[Edited Message Follows] In trying to draw the parallel to the Trump administration, Tony suggests that Louis Napolean’s coup d’etat and subsequent proclamation that he was Emperor of France was not a “rupture” but a gradual process of creeping authoritarianism culminating in the 18th Brumaire, and that Marx viewed it that way. Tony writes: "It is not shown that Bonapartism betrayed the parliamentary republic; rather, it is shown that it came from it. Article by article and purge by purge, the Party of Order destroys the political conditions of its own rule, and Bonaparte takes over the mess.”
In fact, Louis Napoleon as President abruptly dissolved the National Assembly on December 2, 1851 and with it any semblance of independent politcal parties and an independent press and other democratic rights which existed in the second Republic. Marx compared the coup to his uncle Napoleon Bonaparte’s similar dissolution of the legislature and seizure of absolute power on November 9, 1799 - otherwise known as the Eighteenth Brumaire in the French revolutionary calendar. Hence my view that “if Trump is able to blatantly rig the election and neutralize opposition from within the ruling class, from even within its Republican wing, only then will I accept that he's risen above the classes and parties as arbiter” in the manner of the two Bonapartes. Trump aspires to be an autocrat but we have not yet arrived at that point. The only evidence Tony seems to rely on is Trump's extraordinarily corrupt behaviour which will likely draw the scrutiny of congressional committees should the Democrats win control of the House in the midterms. That we are able to talk of the Democrats gaining control of one or both houses and checking Trump represents the difference between one person or one party rule and two-party bourgeois democracy. Similar fears that Orban and Bolsinaro had established dictatorial regimes behind a figleaf of bourgeois democracy proved to be unfounded. The odds point to a similar outcome in the US with its more dominant capitalist class and longer history of democratic rights won in popular struggle. Earlier today, I referred to Project 2025 as the Trump administration program which placed it in the right-wing conservative tradition of Ronald Reagan rather than fascism and Bonapartism. I'll look forward to Tony’s reply. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#42568): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/42568 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/120334411/21656 -=-=- 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]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
