A Revolutionary Road in Reactionary Times

U.S. imperialism is in a serious bind. Its decades-long globalization drive led to the withering of its manufacturing base on the one hand and the rise of China on the other. To ensure its top spot on the world stage, the country’s ruling class must reverse this process. With this in mind, the billionaires put Trump back in charge—an open declaration that all the familiar appeals to liberal values in the U.S.-dominated global order were to be dumped. These professed values helped mask U.S. imperialism’s predatory nature when its status was assured, but became an obstacle when its back went up against the wall.

Trump’s election to a second term was a seismic event. It delivered a death blow to liberalism as U.S. imperialism’s dominant ideology and shifted the entire national terrain to the right. This was expressed in everything from growing MAGA sympathies among a section of the working class to the anemic Democratic opposition that has retreated on nearly every social issue, leaving immigrants and black and trans people to eat dust.

While the tools of the old liberal status quo got the country into its current mess in the first place, Trump’s strongman tactics and naked aggression have utterly failed to right U.S. imperialism’s sinking ship. With the U.S. falling further behind China in key areas and its economic health in question, the faltering superpower will have little choice but to resort to increasingly harsh measures and raw force. Either the working class and oppressed will take a collective stand to halt this offensive or the masters of this brutal society will drag everyone else down.

Workers are heavily divided and by and large focused on just keeping their heads above water. Due to its ongoing embrace of liberalism, the Marxist left has virtually no authority within the class. It is discredited, splintered and far from achieving its revolutionary goals. This must change. A revolutionary trend must be established in the working class. To accomplish this, the Spartacist League/U.S. is committed to certain key tasks: fighting to realign the left along class lines, building a working-class opposition to the U.S. ruling class, combating conservative trends among workers on an anti-liberal basis and forging the revolutionary unity of the specially oppressed and the working class.

The U.S. Economy: Primed for a Fall

At the beginning of Trump’s second presidency, we anticipated that the economy would take a nosedive within a few short months. But that has not yet happened.

On the surface, the economy appears to be holding on. The stock market rebounded from tariff-induced turbulence and is now roaring thanks to AI speculation. The capital expenditure on AI infrastructure is historically unprecedented, and the stock market bubble is truly insane. Although federal workers, especially black women, have been thrown out of jobs in droves, mass layoffs have not taken place in most sectors.

But even while official unemployment is relatively low, the jobs picture is far from good. Hiring has slowed, a growing number of Americans have stopped searching for jobs altogether, most of the available jobs are concentrated in the gig economy and youth unemployment is more than double that of the general population. Wage increases are sub-inflationary across the board.

Despite current outward appearances, the economy remains highly unstable and vulnerable at several pressure points, such as staggering household debt and a stock bubble overdue to burst. Its overall trajectory is headed toward recession in the short- to medium-term. The combination of imperialist-induced geopolitical shocks, government policy turmoil and underlying economic fragility could easily trigger a downturn at any point.

The Iran war certainly rattled the U.S. economy. Fresh off the kidnapping of Maduro and oil blockade of Cuba, Trump sought to force the Iranian regime into submission but got more than he bargained for. While the U.S. armed forces did major damage to Iran’s military and civilian infrastructure, the IRGC exposed gaps in U.S. defenses and claimed control of the Strait of Hormuz. The current peace talks have resolved nothing fundamental and are simply a prelude to renewed conflict down the road. Notably, U.S. imperialism retains its dominance of the Middle East. Trump was willing to pay a high cost in economic and political fallout in the crusade against Tehran. There is no telling what additional price he might be willing to pay to finish the job once he considers the odds to be in U.S. imperialism’s favor.

The Iran war might be paused for now, but the economic chaos it created endures. In particular, inflation will likely remain high for some time. Inflation is a problem not only for working people, but also for the bourgeoisie. It eats away at the profits of many businesses due to increased material and other costs. In addition, the capitalists are concerned about reduced consumer spending as a result of rising prices.

Inflation also spurs higher interest rates, which increase the cost of new government borrowing. Government debt now stands at a massive $40 trillion, with a trillion dollars paid annually in interest. This is a ticking time bomb, especially when the Pentagon needs to dole out vast sums to replenish missile stockpiles and modernize the military in line with new technologies. The U.S. Treasury could print more money to fund these projects, but doing so would exacerbate the problem of inflation.

