by Danny Haiphong

Donald Trump has been brought to heel, as Hillary Clinton might say. “Trump has learned in his first 100 days in office that war is the primary marker of Presidential legitimacy.” The War Party’s anti-Russia campaign has crushed any hopes of lessening international tensions. “Where Obama succeeded in neutralizing the left, Trump is succeeding in dropping all so-called populist pretenses in favor of the warm embraces of the ruling elite.”

Trump's First 100 Days: The War Party Lives On

by Danny Haiphong

“US imperialism's domestic agenda has carried its own sort of brutality through the erection of the mass Black incarceration state and the national security state apparatus.”

It was always a pipe-dream to believe that Donald Trump would be an anti-war President. However, the bankrupt coverage of his ascendancy only weakened the already infantile left. Rather than discuss the concrete positions of his campaign, the corporate media and its Washington henchmen helped steer legitimate issues with Donald Trump's racist and sexist character into acceptable means of protest. Furthermore, an anti-Russia campaign was started by the two-headed War Party to soil any hopes for eased relations with Russia and an end to regime change wars around the world. Few paid attention to Trump's campaign positions with any seriousness, giving the War Party plenty of time to ensure that the US imperialist project continued on without legitimate challenge

Yet the gravest challenge facing humanity at this juncture is the threat of a US-led nuclear war with Russia and China. US imperialism has been on this path for over a decade, with the Obama Administration intensifying hostilities with both nations through the US-led "pivot" to Asia and the NATO encirclement of Russia along its border. Trump's campaign promises pushed back against these policies. Trump’s stance proved unacceptable to the ruling class. After inauguration, Trump's promise to intensify the broader war on undocumented workers or to roll back protections for women became a secondary problem. The War Party only cared about resuming its drive to war with Russia and China with the hopes that Trump would follow along.

“An anti-Russia campaign was started by the two-headed War Party to soil any hopes for eased relations with Russia and an end to regime change wars around the world.”

A large reason for the War Party's early success under Trump’s reign is the fact that the US imperialist system operates in the interests of a particular class, not a single individual. Regardless of whether Trump meant what he said or not, the prospect for eased relations with Russia struck fear in the eyes of the dominant class. Russia's growing relationship with China as well as its increasing influence in the Eurasian region generally has once again placed the country in the cross hairs of US imperialism. Russia no longer accepts a neo-colonial status in the world as it did immediately following the fall of the Soviet Union. So the ruling class made up a lie and made it up quick about Trump's supposed connection to Russia in order to compensate for the real fear of US imperialism's decline in the world.

US imperialism utilizes the War Party as the primary tool to fight off the inevitable decline of its economic and military influence. The US capitalist economy has been contracting for decades due to its own internal contradictions. China's market socialist economy will surpass the US by 2018. Just a half century ago, the US capitalist economy made up over 50 percent of the world's total GDP. The monopolization of the US capitalist economy and the rise of the most consolidated finance capitalist class in history occurred in the midst of decline. These developments facilitated a project of endless warfare and military expansion at the expense of everything but the profits of the rich.

“China's market socialist economy will surpass the US by 2018.”

The expansion of war has paralleled the increased misery of the masses in the US and world at large. US imperialism's domestic agenda has carried its own sort of brutality through the erection of the mass Black incarceration state and the national security state apparatus. The US is home of just five percent of the world's population but incarcerates over a quarter of its prisoners. Every US citizen is under electronic surveillance by some intelligence agency, whether it is the NSA, CIA, or all of the above. The intensification of state repression and racism has become necessary in a period where the capitalist economy is in a permanent state of contraction. Technology has made the system of profit accumulation so productive that fewer workers are required for production, especially Black workers. With a US labor participation rate stuck at 63 percent and lower for the racially oppressed, state repression has become all the more important for the realization of the necessary social peace required for capitalist accumulation.

An increase in long-term unemployment has not stopped the declining US capitalist economy from pursuing the privatization of the public sector. In fact, the conditions of late stage capitalism require privatization for the system's very survival. When workers become unemployed and their wages fall, fewer people are able to purchase what is produced. This creates an irreconcilable crisis of under consumption that eventually leads to an economic collapse. The present state of capitalism has rendered such a condition permanent since at least the early 1980s, leading to an unprecedented level of privatization in the realms education, healthcare, transportation, and municipal services nation-wide to compensate.

“With a US labor participation rate stuck at 63 percent and lower for the racially oppressed, state repression has become all the more important for the realization of the necessary social peace required for capitalist accumulation.”

It is under these conditions that the War Party must operate to fulfill the insatiable lust for capitalist profit on the part of the ruling classes. Each passing day of Trump's Administration exposes the War Party's deep control over the state apparatus. It started with the tomahawk strikes on Syria in early April and the launch of the largest non-nuclear weapon in history on Afghanistan shortly thereafter. Since mid-April, the US has been engaged in military provocations with the Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea (DPRK). Trump has ostensibly taken the bait of the GOP Senate to escalate war on the Korean Peninsula. The corporate media has cast doubt on Trump's abilities to "solve the problem" of North Korea as he proclaimed and many in the Senate are ready for war on the grounds that the DPRK is developing weapons capable of hitting US shores.

Trump has learned in his first 100 days in office that war is the primary marker of Presidential legitimacy. The ruling class was always less concerned about Trump's campaign promises to end free trade agreements and build a wall on the US-Mexico border than foreign policy. Once in office, the lords of capital understood that "economic populism" would ultimately run into the realities of the world capitalist system. The free movement of capital is imperative to the profits of monopolies. Capitalism operates on a global basis and the technological advances the system has made in recent years ensure that there is no turning back from the current race to the bottom. And Trump's immigration wall has run into the reality of an already fully militarized border security system, making the attempt to build a wall nothing but a PR blight for the ruling system.

“The only way the ruling class could accept Trump is if he distanced himself from Russia and China.”

Ruling class opposition to Trump was always meant to change the billionaire's tune on foreign policy and nothing else. Because while Trump's call to end free-trade agreements angered capitalist economists, his campaign promises to ease relations with Russia and curtail regime change wars struck at the heart of the Empire. Worse yet, it mattered not that Trump may have been disingenuous about his foreign policy remarks on the campaign trail. Their mere utterance reminded the US imperialist system of Russia and China's rise in the world, which includes a burgeoning alliance between the two big powers that threatens to reconstruct global economics at the expense of US finance. The only way the ruling class could accept Trump is if he distanced himself from Russia and China.

So far, so good. The War Party has continued to maintain its stranglehold over the governing body of US imperialism. A tumultuous election season has given way to imperial consolidation. The Democratic Party maintains their newfound identity as the liberal-flank of imperialism whose electorate is increasingly being pushed to the right of the Republican Party on issues of war and peace. Where Obama succeeded in neutralizing the left, Trump is succeeding in dropping all so-called populist pretenses in favor of the warm embraces of the ruling elite.

The truth remains that a historic opportunity was missed during the election period to connect the issue of war and peace with the economic base that produces the conditions for endless intervention. Capitalism's crisis activated a number of people to demand economic relief and a scale back of war from their respective sides of the duopoly. Without a movement, these demands became trapped inside of the electoral machine. The consequences speak for themselves. The US is that much closer to a nuclear war and the left remains just as disorganized as it was prior to the 2016 elections. Humanity's future is dependent on the emergence of an organized movement that can articulate how an end to the War Party's reign is inextricably connected to the development of a system responsive to the needs of the people both in the US and globally. Nothing else can change the course of history.