on a whim by the Trump administration, of 800 military commanders, including generals and admirals, who were urgently recalled from around the world to a Marine base in Virginia for a meeting of the utmost importance. Stunned, they were treated to a surreal speech by the Secretary of Defence, former television presenter Pete Hegseth, who demanded that they conform to the highest “masculine” standards: “No more beards, long hair, superficial, individual expression. We’re going to cut our hair, shave our beards and adhere to standards”. Immediately afterwards, Trump urged them to fight “the enemy within”, identified for the first time as illegal immigrants but above all as those he calls “radical left-wing Democrats” (and he is not only referring to the Democratic Party but also to tycoons such as George Soros and Reid Hoffman who finance them), whom he accuses of encouraging insecurity. This statement is in line with his recent threat to invoke the ‘Insurrection Act’ [2] to deploy the army if the federal courts prevent him from using the National Guard. He concluded his speech by criticising their reluctance to applaud him and threatening them: " If you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room — because there goes your rank, there goes your future.”

This threat was preceded by several dismissals of high-ranking military officers who had dared to confront him: the Chief of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Director of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Director of the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA), among others. Instead of a speech on the future direction of US imperialist policy, these general officers were humiliated by the Trump clan, an event whose consequences are unpredictable, given that the army is obviously a very powerful structure within the state.

This behaviour, apart from its irresponsibility, is a flagrant manifestation of the decay of the bourgeoisie and the global tendency to lose control of its political game, which can also be found in many European and Asian countries (from France to Korea, for example). The seriousness of this loss of control for the bourgeoisie is underlined by the fact that it affects the founding countries of capitalism, and in particular the world's leading power - a striking sign of the acceleration of its decomposition. This is the product of the impasse in which the capitalist mode of production finds itself. Populism, with its inconsistent, nihilistic and irrational policies, destabilises not only the foreign policy of states, but also the political apparatus of so-called bourgeois democracy, based on the system of checks and balances, which allowed agreements to be reached between the different factions of the bourgeoisie. Such a situation, fuelled by a headlong rush into a logic of every man for himself, now threatens more and more clearly to lead to very violent clashes between them.

However, even when affected by a crisis, the bourgeoisie still uses expressions of the rottenness of its system against the working class. In this sense, the latter must avoid at all costs being drawn into conflicts between bourgeois factions that have nothing to do with its own interests. The Democrats, the trade unions and the extreme left-wing groups of the bourgeoisie are trying by all means to draw it into movements for the defence of democracy and ‘democratic legality’ in relation to immigrants and against the ‘authoritarian’ populism of ‘King’ Trump. This was again the case on 18 October with the ‘No Kings’ demonstrations, massively organised in all states of the United States: "Such conflicts carry the threat of dragging in the wider population and represent an extreme danger to the working class, its efforts to defend its class interests and forge its unity against all the divisions inflicted on it by the disintegration of bourgeois society. The recent ‘Hands Off’ demonstrations organised by the left wing of the Democratic Party are a clear example of this danger, since they succeeded in channeling certain working class sectors and demands into an overall defence of democracy against the dictatorship of Trump and consorts”[3].

It is essential for the proletariat to preserve its independence as a class and not to enlist in either faction of the bourgeoisie, which will always have an excuse to try to recruit it for its own benefit. The ‘villain’ in this film is not Trump, but capitalism, which is rotten to its core and has no future to offer, but threatens the very existence of human society. More specifically, the proletariat must reject the terrain of defending democracy against a supposed fascist dictatorship. The terrain of the workers' struggle lies in the defence of their own interests as an exploited and revolutionary class, as workers have demonstrated since 2022 in several countries around the world, and in 2024 in the United States itself (for example, with the dockers' strike in some 40 ports on the east and south coasts). This is the only political space where a perspective can be developed against the madness of capitalism.

EK (20 October)

 

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[1] BBC News, 22 September, 2025. “Kirk memorial's religious and political mix hints at future of ...”

[2] Reserved for cases such as the suppression of civil unrest, insurrection, and armed rebellion against the federal government.

[3] “Resolution on the international situation (May 2025)”, International Review 174