Donald Trump

Arnold August on Trump's Cuba policy: what will happen in coming months?

By Arnold August

July 7, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Resumen Latinoamericano — The official June 16 statement was barely uttered when the majority nationwide opposition to the Trump Cuba policy was once again reignited. Indeed, it was already extremely active and vocal before the Little Havana, Miami venue and date were announced on June 9. By stage-managing the event in Little Havana, Trump was preaching to the choir, one that does not even include the rest of Florida, where the majority of Cuban-Americans oppose the blockade, or at least support the Obama policy of making the blockade somewhat more flexible. Trump’s trademark manner of hand-picking events to spread the word across the country will not work. His Cold War rhetoric will not detract the forces that want to increase trade and travel to Cuba.

Global capitalist crisis and Trump’s war drive

By William I. Robinson

May 14, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — The recent U.S. attack on Syria and mega-bombing of Afghanistan come at a time when the Donald Trump regime is facing a mounting scandal over alleged Russian involvement in its 2016 electoral campaign, historically low approval ratings for an incoming presidency, and a growing mass grassroots resistance movement. U.S. rulers have often launched military adventures abroad to deflect attention from political crises and problems of legitimacy at home.

Trump and after: Letters from North America

March 7, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Left Unity — One of the most important areas of work for socialists in Europe in the period of Trump will be to establish ongoing working political relationships with comrades in the US and Canada. To that end Left Unity will increase our coverage of politics across the pond. We will begin with a new ‘letter from North America’ courtesy of Ernie Tate. Ernie is a lifelong revolutionary who emigrated to Canada from Northern Ireland as a young man. In the 1960s working in Britain he was one of the most important activists of the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign. He has recently produced a two volume memoir of that period, “Revolutionary Activism of the 1950s and 1960s”, published by Resistance Books. Now at the age of 82 and living in Toronto he is still active and an acute observer of the political scene. Ernie will send us his thoughts twice monthly. Below are the first two instalment written to Phil Hearse his longtime friend and comrade.

Building a socialist left under Trump

With Flynn Murray, Charlie Post, Jen Roesch and Bhaskar Sunkara

March 2, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from We Are Many— As Trump enters the White House, millions of people are looking for a way to fight back against what is sure to be an all-out assault on the rights of women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, immigrants, and the working class as a whole. Our effectiveness in the struggle ahead requires clear strategy and tactics and a commitment to work together to cohere a strong socialist pole of attraction within the emerging movements against oppression and austerity.

Following the historic national mass mobilizations taking place during the inauguration weekend, the Democratic Socialists of America, the International Socialist Organization and Solidarity invite you to join us for a comradely discussion and debate on the next steps for socialists in the Trump era.

US policy in Syria: Confused or just confusing?

By Tony Iltis

February 27, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, the US has been involved, at first, through arming and supporting groups opposing the dictatorship of Bashar Assad, and supporting allies in the region doing likewise; and since 2014, through its direct involvement in leading an international coalition in an air war against ISIS.

Small numbers of US Special Forces and CIA operatives are also in Syria, supporting different, mutually antagonistic groups in the multi-sided conflict.

The US role in Syria often appears confused and contradictory. This seems set to increase under the new US administration.

Will science go rogue against Donald Trump?

By Chris Williams

"Please let us remember that to investigate the constitution of the universe is one of the greatest and noblest problems in nature, and it becomes still grander when directed toward another discovery."

February 22, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Worker with the author's permission — IN THE age of Trump, the person writing those words has much to teach us about the impending scientific struggles of our own time.

World politics after Trump and Brexit

By Socialist Resistance

February 20, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Socialist Resistance — The vote in Britain for leaving the European Union and the victory of Donald Trump in the US presidential election are part of the same process and not coincidental events. What we are witnessing is a worldwide shift to the right, represented by Trump, the rise of the so-called ‘populist’ right in Europe, by Modi in India, by the decline and semi-collapse of ‘socialism for the 21st century’ in Latin America and by morbid phenomena like the rise of Isis and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, an openly death squad government.

