Donald Trump won the US presidential election, despite opposition from most of the ruling class (Pic: Gage Skidmore)
First Brexit and now Trump. There’s a pattern here that we must try to understand.
Of course it’s disgusting that a racist, sexist property developer has
won the presidency of the United States. But something bigger is happening.
Britain and the US were the two advanced capitalist societies
that pioneered neoliberalism. This followed the election victories of
Margaret Thatcher is British prime minister in 1979 and Ronald Reagan as
US president in 1980.
Now we are seeing in both of these countries the cumulative effects of more than 35 years of globalised free market capitalism.
These effects have been greatly reinforced by what the Marxist
blogger Michael Roberts calls the Long Depression that started in
2007-8.
So we’ve seen a kind of involution of the political system. On
the one hand politics—whatever party is in office—has come to be
dominated by a corporate elite deeply wedded to neoliberalism.
Perhaps the clearest example of this was Barack Obama’s election victory eight years ago. This ushered the hope of real change
but left the existing order untouched.
On the other hand, and as a consequence, growing numbers of
poorer people, in some way or other the victims of neoliberal policies
and economic slump,
have become more and more distant from mainstream politics.
But—because they still have votes—their bitterness and anger can have explosive political effects.
It was Trump himself who highlighted the parallels between his presidential campaign and Brexit.
In the referendum on 23 June all the forces of the establishment were mobilised to keep Britain in the European Union (EU).
The EU has become an engine driving neoliberalism deep into
European society, allowing the City of London remodelled under Thatcher
to flourish.
But the big-business Remainers failed, and deservedly so. And all the analyses of the result show that
the poorer you are, the more likely you were to vote Leave.
Trump’s victory underlines the success of the populist right in
shaping the rebellion against the effects of neoliberalism and crisis.
Again, in the US presidential election, the establishment, including big business, rallied behind Hillary Clinton.
They weren’t necessarily very enthusiastic about Clinton, but they preferred her to Trump.
Trump was deserted by the Republican leadership. The only
previous Republican presidential candidate to vote for Trump was the
hapless Bob Dole, who was obliterated by Bill Clinton in 1996.
As in the case of Brexit, the stance taken by big business was rational.
Trump campaigned against the liberal capitalist international
order that US imperialism has constructed and maintained since the
Second World War.
That is to say, against free trade and free movement of capital
underpinned by American military power. He denounced the various rounds
of trade liberalisation that he held responsible for the decline of US
basic industries.
So effective was he that he forced Clinton to disown the
Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement she had previously supported.
But this didn’t prevent Trump carrying the states of the old industrial
Midwest—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin—on Tuesday.
So what we have seen is two great revolts by voters against the effects of the existing neoliberal capitalist order.
Notice that I say “effects”. These weren’t revolts explicitly against neoliberalism.
In the US Bernie Sanders’ campaign
showed how an avowed socialist could speak to precisely the kind of voters whom Trump has ended up dominating.
Sadly Sanders
fell in line behind Clinton after his own candidacy had been overwhelmed by the official Democratic machine.
Bernie Sanders could have mounted a serious challenge to Trump (Pic: Gage Skidmore)
After this electoral disaster, will the left in the US finally break free from the dead hand of the Democratic Party?
Three questions in conclusion. First, can this go further? Yes,
definitely. The French fascist leader Marine le Pen is celebrating
Trump’s victory as presaging her own in the presidential election next
spring.
Secondly, what difference will Trump actually make? This is
hard to say. The neoliberal era of financial speculation made him. He’s
not going to break with it.
But his voters will expect him to deliver on his largely
unfulfillable campaign promises. This will be a big source of strain
under his administration.
But, at the very minimum, after Brexit Trump’s election is the
second great breach in the liberal capitalist international order this
year.
The US has been the linchpin of this order, managing crises and
coordinating the other leading capitalist states. Now it has become a
wild card.
Can the arrogant, dysfunctional, increasingly unpopular EU fill the vacuum? To pose the question is to answer it.
More broadly, in the US and Britain the political system is
breaking loose from its traditional subordination to capital. Big
business wanted neither Brexit nor Trump and is looking on in dismay.
This will probably be only a temporary situation before a new
equilibrium between the state and capital is established. But it is a
source of enormously instability.
Thirdly, what do we do? Above all, resist. An open racist
succeeding the first black president will reinforce the wave of racism
sweeping through Western society.
Here in Britain we need to redouble
building Stand Up To Racism as a broad and united antiracist movement.
In Trump’s America,
black, migrant, and Muslim communities will feel besieged. Black Lives Matter and kindred movements will become even more important.
But resistance isn’t enough. We need strategy as well.
Trump’s victory underlines the success of the populist right in
shaping the rebellion against the effects of neoliberalism and crisis.
How can the radical left begin to offer a better alternative? There’s a lot of hard work and imaginative thinking ahead for us.
