Donald Trump has been elected as the next President of the United States of America, to take the place of Joe Biden in January 2025.
These elections took place in the context of widespread discontent among the workers, women and youth of America with the course along which the country is being led. Recent years have witnessed massive and prolonged street protests, against racist police violence, against attacks on immigrants and mass arrests of those who oppose the government. There is growing anger about the insecurity of employment, stagnant wages, steep rise in consumer prices and cutbacks in public spending on social programs. There have been huge demonstrations in university campuses and in public spaces, where masses of people have demanded an immediate end to the genocide in Gaza and US arms supply to Israel. People of all religious faiths, including Jews, have unitedly raised their voices against the US government’s support for Israel’s war crimes, declaring “Not in our name!”
The slogan of Trump to “Make America Great Again” is aimed at appealing to the feeling of dissatisfaction and anger among the American people. Trump and the Republican Party blame “illegal immigrants” for allegedly stealing the jobs of permanent residents, hiding the truth that the capitalist class benefits from illegal immigration because it provides them cheap labour power to be super-exploited. The propaganda against immigrants is aimed at promoting racist prejudices and preventing working people from uniting and directing their anger at the ruling capitalist class.
One of the false impressions promoted in the media is that the victory of Trump shows that the majority of American people support his racist campaign against immigrants from various poor countries. The truth is that many of those who voted for Trump did so because of their anger with the present Democratic Party government headed by Biden. It is also to be noted that the share of votes for Trump was 50.8 percent and the voter turnout was 62 percent, which means that only 31.5 percent of eligible voters, less than one-third, voted for Trump.
Presidential elections in the United States are mainly a contest between two parties – the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. The wealthiest capitalists in the country together contribute billions of dollars to the electoral campaigns of these two parties. While the result is promoted as an expression of the people’s will, it is in fact an expression of the will of the bourgeoisie, headed by the biggest monopoly capitalists.
The ruling class in the US has organised the victory of Donald Trump in order to create the illusion that things will change for the better.
The source of the worsening conditions of the working people in the US is the capitalist system which, at its highest stage of imperialism, has become extremely parasitic and destructive. Trump has no solution to the problems of unemployment and inflation, which are fellow travelers of the capitalist system. His plan to impose high rates of duty on imports from China and other countries, in the name of reviving American industry, is bound to accelerate the rise in consumer prices and further aggravate the economic problems. It will further intensify the contradictions within the capitalist class.
One of the issues on which American capitalists are divided is the policy on taxation of imports. Capitalists engaged in competition with imported goods, such as in the markets for electric vehicles, solar panels and computer chips, benefit from high import duties. Those who have invested in production facilities abroad to supply the American market are adversely affected by high import duties. American companies which export to China are not in favour of restricting Chinese imports because they know that China will retaliate against American imports.
The export of capital and production facilities to countries where labour power is cheap took place in recent decades precisely because it fetched maximum profits for American monopoly capitalists. It has led to a big decline in the number of industrial jobs within the country. Trump’s promise of reversing this trend is an illusion because American monopoly capitalists are not going to stop exporting their capital in pursuit of maximum profits.
No matter what the Trump administration does, the contradictions within the ranks of the ruling capitalist class, and those between the capitalists and the working people, will continue to intensify. The US imperialists will continue to commit crimes against the peoples of other countries, to weaken their rivals and advance their drive towards a unipolar world.
The working class and people of the U.S. will continue to fight for their rights. They will continue to oppose the anti-people actions of the government under the banner, “Not in our name!”
It is only the united struggle of the working class and people that can bring about qualitative change in their favour. They must wage their struggle with the aim of establishing a new political system and electoral process in which decision-making power is exercised by the masses of working people and not theparties of capitalist billionaires.Only then can the orientation of the economy be changed from maximizing capitalist profits to providing secure livelihood and prosperity for all. Only then can the warmongering drive for American domination of the world be replaced with a peaceful policy based on respect for the rights of all nations and peoples of the world.