Trump plays a particular role. He is ripping up the liberal order that trapped U.S. imperialism in a downward spiral. This requires painful measures, including for the ruling class. Trump’s tariffs are an example of that. They have not worked out at all for tech giants like Musk, who rely on parts from China that the U.S. doesn’t have the capability to produce. The same is true of auto manufacturers who depend on imported steel.

For all the talk of bringing industry back to the U.S., the needle has barely moved on domestic steel and other manufacturing. Predictably, tariffs have had a major negative impact on the profits of U.S. industries that are more competitive on the world market, like agribusiness. These industries are the prime targets of China and other countries looking to retaliate against U.S. trade aggression. So, while doing nothing to revive weaker sectors of the U.S. economy, tariffs have caused headaches for the stronger sectors and are, in the end, a brake on the country’s overall productive forces.

Especially in the event of recession, U.S. imperialism’s overriding need to reindustrialize will force the ruling class to take even more drastic measures. Massive austerity will be the order of the day, including deep cuts to the social safety net, like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Meanwhile, the working class will continue to sink into personal debt and find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. Trump’s DEI purges, anti-immigrant crackdown and foreign policy are all naked power plays to divide and regiment the working class for what’s to come.

Political Trends in the Ruling Class

The circumstances under which the wheels fall off the economy will determine where the ruling class will turn to administer its affairs. But whether Republicans or Democrats of one flavor or another are put in charge, they will have no choice but to go after the working class in order to save the skin of the oligarchs. The only question is how the hammer blows will be delivered.

One distinct possibility is that the ruling class will stick with the right-wing populists, who are undergoing some realignment. The costly and indecisive Iran war has eroded Trump’s support within the working class. There is palpable discontent over his failure to rein in inflation, bring jobs back to the U.S. and stop the forever wars. MAGA claimed to be the voice of American workers, and now Trump is backtracking on all the promises he made to them. This has fueled a split between Trump loyalists and the America First crowd, including Tucker Carlson, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Matt Walsh and Tom Massie.

These right-wing Trump critics bang on about the Epstein files, Iran war and U.S. funding of Israel, looking to meld their reactionary “solutions” to workers’ anxieties. They believe that Trump has lost his way and betrayed his oath to keep America first by instead putting Israel first. They push the lie that Israel calls the shots for the U.S. in the Middle East and beyond. Neo-Nazis like Nick Fuentes go even further and push explicitly anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, which are growing in popularity, including among the working class.

It is a convenient alibi for the U.S. rulers when Jewish people or Israel are blamed for their own crimes. Washington is the primary backer of Israel as the attack dog for its strategic interests in the region. The Zionist state’s relentless aggression, especially against the Palestinians, has provoked widespread discontent internationally and at home. To keep this discontent from coming their way, the U.S. rulers paint anti-Zionism as support to terrorism. When this does not wash with working people, the America Firsters succeed in deflecting the anger by insisting that the problem is that Jewish people or Israel are pulling the strings in the U.S.

Thus far, Trump’s support has not completely collapsed. But as the cracks in the economy develop into a full-blown earthquake, dissatisfied workers will increasingly look for alternatives. If the Marxist left does not give direction to working-class discontent in a way that is distinct from the liberals and capable of winning workers back from the right, reactionary forces will fill the political vacuum. In particular, the more right-wing populists will step up to keep the flame of reaction alive.

The Democrats are poised to win big in the midterms. Despite this, they are quite fractured and deeply unpopular. Trump’s return to the White House was paved by liberal Democrats, who morally bullied workers while inflicting economic pain. The Democratic Party is viewed as the Establishment party at a time when most working-class voters are anti-Establishment. Democratic centrists have adopted a “do nothing, win” stance toward Trump. They figure that they will make out after he self-destructs in the eyes of the general public. They criticize Trump but offer little different in the concrete.

The Democrats have their own brand of populists, like AOC and Mamdani, who talk about fighting the billionaires and whatnot. They play a vital role for their party by ensnaring some discontented elements in its fold. To do so, they add a little sugar to the poisonous Kool-Aid. These populists and their right-wing counterparts are both pressure relief valves. But the one on the left operates in the service of the previous status quo, while the one on the right angles to blow it apart. Of special note, Mamdani has bent over backwards to reassure Wall Street and the billionaires of his commitment to continuity, not rupture.

