Yes, Trump's administration is a bonapartist one which still retains elements of bourgeois democracy. The difference with his first administration is that previously there were more constraints, but he was clearly headed in that direction back then. It was also pretty clear (at least to me) that he was headed towards a violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election. (I wrote about Trump's tendency towards bonapartism for example here <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2019/05/06/trump-and-the-reluctance-to-reckon-with-something-fundamentally-new/> and raised the possibility <https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/09/26/u-s-elections-is-a-shitstorm-coming/> of a violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election - in mid 2020. That is as opposed to what most socialists said at the time - and many are still saying - that there is no significant difference between the Republican and Democratic Parties.) So, it's good to see Anthony Teso use the term "bonapartism" to describe the Trump rule. However, I think he misses some points: Bonapartism normally arises during a crisis of capitalism, one in which the clash of the classes becomes so severe that the capitalists can no longer rule through "normal" (democratic) means. Then the capitalists have to help enable a ruler who is partially independent of them. That has been almost the norm in Latin America for over a century. In the United States, however, there was no major clash, no major confrontation, between the capitalist and the working classes. Instead, while the capitalist class lost its legitimacy within the working class (as well as the petit bourgeoisie), the working class itself was collapsing as an independent force in society. The result was that a huge vacuum opened up and politics, like nature, hates a vacuum. Into that vacuum entered Donald Trump in 2016. I think a larger problem with Teso's article is that it underestimates the degree of working class support for Trump and, thereby underestimates the absolute crisis in the working class in the US (although that crisis is not confined to the US). Teso concludes: "This issue is resolved — if at all — by organisations that can contest the class content of populist grievance, embed themselves in strategic labour sectors and sustain political development through the defeats and partial victories that such work necessarily entails. The task is not to find the shortcut. The task is to do the work." Here, he hints that maybe the crisis will get worse. That needs to be considered in more depth. Doing so requires an unflinching recognition of the crisis in the working class and where it may lead. In other words, "doing the work" means, first and foremost a full and open discussion - and even a debate - on perspectives. What is the nature of the crisis in the working class and how did it develop? Where might it lead? Is Tucker Carlson and his ilk likely to be the beneficiary of working class discontent far more than is any socialist left? If so, what from will a new and even more radical right wing populist movement take? Teso opposes seeking shortcuts. I agree. One such shortcut is avoiding these difficult questions about the grounds upon which we tread today and are likely to be operating in the coming period.
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