Protests against President Donald Trump were held across the country March 28, organized by the “No Kings” coalition. The intent of the organizers was to whip up support for the Democratic Party, one of the U.S. capitalist rulers’ two main political parties, in the midterm elections and 2028.
Some workers and young people joined the protests seeing them as an opportunity to voice their opposition to Washington’s war on Iran and the administration’s assaults on immigrants.
“No Kings” organizers say 8 million people took part, calling Trump an “oligarch” planning an “authoritarian power grab.” Many echoed the insistence of the Democrats and the middle-class left that Trump is a “fascist.” Like the notion he wants to be “king,” this is aimed at presenting him as fundamentally worse than any other politician.
It’s dangerous to use “fascist,” like it was an epithet without meaning. Capitalist rule in the U.S. under Trump is nothing like Adolf Hitler’s Nazi rule in the 1930s and during World War II and the Holocaust.
Democrats and the left say the road to ending Washington’s wars, defending immigrants and protecting workers’ living standards, is by removing the “tyrant” in the White House, not through organizing the working class to fight against all the bosses’ parties for its own interests.
This U.S. president — however abhorrent some of his policies are — is in fact a shrewd politician defending the cutthroat class interests of the ruling capitalist families. He’s using the White House to manage their affairs in today’s increasingly conflict-ridden world. He sees the inevitable wars coming as the crisis of capitalism deepens. And he doesn’t bother with niceties other capitalist politicians spout to veil the ruling-class interests that guide their actions.
Under either Democratic or Republican administrations, the capitalists are driven to fight at the expense of their rivals to grab markets, maximize profits and extend their clout. The current bombardment of Iran, the murderous assault on Venezuela and Trump’s push to acquire Greenland are all aimed at securing long-term foreign policy goals of the U.S. ruling class and shoring up their supremacy over the “imperialist world order.”
Trump champions the need for the rulers to rebuild industry in the U.S., without which they will not be able to produce the warplanes, battleships, deadly missiles and other weaponry needed for an all-out war with their rivals. Today’s conflicts are harbingers of a nuclear-armed world war in the making.
Trump openly points to the reality of Washington’s decline and talks about reasserting the U.S. rulers’ domination, starting from the Western Hemisphere.
This is why his administration intervened in Venezuela and why he’s intensified Washington’s decadeslong economic and political war against Cuba, imposing a blockade. Ever since Fidel Castro led working people there to take power and uproot capitalist exploitation, the U.S. rulers under both parties have tried all means to try to starve the Cuban people into submission and to overturn their socialist revolution. The “No Kings” organizers are noticeably silent about Washington’s assaults on Cuba. In fact, the tone and editorial line on Cuba of the liberal Washington Post and conservative New York Post are starkly similar.
Washington targets its rival, Beijing
Key to the goals of the current administration are preparations to push back the Chinese rulers, given Beijing’s economic growth, military buildup and expansionist Belt and Road foreign policy in recent decades.
The capitalist rulers in Beijing are highly reliant on imported oil for their economy. The Trump administration’s bloody assault on Venezuela earlier this year took aim at this. Trump has also pressured the Panamanian rulers into replacing the Beijing-linked company that controls ports on either end of the Panama Canal with one more subservient to Washington.
The U.S. rulers’ interest in Greenland is strategic, to position U.S. forces to stop Beijing — and Moscow — from making inroads through Arctic waters into the Atlantic.
The U.S. rulers’ bombardment of Tehran is aimed at extending their domination and plunder of the oil and other riches in the Middle East, and at undercutting Beijing. In 2021 Beijing negotiated a “strategic partnership” with Tehran. Then Beijing strengthened its hand by brokering a deal between the rulers of Iran and Saudi Arabia.
The administration’s war preparations and its moves in the Western Hemisphere and Middle East, and against Beijing, are integral parts of the preparation for wars to come. They go hand in hand with the bosses’ deepening drive against working people at home.
The class struggle at home
Striking meatpackers at JBS in Greeley, Colorado, are fighting against life-threatening speedup, for better wages and to unite workers of a multitude of nationalities in the plant. Oil giant BP has locked out refinery workers in Whiting, Indiana, trying to impose deep wage cuts and eliminate collective bargaining. Millions more workers across the U.S. struggle to provide necessities for their families, as they did under the Joseph Biden administration.
Trump’s expanded use of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids is aimed at dividing the working class and instilling fear into workers who don’t have “proper” papers. Trump’s vilification of undocumented workers goes hand in hand with strengthening chauvinistic appeals for an “American First” foreign policy. When he says America First he means U.S. ruling class first.
The “No Kings” backers of the Democrats promote the subordination of everything else to getting rid of Trump. This masks the reality that Washington and its capitalist rivals are marching humanity toward a third world war, and will continue doing so whichever capitalist party is in the White House.
As the crisis of imperialism deepens and workers’ struggles grow, threatening capitalist rule, working people will confront real fascist gangs. They’ll be unleashed against our unions and to target Jews as the enemy, not the bosses and their government. Organizing the defense of all who are threatened when fascist assaults spread is a life-and-death question for the workers movement.
Like all capitalist politicians, Trump fantasizes he can control the unintended consequences of the wars he sets in motion and prevent the recurring financial and economic crises that are built into the workings of capitalism.
At the same time, those same laws work to generate class struggle, bringing workers together. In the course of these battles we will have opportunities to build a party of our own that can lead working people by the tens of millions in the fight for political power.