By KD Tait
The first 100 days of Donald Trump’s return to the White House have confirmed the reactionary character of his administration. Far from an aberration, Trump’s second term marks a further degeneration of American capitalism, increasingly turning to repression, militarism, and the stoking of fascistic tendencies.
Trump’s return—facilitated by the cowardice and complicity of the Democratic Party, the impotence of the trade unions and the disorientation of the socialist left—has emboldened the far right and accelerated the assault on the working class.
From the outset, Trump’s executive orders have targeted immigrants, persecuted political opponents, and sought to insulate his administration from judicial oversight. The US southern border has been transformed into a war zone, where asylum seekers are met with violence, family separation, and detention camps.
Domestically Trump has pursued an agenda to enrich the corporate and financial oligarchy: tax cuts for the wealthy, deregulation of industry, and renewed attacks on education and social spending. He seeks to slash Medicaid, privatise Medicare and funnel billions into defence contractors and police departments.
At the same time, Trump has escalated his war on workers. His National Labor Relations Board is dismantling what remains of collective bargaining rights, while the Department of Labor has greenlit exploitative ‘right to work’ legislation at the federal level. Strikes by autoworkers and educators have been met with state repression.
Internationally Trump’s first 100 days have been marked by provocations and zigzags. Imposing a ‘universal baseline tariff’ on all imports, Trump is resurrecting the trade wars from his first term, which did nothing but attack the working class.
Trump’s trade war against China began in 2018, billed as a defence of American workers. In reality, it was an extension of the US strategy to contain China. Tariffs led to job losses, inflation and instability. The bosses passed the costs on to workers, with layoffs and outsourcing. Biden maintained most of Trump’s tariffs and advanced his own version: ‘Made in America’.
The working class must reject the false choice between nationalist protectionism and corporate globalism. Both serve the interests of the ruling class. Only the unification of workers across borders in a common struggle against capitalism can offer a real alternative.
Meanwhile, in Europe, Trump has browbeaten Nato allies into escalating military spending, while, via his henchmen, encouraging the rise of far right nationalist movements from Hungary to France. The message is clear: US imperialism, in decline and crisis, will stop at nothing.
Opposition
While paying lip service to ‘democracy’ and ‘norms’, the Democratic Party has functioned as a loyal opposition, seeking common ground with Trump on foreign policy, border militarisation, and the defence of Wall Street. Joe Biden has explicitly called for ‘unity’ and ‘healing’, even as the MAGA right consolidates its grip on the Republican Party and the machinery of the state.
The role of the trade union bureaucracy has been no less treacherous. Organisations like the AFL-CIO have opposed strike action, collaborated with management, and sought to suppress rank and file opposition through backroom deals and legal injunctions. In doing so, they function as agents of the capitalist state, policing the working class in the interests of finance capital.
Trump 2.0 is not simply a return to his earlier tenure—it represents a qualitative intensification of the class war. There is no ‘normal’ to which American society can return. The crisis of capitalism is not a matter of personalities; it is systemic, and it is global. The US working class must be clear-eyed about the nature of the danger and the means of opposing it.
While the Democratic Party poses as defenders of democracy, they are rooted in complicity, based on their class interests. This demonstrates that only the independent political mobilisation of the working class offers a genuine path forward. The Biden administration, in concert with the trade union bureaucracy, repeatedly blocked or shut down strikes, e.g. the railroad and auto workers. Such actions expose the lie that the Democratic Party is a friend of labor.
The response of the Democratic ‘left’ leaders Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders is one of deliberate misdirection. Rather than confronting Trump’s policies from a class standpoint, they have chosen to strike up a left-populist programme of defending ‘democracy’ against the ‘oligarchs’. Their goal is not to stop Trump by mobilising the working population, but to funnel opposition into the safe channels of two-party duopoly that both parties uphold.
In this context the growth of opposition among youth and workers, is decisive. Mass protests against genocide in Gaza, growing demands for social equality, and widespread disgust with the political establishment point to a profound radicalisation. But this emerging movement faces a critical task: break completely from bourgeois politics and reorient itself on a socialist basis.
The 5 April protests marked a significant, if uneven expression of popular opposition. More than one million workers, students and young people took to the streets in over 1,000 protests. The demonstrations revealed a deep reservoir of anger against the entire political establishment.
The only way forward lies in the political mobilisation of the international working class, independent of both capitalist parties and the trade union bureaucracy. The task is urgent: the building of a revolutionary socialist party to lead this struggle toward the overthrow of the capitalist system itself.
