{"id":8252,"date":"2018-10-18T16:31:27","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T16:31:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lavozlit.com\/?p=8252"},"modified":"2018-10-18T16:31:27","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T16:31:27","slug":"two-years-into-trumps-nightmare-we-need-a-class-fightback","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/workersvoiceus.org\/es\/2018\/10\/18\/two-years-into-trumps-nightmare-we-need-a-class-fightback\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Years Into Trump\u2019s Nightmare: We Need A Class FightBack!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Written by Florence Oppen<\/em>
\n 
\nSince Donald Trump\u2019s presidential election in November 2016, the national situation in the US has been marked by major political crises among the ruling class parties, economic instability, aggressive imperialist escalation, and a rise in attacks on the working-class and oppressed sectors in this country. While the liberal news and commentators have focused for a year on the Russian meddling in the 2016 election and Trump\u2019s real corruption cases, little attention has been given in the media to the many blows that Trump has dealt to working class people.
\nSpecifically, the Trump administration\u2019s bailout of the rich is deepening the increasing levels of inequality, attacks on unions are making it even more difficult to wage an effective fightback, the escalating trade wars are increasing geopolitical tensions among the capitalist class, the $716 billion bipartisan defense budget signals an escalation of the imperialist wars and US interventions across the globe, the stagnation of wages are continuing to negatively impact the livelihood of working-class families, and the ICE immigration crisis has resulted in increased deportations and massive incarceration and separation of immigrant families all the while revealing the growing authoritarian and inhumane measures that this administration is ready to take, dividing workers in this country and appealing to the most reactionary and racist members of the Republican base.
\nThe principal strategy of liberals within the Democratic party, which sustained devastating defeats in the presidential and congressional elections, is to \u2018Take Back the House\u2019 in the upcoming 2018 midterm elections, and we discuss in a separate article why this strategy is doomed to fail for it does not propose real solutions for working class people.\u00a0 Only the working-class have the potential strength to challenge the government\u2019s attacks and provide solutions to the problems we face. Only through organizing a base in our neighborhoods and worksites, building strikes and work stoppages, and engaging in other militant actions will we be able to build the kind of power to defeat the government\u2019s attacks and reverse the devastating effects of the last crisis of American capitalism which include wage depreciation, austerity cuts, and an increase in repression and criminalization of communities of color.
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\u00a0Two Years of Nationalist and Anti-Worker Legislation<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 
\nThe Trump regime is the most anti-worker government in the last half century. Domestically, his administration has directly attacked organized labor and oppressed sectors of the working class, by rolling back healthcare coverage, passing tax cuts for the very rich, and deregulating the banks back to a level before the 2008 global financial crisis. It\u2019s currently implementing some of the strongest union busting laws and rulings in US history, intensifying attacks on federal and public sector unions. On top of this, Trump has issued a series of executive orders worsening the conditions of the oppressed sectors of the working class, such as the so-called Muslim Ban, increased protection for murderously racist police, and most egregiously the maximum criminalization of people migrating across the southern border, with the disappearance of children into private prisons as the most glaring aspect of this policy. Internationally, the regime has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Accords and rolled back EPA regulations, opening the door to increased fossil fuel extraction and leading to the further destruction of the ecosystem.
\nThe administration has aggressively escalated toward war with North Korea and Iran, and has begun a trade war with Europe and China. Trump\u2019s authoritarian measures have been so extreme that deep divisions have emerged among the ruling class, leaving the Republican and Democratic parties in crisis. To maintain a political base, Trump relies on Islamophobia, racism, sexism, LGBT-phobia, and xenophobia, all of which disrupt working class solidarity.\u00a0 With wealth inequality at its highest point in the country\u2019s history, conditions are worsening for the US American working class, especially its most precarious sectors.
