What explains the rise of a fascistic narcissist like Trump and the welcome he received from the British government? US capitalism has been in a state of stagnation for years, unable to restore profitability to an economy in relative decline. A section of the US ruling class has decided that now is the time to take drastic action to ‘Make America Great Again’ with a severe programme to restore profitability: attacking working class living standards, slashing state spending, rolling back regulation, waging trade wars and intensifying US imperialism’s exploitation of the rest of the world. Trump is the perfect man for the job: racist, chauvinistic, misogynistic and anti-working class through-and-through.
Trump is an expression of an American imperialism facing a crisis to which it has no solution. A similar crisis is expressing itself in Britain, where the inability of British imperialism to compete with more powerful economies in the EU has convinced a section of the ruling class that its interests lie in Brexit. The fact that Britain cannot survive as an independent imperialist power means it must hedge its bets by currying favour with US imperialism. This truth lies behind the so-called ‘special relationship’ between the US and Britain, and the willingness of the May government to welcome Trump with open arms. For May, who introduced Britain’s ‘hostile environment’ policy targeting migrants and who has no problem supporting militaristic and sexist dictatorships like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, Trump’s own chauvinism poses no issue.
As shocking as images of detained children are, they follow in a long tradition of racist US policy, which during the Obama years saw more people deported annually than in Trump’s first year. The same is true of Trump’s militarism; three bombs were dropped every hour on average for 8 years under Obama. A victory for Hillary Clinton, known to be on the right wing of the Obama Administration, would have done nothing to resolve these issues. Yet the intensifying crisis of capitalism brings with it the threat of renewed attacks on the working class, on migrants, and on those in the oppressed nations living under imperialism to restore capitalist profitability. It also increasingly threatens to plunge the world into inter-imperialist conflict and war, which would result in a level of destruction unheard of since the Second World War.
There is no way out of this crisis under the capitalist system; neither a victory for the Democratic Party in the US nor for Labour in Britain will resolve the underlying tendencies of capitalism that drive it towards ever deeper crises and attacks on migrants, women, BME people, and the whole working class. The only solution to this crisis is to fight the policies of British and US imperialism with militant action on the streets, to replace the crisis-ridden capitalist system with socialism.
Fight racism! Fight imperialism!
