Trumka, Trump and the White Worker

Trump and AFL-CIO head Trumka

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

Richard Trumka is upset. Trumka is the head of the AFL-CIO, the national trade union federation representing 12.5 million US workers. He’s mad at the “moderates” in the White House who are “starting to hijack Trump’s trade agenda.” making it hard for Trump to keep his promises. He didn’t call out China for being a currency manipulator on his first day in office as he promised. He hasn’t opened negotiations on NAFTA as he promised and he hasn’t said anything about imposing “steep tariffs on China and Mexico” as he promised.  Trumka would say he’s happy Trump didn’t lock up Clinton or fulfill his pledge to get rid of Obamacare most likely. It’s trade Trumka is concerned about, he wants the US government to force US capitalists to invest in and hire American workers.

Trumka is a protectionist.  He ignores the lessons of Smoot Hawley, the series of protectionist measures introduced to protect US industry in 1930 right after the Great Depression hit. US trading partners retaliated and Smoot Hawley made the depression and suffering worse, helping drive the move to world war. The world economy is far more integrated now than it was then and the “moderates” know that. And where does Trumka's position put solidarity across borders? How is siding with US capitalists against their foreign rivals help us build solidarity with foreign workers working for those rivals? You're right---it doesn't. What Trumka is saying is lay off Germans, lay off Japanese or Mexicans or whatever. It's a disaster, the Team Concept at the international level.

Trumka and the clique atop organized labor are picky when it comes to criticism mind you. Their buddy Obama screwed them with the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), an issue so important paid staffers around the country were touting it as the savior of the labor movement----for them. Obama abandoned the “government option” another promise, as he crafted Obamacare that has some good points as evidenced by the inability of the present gang to dismantle it; though it is completely inadequate as a health care system for a nation of 300 million people.

The union hierarchy has literally given billions of dollars over the years to the Democratic Party, that other party of Wall Street. Their candidate, Hillary Clinton received $31 million in the race against Trump. In one of those rare moments when the two most unpopular candidates in the history of US politics were on offer, the likes of Trumka and the union officialdom and most of the US bourgeois found themselves cheering for the same person.

Years of supporting the Democratic Party and offering concession after concession to the bosses’ in the hope of better days has driven millions of workers to abandon politics altogether. Why bother voting when the only result has been lower living standards? The relationship the union leadership has built with the bosses' based on labor peace and safeguarding profits, has lead many workers and union members, to draw the conclusion that their leaders are simply corrupt.

The likes of Trumka have no independent ideas of their own. They often come out of the universities and think tanks of the capitalist class where they soak up their economic policies and political world outlook like a sponge. The fact is that we live in a world economy like it or not, the laws of capitalism dictate it. Yet within this world economy the existence of nation states each with competing interests act as a constant obstacle to growth, a source of friction and eventually war. The argument for free trade on the one hand or protectionist policies on the other are different capitalist solutions to an insoluble problem, they both lead to disaster for workers.  Globalization has alleviated this problem to a degree, but only temporarily. Only a rational, collectively owned managed and planned global system of production can overcome this contradiction and open a period of genuine cooperation and peace between a global federation of democratic socialist states.

This is not an option for the heads of organized labor so they flip flop from one extreme to the other, each of them trying to protect their little corner of the labor broker market as that’s how they see themselves, they are labor brokers and its their job to provide this valuable commodity to capitalists at the best possible price under the most favorable conditions.

Before Trump’s election victory, a victory the vast majority of experts did not foresee, Trumka savaged Trump. “Trump is Trump….” , he told the Financial Times in September, “……He’s a racist, he’s a bigot, he’s xenophobic and he’s a misogynist. But most of all he’s anti-worker. He’s always been anti-worker,”  Trumka was convinced Trump would lose you see, hence the vitriolic tone.  As we say in the US, "Who's your daddy now?"

When he met with Trump in January of this year, Trumka said: “We had a very productive first meeting with the President-elect,”  Not be outdone by the Predator in Chief he rushed out a tweet: "A very honest and productive conversation this morning with @realDonaldTrump,"

Trumka and the whole lot of them that pledged to "work with" rather than "against" this degenerate and enemy of working people have to be sent packing.

