President-elect Donald Trump said in his victory speech that “America has given us a powerful and unprecedented mandate.” Although this is not true. Obama won a much larger victory in 2008 with 53% of the popular vote and 365 electoral mandates.
Trump will nevertheless attempt to govern as an autocrat, imposing his will on the nation. It remains to be seen whether his authoritarian plans will result in fascism, but the left is beginning to resist.
We can expect him to start by keeping the promises he made to his working and middle-class base, as well as his billionaire partners, such as tech mogul Elon Musk and CEO Amazon Jeff Bezos.
Closure of borders announced
He promised workers to close the border and carry out a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants who, he says, are taking jobs from Americans and bringing violence to their communities. Today there are 22,000 US Border Patrol (USBP) agents. Sealing the 3,145-kilometer U.S.-Mexico border will require more than BP's current 22,000 agents. Trump says he will mobilize the National Guard to supplement the BP, but he will need permission from state governors and not all will give it.
Trump has promised to deport the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants, but rounding them up and deporting them would be a massive job that would cost millions and require far more than the 21,000 agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ) existing. Families will be uprooted and broken and there will be resistance. These policies would have a huge and disastrous impact on the U.S. economy, as many immigrants work in construction, hotels and restaurants, elder and child care, cleaning, gardening, agriculture and other industries. other sectors.
Liberalization, protectionism and carbo-capitalism
Trump plans to take more control of the U.S. government, starting with ending civil service protections for hundreds of thousands of federal employees, who would become private contract employees, subject to termination at any time. He says he will reorganize the Justice Department and use it to prosecute his political enemies.
On the economic front, Trump has promised further tax cuts as he did in 2017, and there is no doubt that the wealthy will benefit the most. If he does, it will cost the government $4 trillion in revenue over the next decade. He also said he would cut taxes on workers' Social Security (retirement) benefits and taxes on workers' tips.
Trump is proposing tariffs of 10% on most goods, but 60% on Chinese products and even 200% on Chinese cars. These tariffs would raise prices for Americans and disrupt global trade and investment.
Trump will reverse President Joe Biden's climate policies by cutting green energy subsidies and prodding oil companies to drill for oil. He will also reverse Joe Biden's pro-work policies.
Resistance and possible repression
Resistance to Trump, which first surfaced during the Women's March at his inauguration in 2016, has reignited. Protests of hundreds of people led by the left took place after his election in Seattle, Portland, Berkeley, Milwaukee, Chicago and Philadelphia. On November 9, more than a thousand people from labor, environmental, feminist and immigrant organizations marched in New York.
A new national coalition of more than 200 organizations has formed under the leadership of the Working Families Party, Seed the Vote, the Movement for Black Lives and Showing up for Racial Justice. The group organized a mass call/livestream titled « Making Meaning in the Moment » (“Making sense of the present moment”), in which 140,000 people participated on the internet.
As one participant wrote, “the dominant view was total resistance to the Trump administration and the refocusing of progressives into the multiracial, gender-inclusive working class.”
If the protest movement becomes massive in the streets, Trump said he is prepared to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1792, which authorizes the president to use the American military on the territory of the United States to suppress a rebellion or violence.
Trump is an authoritarian. Will he create a fascist party and state? We will do everything to prevent it.
Dan La Botz, translated by the editorial staff
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