THE INAUGURATION OF DONALD TRUMP: HOW DID WE GET TO THIS POINT? WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

INTRODUCTION

 

The inauguration will be remembered as one of the saddest days in the history of our country. The enemies of our democracy – which already includes an undemocratic electoral college, an undemocratic Senate and SCOTUS-approved partisan gerrymandering – have seized total power over all branches of our government. Not content with the slow rollback of rights and working class power – civil rights, women’s rights, the right to a union, environmental protections, access to communication – all won over 250 years of struggle, and not content with having paid agents and political reps safeguarding their every interest, the oligarchs have now taken direct control of our government and the main stream media. Their goal? The rapid and complete dismantling of the New Deal and worker benefits like Social Security, Medicare, worker protections and rights, and even an end to income tax. The Empire has truly struck back, intent on a fast rewind to the 19th Century, all to increase their already obscene profits. Plutocracy and corporate rule are here.

WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY

 

The GOP – the anti-worker, anti-union, racist party of the monopolies and oligarchs – has not really changed its stripes, except to swear allegiance to a monster of their own creation whom they can no longer control and whom they now must appease or be destroyed. Trump has created an artificial unity within the GOP based upon fear among their ranks

But the Dems are the more tragic enablers of Trump. While the GOP is generally very careful not to attack their base or any part thereof, the Dem establishment sees its first priority as purging their significant and most active progressive wing. Early in his Presidency, Biden enacted popular and significant economic benefits like the expanded earned income tax credit – greatly reducing poverty and childhood hunger – but then he failed to educate voters on those gains or call out the GOP for opposing them. Then Biden regressed to his earlier pattern of favoring unending wars: he sent billions of our tax dollars to our corporate war profiteers with long-term contracts in Ukraine (none of which ended up helping the people of Ukraine) while blocking all peace efforts. Next he turned to Gaza, arming and cheerleading the genocide there, with tens of thousands of innocent women and young children now dead.

Meanwhile, on the home front, inflation ripped through the scant resources of the 60% of workers who live paycheck to paycheck, with the Dem leadership not only failing to address their distress but outrageously even failing to acknowledge it. Trump on the other hand hammered home an economic message and, incredibly, campaigned as the peace candidate. In effect, the opposition party and candidate had no opposition, and the voters had no alternatives to Trump other than the status quo.

The resulting election has led to today’s tragic ceremony. Whereas Trump received essentially the same vote he got in 2020, Harris received 14 MILLION fewer votes than Biden’s 2020 total. The massive turnout against Trump and his MAGA message in 2020 was replaced by a dramatic stay at home vote. And while many of us voted for Harris due to the anti-democratic danger posed by Trump, it is difficult to blame the non-voters who were horrified by Biden’s total support for the Israeli ethnic cleansing, seen in real time on social media. And when Harris said she could not identify anything she would do differently than Biden, that sealed her defeat. As Bernie said, the Democratic Party abandoned the working class and now the working class has abandoned the Democratic Party.

But wait! There’s more. Not only did the Dem leadership make the Party one of war and support for genocide, they embraced pro genocide groups like AIPAC, which is nothing but an agent of Netanyahu and an extremist foreign government AND the key funders of the insurrectionists of the GOP. While AIPAC has been interfering in our elections for years, they have now vowed to wipe out any resistance to Israeli extremism, spending tens of millions to defeat not only progressives but even moderate Jewish candidates whom they deem insufficiently loyal. So the Dem establishment has, in essence, acquiesced to what amounts to a hostile takeover by AIPAC of Congress and their own party, constituting as great a threat to our democracy as that posed by Trump.

HOW DO WE FIGHT BACK?

 

First and foremost, we must defend the many victims which the MAGA forces will attack: immigrants, workers, women, minorities, dissidents, students, democratic forces abroad, et. al. The Resistance needs broad support to overcome these attacks.

Progressive forces must also unify behind our broad common goals and interests. We cannot let the oligarchs divide us or make it easy for them by dividing ourselves.

We must also seek out those folks who do not fall into the “progressive” category but are honest and principled, believe in democracy and share the broad goals which we have. These may be Dems, Republicans, Independents, Trump voters and non-voters –we need to recognize the power of the broad popular front and the ability of people to change their views.

We need to primary those Dems who are opportunists and anti-democratic and view progressives and principled activists as standing in the way of their own advancement. We simply cannot afford to only fight defensive battles; we must take on and defeat the unprincipled incumbents.

Finally, the working class voters who voted for Trump are not our enemy. Many wanted change and relief from their daily struggle to survive, and saw the Dems as the status quo who weren’t even addressing that struggle. Trump of course lied to them and his policies will make matters much worse, especially for his own voters. But we need to provide them with a true alternative to their class enemy who shamelessly takes power today.