In October 2020, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! published an article entitled, ‘US heads towards civil war’ (FRFI 278). The article begins:
‘We have arrived at a critical point in US history. The US population is irreparably divided politically. There are uprisings across the country, led by black Americans… A polarised people, riots in the streets, a crisis-torn government – all in the middle of a deadly pandemic, with the presidential election just weeks away: these are the ingredients needed for a “perfect storm” – that combination of circumstances that suddenly and drastically aggravate a situation… Trump has poured gasoline onto the conflagration, unleashing shadowy paramilitary forces to attack demonstrators and encouraging his supporters to kill and injure protesters.’
Five months later, Trump had lost the US presidential election to democratic ticket Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Refusing to accept the election results, Trump’s most ardent, thug-like followers launched an attack on the US Capitol. Although unsuccessful in their first attempt at insurrection, we recognised this as a force waiting in the wings:
‘Trump has not “ended” in any sense…this was the Kapp Putsch of 13 March 1920 or the Munich Putsch of 8/9 November 1923: illegal dry runs preparing for the subsequent legal Nazi taking of power…Right now, the Trump brand is radioactive. However, Trumpism, which will crush any dissent by working and oppressed Americans if it takes power, is too attractive an option to be permanently abandoned by the ruling class – a source of potentially useful auxiliaries… How this works out only time will tell, but Trumpism will emerge stronger and more organised than before.’
Time is indeed telling. In the four years between Trump’s first and second administrations, the Democratic Party failed entirely to stabilise US imperialism. The Biden-Harris administration tried to salvage post-war alliances and trade agreements that Trump set out to tear up, re-establish the feeble façade of democracy and rule-of-law to subdue a disillusioned and divided working class, and resume ‘business as usual’. The status quo they sought to reinstate included an increasing trade-deficit, record-breaking numbers of deportations (271,000 in 2024 alone), a live-streamed genocide in Palestine, violent repression of the subsequent solidarity movement and ever worsening conditions for the working class with no end in sight. Meanwhile, Trump consolidated his base among the most reactionary, chauvinistic and white supremacist sections of the working class and petit-bourgeoise, secured allegiances among the wealthiest of the ruling class tech and fossil fuel giants and re-emerged with a renewed belligerence. Trump has made it very clear that he intended to draw on the fundamentals of US imperialism, resurrecting the Monroe Doctrine, Manifest Destiny and American exceptionalism. Anyone who poses an obstacle is an enemy – foreign or domestic – and the US edges closer to the civil war that threatened to ensue in 2020.
The imperialist state
The Trump administration has built on the existing arms of state power within the US. He has stacked the courts with conservative judges, used his executive powers to their fullest extent, pushed legislation through the Republican majority congress, and where his powers don’t extend, has barrelled through existing legal structures without fear of repercussion.
Trump’s use of the National Guard and the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and CBP, have been of particular utility as an apparatus of maintaining and enforcing political power in this period of crisis and inter-imperialist rivalry not seen since World War II. The Republican Party’s expansion of ICE has more than doubled the number of federal agents in less than a year, going from 10,000 to 22,000. Their recruitment campaign sought to attract the country’s most reactionary individuals, using popular far-right songs proclaiming, ‘We’ll Have Our Home Again’. Where these white nationalists before were not operating in large or particularly organised numbers, they are now being drawn into federal agencies to be trained and armed with state protection. This is reminiscent of how the slave patrol was transformed into the earliest forms of the US police force and how the Ku Klux Klan was integrated with law enforcement in the early 20th century. Violence that was once reserved for indigenous and enslaved peoples, migrants, and sovereign nations where the US had political and economic interests is now being turned on anyone who poses an ideological or material threat to the ruling class’ imperialist agenda. The Trump administration is now siccing state forces onto wider sections of the working class as it prepares for what is to come: imperialist war abroad and class war at home.
