We need mass struggle against the threat of Trump 2.0
Erin Brightwell, Socialist Alternative (ISA in the United States)
(This article was first published on 15 July 2024)
The assassination attempt on Donald Trump at one of his rallies with thousands attending was utterly shocking, but not necessarily surprising. For the millions who deeply oppose Trump’s increasingly far right politics, desperation is growing as November 5 approaches. This is particularly the case because the Democratic establishment rammed a catastrophic Biden candidacy down the throats of voters, and now refuses to take decisive action to replace Biden even after his real incapacity was exposed at last month’s debate.
In recent weeks, social media has been ablaze with posts warning about Project 2025, the right wing playbook written by several Trump aides, among others, which details plans for an authoritarian presidential power grab and a massive attack on unions, oppressed people, and the left. Trump 2.0 will be more organized, more right wing, and more dangerous to oppressed people and working class people than the first Trump presidency.
As of this writing, information on the motivations of the shooter who tried to kill Donald Trump at a rally outside of Pittsburgh has not yet emerged in the media. A young man using a gun to express his anguish or rage is, tragically, nothing new in this country which is awash in guns, anguish and rage. What’s new, or at least new in the last several decades, is political violence against a presidential candidate. We are reminded of Malcolm X’s reaction to the assassination of John F. Kennedy: “The chickens have come home to roost.” The entire calamity that is the 2024 presidential election reflects the profound political and social crisis of American capitalism.
Whatever the shooter’s specific motivation may have been, individual terrorism is counter-productive and should be completely opposed by left-wing workers and youth. It will not change the political course of the right wing, it will provide justification for increased repression and will confuse broad layers instead of mobilizing them.
This presidential contest rematch featuring the far right versus the liberal capitalist class with their respective geriatric standard bearers has felt like a joke that’s in very bad taste, but it could now turn into a nightmare. Trump, ever the showman even when he’s just been grazed by a bullet from an AR-15, will be seen as a hero by the right wing even more than before, after his defiant fist pumping as he was rushed off the stage, blood streaked across his face. It’s difficult to imagine a sharper contrast to the doddering, confused Biden. Trump, who is bathed in positive attention while Biden put his campaign on pause, is completely in the driver’s seat as November’s election approaches.
Trump’s hard core base, already immersed in phony conspiracy theories, will be whipped up even further against the “radical left.” Extreme rightwing groups known for violence like the Proud Boys were temporarily pushed back after the state went after them with prosecutions stemming from Trump’s January 6 attempted coup attempt, but they have shown up at recent Trump rallies. There’s a real risk that the organized far right and fascist groups are going to be galvanized by this attack on Trump, both at the ballot box, and potentially in the streets. The right in Congress will use the shooting as justification for passing repressive measures aimed against leftwing protesters and unions. Political polarization, already a major feature in society, is going to be ramped up even further amid heightened tensions.
What works and what doesn’t when fighting the right
It’s important to take stock of what tactics have and have not worked in pushing back on the right and far right here and internationally both when they’re in office and when they’re mobilizing on the streets. The liberal wing of the capitalist class has gone after Trump with Russiagate, the hush money conviction, and several other pending court cases stemming from January 6, but not only have none of these tactics had the impact the liberals want, they’ve only resulted in surges of donations from Trump’s base. With the recent Supreme Court ruling that presidents have presumptive immunity for any official acts, it’s not clear how far the court cases against him can go. Democrats and similar parties internationally can’t stop Trump and the extreme right, on the contrary, their policies are what pave the way for reaction.
What worked to push back on the Trump agenda during his first term was mass action in the streets and workers in key industries refusing to work. After Trump’s Muslim ban went into effect only a week into his presidency, protesters rushed to airports across the country. At JFK airport in New York, gig drivers staged a work stoppage. Before the night was over, a Brooklyn judge issued a stay of the presidential order, and the Trump administration was forced to reverse its ban on green card-holders from Muslim countries. In an episode that showed the potential power of the working class, Trump’s 2018/19 government shut-down, the longest in history, was ended after flight attendant union leader Sara Nelson raised the specter of a general strike, and TSA agents and air traffic controllers went on a sick-out, which, within minutes, threatened to totally upend commercial airline schedules and profits.
It’s workers and youth, taking collective action through protests and strikes, that most successfully pushed back on the Trump agenda during his first term, not the Democratic party in Congress and not individual acts of violence or terror. Another example was the 40,000-strong mass rally in Boston in 2017 to shut down the far right as they attempted to march there after the horrific night in Charlottesville, Virgina when protestor Heather Heyer was brutally killed by a white supremacist. In the wake of yesterday’s assassination attempt, if the far right organizes rallies and marches and sections of the left only manage to organize small counter-demonstrations, the risk of further violence is real. As all historical experience has shown, the world over, mass action is what’s needed.
As a second Trump term is now likely, new broad organizations of struggle independent of the Democratic Party to fight the right need to be created and unions need to prepare to mobilize against far right attacks that will be coming for immigrants, LGBTQ people, leftists, and unions themselves.
Socialist Alternative is completely opposed to individual terror tactics like the attempted assassination of the bigoted, billionaire exploiter Trump not on moral grounds, but because it’s a political and strategic dead-end. Workers and youth successfully fought back against Trump before, now we need to do it with a higher level of organization and coordination. The organized extreme right is dwarfed by the millions of workers and youth who oppose attacks on immigrants, other oppressed people, and unions. As Leon Trotsky, the leader of the Russian Revolution wrote in 1911, individual terrorism “belittles the role of the masses,” the actual force to stop the right wing. The role of the masses will be the key factor in whether a second Trump presidency is able to push through his vicious right wing agenda or if he is blocked.
No time to lose
The assassination attempt will tend to embolden Trump and the right and weaken the Democratic establishment, which can hardly continue condemning Trump’s drive toward authoritarianism at the same time as it makes statements in sympathy with Trump. Starting now, union leaders and other progressive leaders should begin a fightback against the right by organizing rallies against Trump and for a real left alternative to the Democrats.
Bernie Sanders’ and other left Democrats’ project to reform the Democratic party was an abject failure, and has now turned into its opposite, as Sanders and the Squad dig in on supporting Biden despite all available evidence pointing to a likely Biden loss even before the assassination attempt. The Biden administration, with its string of broken promises, and pathetic attempts to convince over-worked, under-paid and debt-laden voters that the economy is actually good and “America is already great,” has been the biggest builder for Trumpism and the right.
Working class people need our own political party that is independent of the capitalist-dominated Democrats and Republicans, and that fights for a pro-worker, anti-war program that also takes on anti-immigrant, racist, sexist, and anti-LGBTQ oppression. A major step in this direction would be progressive labor leaders like Shawn Fain and Sara Nelson breaking from the Democratic Party and calling on the rest of the labor movement and social movements to join them. A concrete first step would be for Fain and Nelson to call a conference to bring together unions and progressive organizations to discuss building an alliance to fight the right, and take steps to form a new political party.
We call for a protest vote this November for the strongest, left independent candidate, Jill Stein or Cornel West, but unfortunately neither of them are clear on the need for a new mass party. Still, workers and youth should not vote for either of the two parties of capitalism, which is the source of all exploitation and oppression, and the fertile soil for the growth of the far right.
Assassinations offer no way forward. We need a revolution to dismantle the sick system of capitalism, get rid of capitalist servants like Trump and Biden, and transform society along socialist lines.