Now Trumka is defending him against the moderate free traders who are “hijacking” his plan.

As I have stated before, the leadership at the helm of organized labor are responsible for the rise of Trump. They are the reason workers do not have a party of our own and the movement against the capitalist offensive has been delayed and will, as it arises, be wracked with confusion at times and periods of reaction and violence as the US working class struggles to find its feet.

Too many opportunities have been lost. Over decades, we have seen a steady decline in living standards and rising inequality as a minority of families accumulate untold wealth. The security state has grown in preparation for the battles to come. Workers’ efforts to fight back like the numerous strikes in the 1980’s and early nineties were defeated by a combination of the employers and our own leaders. Only recently, building trades leaders met with Trump and praised him as the public sector union heads accept fate and hope they can get their Democratic friends in to office in 2020. They continue to urge workers to vote for a political party they abandoned long ago.

Racism has been very effective method of dividing the working class in the US as white workers got the better jobs, better housing, education, and generally a better life. Black Americans have historically been denied an entry in to this world and all statistics bear this out. From slavery through Jim Crow and today, institutionalized racism has created two worlds here.

But it has become harder for the US ruling class to provide these benefits to the white worker. If racism was a good thing for the white worker we would have had a better standard of living in the Apartheid South but we didn't. Racism was stronger, unions and worker solidarity weaker and wages and conditions worse.

The post war blue collar jobs that were an entry in to the middle class for white workers in particular have gone. After Trump’s Nov. 8 win, Trumka said he reached out to the Trump to say he was willing to work with him on improving existing trade agreement. “Entire communities have lost their purpose and identity. And we have to fix that,” Trumka said. First off, Trump doesn't give a crap that Trumka reached out to him, he's not afraid of Trumka.  And Trumka is wrong on this jobs issue. These jobs have not solely gone to China as he wants us to believe but fallen prey to innovation and technology. These jobs are not coming back.

This and the disgust millions of workers have with the two capitalist parties and consequently politics in general was another opportunity lost. Millions of workers have given up. Others saw in Trump a rebel, not one of the Washington crowd they hate. On the left, the Democrat Sanders had the same appeal.  Many of the white working class voters that voted for Trump had previously voted for Obama.

US capitalism is forced by the system to drive down the living standards of the US working class and the white working class has not been exempt. The life expectancy of white workers without a college degree is declining. There is massive white, mostly rural poverty and as the Financial Times points out, “In 1999, white men and women aged 50 to 54 with a high school education had a mortality rate 30% lower than black Americans. In 2015 it was 30% higher.”*

This is a staggering statistic. It has only recently been raised to any significant extent and is masked to a degree by the declining mortality rate among college educated white Americans. The information is in a paper published yesterday by two economists, Anne Case and Sir Angus Deaton.  This is a generation abandoned by capitalism, a generation whose parents benefited from institutionalized racism in the US and the rise of US power in the post World War Two era.

Opioids have been a contributor to this crisis but drug addiction, the health care system and the statistics above are all a product of the so-called free market. “There was something rotten going on even before Oxycotin was introduced,….”, says Ms Case, “…people want to feed the beast (of despair). They may do that with drugs. They may do that with alcohol. They may do that with food.” I might add with stuff that looks like food and fills the belly and they may also do it with religion.

Another opportunity is lost. The conditions are ripe for an alternative in the US. Had the heads of organized labor offered one, used the resources, human and financial, and their control of an apparatus with a huge national structure to attack the source of the problem, many of the people that were drawn to Trump or Sanders would have provided the base for a real working class movement and political alternative to Trump and Clinton. One third of Sanders supporters went over to Trump from what I read. People do desperate things in desperate times.

But Trumka and the trade union hierarchy offered Clinton to the masses. The heads of organized labor are primarily to blame for the rise of Trump and his election. And now we have him, they will “work” with him. The union member has a responsibility here to remove this clique that heads our organizations.

I would like to finish with this point. I understand that many white workers that voted for Trump did so out of desperation. A lot of them voted for Obama and received no relief, millions of blacks received no relief under Obama also. Am I correct in saying only 12% of black folks turned out to vote last November? These white workers put aside, ignored the horrible racist, sexist and vicious anti-immigrant campaign Trump ran. “I’m no racist, just get me a job, I have to feed the family.”

