Thanks to both Tony and Hari for their erudite and thought-provoking contributions. Tony concludes the Trump administration is an example of a patrimonial Bonapartist regime. Hari disagrees and says Trump and his circle are imposing Fascist rule in the US..
I don’t recall either Hari or Tony devoting any or much attention to Project 2025 in support of their theses. The document has been widely regarded as the working blueprint for the administration. It was drafted by Russell Voight and issued in 2023 by the Heritage Foundation. Voight was subsequently appointed director of Trump's Office of Budget and Management to oversee the cutbacks and other domestic and foreign policy shifts outlined in the document. State spending which affects corporate borrowing and taxation has always been at the heart of divisions within the ruling class, not only within the US but in all bourgeois democracies. Its liberal wing represented by US Democrats and European social democracy has been historically supported by the trade unions and has consequently favoured more social spending supported by higher corporate and wealth taxes. The Republicans and European conservative parties have been more closely tied to the corporations and have resisted the expansion of the welfare state. . The sharp decline of the unions since the 70’s has been accompanied by an accelerated assault on the welfare state and its contraction, pushed aggressively by the conservatives with the collusion of the liberal parties placed on the defensive. Societies have become more polarized and the political gap within the ruling class has widened under pressure from discontented forces both within and outside of the party establishments. However, there is no mass movement of the left comparable to that which threatened the system in the 19th and 20th centuries, especially following the Russian Revolution and the appearance of mass Communist parties. It is that which provoked the fascist reaction encouraged and funded by capitalists who felt most under threat. While Trump’s boisterous posturing invites comparisons, his administration has more in common with the tradition embodied by Ronald Reagan than with the single-party dictatorships of Hitler and Mussolini. I’m attaching an article published several months ago surveying the policies of Project 2025 and their partial implementation with respect to democratic rights and social programs to date. I respectfully invite Tony and Hari to indicate which programmatic elements represent a throwback to fascism or Bonapartism rather than bourgeois democracy. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yvvjw8pdvo -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42561): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42561 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119773879/21656 -=-=- 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/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