As in all periods of intense crisis there is a political polarisation and the emergence also of significant forces to the left, represented in Europe by the Corbyn trend in the Labour Party, Podemos in Spain, the continued strength of the Portuguese Left Bloc and Communist Party, Syriza in Greece and in a different way Bernie Sanders in the United States.

China and Trumpism: the political contradictions of global capitalism

February 14, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — When China’s richest man, Want Jianlin, warned last December that a U.S. trade war against China would result in disaster for the United States it was no idle threat. Trump scores political points with his social base each time he rails at Beijing yet the U.S. and the global economy would grind to a halt if it were not for China’s preponderant role in shoring up global capitalism at this moment of acute crisis.

Trump and climate catastrophe

By John Bellamy Foster

This very expensive GLOBAL WARMING bullshit has got to stop.

Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are stuck in ice.

—Donald Trump, January 2, 2014[1]

February 5, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Monthly Review — The alarm bells are ringing. The climate-change denialism of the Trump administration, coupled with its goal of maximizing fossil-fuel extraction and consumption at all costs, constitutes, in the words of Noam Chomsky, “almost a death knell for the human species.” As noted climatologist Michael E. Mann has declared, “I fear that this may be game over for the climate.”[2]

Pakistan: Awami Workers Party condemns Trump's travel ban on citizens and residents of 7 Muslim-majority countries

By Farooq Tariq

January 29, 2017 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — The Awami Workers Party condemns the travel ban on citizens and residents of 7 Muslim-majority countries instituted by the administration of President Donald Trump. While the ban has been instituted in the name of securing the United States from terrorism, the order is in effect, a collective ban on a particular religious community from those countries – Muslims – including legal residents of the United States, from entering the United States. It is also painfully ironic that the bulk of the countries affected by the ban – including Iraq, Yemen, Syria, and Libya – are those that the US and its allies, including Saudi Arabia, have invaded or bombed in recent years, creating thousands of refugees in the process.

Women’s Marches: from protest to movement? (plus Angela Davis speech at Women's March on Washington

“Over the next months and years we will be called upon to intensify our demands for social justice, to become more militant in our defense of vulnerable populations. Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy had better watch out.

“The next 1,459 days of the Trump administration will be 1,459 days of resistance: Resistance on the ground, resistance in the classrooms, resistance on the job, resistance in our art and in our music.

Tripping up Trumpism through a global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign

By Patrick Bond

January 23, 2017 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal – The forces arrayed against Donald Trump’s presidency and neo-fascist movement range from the Central Intelligence Agency to oppressed minorities, and will soon encompass the whole world once his climate change threats are carried out. From above, conflicts will continue with moderate Republicans, Democratic Party elites, so-called Deep State opponents including neoconservative factions of the military, exporting companies concerned about protectionism, and deficit hawks worried about excess spending on filthy-Keynesian infrastructure.

Bolivian VP Alvaro Garcia Linera on Trump, Brexit: Globalization as ideology is dead and buried

By Alvaro Garcia Linera

January 20, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from WorldCrunch –– The mad rush toward a world without borders and relentless squeezing of the nation-state in the name of liberating commerce is coming to an end. Before the gasps of the globalized elite, the near-religious conviction that all societies were bound to coalesce into a single economic, financial and cultural whole has collapsed.

Britain's decision to abandon the European Union, the most important state unification project of the past 100 years, coupled with Donald Trump's electoral victory that rode on vows to boost protectionism, build a monumental wall to stem migration, and ditch trade pacts have annihilated the biggest and most successful liberal dreams of our time. And when you think the protagonists of this historic reversal are the two principle countries that 35 years ago trumpeted the advent of global trade as humanity's salvation, we inevitably find ourselves in a world bereft of a dream that impelled it for a century.

Estados Unidos: La ascensión del trumpismo

[Original in English here]

Por Barry Sheppard

13 de enero 2017 –– Traducido por Faustino Eguberri para Viento Sur –– Una de las características de la reciente campaña electoral presidencial habrá sido la manifestación de las profundas divisiones en el seno de los dos partidos, demócrata y republicano. Esto se añadía al atasco en el Congreso, el pat, entre los dos partidos del capitalismo. Además de esto, el país está muy polarizado a propósito de la raza, la economía y muchas otras cuestiones.