Well not only will Trump not get them a job; he will savage them further and they are in an even weaker position now because by voting for Trump, supporting Trump in any way, not openly condemning Trump for the degenerate that he is, those white workers sacrificed unity with workers of color and women for a pipe dream. They kept their mouths shut in the hope this degenerate would help them out and in doing this they have weakened their own ability to fight back.  I want to make it openly clear, it is not difficult to overcome the crises we are all facing, a crisis of capitalism, but we have to have working class unity to do it. And part of that is for us as white workers is to make it absolutely clear that we will not be conned in to this false unity with the white capitalist class that rule society based on a unity of skin tone. They have no love for us.

“This looks like a generation that is never going to recover from this and as they get older its going to get worse.” said Deaton, the other author of the paper.

Deaton doesn’t see the working class as a force at all in society, if he does think of it, it is likely in a negative light. But the working class will fight back and it will seek class allies in that process. Those that voted for Trump would have been in a stronger position now had they not voted for anyone. More importantly, if they had openly condemned his racist and sexist attacks on other sections of the working class. This would have changed the balance of class forces in our favor rather than divide and weaken us.

It’s never too late of course, and if we are to drive back the capitalist offensive, overcoming institutionalized racism and other forms of class division is crucial.

* White ‘deaths of despair” Surge in the US:  FT 3-26-17

A Reflection on West Virginia and Trump

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

It is interesting to watch this two years in to the Trump nightmare. It is very revealing and also drives home what we always bring up on this blog and what so many leftists and self styled socialist organizations refuse to do do, and that is to point an accusatory finger at the role of the trade union hierarchy in the rise of Trump and his eventual victory.

The part of the world in this video has a long history of trade unionism and working class militancy.  This history is so embedded in the community that it's a badge of honor for anyone that mentions they have a connection to it.

The first old guy who comments is no fool. He says later on in the video that "Politicians are politicians. They make promises and never keep them." I have commented on this too many times to mention with regard to electoral politics, that because the labor hierarchy has failed to offer working people an alternative in the form of an independent working class party, and they have the resources and structure to do that, people like the man I am quoting here and millions of US workers, draw the conclusion that all politics and therefore all politicians are bad. They make promises and never keep them.

But it's not that these politicians are bad in the sense that it's about corruption, character flaws or a personal problem. A political party is not devoid of class interests; it represents the economic interests of a certain class of people. The only political options we as workers have, is to vote for candidates of one of the two capitalist parties that have dominated US political life for 150 years or more and the era of their dominance is coming to an end.

These Democratic and Republican politicians, representing the economic interests of bosses' capitalists, the rich, whatever we wish to call them, can't tell the truth in their election material because who would vote for someone that tells them they are going to cut their social services as dismal as they are? Who would vote for a candidate knowing they will cut their wages and benefits, eliminate their jobs, and make sure the corporations still get all the breaks? The reader knows the answer to that. And they have to do these things because US capitalism is in an acute economic and political crisis. Maintaining it's huge military and bloated state apparatus trying to prevent it from losing global influence to its rivals has put the US in massive debt ($21 trillion or so at this point).  Both parties will shift the cost of this crisis on to the backs of the US working class. Getting rid of Trump may slow it a little bit although that's not guaranteed, it certainly won't stop it.

The dominant feeling among millions of Americans today is that there is nothing that can be done. Nothing will change so they have withdrawn from the game

But, as we know, there are many people that did vote and many white workers that voted for Trump. 
I have written enough vitriol about Trump that anyone who reads this blog must know where I stand. I have stated that White workers that voted for Trump hurt their own material interests because ignoring Trump's racism undermines trust and increases division between them and brothers and sisters of color.  Ignoring his misogyny has the same affect, it will strain the unity between working class men and women. We cannot fight back against the capitalist offensive if the working class is divided against itself and voting for Trump is a step in accomplishing that. Trump will not deliver on his promises either, even less so than any politician before him.

But I have also pointed out that aside form his ideological supporters, the Nazi's KKK and other racist elements not every white worker that voted for Trump was motivated by racial hatred. In Mcomb County Michigan which is overwhelmingly white and where Trump thrashed Clinton handily, those very same workers voted twice for Obama, against white candidates.

