Camilo Lazo | National Chair of the American Party of Labor–

 “Get[ting] rich not by production, but by pocketing the already available wealth of others, clashing every moment with the bourgeois laws themselves, an unbridled assertion of unhealthy and dissolute appetites manifested itself, particularly at the top of bourgeois society – lusts wherein wealth derived from gambling naturally seeks its satisfaction, where pleasure becomes degeneracy, where money, filth, and blood commingle… in [his] mode of acquisition as well as in [his] pleasures, [he] is nothing but the rebirth of the lumpenproletariat on the heights of bourgeois society.”

Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France.

Donald Trump may well go down to a humiliating and ignominious defeat in the upcoming U.S. presidential election. Many are cheering the apparently substantial gains made by the Democratic Harris/Walz ticket over the past two months and prematurely celebrating the end of American fascism. This is a mistaken and dangerous position to take. While an electoral defeat in November may be the end of the 78-year-old Trump’s political career, it most certainly does not mean the decline, much less the defeat of the fascist, reactionary, and xenophobic elements in American society that Trump has come to represent. Should the American electorate reject Trump in November, it could signal the decline of Trumpism as a charismatic cult devoted to the whims of its leader, it could delay the implementation of authoritarian programs such as Project 2025, and it could temporarily block the increasing fascistization of American capitalism and political culture; but it will in no sense end that process of fascistization. Trumpism might be delivered a significant blow, but MAGA will remain.

Fascism has a long history in American political life. Indeed, its predecessors in the form of the Know-Nothings, Nativists, and the Ku Klux Klan have deep roots in the early history of the United States. From the second generation KKK of the 1920s to the American Nazi Party of the 1960s to the various Nazi, racist, and terrorist groups spawned in the 1980s, American fascism has been a constant, albeit often hidden, feature of American political life. Brought out of the shadows due to the violent reaction against movements for progressive and democratic social change, and given a lease on life by the Reagan administration’s successful wooing of the fundamentalist religious right, American fascism was brought to the center stage by the internet, social media, the rapid spread of irrationalist conspiracy theories and creation of various platforms dedicated to their dissemination. MAGA is the end result of a decades-long process. That American fascism found its Duce in the person of a media-created pseudo-celebrity has aided that process, but is not the reason for that process.

Fascism is the result of the crisis of capitalism. Fascism is capitalism in extremis. Fascism is capitalism in decay, a capitalism that can no longer rule in the old way, a capitalism desperate to hold on to its profits and willing to go to extremes of terroristic violence in order to maintain the very fabric of its society and its class rule intact. Defeating Trump at the ballot box will not resolve the contradictions of capitalism – the very well springs of fascism.

Should Trump and his acolytes disappear tomorrow, not only will the capitalist crisis that brought them to the forefront remain, but the myriad of national and local reactionary, religious fundamentalist, white supremacist, and anti-democratic forces and organizations that have, so far, ridden his coat tails will remain. Groups such as Moms for Liberty, Turning Point, USA, the Proud Boys, and the host of smaller violence and vitriol spewing organizations will continue.  Indeed, a Trump defeat at the polls may embolden them to greater acts of violence and further targeting of vulnerable and marginalized peoples and individuals. MAGA is not going to simply go away. Neither are those persons who have made political and media-oriented careers espousing and enabling its hatred, ignorance, and violence.

Fascism has proven to be remarkably resilient.  Shortly after what many thought to be its final destruction in 1945, fascist organizations began to reform and re-emerge. Even in the former Soviet Union and the states of people’s democracy, as soon as the suppressing hand of worker’s power and socialism was lifted, all the old pre-war fascist groups, the Vlasovites and Banderites in what used to be Soviet territory, the Ustashe and Chetniks in what used to Yugoslavia, the Arrow Cross in Hungary, and the Iron Guard in Romania, all returned. We would be fools to think that the mere loss of an election or the frustration of a real estate conman’s Hitlerian fantasies will mean the end of American fascism.

Additionally, we would be remiss if we were to not point out the hypocrisy of a Democratic Party that itself enabled American racism and fascism, and was impotent to stem its rise even at the cost of their own lives. This self-same Democratic Party presents itself as the champion of American “democracy” against the threat of MAGA and Trumpism, while at the same time continuing exploitative and anti-worker policies at home and supporting genocidal imperialism abroad.

Elections will not defeat fascism. History, experience, and common sense have demonstrated as much. The only thing that will defeat fascism, as that same history, experience, and common sense have shown, is the concerted mass action of the working, exploited, and marginalized people themselves. Fascism is not defeated at the ballot box, it is defeated in the streets. To rid ourselves of MAGA and Trumpism once and for all is to rid ourselves of capitalism once and for all.

REVOLUTION IS THE SOLUTION. There is no other way.

Categories: Elections, Government, U.S. News