In 2028, the ruling class could conceivably end up going with a populist Democrat to better head off any resistance to austerity. As Mamdani has done in New York City, a populist Democrat would promise all manner of reforms to tackle the affordability crisis, only to backtrack and hide behind budget constraints, the hostility of Wall Street and the like once in office. But one thing is certain: an FDR-like figure implementing massive new social programs is not in the cards when the economy is going down and the military budget is going up.

AOC, a possible 2028 presidential contender, talks about “Medicare for All,” but there is little room for that. The U.S. ruling class cannot afford the kind of concessions it gave in the 1930s to prevent a challenge to its hold on society. Even though the country was in the depths of the Great Depression, it was heavily industrialized, saddled with far less debt and did not yet have a global empire to sustain. The ruling class might be able to toss workers in certain sectors a few small carrots, but it will mainly wield the big stick. To stave off inflation and unrest, it could fork out two grand in hush money to individuals like it did during the pandemic or agree to raise the minimum wage. But this won’t solve anything.

When an imperialist power is in a corner, it will introduce elements of state planning in anticipation of war. The goal would be to revive military-related industries, not introduce major social reforms. For example, the federal government will decide to invest heavily in manufacturing and other industry on U.S. soil. This would generate some jobs. But it would need to compensate for this investment and cut other costs. This would come at the expense of the working class—intensified attacks on healthcare, pensions and unions at home, while turning the screws on workers in the rest of the world.

Economic Struggle: Isolated, Not Crushed

The uptick in strikes this year is a sign that some of the initial shock of Trump’s election has worn off and that most workers are desperate for some relief. These strikes have been driven by a felt need for better pay amid ever-rising prices. But union leaders have kept these strikes isolated, and they have resulted in stalemates at best without coming close to assuming an offensive character.

Right after the pandemic, many companies were rolling in dough and could afford to buy class peace. But corporate cash balances are declining, and so is the room the bosses have to maneuver. This pattern of economic struggle is likely to continue, especially in the absence of a decisive outcome to a major battle or the economy plunging over the edge.

These strikes make clear that the working class has not been crushed. Workers have shown determination to resist the bosses’ attacks, but union leaders have constrained that resistance. Despite this, workers have not made the leap to assume leadership themselves in opposition to the union bureaucracy.

Working-class discontent has not spilled into the open on a large scale either. The prevailing sentiment among workers remains to keep their heads down and try to get by without making waves. This is particularly true of black workers and other specially oppressed layers of the class. Many of them are fearful of what’s in store and passively waiting for the elections.

But this state of affairs will not continue indefinitely. At some point, the bottom is going to fall out of the economy. Since the working class is in a weakened state, ill-prepared and polarized along racial lines, the ruling class will drop the hammer first with mass layoffs, austerity drives and broader repression.

Based on these considerations, the working class needs to collectively brace itself and preparing workers for this should guide our work, especially in the unions. Many defensive struggles will be necessary, and the goal must be to minimize the damage as much as possible in order for the working class to be able to bounce back quickly and go on the counteroffensive. As the economic situation deteriorates, the ruling class will hit the accelerator on white nationalism and enflame other divisions, reinforcing the impulse to retreat into an individualistic mentality.

Where Revolutionaries Fit In

Trump’s relentless pursuit of U.S. imperialism’s reactionary agenda will keep generating shocks, crises and dark times ahead. This process is not going to be linear, but rather quite convulsive. Just because Trump needs to regiment society and overhaul the economy does not mean he can do as he pleases. Tariffs, ICE terror and the Iran war have all brought major contradictions to the fore. In some cases, above all Minneapolis, massive struggle has broken out, only to dissipate once Trump took a small step back.

The fight against Trump reaction must be waged on an independent proletarian basis. To say that the left is unprepared for this task is an understatement. Our aim is to fight to regroup revolutionary-minded elements around a clear goal: breaking the left from liberalism and anchoring it in the working class.

A main task in this period is to defend oppressed groups in the face of right-wing reaction and the liberals who ghosted them. We must continue to seek to build broad united-front defense in this period. The work of the Partisan Defense Committee and the “open police archives” campaign will be important to expose the liberals and pose a class-struggle alternative. In contrast to the liberal-aligned left, we must fight to link the specific needs of targeted specially oppressed groups directly to the broader material interests of the working class.

