Trump Regime’s Lies Can’t Hide the Capitalist Crisis
Nor Its Role in Worsening It
by Bernadette Ellorin of ILPS and Bayan USA
The expletives used by Donald Trump to describe Haiti and African countries can be better and more accurately used to describe the last year of the Trump administration, and its role in exacerbating the crisis of imperialism in the US and across the world.
While the crisis and attacks on the people did not begin with Donald Trump, the Trump presidency has indeed further demonstrated the irreconcilable contradiction between a for-profit ruling system driven by billionaires and white supremacists on one hand, and the working class along with other oppressed communities — especially people of color, immigrants, and Muslims — on the other.
Throughout its first year and in the State of the Union address, the Trump administration has consistently deceived the American people as it desperately tries to hide the worsening crisis of capitalism and escalating fascism. It blames immigrants, Black and Brown people, Muslims, women, youth, and the poor for the social impacts of the crisis such as joblessness, displacement, and economic hardship, when the actual root cause is capitalism itself, which Donald Trump, the profiteer-in-chief, represents. It justifies its racist and fascist attacks on the people — wars of aggression, ICE raids, detentions, militarization of the police and police brutality — with false narratives around national security, Islamophobia, and terrorism.
Covering Up a Worsening Crisis
But no amount of lies spewed from the Trump administration can hide the burden caused by the crisis and felt by the people. The Trump administration cannot hide the fact that tens of millions in the American labor force have simply given up looking for work because they cannot find jobs. It cannot hide the fact that wages for American workers have stagnated despite higher labor productivity and inflated costs of commodities. It cannot hide the fact that post-graduate degree holders are among the growing contingent of society mired in 6-figure debt and forced to rely on public assistance programs. It cannot hide the fact that more and more Black and Brown people in the US are either being killed by the police in the streets or forced into labor in US prisons. It cannot hide the fact that immigrants and refugees are dying on our border, facing unspeakable brutality from law enforcement, and super-exploitation in the workplace despite contributing billions to the US economy and to society in general.
The Trump administration also cannot keep making excuses for its blatant wars of terror against innocent people overseas for imperialist plunder and hegemony. It cannot keep using racism and xenophobia to justify the now 16-year long US-led war in Afghanistan, the continued bombings in Syria and Yemen, and the military threats to North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, and other countries that Trump views as an opposing force to white supremacy and US imperialism. Just like the Obama administration, the Trump administration attempts to justify these dirty imperialist wars and military threats under the banner of national security and anti-terror. The Trump administration has used these lies to justify a $700 billion defense budget: the largest military budget in US history. By placing such a priority on military funding, Trump has further exacerbated the growing capitalist crisis that assaults the working class. The US cannot continue to hide behind its claims of strengthening national security when it continues to fail to provide jobs, accessible education, and healthcare for working people. We must expose the US wars of terror for what they really are. Far from creating security, these US-led and US-backed wars only serve to murder innocent people, displace thousands, adding to a growing refugee crisis, and wreak havoc on the economies of the countries being attacked, all in the name of imperialism, capitalist greed, and white supremacy.
Our Resistance Must Grow Stronger
The Trump administration also cannot hide the fact that the people have protested and resisted since its first day. It cannot hide the fact that it is vehemently condemned, detested, and isolated by the American people. It cannot hide that it emboldens people’s resistance and movements for social and national liberation.
When Trump announced his plans for a Muslim ban just one week after his inauguration, the people fought back and held mass actions, shutting down international travel at US airports across the country. When the US launched an attack on Syria in April, firing with nearly 60 missiles that killed over 80 innocent civilians, the people fought back as protesters across the globe demanded that the US take their hands off Syria. Later in the year, when Trump threatened nuclear war with the DPRK, the people of Korea stood their ground, asserting their right to self-defense and self-determination, while many across the US and elsewhere protested in international solidarity against Trump’s reckless, violent, imperialist threats. In August ILPS-US, international member organizations, and allies joined over 300 participants from frontline struggles around the world at the “Solidarity & Fight Back!” conference and mobilization to resist US-led war, militarism, and neo-fascism and rebuild the anti-imperialist war movement. And just last month when Trump declared Jerusalem the capital of Israel, the people fought back around the world demanding an end to both the Zionist occupation and the Israeli settler-colonial regime.
While the people have demonstrated time and again that it will stand up and fight back against the violence, racism, xenophobia, and imperialism that defines Trump’s administration, we cannot stop building our resistance here. The people must broaden and strengthen its ranks to further isolate the Trump administration and take advantage of the intensifying contradictions within the ruling monopoly capitalist class. It must draw its strength from the grassroots and unite others toward dealing the biggest blows to the ruling system. It must wage class struggle and take down the ruling capitalist class that fails again and again to support the needs of working people. The people must unite to demand an end to the US imperialist hegemony which has continually fueled the growing capitalist crisis that burdens the working class, immigrants, and people of color. We must continue to build international solidarity and struggle together until we have smashed capitalism, white supremacy, imperialism, and all other forces that stand in the way of liberation.
Bernadette Ellorin aka: Berna Ellorin is the chair of Bayan USA and member of NYCHRP and NAFCON. Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, or BAYAN USA, an alliance of 18 Filipino-American organizations fighting for genuine sovereignty, peace and democracy in the Philippines as well as the rights and welfare of Filipinos in the US and the diaspora