In this post I want to try to offer an approach to the question of Donald Trump and fascism that I feel has been largely absent from much of the public discourse I’ve witnessed, both in mainstream mass media and among Leftists of various tendencies. In order to fully grasp the nature of Trump’s emergence as a spokesperson for the most reactionary elements of the ruling class — in order to appreciate its significance and its danger — a dialectical approach is needed. Such an approach should constitute a fundamental break with the various and predominant liberal approaches to the question, all of which threaten to leave the progressive movement totally unprepared for the very real dangers associated with Trump’s political ascendancy. It is my hope that this post, as well as others which take the same approach, might help redirect the discussion in order to make it relevant and useful to organizers against Trump and the far right.

First, however, it is necessary to briefly identify some of the liberal approaches to the question of Donald Trump and fascism. One such approach is to deny outright the connection between Trump and fascism on the grounds that capitalism of the non-fascist variety is already racist (Trump isn’t any more racist than, say, Presidents Johnson, FDR, Eisenhower, or Reagan, and they weren’t all technically fascist). Another such approach is to declare that Trump does represent a fascist power grab because of the existence of fascist or neo-Nazi themes in his agitprop (ultra-nationalism and palingenesis, or “Making America great again”; white supremacy and the scapegoating of Muslims and Latinos, and so on). To be clear, both of these approaches are inadequate in that they treat both Donald Trump and fascism as static, ideal concepts that simply drop from the sky, rather than as dynamic, material phenomena that are continually influenced and defined by the rest of the material world. Although they may appear to contradict each other, both of these liberal approaches serve the very same purpose: to take what should be the most important question to our movement right now — what’s behind the rise of Donald Trump and how do we fight it? — and strip it of all relevance and usefulness to the class struggle.

So what does a dialectical approach look like?

We should understand that fascism is first and foremost something structural, and not just an ideology or a set of beliefs. Fascism is a “system of administration” or a “form of capitalist rule.” Fascism doesn’t arrive because a fascist person gains power and wills it into existence. Rather, it arrives when a revolutionary or potentially revolutionary crisis threatens the capitalist class so deeply that their conventional means of political repression are no longer enough to prevent a mass uprising.

When a ruling class sees its most substantial interests under siege, it doesn’t care much about democracy, freedom, or anything else. It is ready to stake its all on retaining its system, even to the point of the loss of millions of lives. It will think of its class interests above all and will throw overboard everything it has taught about democracy, freedom, god, or whatever–in the interest of retaining its class position. This is how the fascist movements developed. Not as an automatic, anti-democratic tendency, but because of the ruling class’s organic need to save its class interests and system. Sam Marcy, “The specter of fascism,” Dec. 30, 1993

Keeping this in mind, it’s easy to see just how frivolous the question “Is Trump a fascist” really is. If sufficiently cornered, the ruling class will unleash fascism to protect its dominance. This is true regardless of whether Donald Trump assumes the role of the archetypal charismatic leader or not.

So why Trump? And why now?

The rise of Donald Trump is not random or spontaneous. It is influenced by at least three factors:

The development of capitalism into its final stage, imperialism; and the development of imperialism into it’s final stage, neocolonialism, or “Capitalism at a Dead End.” Capitalism so acutely developed is no longer able to remain productive for any significant section of the masses. Whereas imperialism was once able to bribe the workers of the dominant countries through the plunder of the subordinate ones, capitalism now has less and less to offer even those in the most “developed” countries. Increasingly unable to bribe us, capitalism-imperialism must resort to using brute force to retain its power: shooting Black and Brown people down in the streets, drone-striking hospitals and wedding parties, funding and arming repressive right-wing governments and political movements. The inevitability of another major recession or depression. Boom and bust cycles are fundamental to capitalism. But under “capitalism at a dead end,” busts can only become deeper and booms can only become shallower until virtually nonexistent. Deirdre Griswold writes on Dec. 9:

A key sign of capitalist crisis is overproduction: a glut on the market caused by producing more goods than people can afford to buy. As far back as April 24 the Wall Street Journal wrote, “The global economy is awash as never before in commodities like oil, cotton and iron ore, but also with capital and labor.” The situation has only deteriorated since then.

As Sara Flounders reported to the Workers World Party national conference in November, “The world commodity markets are crashing. Machine parts, heavy equipment, tubing and pipes, along with oil, gas, steel, coal, copper, zinc, corn, soy and wheat are all valued at less than half of the price of just one year ago.”

Even more recently, petroleum prices fell from $100 a barrel in 2014 to $37 a barrel on Dec. 7. The growth and development of the Black Lives Matter uprising into the vanguard of the U.S. working class, anti-imperialist movement. Increasingly, Black liberation networks and cadre are turning their attention towards struggles against imperialist war, LGBTQ oppression, economic exploitation and gentrification — all of which are fundamental to Black liberation. In 1933 Leon Trotsky, echoing the position of Lenin and foreshadowing that of Mao and Ho Chi Minh, said, “It is very possible that the Negroes [through] self-determination will proceed to the proletarian dictatorship in a couple of gigantic strides, ahead of the great bloc of white workers. They will then furnish the vanguard. I am absolutely sure that they will in any case fight better than the white workers.” Black Lives Matter, or the Black liberation struggle today, still in its early stages, represents this theory beginning to be confirmed.

But what about Donald Trump?

Factors (1) and (2), along with the entire canon of Marxist economic theory, indicate that we should expect a crisis beyond what we’re already seeing. Whether it will be made into a revolutionary crisis or another period of reaction will in large part be determined by whether the Left, under the leadership of the Black Lives Matter movement, can direct the masses towards a revolutionary solution, or whether the capitalist state — with Donald Trump as its likely figurehead — can succeed in decimating any working class fightback.

Regardless of how they editorialize him, mainstream media outlets faithfully broadcast Trump’s racist warmongering messages across the country and the world. White supremacists and neo-Nazis are gathering and meeting each other at Trump’s campaign events, and have carried out attacks on Planned Parenthood, Black Lives Matter, and even anti-Trump protesters.

If a major crisis should present itself — and, once again, this is not a very big “if” — which side will win out? Is the Left in any position to enter an ideological battle against the right, with Trump as its ringleader? Are we reaching anywhere near as many people as he is? Are we able to offer a solution to counter his racist scapegoating? Is the Left organized enough to be able to repel legal and extralegal attacks as they mount?

These are the things that should be informing the discussion about Donald Trump and fascism.