by Davey Heller, 6th July 2023

As Trump retains his iron grip on the Republican Party in the US as we head towards the 2024 US election, the debate amongst Marxists will continue as to whether Trump is a fascist or just another bourgeois democratic politician. This debate will only intensify in coming months. 

I recently had an exchange with a member of the Bolshevik Tendency  on Facebook after he linked to an article by Caitlin Johnstone entitled “Trump Is Bad Because He’s Similar To Other US Presidents, Not Because He’s Different “ 
and posted the following: 

• In their exchange they outlined many of the major arguments put forward for denying Trump is a fascist including:
• The US ruling class has no need for fascism as they face no threat from an organised socialist working class movement.
• The Democrats as much as Republicans are guilty of imperialist war crimes
• There is no mass armed base for fascism in the US in the style of the German Brown Shirts or the Italian Black Shirts
• Trump is simply another reactionary right wing bourgeois politician and to assert anything else is to blind the working class to the “real” threat of fascism in the US from other sources

Below is a summary of my arguments in response with some elaboration:

What defines Trump and MAGA as fascist:

Johnstone makes a convincing case that Trump is no better or worse than any other President that came before him in terms of imperialist violence. It’s also true that liberal opponents of Trump fear his return as they do not consider him “safe hands” to continue the pursuit of US imperialist interests at this time of acute crisis. However, Johnstone article ignores the three defining features that separate Trump and MAGA from normal reactionary bourgeois rule in the US

1) The desire to destroy Bourgeois Democratic forms of rule

Johnstone totally dismisses the significance of January 6th and the assault by the Republican Party and MAGA to overturn the 2020 election. There is no precedent for such as an action as January 6^th in the history of bourgeois rule in the US. 

2) MAGA mass violent base

The analysis that claims that there is no “Brown Shirt” like mass base to US fascism denies the well-armed and extreme mass base that Trump has control over. This is the well-armed layers of enraged petty bourgeoisie, religious fanatics, militias and fascist gangs like the Proud Boys etc It ignores the ideological sway this movement has in key bodies of armed men e.g. the police, military and security services.

It also ignores the many examples of fascist violence from the murder of BLM and anti-fascist protestors to the mass shootings and terrorist attacks against Jewish, LGBTIQI and other targets. . The capacity for this decentralised networks to come together in a show of force was demonstrated not only on January 6th but also 3 years earlier in the streets of Charlottesville.

3)  Extreme Anti-communism 

The defining ideological feature of fascism is anti-communism. Trump and now De Santis both declare they are “at war” with Socialism.

Why are a section of the US ruling class turning to fascism

Now we turn to why the US ruling class would be motivated to increasingly embrace or at least accommodate themselves to fascist rule.

1.Fear of the US working class

Whilst its true there is an absence of a highly organised working class movement in the US the move towards fascism this does not mean there is not extreme fear of the potential for working class mobilisation in sections of the US ruling class.

Some seem to think very little of our bourgeois opponents in that as class conscious enemies of the working class they are incapable of learning and adapting to the threats they face. I cant imagine Steve Bannon, Peter Thiel and other figures in the fossil fuel and finance sectors applying such a formalistic approach about when to break free of the remaining restrictions placed upon by the remnants of bourgeois democratic norms. It is entirely possible that 80 years after the collapse of the Nazi regime that some of the ruling class might decide that the crisis is deep enough that a pre-emptive strike against the working class in the form of a move towards fascism is necessary. Why wait till the Soviets are forming? Of course they would prefer to rule through the illusion of bourgeois democracy but they will make a calculation on when to move away from it and it will based on the depth of the crisis not a formula arising from the class conditions in Germany in the 1930’s.

2. The Rise of “Red” China.

The threat of fascism in the US cannot be understood solely through examining domestic class pressures. Internationally anti-communism will be used to justified by US imperialism to wage war on the China but the fear of a workers state becoming the largest economy in the world also motivates the drive towards fascism in the US. 

Fascism is at its essence, anti-communism and a naked form of class rule to smash the threat of working class revolution. It is important to remember that fascism came into existence only four years after the Russian Revolution in 1921 in Italy. It didn’t arise just because the Italian working class were organised but in the context of the threat of spread of the Soviet example. German fascism did not just have the “job” of crushing revolution at home but waging a genocidal war to extinguish the Bolshevik Revolution forever.

In today’s context, the US ruling class is not only dealing with keeping a lid on the extreme class pressures at home but by the fact a worker’s state in the form of China is on the cusp of becoming the largest economy in the world and supplanting the US as the largest trading partner in country after country. This is not just an economic threat to the US but an ideological one. The demonisation of China has been very effective in the west but the rising quality of life and standard of living of the Chinese working class in the context of increasing immiseration of the populations in the imperialist centres creates adds to the existential threat. A fascist US will like its German forebears take on the role of trying to extinguish the 1949 Chinese Revolution forever.

The waning public support for the proxy war on Russia also shows that it will be difficult to maintain support for a total war against the Chinese workers state. Such a total war will not be compatible with bourgeois democratic forms of rule.

3. The crisis of multiple crisis!

I would argue that other factors beyond the threat the level of organisation of the domestic working class mean bourgeois democracy no longer serves the interests of a growing section of the US ruling class.

The crisis of the rate of profits is pushing an increased level of exploitation of the working class, driving strike waves even in the context of yellow trade union bureaucracies.

The crisis of climate catastrophe and the desire to keep the oil economy going for a few more decades will drive youth increasingly into struggle.

The ongoing Covid19 pandemic has been like petrol on the fires of the class struggle too, disrupting the labor market and worsening social conditions for many (as well as being fodder for the rising fascist movement who have exploited the pandemic to spread their poison) .

So to dismiss all of this and stick to a simple formula based on events in Europe in the 1920’s and 30’s  about how and why fascism will be introduced is unscientific, unhelpful and in the current context downright dangerous.

Conclusion

Millions of blacks, working people, migrants, LGBTQI people etc most of whom have lost faith in the DNC to protect them still understand that Trump, the movement he leads and the faction of the ruling class that backs him do indeed pose a threat to them different to what has become before. 

For a Marxist to argue that its “business as usual” in the US is to ignore the extreme class pressures that are building within the US and the extreme crisis of US imperialism. To suggest these pressures would not be impacting on the form of rule of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat in the US is confounding to me. 

Of course even in the unlikely event Biden hangs on in 2024 the basic trajectory of the US bourgeoisie towards authoritarianism and indeed fascism will not change. The pace of events may but the logic of the US crisis of capitalism and imperialism can only lead in the direction of war and fascism.