Struggles to defend black people or immigrants cannot be left to the liberals, who will betray and continue to fuel divisions between the workers and the specially oppressed. To counter this, revolutionaries must draw a line against the liberals and the left who tail them, blaming Trump voters for his policies and repression. It is also necessary to show how the labor bureaucracy is doing the dirty work of the ruling class by lining workers up behind its political parties and refusing to wage a real defense of their membership or the oppressed.

Revolutionaries must direct themselves toward cohering a sustained working-class opposition to the U.S. rulers, including both the right wing and the liberals. One means of doing so is to intervene in unfolding defensive struggles like Minneapolis to motivate fusing them to labor’s cause and in the process expose the sabotage of liberal and trade-union misleaders. We must provide a foundation for working-class mobilization around its distinct interests against Trump and the Democrats alike.

To that end, the party must also continue to intervene in economic struggles to push them forward. In a number of major class battles over the past two years, we have done just that. At different stages, we offered concrete steps to bridge divisions, draw in broader layers of the class and otherwise strengthen the strike. The goal was and is to weaken the suffocating grip of the union bureaucracy and attract militant workers who want to fight to change the strike’s course. We have encountered varying degrees of willingness to escalate in practice, but in every case we got a hearing for class-struggle strategy among a circle of workers.

We should look to rally individual workers and groups around us and raise their consciousness to the best of our ability, beginning with the need to combat false polarizations and build toward class independence. For the time being, we should expect the numbers we attract to remain small. Short of a major change in the national situation, things are not going to go our way.

That said, we have achieved a certain success at scale and should continue to build on that. In all our arenas of work, including the trade unions, we have gained a small hearing and extended our influence. But it is also important to maintain a sense of proportion: our forces are tiny, and so is our influence. Those we attract are themselves very isolated and politically distant from the working class. We are nowhere near being able to change the overall course of events.

Our subjective will cannot make up for objective conditions. Our efforts to provide revolutionary leadership to today’s struggles are not going to suddenly turn those struggles around. Nonetheless, it is possible to achieve real successes, even if they are more limited in scope. The verdict against the cop who killed Eric Duprey is one example; the union fundraising for the defense of immigrants detained near a worksite is another. It is by making a name for ourselves among workers and the oppressed that we will be best positioned to significantly extend our influence when a major upsurge inevitably occurs.

Communist Workers: Establish a Track Record

Communist workers sometimes feel like they are talking to a brick wall when speaking to coworkers about the need to collectively defend themselves, let alone immigrants, black people or Iran. Workers in this country are up against the world’s most powerful and organized ruling class. From media talking heads to their loyal servants in the union bureaucracy, the capitalists have various means to dupe workers. The rightward shift in society and heightened racial and other polarizations exert their own strong pulls that are not so easy to counter.

Still, opportunities to make headway will arise, even if sporadically for now. To be poised to take maximum advantage of these opportunities, communist workers must pace themselves and undertake theoretical study to prevent burnout and demoralization. Patience is also crucial. One has to be there in order to carefully explain what needs to be done and why, without expecting immediate results. Building authority takes time, consistency and persistence, and it requires stepping up when the occasion warrants.

Amid the misery of the Great Depression in 1932, two years before the great strikes that led to the organization of the industrial unions, Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon advised:

This orientation at a low point of the class struggle opened the door to Trotskyist leadership of major class battles and recruitment of significant numbers of workers.

Revolutionaries must seek openings, however small, to unite workers across the myriad divisions that are obstacles to collective action to turn back the bosses’ attacks. Even a partial victory can help give pause to workers who are retreating into individualism, cutting themselves off from other workers on the basis of race, home country, gender, tiers, craft, etc.

Everything we do now matters, irrespective of the immediate response. By establishing a track record in today’s struggles, we will attract vanguard elements as we become more widely known. It’s on the basis of this work that we can aspire to build a revolutionary current within the working class itself when the objective situation changes.

The Left: Wishful Thinking Won’t Defeat U.S. Imperialism

The recognition of all the above doesn’t mean we are pessimistic, but rather realistic about the current mood of the class and the forces at play. Growing discontent with Trump, including among working people who voted for him, has not and will not automatically translate into socialist consciousness or even leftward motion, as some leftist groups proclaim. This is evident in the continued growth of the America First movement in response to the economic havoc wrought by the Iran war.

The right is very actively hooking its claws into workers. In contrast, the left is largely content to make its bed with the liberals. This can only repel workers, who come to equate socialism with the hated Democratic Party. The pull of workers toward the right and push away from the left is not going to add up to a socialist-minded working class.

