Where Is the U.S. (Really) Going?

There are two competing misconceptions about the state of play in the U.S. right now. One view found on social media and in the press of some left groups is that there is a big fightback under way that is turning the tide of Trump reaction. The other view is that the country is lost to the fascists. Both of these get it wrong.

Let’s begin with the second view. It is true that the visibility of fascistic groups is increasing. Everybody probably saw the footage of the July 4 assembly of hundreds of Confederate-flag-waving neo-Nazis in Washington, D.C. White nationalism and race terrorism are weapons of the U.S. ruling class to crush unions and the working class, especially in times of crisis. The White House is permeated with white nationalism, from the president’s rhetoric to ICE recruitment posters, and it will continue to be wielded to redirect workers’ anger away from the ruling class. All of this is, of course, a very dangerous trend. But it has not yet resulted in an organized mass fascist movement that is actively trying to wipe out the workers movement, the left and black and brown people.

The real question is: What is behind this trend? With liberalism no longer the dominant political ideology of the ruling class, Trump’s reactionary right-wing populism has been reshaping the political scene in the U.S. Crucially, he has won significant support among sections of the working class. Now, with the economy wobbling and the mess he created for U.S. imperialism with the Iran war, Trump is taking some political hits. Fissures are deepening in MAGA, and Trump is losing support among those who voted for him. Workers can’t wrap their minds around why tens of billions of dollars are being spent on a war that is just further driving prices up. The cycle of another “forever war” is repeating itself. Where are workers to turn in response?

Well, far-right populists like Tucker Carlson have stepped into the void of leadership, and fascist Nick Fuentes is becoming increasingly popular among a layer of the working class. They have a real hearing. Just speak to our trade-union comrades who, on a daily basis, have to deal with claims such as “Trump is being blackmailed by Israel” or with the scapegoating of all Jewish people for the crimes of the U.S. ruling class—which does have a small Jewish component but is mostly made up of white Anglo-Saxons.

We can’t be certain whether the future will bring a bonapartist state or more fascist attacks or something else. But we can expect the general trend to be a shift further to the right, even if the Democrats win the midterms.

The DSA and many other leftist groups have ensured that, in the eyes of workers, socialism is pretty much synonymous with yesterday’s liberal status quo, which drove workers into Trump’s arms in the first place. Regrettably, the betrayals of Mamdani and AOC are what many workers understand as socialism—further dragging its name in the mud and turning workers away from the Marxist left. I’m from New York, and I can tell you that Mamdani does not have the support of the majority of workers there. He has even less support among the many thousands of black and Latino people he is threatening to kick out of public housing. His base is mainly a petty-bourgeois layer, which is justifiably fearful of where the economy is headed and what right-wing reaction has in store for them.

Workers are still, by and large, keeping their heads down and trying to survive as the cost of living soars. This is especially true for black and immigrant workers. They have come under increasing attack by the Trump administration and often are trying to eke out a living on the lowest rungs of society. As such, they feel like they will really lose out if they stick their necks out.

While, on the whole, the working class is staying out of the mix, it’s not all doom and gloom either. The working class in the U.S. is not broken. It has waged defensive strikes and struggles when compelled to do so. Most of these struggles have been brought on by aggressive bosses feeling the wind in their sails. Others were brought on by workers trying to claw back what they can as inflation continues to spiral. So far, there hasn’t been a decisive defeat of the unions, but there hasn’t been a great victory either. In fact, despite the often-heroic determination of the workers, the union leadership has betrayed these struggles, from the NYSNA nurses strike in NYC to the Colorado meatpackers strike and the current ILWU warehouse strike in the Bay Area.

There have been moments when the intensity of Trump’s attacks has been so deeply felt that it has provoked a fightback, like in Minneapolis. Tens of thousands, including many workers, were propelled into the streets. There was ferment in the unions. This could have been the spark for a real resistance against Trump. The connection between the defense of the working class and the defense of immigrants was acutely posed. But this spark was extinguished by the trade-union bureaucracy, and the whole thing got channeled back into reliance on the Democrats and appeals to the governor and mayor. It is true that Trump got blowback for how the operation went down in Minneapolis, especially the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. That blowback saw Trump take a small, momentary step back to reassess his tactics.

Much of the left, though, pretended things went down very differently. They cheered about how a fake “general strike” crippled Trump. Meanwhile, the Trump administration went on to unleash terror for another month or more in Minneapolis, and workers and activists involved in the protests are still facing charges, like the Minneapolis 15. The view that “Minny shows we are winning” does not fit the reality. Trump adjusted his anti-immigrant game plan and figured out ways to make life even more of a living hell for immigrants—including by targeting workplaces and truckers who rely on Commercial Driver Licenses. Earlier this month, ICE gunned down two immigrants in just one week. While there were small protests over these killings that featured the usual Democratic Party politicians trying to temper anger, they certainly didn’t spark anything remotely like the outpouring in Minneapolis. Truth be told, Trump has only gotten away with more ICE terror since the siege of that city.

Portraying these events as big wins begs the question: Why do you need revolutionary leadership at all? The underlying message is to keep on keeping on with the bankrupt union bureaucracy, liberals and Dems.

There is more to the picture. The cascade of cop killings of black people has continued as well, which isn’t surprising given the ramping up of state terror. Marx was inspired by Fourier’s observation that an indication of the development of a society is the status of women in that society. I think that in the U.S., the same can be said about the status of the black population.

Right now, one-year-olds getting gunned down by cops in the U.S. is just considered the way things are. Death from gross medical neglect is the norm. Racially segregated ghettos, schools and workplaces are everywhere. The Democrats have dropped their posture on social questions, their election campaigns make almost no pretense of defending black people whatsoever, or any other specially oppressed layers for that matter. Another real sign that things have shifted to the right in the U.S. has been the almost complete lack of black struggle. This is the result of demoralization born of the betrayals of the liberals and fear of what they know to be true: they are in the crosshairs of the current reactionary tide.

Having painted this picture of what is happening in the U.S., which honestly isn’t pretty and will only get worse, I want to conclude by answering the question: What’s our plan as revolutionary Marxists?

In short, a central responsibility in this period is defending oppressed communities against both right-wing attacks and the liberals who have abandoned them. We must find ways to fuse the struggles of the specially oppressed with the struggles of the working class. Our task is to develop an independent revolutionary pole anchored in the working class itself—one capable of resisting economic austerity, bridging racial divisions that poison the unity of the class, and exposing both the reactionary right and the liberal establishment as different political expressions of the same parasitic imperialist order. Related to this, our aim is to fight to regroup revolutionary elements around a clear goal: breaking the left from liberalism and rooting it in the working class.