By fair means or foul

In the November 7 issue of The Communist, the “voice of the revolutionary communist party”, leader Alan Woods has written an absolutely astounding article. ^[1] We read it with increasing amazement, and then we sought out the far longer online article. The title of the article sets the tone: “Trump victory: a kick in the teeth for the establishment”. It seems that “the establishment” has been playing dirty games against poor Donald Trump, charging him with all sorts of crimes but he is doing us all a favour because, wait for it:

“And, whatever you think of him, it must be admitted that, for his own reasons, Donald Trump has played a most important role in placing the working class at the very centre of US politics for the first time in decades.

“The ruling class of America – firmly supported by the governments of Europe – were determined to keep him out of office, by fair means or foul. After Trump was ousted in the 2020 election, everything was done to prevent him from standing again.  They tried to keep him off the ballot in different states. He was convicted on 34 criminal charges, with more than 50 pending. He was ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in civil cases regarding business fraud and a defamation suit arising from a rape allegation.”

So we are OK with Trump’s coup attempt to overturn the 2020 election vote by organising an attack on Capital Hill on 6 January 2021, we have all the evidence we need to show that he did it. He now refers to those who have been jailed for that criminal assault, in which 6 people were murdered, as the “J-6 hostages” and will undoubtedly pardon them all, and himself, as soon as he takes office on January 20. On January 2, 2021, he tried to persuade the General Sectary of State for Georgia, Brad Raffensperher, to fiddle the election, he asked him to “find me 11,780 votes” one more than he lost by. We have his voice recording for that, released by The Washington Post and others.

Stormy Daniels and the rest

He bribed Stormy Daniels, a porn star, to keep her quite before the election. He illegally took government document from the White House to his Mar a Lago home, so what’s wrong with that? This is not some-made-up stuff to blacken Trump’s name, as Woods ridiculously claims; the outrageous thing about all this is that he was not arrested and charged immediately, tried and jailed and the reason he wasn’t was because Biden and the Democrats were attempting to placate the Republicans, some 75% of whom went along with the totally fraudulent charge of the “stolen election” – he lost by 7 million votes! As always, placating reaction only succeeds in emboldening it, of course. Woods goes on:

“But every criminal charge thrown against him only served to increase his support. The allegations simply bounced off him. With every court case, his support in the polls went up. All the numerous attacks against him rebounded and turned against those who were seen – correctly (oh FFS!)– as being involved in a conspiracy to prevent him from re-entering the White House (my emphasis).”

What would we say to those who hailed Adolf Hitler’s victory in Germany on 30 January 1933 as a “kick in the teeth for the German establishment?” And here was foolish old us and most of the rest of the blinkered left thinking that he had placed those self -declared fascists, the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, Q Anon and the others in the driving seat as part of the process of installing the fascist state, the real danger to the working class and oppressed humanity as a whole.

The Proud Boys, The Oath Keepers and others

These openly fascist groupings get not a single mention in Woods’ article, they are of no consequence to him. What would we say to those who said the same about Hitler’s Brownshirt fascist thugs in the 1920s and 30s? It we examine the reports from the aftermath of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election results by the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6 2021 we learn about the Proud Boys: “That’s a group that has really evolved from this… “frat boys on a lark” group into one of the most visible vocal and violent, misogynistic, xenophobic groups in the movement, both in the U.S. and in Canada,” the fashion brand Fred Perry has said. “There is a Proud Boys chapter in pretty much every large city across the country. Trump infamously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests in the Summer. Many of them were present at Wednesday’s attack on the Capitol, seen clearly in footage and on social media sporting Proud Boy colours, patches, flags and apparel affiliated with the group.” ^[2]

And then we have QAnon which has “morphed quite considerably and I think what we consider QAnon now is not QAnon when it first emerged four years ago,” according to Perry. “It just became sort of a flash point for a whole array of other conspiracies to sort of be hooked onto the QAnon around, you know, the Democratic Party, around COVID, around the BLM and Antifa in the role that they played or were thought to play or are thought to play in disrupting American politics and especially Trump’s agenda… It really has become the flash point for a whole array of conspiracies intended to fit whatever the crisis of the moment is,” Perry explained.

The number of US billionaires who openly backed Donald Trump was 52, but 83 backed Kamala Harris, according to Forbes. Some 48 daily newspapers endorsed Harris, only 6 endorsed Trump, with 17 making no endorsement, including, controversially, the liberal Washington Post. The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is Trump’s most famous billionaire supporter but “many have elected to watch from the sidelines, like Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg”. ^[3] The US has 801 billionaires according to Forbes, so that leaves 666 not backing either. Oh, hold on! 666 – the mark of the Antichrist and/or the Devil!! How’s that for a conspiracy theory??

The laws of mechanics Vs the class struggle

Woods goes on:

“But the laws of mechanics inform us that every action has an equal opposite reaction. And at a later stage, it will be expressed in a sharp turn to the left. From the standpoint of the ruling class, the danger of Trump is precisely that, by appealing to the workers for his own ends, he is feeding a mood of radicalisation that sets a dangerous precedent for the future. This explains the deep feelings of fear and anger that they constantly show towards him. The ruling class is desperate to prevent this polarisation and put the centre together again. But all of the objective conditions militate against their success”

The laws of mechanics do not apply to the class struggle. If that was so then Hitler’s victory should have been a cause for rejoicing on the left or at least inspiring a hope that things would rapidly change. And sure enough such was the attitude of those fake communist of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in response to Hitler’s coming to power: “after the Nazis, our turn” they inanely sloganeered. They only stopped saying that when the KPD was made illegal after the Reichstag Fire of 27 February  and the Nazi May Day rally when Hitler spoke of how much he supported the German working class and the attending trade union bureaucrats enthusiastically clapped and cheered him. They never made it home; all ended up in concentration camps. On May 2 all German trade unions were made illegal.

After the Nazis (and Trump) Us?

So what do we make of Woods’ concluding paragraphs?

“Typically, he has made big promises about making America great again. But there is no evidence that he will be able to deliver on any of them. The American workers who place their confidence in him will find themselves sorely disappointed.

“In 1940, when the German army entered Paris, there was an interesting conversation between a German officer and a French officer. The German was naturally puffed up with arrogance. But the French officer said simply: “the wheel of history has turned. It will turn again.” And it did.

“The wheel of history is turning in the USA, and it will turn again. Once the masses have fully explored the potential of Trumpism and realised its limitations, they will turn in a different direction. The way will be prepared for a massive swing of the pendulum to the left. A new and turbulent chapter in American history is about to be written” (my emphasis).

And if these are not an: “After-the-Nazis-us-type criminally complacent remarks I don’t know what are!

Notes

[1] The Communist, Alan Woods, 6 November 2024,  Trump victory: a k ick in the teeth for the establishment, https://communist.red/trump-victory-a-kick-in-the-teeth-for-the-establishment/

[2] The Guardian, Priya Elan, 28 Sep 2020, Fred Perry withdraws polo shirt adopted by far-right Proud Boys, Company distances itself from US fascist group as it halts sales of garment in North America, https://tinyurl.com/mwescn2y

[3] Forbes Staff, Kamala Harris Has More Billionaires Prominently Backing Her Than Trump, https://tinyurl.com/cyzbjhbd ▲