Trump seemingly wants to surpass Ronald Reagan, who famously fired all members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) when they went on strike in 1981—thus giving a green light for corporations to likewise fire striking workers and permanently replace them with strikebreakers.
For 80 years, the existing alliances and institutions of global politics have served U.S. imperial policy well. Now we are faced with what appears to be the unprecedented situation in which the “hegemonic power” has become the main “revisionist power,” in the world system…
We are in uncharted waters where Trump is criminalizing free speech even as he has ended Israel’s genocidal war, for now.
“Make America Great Again” is a program to prepare the US to fight and win a war with China. It is not only that; there are plenty of right-wing causes to be pursued, such as hostility to vaccinations, that do not have a direct or necessary military connection, but the overall direction is clear.
Is there a method to Trump’s madness? There is a dizzying array of new policies, extraordinary pronouncements, and constant policy shifts. It’s meant to feel like an unstoppable and overwhelming tsunami. But there’s a reason for this course of action by Trump.
The major economies are exhibiting signs of stagflation. That means interest rates could stay high, while economic growth goes missing. That is a recipe for an eventual crash in financial markets.
The actions sponsored by the left wing of the Democratic Party and the NGOs have been lethargic and unfocused. We are going to have to look elsewhere for viable resistance.
Trump’s actions have been labeled a “coup” and a “constitutional crisis”. These descriptions are not conspiracy theories but attempts to understand events unfolding in real time. While it is unclear exactly how to label Trump’s actions, it is clear that the outcome depends on how far he is allowed to continue on this destructive path.
Actual American occupation of Gaza is extraordinarily unlikely. It would clearly demand serious deployment of US troops and would destabilize the entire world situation. The real purpose of the speech was something else. It was to show the world the absolute and complete support of the US administration for the Netanyahu government and whatever actions that government takes.
Trump is a great fan of the presidential “executive order,” which he believes gives him unlimited power to shape U.S. society by issuing a flood of personal edicts, rather than face even a hint of congressional scrutiny. But with both the House and the Senate dominated by a slim margin of Trump’s minions, not much scrutiny is emanating from Congress.
The order’s language is in line with the Republican Party’s 2024 platform, which did not call for a nationwide abortion ban but expressed support for states that would establish fetal personhood by extending the protections of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees that “no person can be denied life or liberty without due process,” to fetuses.
The Teamsters called for strike action at eight locations across four states, that included Amazon centers in Queens and Staten Island New York, Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco, and in Skokie, Ill, where they claim to represent the drivers or the warehouse workers through elections or card check.
The liberals—the leaders of the Democratic Party and its associated non-governmental organizations (NGOs), intellectuals, media and fundraisers—said the 2024 election was a referendum on U.S. democracy. Maybe even the last ditch effort to stop “fascism” riding in on Trump’s coattails. Yet despite the heated rhetoric, they ran an uninspired campaign in defense of a status quo that most Americans had already rejected.
Millions of Americans are avid supporters of Trump, and, at the very least, don’t consider Trump’s racism and misogyny disqualifying. But it’s harder to extend those observations to all Americans, or even to the around 64 percent of eligible voters who voted.
There’s absolutely no point in denying reality. At the time of this writing, Trump has won the presidency, the Republicans control the Senate, and the House of Representatives’ results are still being counted.
