A triumphant aura swirled around Donald Trump as he delivered his presidential inauguration speech, inflamed by the growing support of Big Imperialist Capital for his administration, which was enthusiastic about financial deregulation, deregulation of artificial intelligence, tax cuts for the super-rich and a renewed enthusiasm for fully exploiting America’s oil and gas fields. Due to the cold, the ceremony was moved indoors, and Trump delivered his speech to an exclusive room packed with members of Congress, the Supreme Court and the Big Tech billionaires who will play a central role in his Administration. Democrats, who just a few months ago claimed Trump was a fascist, shook his hand and praised the peaceful transfer of power.
To begin the speech, Trump declared that “America’s golden age begins right now.” Although he did not win the election by a wide margin and received fewer votes than Joe Biden, his predecessor in the presidency, Trump said: “My recent election is a mandate to completely and totally reverse a horrible betrayal and all these many betrayals that have took place and give back to the people their faith, their wealth, their democracy and, indeed, their freedom. From this moment on, America’s decline is over. This sense of having a strong mandate shaped the entire speech.
Proposing rhetoric aimed at demagogueting the workers who “made America great” in an openly religious environment, Trump’s speech was a combination of a loaded imperialist agenda – particularly aggressive with Latin America – that literally alluded to restoring the ” manifest destiny” of US imperialism as an internationally respected and admired superpower with a supposed “common sense revolution” that seeks to harshly attack basic democratic rights. It was an even more right-wing version of former President Ronald Reagan’s “City on a Hill” speech, in which the former president also tried to reclaim the banner of “common sense” and advocated peace through strength. Trump intentionally placed himself in the conversation with William McKinkey – known in his time as the “Napoleon of protection” – and Theodore Roosevelt, specifically regarding Roosevelt’s construction of the Panama Canal. And he received cheers and applause from businessmen like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, who were part of a contingent of super-rich who attended the inauguration as VIP guests of the president after donating significant sums to his campaign and the inauguration ceremony itself.
President Trump is expected to sign up to 100 executive orders (decrees) within hours of taking office this Monday, and in his speech, he said he will sign an executive order declaring a national emergency on the border with Mexico (this received about a full standing ovation from the entire room) and deploying troops. He also promised to begin the mass deportation process, and continued his demonization of immigrants. It is clear – as Trump said in his second speech of the day, to those gathered on the floor of Congress – that immigration is his number one concern and he will try to create much more unfavorable conditions for immigrants and oversee mass deportations.
An expansionist and aggressive speech against Latin America
In foreign policy, Trump adopted a more bellicose tone than usual and gave a speech that promised more aggressiveness toward Latin America. In fact, the aggression towards the region that we have been seeing from Trump intensified during the speech when he declared that he was “taking back [el Canal de Panamá]”because China is using the canal and the Panamanian government has not been cooperating sufficiently with US interests. For Trump, securing these trade routes is an essential part of this program to reaffirm US hegemony in the region. In fact, More than half of US imports pass through the Canal, making it a location of key geostrategic importance. Additionally, two key Canal ports are operated by Chinese companies, pointing to the growth of that country’s influence in the US. the region. American control over the Canal would require a significant escalation of the conflict with Panama.
Also announcing the plan to send troops to the southern border to “stop the invasion,” as he racistly defines it, and designating the cartels as terrorist organizations, increases military threats to Mexico and essentially lays the groundwork for the military intervene in Latin America. The speech presented a manifest destiny approach that promised to expand American territory, even going so far as to include Mars as a place where the United States will plant its flag. Stating that he wants to be known as a “peacemaker and unifier,” Trump said that “we will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end, and perhaps most importantly, by the wars we never engage in.” let’s get in.” However, he remains perfectly willing to threaten (and use) the Army to advance US interests, which are taking on a new expansionist cast.
