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Trumpism can help to take off the veneer of liberalism and expose the sheer barbarism of the current US political and socio-economic system.
By MPHUTLANE WA BOFELO
AFTER a tough contest with Kamala Harris, the presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, Donald Trump, campaigning on the Republican Party ticket, emerged victorious, making a dramatic comeback to the White House.
The electorates in the United States (US) faced the challenge of choosing between fascist Trumpism and the obscurantist neoliberalism of the Democratic Party.
The reality is that Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric and actions against immigrants in his tenure in office rode on the crest wave of several executive orders signed by Barack Obama and deportations that happened during the Obama administration. Similarly, Trump’s anti-people approach to the COVID-19 pandemic followed the failure of the Obama administration to institute a single-payer healthcare system in which essential healthcare for all citizens is covered by a single public system.
Joe Biden’s administration did not do anything meaningful to move the United States away from domestic and foreign policies that put unbridled accumulation of private wealth first, and from the military industrial complex and the overall imperialist ‘boss of the world’ posture of the US. Neither did Biden’s administration address the role that the US and its allies play in the destruction of countries of the Global South such as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and their support of genocide against the people of Palestine. Moreover, anti-Black police brutality and treatment of Black life as worthless continued unabated under the administrations of Obama, Trump and Biden.
While Trumpism poses an existential threat to rights, liberty and life, with its religious commitment to market fundamentalism, the Democratic Party is not less guilty of policies that commodify life and of indifference towards structural racism in the US. The left-wing forces in the US were torn between those who asserted that absenteeism was not an option and called for a vote for Haris and the Democratic Party to combat ascent to fascism, and those who considered voting for Harris and the Democratic Party as endorsement of the status quo. Others called for simultaneously working on building popular power outside bourgeois politics and voting for Harris to stamp out Trumpism. On the other hand, a section of the left stated that neither of these routes serve a purpose for Black people and the underclasses in the US and pushed for a focus on building an independent Black working-class party or a mass worker party in the US.
Following on the footsteps of the Black Panther Party, Black Power Movement, National Black Coalition, The Rainbow Coalition, African American Political Alliance etc, the continued marginalisation of Black people in the US has seen the emergence of more recent initiatives such as Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparation, Poor People’s Campaign, Movement for Black Lives, and Black Workers Center and Labour Organizing. Beyond these there have been numerous efforts towards politics outside bourgeoisie politics in the US. These include the Green Party, Democratic Socialists of America, Workers Party of the United States, Socialist Alternative, and a plethora of Trotskyist formations advocating for and working towards building a Mass Workers Party in the US. All these initiatives indicate an increased awareness of the fact there is not much hope for the people of the US and the world in the politics in which the choice is between the Republicans and the Democrats or between the good and bad guys within these two parties.
By now, Africa, the Global South and anti-imperialist forces the world over should know the US, whether under administration of the Republicans or Democrats, has no implications regarding the possibilities of changing the imperialist character of the US, rolling back the diktat of the deep state, and dismantling institutional racism and structural inequalities in the US. Nevertheless, the return of Trump is a short in the arm for right-wing, fascist and imperialist forces in the US and the globe.
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Trump’s politics are typified by a cult of personality, anti-democratic tactics, narrow nationalistic and xenophobic sentiments, isolationist tendencies, and imperial style geopolitics through coercive tactics, sanctions or the use of force. Trump’s ‘America First’ nationalism has already inspired similar movements in various countries. Right-wing authoritarian leaders in countries such as Poland and Hungary have adopted populist, nationalist and anti-immigrant rhetoric similar to one used by Trump.
In many ways, Trump has become to these leaders a model for how to consolidate power, undermine democratic institutions, and challenge the established international order. Therefore, his victory and big political comeback is likely to embolden worldwide far-right populism. At the same time, Trumpism can help to take off the veneer of liberalism and expose the sheer barbarism of the current US political and socio-economic system. This could help to galvanise and mobilise the US underclasses and their allies behind the agenda of the search for politics that transcend the republican-democrats divide. It stands to be seen whether the left in the US and the globe will be able to take advantage of that possibility.
- Mphutlane wa Bofelo is a political theorist who focuses on the intersection between politics, governance and development.
