As the November midterm elections approach, the US ruling class is increasingly divided as the Republicans and Democrats vie for control over congress. The Republican Party, headed by Donald Trump, is scrambling to cling onto its majority seats while the Democrats appeal to the sections of the ruling class who are losing confidence in Trump’s belligerent approach to the US’s imperialist crisis. Between extreme political repression, continuous ICE terror, crumbling infrastructure, rising cost of living and the ever-present threat of war, no matter the midterm election results, the conditions for the working class demand a serious movement to fight back. REAGAN GRAY reports.
A small price to pay
With Trump’s approval rating hitting a career low of 32%, the Republican Party is trying to prove to its base that its strategy of unbridled imperialist aggression is still viable. At the UN General Assembly in New York on 22 September, Trump didn’t hold back, making genocidal threats to annihilate the Islamic Republic of Iran, boasting of the US’s coercive ‘oil deal’ in Venezuela, as well as the newly signed Greenland security agreement.
His grandiose claims that the US’s imperialist bullying and piracy is going to enrich the ‘American people’ ring hollow for the working class which is struggling to stay afloat as the US lurches from one crisis to the next. Fuel prices are reaching record highs as the US remains unable to defeat Iran militarily or coerce them into a deal. In some states, fuel prices remain at $5 to $6 per gallon, up from a $3 average prior to the US’s bombardment on Iran in February.
The fuel costs are compounding an ongoing affordability crisis and increasingly frequent environmental disasters under capitalism. In places like Gary, Indiana, a predominantly black city just south of Chicago, residents went weeks without power after a devastating storm hit the town in August causing extreme flooding and major infrastructural damage. People were stranded in their homes amid blackouts and fuel shortages for weeks before receiving assistance or repairs to their electrical lines. As natural disasters like this happen more frequently, the state is cutting federal assistance programmes and energy companies let crucial infrastructure deteriorate while making a killing off the backs of people struggling to pay their bills.
Democrats lean into the opportunist left
Meanwhile, the Democrats are preparing for a ‘blue wave’ across the country as new, marginally progressive candidates have been defeating incumbent Democrats for congressional nominations in the primary elections. At this rate, the Democrats are poised to take enough Republicans seats to win the majority in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. Former Vice President Kamala Harris is trying to scrub her genocidal image by joining Adbul El-Sayed, a ‘progressive’ Michigan Democrat running for the Senate, on his midterm campaign. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortes, who has recently renewed her membership with the Democratic Socialists of America for the first time in seven years, is heavily hinting at her 2028 Presidential candidacy. Democrats clearly see the need to embrace a more radical image to contain the growing frustration with the status quo and rehabilitate the party.
Political repression worsens
On 26 August the White House announced sanctions against Palestine Action and Masar Badil – Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement – labelling them both ‘transnational terror groups’ in the United States. While the designation of Palestine Action no doubt drew inspiration from the Labour Party’s proscription of the direct action group earlier this year, the Department of Justice has been utilising terrorism designations in an unprecedented way to target and criminalise left-wing political groups, particularly those related to the Palestine solidarity and anti-ICE movements. In July, the Trump administration launched an attack on the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s news outlet BreakThrough News, handing out government subpoenas to try and intimidate and bog down the independent outlet with legal fees and procedures.
The Trump administration is now grasping at straws to avoid the Republicans’ likely defeat in November. Trump’s push for aggressive gerrymandering earlier this year hasn’t proven effective, while his recent attempt to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms has already been shot down by the Supreme Court in another sign of the growing rifts within the US ruling class over his administration. Increasingly desperate, Trump unilaterally barred critical press from White House press conferences or briefings, including liberal, bourgeois media outlets such as CNN, MS Now (formerly MSNBC), and Politico. He has faced heavy criticism for attempting to keep the outlets out of the September New York UN General Assembly, claiming they had been reporting ‘fake news’ about the president. This unprecedented move is a dangerous escalation in the administration’s attack on freedom of speech and press in the US as the ruling class tries to deal with the growing imperialist crisis.
