Donald Trump is not the US
M A Baby
Donald Trump’s US presidency reveals the underlying class dynamics, contradictions, and the intensification of neoliberal policies cloaked under nationalist rhetoric encapsulated in the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) slogan. The most significant features — drastic cuts in government spending, aggressive downsizing of federal departments, and shutdowns — of the Trump presidency illuminate how the US state apparatus is serving the big bourgeoisie at the cost of the working class, in line with a scientific critique of capitalist governance.
The massive reduction in federal spending, led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has targeted welfare, regulatory, and humanitarian agencies such as the United States Agency For International Development (USAID) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The layoff of nearly 10,000 federal employees by early 2025 disproportionately impacted probationary and lower-level workers, illustrating Marx’s view that the bourgeois state’s programs are expendable when not directly facilitating capital accumulation. While DOGE claimed $160 billion savings, analyses indicate that mass layoffs and operational dislocations actually offset much of these gains and caused accounting manipulation to exaggerate cost-cutting. These moves typify neoliberal ‘austerity’ tactics that shift burdens onto the working class and erode collective bargaining, health, and social safety nets — hallmarks of capital’s structural violence.
Trump’s administration and DOGE led aggressive efforts to essentially dismantle whole agencies, including USAID and the CFPB, both targeted for either termination or radical downsizing. This is consistent with Lenin’s thesis in ‘State and Revolution’ — that capitalist states, during periods of economic crisis, seek to shrink or eliminate functions that provide oversight or redistribution, further concentrating class power in the hands of the capitalist elite. The deferred resignation program offered by the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) served to quietly offload state workers under the guise of ‘efficiency’, while securing funds and perks for higher-level bureaucrats. This is a classic example of how the capitalist agenda plays out in the functioning — or lack of functioning — of the government, especially during times of economic crisis.
On October 1, 2025, the US Federal Government entered a shutdown – which has since become the longest ever in US history – at midnight, after the US Congress failed to pass appropriations legislation for the 2026 fiscal year, which began that day. The shutdown resulted in the furlough of roughly 900,000 federal employees and kept another two million working without pay. Albeit temporary, the shutdowns of federal activities, executed through the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pausing grants and loans, left critical social programmes without funding and millions without access to insurance and basic support. It is as deliberate attack on the social foundations underpinning working-class life and a further extension of the ‘dictatorship of the bourgeoisie’, as the state is weaponised to protect wealth and minimise public accountability.
Trump’s policies combined traditional right-wing tactics — tax cuts for the wealthy, expansion of tariffs, suppression of welfare — with a shift toward ‘state capitalism’, including direct government stakes in private corporations. Despite protectionist rhetoric, these moves do not benefit workers but reinforce the dominance of monopoly capital and the state’s fusion with big business. The loyalty scorecards for American companies and aggressive consolidation of political and economic control exemplify the transformation of the bourgeois state into an open tool for capitalist interests, far removed from any democratic or popular mandate. What we are witnessing is the vehement defense of capitalist class interests via austerity, bureaucratic downsizing, and state-enabled corporate consolidation — all at the expense of working people and democratic norms.
It was amidst this utter social, economic and political chaos within the US that the mayoral elections for New York City were held. Against this backdrop, Zohran Mamdani — the self-professed ‘Democratic Socialist’ — ran a campaign centered on affordability, economic justice, and progressive reforms. His top priorities included universal child care for all children under five, free and frequent city buses, and opening a city-run grocery store in each borough to lower food prices and combat food insecurity. He was also a vocal critic of the genocide in Gaza. Major economic proposals included a rent freeze for rent-stabilised apartments, requiring the construction of 200,000 new affordable homes, and raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030.
Mamdani’s platform also included making the City University of New York (CUNY) tuition-free and introducing a city-run pilot for affordable groceries, like Maveli Stores introduced by the LDF government in Kerala decades back. He advocated for significant tax increases on corporations and individuals earning over $1 million, aiming to fund his ambitious public service programs. This is why Trump himself attacked Mamdani, labelling him as a Communist. People who were associated with progressive movements and stood for social justice in the US have been witch-hunted as ‘Communists’ since the days of McCarthyism in the 1940s and 50s. The term is equivalent to the Indian right wing’s usage of ‘Urban Naxals’, to discredit and vilify those who align with and work for the marginalised and oppressed in our country.
Despite all the progressive speak in his campaign trail, there is a genuine concern expressed by many as to how Mamdani might turn out to be in the future. We have repeatedly seen ‘Democratic Socialists’ finding it difficult to fulfill their promises or ending up endorsing the agenda pushed by US-led imperialism. Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are the most recent examples. It was after immense criticism that Sanders finally admitted that a genocide is underway in Gaza. Ocasio-Cortez voted against a legislative amendment to cut funding to Israel’s military. Often, these ‘Democratic Socialists’ are quick to condemn socialist countries and those with socialist-leaning governments, as authoritarian. Mamdani’s comments on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and Cuba’s Miguel Díaz-Canel are erroneous. Despite the lack of a firm anti-imperialist stand, he is taking a pro-working class line, in terms of economic policies, which is significant.
In the International Working Men’s Association’s (IWMA) letter to Abraham Lincoln, it was written: “If resistance to the Slave Power was the reserved watchword of your first election, the triumphant war cry of your re-election is Death to Slavery... The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.” The letter was prepared by Karl Marx himself, as the Corresponding Secretary for Germany, of the IWMA. It was specifically drawn up for presentation to the people of America congratulating them on their having re-elected Abraham Lincoln as President. Lincoln was a Republican, he was neither a socialist nor an anti-imperialist. Yet, Marx took the initiative to congratulate him on a progressive intervention.
In its Political Resolution of the 24th Congress, our Party had assessed; “Exploiting genuine concerns about people’s deteriorating living conditions, neo-fascist forces and far-right parties are gaining ground in some countries… In the absence of a viable Left political alternative, people’s discontent is being used by far-right forces… The anger against established political parties, both Social Democrats and Conservatives, for implementing neo-liberal policies, also led people to shift towards the extreme right…” It further noted, “…in many other parts of the world, far-right forces were elected to government. In elections to the European Parliament, far-right parties advanced considerably in several countries. The election of Javier Milei in Argentina, Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Donald Trump in the US reflects the global trend of a rightward political shift.”
Against the backdrop of our analysis, it is imperative to develop a viable Left political alternative. And in that regard, it is important that “The Party’s political platform and demands should address the issues relevant to the youth and the campaign that ‘Socialism is the Alternative’ should be specifically addressed…” as mentioned in the Political Resolution, to increase the Party’s mass base and influence. Therefore, the election of Catherine Connolly, a socialist, as the President of Ireland, the election of Zohran Mamdani, who describes himself as a democratic socialist, as the Mayor of New York, the election of the Left Unity panel in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) elections, SFI’s victory in the Pondicherry University students union elections and the victory of progressive forces in several campuses across different states of the country, are all important, in the effort to strengthen progressive voices against the rightward political shift globally!