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The President of the Rich and \u201cTrade Wars\u201d<\/strong><\/h2>\n

 
\nSince Trump set foot in the White House, he and his administration made it clear that they represent and support the most reactionary sectors of the US bourgeoisie. While there have been consistent changes to his cabinet, reflecting the political crisis his administration has faced, their initial cabinet was the wealthiest in US history.[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Much like Reagan\u2019s firing of the nearly 13,000 striking PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) workers in 1981, Trump\u2019s executive orders and Republican sponsored legislation attacking immigrants, Muslims, women, workers and the poor signals that the US government is clearly on the side of big business and at war with workers and oppressed sectors in this country.[2]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 In addition to the outright attacks that the government has waged on the working class, the Trump administration, through Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, has bailed out the bourgeoisie with a $1.5 trillion tax cut passed in 2017 with around \u2154 of the benefits going to the parasitic top 0.1% of US capitalists.\u00a0 Moreover, reports point to the administration\u2019s consideration of an additional $100 billion tax cut through executive action which would further enrich and benefit the top layers of the ruling class.[3]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 Despite his populist rhetoric, Trump\u2019s actions clearly demonstrate that he is firmly on the side of capital and against the working class.
\nThe Trump administration\u2019s \u2018America First\u2019 hubris is exemplified by reckless protectionist policies such as tariffs on aluminum and steel, which are causing increased geopolitical tensions between the US and China as well as with much of Europe, Mexico, and Canada.\u00a0 All of these countries\u2019 governments have responded with tariffs on the US.\u00a0 Trump claims that by imposing tariffs, which are simply taxes on products and goods coming into the US, there will be more jobs and growth of industry in the US. In reality, these so-called \u2018Trade Wars\u2019 are an intensification of intra-bourgeois fights around the world for market shares. For working class people in the US and internationally, such measures only cause uncertainty, increased precarity, and further suppression of wages. For example, the US and China are now both implementing 25% tariffs on $50 billion of each others\u2019 goods – with threats from Trump to increase tariffs on China.[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 While Trump claims that his tariffs will allow US businesses to more easily sell and produce their goods in the country, the reality is that the US and China\u2019s tariffs against each other will only increase production costs on both countries\u2019 businesses, leading them to attempt to preserve their profits by making workers and consumers pay theses costs in lower wages, worsened working conditions, and higher costs in goods.\u00a0 There have even been several US businesses and their associations, like the US Chamber of Commerce, Logitech and Daikin Applied that testified to the US Trade Representative against Trump\u2019s tariffs.[5]<\/sup><\/a>
\nObviously, the bourgeoisie is not homogeneous and there are companies that are winners and losers in Trump\u2019s \u2018Trade Wars.\u2019 But the bottom line is that workers are the ones who are most certainly losing out. For example, the tariffs on steel and aluminum, that is, imposing taxes on steel and aluminum produced outside the US, are certainly benefiting domestic steel and aluminum companies like US Steel, because it is now cheaper for them to produce in the US and they can significantly raise the cost of their products. However, companies that use aluminum and steel in production (i.e. auto and beer\/soda can manufacturers) are losing as they have to pay whatever these costs are because there is less steel and aluminum coming into the country due to the tariffs. This risks lower wages, job losses, and increased costs to working people.\u00a0 What is certain is that the working class has no say in any of these decisions, and there is no certainty whatsoever that these actions will lead to increased jobs or wages.\u00a0 These \u2018Trade Wars\u2019 are simply a fight between the capitalists and their governments.[6]<\/sup><\/a>
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Attacks on Workers<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>
\nThe Trump government is the most anti-worker government since the Reagan administration. Domestically, there are a series of attacks on organized labor, as well as on the oppressed communities of the working class. In the first year and a half, his administration has advanced some of the strongest anti-union legislation and policies in recent history, through executive orders and support for congressional resolutions, including an executive order which ferociously attacks federal unions, denying them the right to union representation.[7]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 He has appointed two far-right and anti-union supreme court justices (one of whom, at the time this article goes to press, is yet to be confirmed), resulting in an anti-worker majority supreme court. By ruling in favor of Janus v. AFSCME,<\/em> this court has launched a massive attack on public sector unions, dispensing with any pretense to be neutral in the bourgeois class war.\u00a0 The Janus case attacks the financial resources of unions by eliminating the so-called \u2018Fair-Share fee\u2019 that non-members of unions had paid for receiving representational rights and the benefits of collective-bargaining.\u00a0 With the elimination of the \u2018Fair-Share fee,\u2019 unionized workers are now incentivized to stop paying union dues as they will continue to receive the benefits of being part of a union. Here are some examples of additional attacks that Trump\u2019s administration has waged on workers:
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