Like millions across the country, those white workers in Michigan have felt abandoned by the system and by both parties. Their purchasing power has declined, pensions threatened, and prescription drugs  costs have risen. Under both parties workers living standards have been savaged. Barack Obama didn't bail out the auto workers, he bailed out the auto bosses and workers know it. In the video above we see another older retired worker who says he voted for Obama before Trump. Another older worker doesn't even want to talk to the Democratic candidate canvassing for a vote,  pointing to the crisis in the community that has occurred with Democrats in the drivers seat apparently.

We see in the video a Democrat campaigning who is a former secret service agent and he has nothing significant to say. The woman campaigning with him, a relative perhaps, suggest things would be better if Google or Amazon came and took over the town, "It would be a lot cheaper for them" she adds. One doesn't need a degree in economics to know what that means. How does that inspire anyone?  The woman adds that Google or Amazon, "would be a cool place to work" that's the low level of class consciousness the candidates who claim to be for the working man and woman exhibit. The tech giants and the wasters that run them are understood to be super exploiters by any class conscious worker.

A resident in the video who once had a decent factory job and is now reduced to collecting aluminum cans agrees that the rich don't start from "the bottom", they "start at the top and stay there." Simply labeling these people as stupid or just motivated by racism by voting for Trump would be a mistake. I believe I read somewhere that life expectancy in West Virginia for men is equal to Ethiopia

Plenty of middle class professionals and budding entrepreneurs supported Trump hoping to make some financial gains form his policies; I think about 29% of Asians and a significant number of Latino's supported him. There is a strong ideological thread in the US that is adopted by many workers due to the weakening of the labor movement and suppression of labor history, that one has to be smart to make a lot of money as opposed to ruthless and individualistic, barring winning the pottery that is. The woman in the video who says that people that have money come from money is no fool.

While it's fine to be critical of workers, desperate workers that voted for Trump, we have to see the bigger picture and why people act against their own class interests. White workers like some who work in my former workplace that support Trump are a different matter. We were among the true aristocracy of labor, I was fortunate enough to have a great job, a German type job really,  that has given me a good life and fairly stable retirement (so far) and I thank those workers and all who  fought and died in the struggle for trade union rights and the rise of the public sector for giving it to me. Compared to millions of workers around the country we are an exception and voting for Trump on their part is sheer hypocrisy. But my former coworkers are under assault also.

On Obama
I can understand why some black brothers and sisters lose patience with whites folks at times, Trump's racism, his vile comments about immigrants. Why would a decent person vote for him? Isn't it a confirmation that they're all racists really?  How can they just ignore all his hateful persona?  Desperate people do not always make rational decisions unfortunately. Or they place their hope in charlatans.

When I saw that huge rally in Chicago I think it was and it was when Obama was selected as the Democratic candidate for president or won the presidency I can't remember, I saw Jesse Jackson weeping. I am no great fan of Jesse Jackson but those tears were real. What an historic moment given the brutal, violent racist history of this country that we have had a black family in the White House. And Obama is cultured, smart, eloquent, not unlike the cultured British colonialists who ruled India and half of Africa with extreme violence. Trump is the complete opposite, outwardly brutish, rude, stupid.

But one doesn't get to be head of the Harvard law review without being absolutely trusted by the white racist ruling class that runs this country. One certainly doesn't become president either. And one would not be a candidate of a party owned and funded by Wall Street and the billionaires in industry if that person threatened their economic interests.

Obama was good for them, they loved him. He warned them when he bailed out the banks and nationalized whole industries that the time for profits would return, but be patient. On the foreign policy front he escalated the imbecile Bush's drone wars and caused untold suffering and death for millions of people in the third world, overwhelmingly people of color.

But just as white liberals do, some black workers will put this aside, avoid it altogether, or they make excuses for it as having a black president is such an historic achievement it trumps all, no pun intended. We condemn the racists that could not abide a black family in the White House. And when it comes to the persona Obama beats Trump hands down but he is a slick and crafty representative of US imperialism, they loved him. He is the consummate bourgeois politician.