Still, many on the left believe the working class is shifting in our direction. They cite Minneapolis, economic strikes and opposition to the Iran war as evidence of openness to Marxist ideas. What events like the Minneapolis protests show is the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the working-class and immigrant struggles. In Minneapolis, all of the justified outrage over ICE’s anti-immigrant attacks was siphoned straight into the Democratic Party.

That so many came out to protest was a good thing. The anger on display had the potential to be channeled into the kind of action that could strengthen the working class, cause real damage to the Trump regime and spark an effective movement to defend immigrants. But the union bureaucrats refused to mobilize their ranks as a collective force. They told workers to look to the Democratic mayor or governor. Instead of waging a political fight against the treachery of the union bureaucrats, the left just conciliated them or cheered them on.

Minneapolis was the moment when it was crucially necessary to have a class-struggle strategy that could fuse the struggle to defend the unions with the fight to stop ICE. The consequences of this failure were starkly illustrated by the aftermath of the January 23 “general strike”: another killing of an anti-ICE protester and another month of ICE terror in the city. This terror has not slowed on the national level either, as shown by the further shredding of immigrant rights, renewed workplace raids and campaigns targeting immigrant truckers.

In addition, anti-ICE activists and union members from Minnesota to Texas have been targeted by the Trump administration. The Minneapolis 15 are facing felony charges of conspiracy for their role in organizing protest and fighting ICE attacks in the city. The Prairieland defendants were sentenced to 30-100 years for protesting outside a detention center. These are ominous warnings for what’s to come. The Prairieland verdict is also a testament to the fact that isolated left activism isn’t going to cut it in this new era.

Since Trump’s return, the working class has not been a real organized presence in the streets. Efforts to set the working class in motion using liberal tools or in conjunction with liberal forces will fail to mobilize the power of the working class under its own banner to stop Trump. Liberal social movements are not a launching pad for independent working-class action, but only ensure it will never get off the ground.

The left as a whole is completely divorced from the working class. Leftists have little to no influence or credibility with the vast majority of workers in the U.S. Most leftists are not even trying to help workers collectively defend themselves. But even when they do, they get nowhere because they cling to the labor misleaders or the liberalism that has turned off so many workers, or they are not grounded in reality.

The left is overwhelmingly not guided by the fight for revolutionary leadership, so it leaves in place existing misleaders. In the case of social movements, it defers to liberal leadership. In union struggles, it defers to the bureaucracy. When criticism of the union tops is raised, it is usually from within the framework of economism, which confines union struggles to “bread and butter” issues. In this way, the left alibis and acts as a mirror of the bureaucracy.

Sectarianism on the left is another form of abdication of the fight for revolutionary leadership. This can take different forms: sitting on the sidelines and preaching sterile Marxist orthodoxy, refusing to plant a revolutionary pole within any given struggle or intentionally excluding other left groups from activities. Sectarianism divides the already small forces of the left and makes it look petty and unserious to the working class. It reduces the impact of united-front defense and cuts off the necessary debate to figure out a way forward for the class.

The problems plaguing the left have provoked splits in various Marxist groups, including Socialist Alternative, the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Workers Strike Back, which are unable to grasp the tasks of revolutionaries in this reactionary epoch. Our perspective is to take every opportunity to provide clarity to revolutionaries in other groups currently stuck in a blind alley. The best way to test the mettle of the left is through common work involving a frank exchange of views. We aim to reconstruct the left on the basis of a revolutionary strategy for the current epoch and root it in the working class. Only this can overcome the crisis of the left and make it a real factor in events.

We have prioritized key areas of work: our trade-union committees, the Just Break Already caucus in the DSA, our “open police archives” and housing interventions in black and brown struggles and our trips to Puerto Rico. This work will continue to draw a periphery around us. It also provides a way to continue to chip away at the popular front that keeps all of these struggles at an impasse. We can show in practice how allying with “progressive” Dems and advocating economist, adventurist, liberal or nationalist strategies are all dead ends unable to stop U.S. imperialism’s attacks or win the hearts and minds of workers and the trust of the oppressed.

We should continue to pursue united fronts in order to cohere larger forces in joint struggle. Such actions have facilitated the building of relationships with other Marxist groups and the clarification of political differences. This is crucial to furthering revolutionary regroupment.