Trump, the US election and resistance

But that growth of the far-right precedes Trump’s ascension to the presidency. It is a process that has been building for many decades as the capitalist system fails to meet the basic needs of most people and searches for scapegoats to blame. 

 

Racism and oppression serve the bosses by dividing the working class to stave off a united fightback. 

 

Working people end up fighting each other rather than focusing on the real culprit that is destroying their lives—the billionaires who are raking in the cash while millions suffer. 

 

This becomes particularly acute in times of crisis. At those moments we see the attacks become more vicious and the calls for violence against anyone that stands in the way of profit become mainstream. 

 

And we are in a state of acute crisis globally. 

 

The endless war and genocide in Palestine, the collapse of environmental systems, the cost of living crisis for working people are impacting billions. 

 

Democrats and capitalism

 

The Democrats lost the election because they offered no alternative to the crises. In fact, they spent most of the last weeks of the campaign saying that if people vote for them they will maintain the system as it is. Harris praised Joe Biden and said that there was not one case where she disagreed with his actions. 

 

This was a disaster.

 

Calls by the centre to maintain the decrepit status quo, a call to maintain the capitalist system that is causing such hardship, gained little traction.

 

A 2023 survey conducted by Payroll.org showed that 78% of Americans live paycheque to paycheque, a 6% increase from the previous year. The democrats offered a vague promise to lower grocery bills but without any understandable plan to do so. 

 

Harris began her campaign with huge fanfare and rising polling numbers. But then she shifted to the right arguing to continue the genocide in Gaza, to shut down the southern border and to maintain massive military spending. She shifted to endorse more fracking at a time when the climate crisis is impacting millions. 

 

And she shifted to court support from dissatisfied Republicans, even praising the hated war criminal Dick Cheney when he pledged to vote for her. By providing no real alternative to Trump's policies it also helped legitimize his explicitly far-right take on those same issues.

 

Palestine

 

The central fault line politically for the last year has been the genocide in Palestine. There have been mass movements to try and stop the slaughter and a truly huge shift in public opinion against the Israeli state. 

 

The democrats not only ignored that growing sentiment but attacked the protesters that support Palestinians. The Democratic Party line that Trump would bring violence and fascism to America fell on deaf ears to millions, particularly young people who were being brutalized by police in Democratic run cities and states for their Palestine advocacy.

 

The Democrats have always been steady hands for the maintenance of the US empire and their ironclad support for Israel cost them dearly.  

 

According to the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU), “For months the polling has shown that Vice President Harris was costing herself votes she needed - from young people, women, people of color, and progressive voters - by not breaking with Biden and by failing to call for an end of weapons to Israel in accordance with US law.”

 

Their polling found that 62% of Democratic voters wanted an arms embargo on Israel and as many as one third of people in key swing states, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona were more likely to vote if such a policy was in place. 

 

The Dems knew full well that their position of Palestine was going to cost millions of votes but they refused to budge on the issue. 

 

Moving to the right?

 

The mainstream pundits and political hacks will decide that the Trump victory is a sign that politics is moving to the right. There is clearly a far-right core that is growing but the underlying numbers in this election point to a much more contradictory situation. 

 

Voters in Missouri and Alaska both voted to increase the minimum wage and to bring in mandatory sick days for workers. Nebraska passed the same sick day law as well. 

 

Provisions to lower the minimum wage for servers were resoundingly defeated in both Massachusetts and Arizona. 

 

Ballot measures to protect abortion rights were passed in Arizona, Colorado, New York, Maryland, Missouri, Montana and Nevada. Even in Florida a majority voted to protect the right to choose. The measure didn’t pass because the state raised the threshold to 60 percent rather than a simple majority. 

 

House reps, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib both won their re-election by resounding margins - winning at least 75% of votes - proving that support for Palestinians needn’t be a losing position. 

 

All this is happening when support for unions in the US is at historic levels with 71% of respondents in a recent Gallup poll saying that they want to join a union. 

 

The realty is that the push to the right, the increased racism, anti-immigrant sentiment and the attacks on trans rights are all coming from the ruling class. It is our politicians, with a willing corporate media as messenger, arguing to scapegoat people for the failures of the system to provide the basic necessities of life. 

 

Impacts in Canada

 

That process is continuing in Canada and will likely ramp up as we approach elections here. 

 

Canadian politicians, like Trudeau, Poilievre & BC Premier Eby, argue that housing is unaffordable because of immigration. They willfully neglect to mention that our governments stopped building affordable housing decades ago and that the removal of rent control, predictably, resulted in much higher rents.

 

Canadian minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, Marc Miller is scapegoating immigrants to make up for the failure of the Liberals to build affordable housing. Miller plans to cut the number of new permanent residents from 485,000 this year to 395,000 in 2025, with further cuts to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027. 

 

He said, "That means we will not have to build an additional 670,000 housing units by [2027]”. 

 

None of this will solve the housing crisis but it will whip up more racist attacks. 

 

Politicians cover for the failures of their own policies by deflecting blame onto marginalized sections of society.

 

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is doubling down on these racist ideas. He is banning international students from medical schools in Ontario. He argues that this will result in more family doctors to make up for the acute shortage of doctors that exists today. But he is responsible for the collapse of our healthcare system himself, as he underfunds and paves the way for privatization. International students are just a scapegoat.

 

We are in a moment where the ruling class is stoking these divisions with the help of far-right street forces that have been waiting in the wings. And upcoming elections in Canada will likely see politicians from both Liberal and Conservative parties pushing more racism and division.

 

Pierre Poilievre has already said he would be a much better Prime Minister to work with Trump. Doug Ford, a long time Trump supporter has congratulated him on his victory and believes the Trump election will be a boost for Ontario. All of this is regularizing relations with a racist, sexist bigot. That will have consequences.

 

It remains crucial to build the movement for Palestinian liberation and it is urgent that we build a broad based and confrontational movement to push the bigots back onto the fringes of society.

 

Please join us for the public forum:

What next for the left after the US election?

Sunday November 10 - 2pm est | 11am pst