Etats-Unis. L’ascension du trumpisme

[Original in English here]

Par Barry Sheppard

13 janvier 2017 - traduction A l’Encontre - Une des caractéristiques de la récente campagne électorale présidentielle aura été les profondes divisions au sein des deux partis, démocrate et républicain. Cela s’ajoutait à l’impasse au Congrès, le pat, entre les deux partis du capitalisme. En plus de cela, le pays est très polarisé à propos de la race, de l’économie et de beaucoup d’autres questions.

Will Washington’s new pro-Moscow, anti-Beijing gang drive a wedge through the BRICS in 2017?

By Patrick Bond

January 9, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– The weeks following an underwhelming Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) mid-September summit in Goa and the United States presidential election in November have unveiled ever-widening contradictions. Thanks to blatant corruption, presidential delegitimation has reached unprecedented levels in both Brazil and South Africa, while ruling-party religious degeneracy in India also included an extraordinary bout of local currency mismanagement. And sudden new foreign-policy divergences may wreak havoc in China and Russia. The BRICS bloc’s relations could well destabilise to the breaking point.

From Obama to Trump: The failure of passive revolution

By William I. Robinson

January 8, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– Barack Obama declared to CNN this past December 26 that he could have beaten Donald Trump had he the chance to run against the president elect for a third term, but he may have done more than anyone else to assure Trump’s victory.

While Trump’s election has triggered a rapid expansion of fascist currents in US civil society and the political system, a fascist outcome is far from inevitable and will depend on the fight back that has already begun. But that fight back requires clarity as to how we got to such a dangerous precipice. The seeds of a 21st century fascism were planted, fertilized, and watered by the government of outgoing president Barack Obama and the bankrupt liberal elite that Obama’s presidency represents.

United States: The rise of Trumpism

By Barry Sheppard

January 6, 2017 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal –– A feature of the recent election campaign was the deep divisions in both the Democratic and Republican parties. This was on top of the stalemate in Congress between the twin parties of capitalism. In addition, the nation is polarized over race, the economy and many other issues.

Also, it should be noted that there is and was no mass working class party that could have championed an alternative.

Donald Trump emerged and was then elected as the strongman who would take over and set things right, although exactly how he will do this has been left open on many issues.

United States: Trump’s demand to ban Muslim immigration is extreme, but not outside the mainstream

Young men play basketball at a Japanese internment camp in 1944.

January 6, 2017 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Antipodean Atheist with permission – There are many analyses of the incoming Donald Trump administration examining the reasons for his electoral victory, the racism and Islamophobia that he deployed to win votes, his populist appeals to the American working class, the emboldened position of the “alt-right”, and the ultra-rightist nature of his incoming cabinet.

It is no exaggeration to state, for instance, that his chief-of-staff, the man Trump turns to first for political advice, is an outright fascist. It is not difficult to ascertain that the leading personnel of the Trump regime, composed of billionaires, ex-generals and ultra-rightist psychopaths, are going to make life harder for the US working class – and by that I mean people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Trump and the limits of globalization

By Steve Ellner

December 30, 2016 –– Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from Steve Ellner’s blog with the author’s permission –– Many analysts have belittled the seriousness of Donald Trump's anti-globalization rhetoric and even such jingoistic proposals as the construction of a wall along the Mexican border. They point to Trump’s appointments of such global players as Rex Tillerson and Steven Mnuchin as evidence that Trump cannot and will not turn his back on global commitments and realities.

Along these lines, William I. Robinson (whose work I have always admired and used extensively in the classroom) argues that Trump represents the rise of neo-fascism, but in no way threatens to put a halt to, or a break on, globalization. As proof, he points to the global dimensions of Trump’s own capitalist holdings.

In contrast to Robinson, I argue that globalization is still basically a tendency rather than an all-encompassing reality and that the nation state is a fundamental element, which has to be at the center of any analysis of the world’s political economy.

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