Thanks for the reference to A Compassionate Spy, Michael. I didn’t know about it, and will check it out. I hope Dave Lindorff hasn’t quit the list and has just taken a pause.
On Trump as a fascist, he might well aspire to exercising the dictatorial powers of a Mussolini, Franco, or Hitler, but they were all installed by the big bourgeoisie in order to crush the militant unions and popular left-wing parties which threatened their power and property. Wouldn’t you agree there is no such threat from below in the US which would cause the big bourgeoisie to abandon the appropriately-named “bourgeois democratic” system? It’s historically served Big Business very well, especially in steering popular discontent into safe electoral channels and in being able to play the two parties off against each other because of their dependence on campaign finance. I don't doubt that Trump and his cohort will try even harder in a second term to rollback democratic rights and use their control of the state apparatus to consolidate their hold on power, but I doubt they will attempt to destroy the existing constitutional structures. In fact, they claim to be the best defenders of The Constitution and their base takes them at their word. Unlike under fascism, so long as the anti-Trump majority is able to organize, assemble and vote to remove him from office, there will be the possibility to do so, as it did in 2016 despite his protests and the disturbances by his supporters. The right-wing authoritarians in Brazil (Bolsinaro) and in Poland (the Kaczynskis) were toppled in countries with a weaker democratic tradition and institutions than in the US. In any case, however we choose to define the Trumpists politically, we can agree on the essential point: that they’re set on attacking the democratic rights and social and economic gains won by the working class and its allies over many generations and should be resisted at the ballot box and in the streets. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29397): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29397 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104893002/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
