Originally published on the United Jewish People’s Fraternal Order website – https://ujpfo.org/
The resounding victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential elections this week is a peak moment in the global rise of the new populist right. This current is based on incitement against immigrants and foreigners, pro-corporate economic policies and weakening the mechanisms of liberal democracy. It is built and thrives on the basis of the increasing alienation of huge sections of the public in the Global North from the mechanisms of technocratic and liberal capitalism that control the media and the bureaucracy. Like fascist phenomena in the past – the new populism converts justified class frustration into racist resentment and resistance to the oppressive state mechanisms.
Trump – in his clownish and blunt way, appeals to this alienation in a particularly effective way. The new-old president has not changed much since his first term between 2016 and 2020, only now he is more experienced, more dangerous, and much stronger. Unlike the victory in 2016, this week’s election was a clear victory in which Trump also won the majority of votes in the US as a whole, and not just in the key states. This is only the second time that a Republican has won the most votes in a presidential election since 1988. Trump also received a large increase in his support among Latinos, who were previously strong Democratic supporters. The election results show that the entire American public has turned sharply to the right. With such a mandate, in the next four years the extreme right can become hegemonic in the US, and consequently in other countries as well.
But no less than this is a victory for the populist right, this is a loss for the liberal center proposed by Kamala Harris. Joe Biden’s term as president was characterized by a significant expansion of the imperialist position of the US – especially in supporting the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and the deepening of tensions with China – along with a certain break from the neoliberal economic model. Biden promoted large investments in infrastructure and green economic change, supported organized labor, and took a relatively aggressive approach to monopolies. During his time there was a significant increase in the salaries of Americans and the unemployment rate remained low. But at the same time, he also faced an acute inflation crisis that made it very difficult for the American public and especially for the working class. Given the inflation and the limited nature of his economic plans, which were insufficient to deal with decades of neoliberal austerity, the American public perceived his tenure as an economic failure.
Harris, Biden’s running mate, could have broken to the left of the outgoing president, and appeal to all those Americans who feel alienated. But instead of emphasizing that much broader measures are needed for the workers, such as raising the minimum wage, creating a fairer housing system, raising taxes on corporations, and canceling student debt, she chose to run on the right. Instead of targeting her candidacy against the exploitative elite, she boasted the wealthy donors.
Harris’ election campaign focused on American “democracy” and courting the votes of the wealthy in the suburbs. She emphasized the difference between her, a former prosecutor, and the criminal Trump. She talked a lot about women and minorities, but said nothing concrete about their lives and what she proposes to create a better future. Her performance was empty, formulaic, and devoid of real political content. In this sense, her candidacy was more similar to that of Hillary Clinton in 2016, which she lost, than to Joe Biden’s victorious 2020 campaign, which emphasized economic programs and adopted many policy measures from left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders.
Perhaps the biggest mistake of Harris’s campaign was her choice to flaunt a slew of right-wing supporters, ostensibly to woo moderate voters. One particularly problematic supporter that Harris flaunted is war criminal Dick Cheney, who, as George W. Bush’s vice president, promoted the criminal invasion of Iraq, and is largely responsible for the destruction of the Middle East. While Trump spoke of his desire to end the wars, Harris emphasized her desire to build the American military as a “lethal” army and her implicit two-faced support for Israel’s right to self-defense – that is, to massacre Palestinians and Lebanese. It is important to note – she did not lose because of her support for Israel. Foreign issues are not at the center of the American election campaign. But her inability to formulate a clear political position and different from that of Biden, also on this issue, showed her political anemia.
Trump’s term will be difficult and dangerous. The forces of the left and the liberal center will have to cooperate in order to oppose his dangerous plans – both internally in the US and in the international arena. But in light of the center’s resounding failure to oppose fascism, the left must take the lead and propose its own program of total social change – based on economic policy. The left also needs to formulate an alternative policy to the hatred of immigrants that is at the heart of the argument of the populist right, but this policy cannot be based on contempt for the racism of the working class, but on dealing with the real political and economic questions that globalization and the ongoing crisis of capitalism create. As economist Isabella Weber wrote on election night – it’s time to talk about an anti-fascist economy. This is our mission.