Trump announces a “common sense revolution” with conservative and anti-rights measures
Another key part of the speech was what Trump called “the common sense revolution,” which appears to consist of demagogic, empty praise for workers – such as auto workers and truck drivers, whom Trump specifically yelled at in the speech. while harshly attacking immigration and the so-called “woke.” Trump spoke out harshly against schools, claiming they were teaching students to hate themselves and the United States, and promised to harshly attack trans rights in his executive orders. This section of the speech is in line with what we have previously called an “austerity without rights” approach, in which attacks on workers are unleashed alongside attacks on the especially oppressed. The speed of attacks on rights is intentional, and it will be important to respond to these attacks by starting to organize and fight the far right. That Trump can even claim that his policies are “common sense” demonstrates that the bipartisan regime, dominated by the Republican and Democratic Parties, has largely normalized the new president’s speech.
He also said he will pass a national energy emergency bill that will lift restrictions on oil companies to fully pursue the “drill, drill, drill” promise that has so excited the oil industry, and that will put end to the mandate on electric vehicles implemented by Biden. He argued that these energy policies will revive the American economy, building a prosperous future for citizens.
Trump has taken full advantage of the deep discontent against Joe Biden’s government, which oversaw a genocide in Gaza (with a fragile ceasefire reached in part because Trump leaned on Israeli Prime Minister Netenyahu) and inflation that raised prices for the American working class. Emboldened, Trump promised to “end the government’s policy of attempting to socially engineer race and gender into every aspect of public and private life. We will forge a color-blind, merit-based society.” This threatens many programs, from affirmative action to DEI training to the accuracy of school history textbooks and beyond. Trump’s strength is based on the fact that the Democratic Party is demoralized, disorganized, and increasingly embraces the rhetoric and program of the right.
Taking advantage of the momentum he has gained, Trump intends to move forward quickly by making significant changes in the Government, and insisted that his Administration is preparing the largest operation against illegal immigration in history. He also reiterated that he will impose tariffs on the United States’ trading partners. He has promised so much tariff revenue that he is creating an “External Revenue Service” to manage the funds.
Almost immediately after the inauguration speech, Trump headed to the guest room, filled with lower-ranking elected officials who were not invited to the inauguration (such as Texas Governor Greg Abbott) and other Trump supporters. There, the president gave the “real” inauguration speech, the one he told the crowd he wanted to give but that, according to him, Melania Trump and JD Vance prevented him. In his typical Trump campaign speech style, he promised to release the January 6 “hostages” (the date Trump supporters took over Congress to prevent Joe Biden from being declared the winner of the presidential election), as well as stating once again that he had won the 2020 election. He explained that anti-immigration policies are at the very heart of his campaign, that immigration was more at the center of his politics than even inflation. And once again, he reached out to the working class, specifically the Teamsters (truckers) and Sean O’Brien, arguing that union workers are with him. This meandering, self-aggrandizing, far-right speech, with continuous comments against his vice president, JD Vance, for making him change his original speech, is the “real” Trump who today will pardon the far-right supporters of January 6 and dedicate himself to attack immigrants and other oppressed people. Just an hour after the end of his speech, features of the CBP One app related to asylum applications were removed, making Trump’s anti-immigrant promises a reality.
Donald Trump is emboldened in the current moment largely because the traditional leaders of the working class (the union bureaucrats) are negotiating to work with the new government. The weekend before the inauguration, UAW President Shawn Fain announced that he is willing to “work with Trump,” as did Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders. The president of Teamsters International (truckers), Sean O’Brien, has been working with Trump for months. Clearly, these union leaders will not lead the fight against the new government. Rather, workers, students, and the oppressed need to organize and build bodies of self-organization within their workplaces, unions, organizations, and communities. These bodies can be the foundation through which we can build the fight against Trump, the far right, the rise of nationalism and attacks on our democratic rights.
It’s time to harness the anger we all feel and organize to combat Donald Trump’s far-right government and win a better world.
Source: www.laizquierdadiario.com
