Donald Trump’s presidency has given way to unadulterated imperialist interest, and the working class is paying the price. Living standards for the working class in the US are increasingly grim, and the illusions that some had in the Republican administration to alleviate the cost-of-living crisis are fading away. Trump’s approval rating is in the gutter at -19%, which is lower than at any point during his first presidency. Inflation is increasing, wages remain stagnant and meagre welfare programmes continue to be gutted as money is being poured into defence and the militarisation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Government shutdown: lose-lose for the working class
On 1 October, the Trump administration announced a US government shutdown, which lasted for a historically long 43 days, surpassing the 35-day shutdown in 2018 during Trump’s first presidency. A shutdown ensues when the legislation to enact the government spending budget fails to pass in both chambers of Congress before the fiscal year begins. Trump’s proposed funding bill was short seven votes in the Senate as Democrats vied for amendments which would salvage some welfare and healthcare benefits which the bill was gutting, triggering the shutdown.
One of the most egregious attacks in the initial bill was the discontinuation of the Medicaid subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Nearly 24 million people rely on the Affordable Care Act for basic healthcare coverage. Currently, the average person who gets an individual health insurance plan under the Affordable Care Act pays $590 per month for coverage. Those eligible for subsidies, which is about 22.3 million people, pay significantly less, averaging at $50 per month. If the bill passed, millions of people would be unable to access healthcare coverage. This would undoubtedly add to the nearly 11% of US adults who are uninsured and the 100 million US adults – 35% of households – who have medical debt. Recent studies found that nearly 45,000 people die each year due to not having health insurance – these cuts could mean a death sentence for many working-class people.
The shutdown froze government funded programmes that working class families depend on, such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which provides 42 million people with an average of $6 daily to purchase food. Not only were families faced with food shortages during the 43-day shutdown, but even after the resumption of funding, millions face the potential to lose their SNAP benefit entirely in the next few months following the programme’s eligibility purge passed in July 2025.
On 12 November, seven Democrats capitulated, voting against the Senate caucus to pass a budget agreement to end the shutdown. Although the agreement meant the resumption of SNAP for another year, the budget failed to guarantee the continuation of the Affordable Care Act subsidies. With no one fighting their corner, the situation is lose-lose for the working class.
ICE’s reign of terror continues
Amid the government shutdown which froze thousands of jobs and essential programmes, the racist migration control apparatus continued to terrorise the streets across the US with full force. In the span of 43 days, ICE detained at least 54,000 people and deported at least 56,000, with real numbers being even higher. Scenes of ICE agents terrorising communities across the country have proliferated as the Trump administration has pumped funding into increased migration crackdowns. Videos are cropping up every day of plain clothes officers mobbing and kidnapping people, ripping children away from their parents to detain and deport them. In Virginia, a police officer was filmed tackling a mother to the ground for not being able to recite her social security number on the spot when she was pulled over whilst dropping off her child at school. In another video, a man holding his infant child suffered a seizure whilst being assaulted and pulled from his car by ICE agents. In Oregon, ICE detained a 17-year-old student whilst on his school lunch break. Regardless of immigration status, ICE is making arbitrary, and clearly racially motivated arrests all over the country. The Department of Homeland Security has reported that the Trump administration has deported over 527,000 migrants so far in 2025. Faced with the terror of detention, family separation and deportation, the administration is also bribing migrant workers to ‘self-deport’ with an offer of $1,000 and a free flight out of the US, which it claims has led to 1.6 million who have left the US this year.
As we go to press, Trump has deployed hundreds of troops into Washington DC and pledged to launch, ‘a full scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern,’ following the shooting of two National Guardsmen in the capital city on 26 November. The alleged shooter’s migrant status is being used as a pretext to unleash an all-out witch hunt on migrants from Afghanistan, Cuba, Haiti, Iran, Somalia and Venezuela, among others. This will surely extend to every suspected non-citizen in the country.
Communities fight back
The fightback is imperative. Working-class communities have been mobilising to defend their neighbours, coworkers, and even strangers from ICE raids and detentions. Alerts have been circulated on social media identifying ICE vehicles and plainclothes agents patrolling neighbourhoods, restaurants and schools. Over the last week, students from North Carolina, Oregon, and Florida have begun school walkouts in protest of ICE. People have taken up tactics to distract and directly confront ICE agents during raid operations. These efforts have cropped up organically in response to the increasingly draconian measures taken by the Trump administration.
Meanwhile, in times of crisis, opportunist political trends are fuelled by this massive discontent, hoping the pendulum will swing back in their favour come election year. There is no electoral option which will openly fight in the interest of the working class. The increasingly angry and desperate masses must be organised into a force which has the consciousness and capacity to completely oppose the imperialist state, not work within it. This is the urgent task of socialists in the US.
Reagan Gray