What is obvious to me is that US workers, which is the overwhelming majority of us, are thirsting for a real class alternative, not just a candidate or group that waffles on about socialism as Sanders does, and then supports the warmonger Hilary Clinton, but a party with a real class platform and candidates that make it clear which side of the class divide they are on. The reason race, color, gender, religion, moral issues take such a prominent place in US politics (they are issues we have to address of course) is the absence of the class alternative.

The pathetic Democrats "better deal" is seen for what it is, more of the same.  A huge percentage of Americans support socialism in one form or another. The Democratic Party will not fight for socialism and they will not fight for any significant reforms for working people because US capitalism is in crisis and they are forced to make US workers pay for it. We are in a new epoch.

The heads of organized labor are in the same position. They support capitalism, they worship the market and see no alternative and whenever it goes in to crisis they move to bail it out at the expense of their members' living standards and the material well being of the entire US working class.

The US working class is not as conservative as the mass media, the liberals and the trade union hierarchy would have us believe. Those workers that thought Trump would help them are going to be very angry and sorely disappointed. There is a huge vacuum in this country when it comes to leadership and filling that vacuum will be a confusing and contradictory process, but there is reason to be optimistic.

The Republicans’ Trump Problem. An analysis of the present situation

We share this piece that was originally published at Publicseminar.org 

I do not find much to disagree with in this analysis of the present situation in the race for the White House.  I agree that for the US capitalist class, including the Republicans and even the misogynists among them find Trump to be a real problem, he is not good for business and they will hold their noses and support Clinton if Trump is not stopped. Yes he is a capitalist but a parasitic one, a pimp of sorts.  The old Anglo Saxon  ruling class that run this country are not enamored with him. It is also important to recognize that Trump is not a fascist as the author explains. He has no military machine, no militia and as the author points out, Fascism is a product of a demoralized middle class (petty bourgeois) at a period in time when the big bourgeoisie is too weak to rule and the workers' movement gaining in strength and moving to the left.  The US ruling class is not in that position.

In my opinion the author also explains clearly the treacherous role the Democrats have played over time and the disaster of the lesser of two evils philosophy that sucks in independent movements where they meet their demise.  Sanders is not calling for or attempting to build an independent direct action mass movement, he is bringing the Democratic Party new forces where any hope of a real fightback will wither asway. He is a Zionist and supporter of US foreign policy and the drone wars. He supports Saudi Arabia becoming a more influential player in the Middle East and admires Jordan's King Abdullah. He does not attack the defense industry as a source of funds as well as a source of terrorism. It still is highly unlikely that he will win the Democratic Party nomination as the author points out.  It cannot be ruled out though as we are definitely experiencing earth shattering events in US electoral history. He is also is no real threat domestically, though Hilary Clinton is by far the better candidate for US capitalism. He doesn't as Jill Stein of the Greens does, call for nationalization of any section of of major industry or the banks and keeps his movement well contained  behind acceptable Democratic Party boundaries.  RM

The Republicans’ Trump Problem

Charles Post — March 31, 2016 Published on PublicSeminar.org

Donald Trump caricature, 2015 © DonkeyHotey | Flickr

The Republican Party has a problem. At the time I am writing (March 24, 2016), Donald Trump enjoys a clear lead in the race for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination. With nearly 60% (739) of the 1,237 delegates required for the nomination, more than both of his remaining opponents,

Ted Cruz of Texas (465) and John Kasich of Ohio (143). According to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com website, Trump is expected to win all or a majority of delegates from Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Indiana, West Virginia, Washington, California, and New Jersey. If he wins significant minorities of delegations from the remaining states (Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico), he will be in striking distance (1,208 pledged delegates) of the nomination by June 7.

The Republican “establishment” is haunted by the prospect of the oldest party of industrial capitalism in the United States nominating Trump, with many backing Cruz and encouraging the more “moderate” Kasich to drop out of the race. They hope to prevent Trump’s nomination on the first ballot, provoking an “open convention” in Cleveland this summer where the party leadership will be able to select the candidate. Some are so desperate that they have discussed the possibility of the third-party candidacy — even though it would guarantee Hillary Clinton’s election in November. Not merely is the party establishment — those with ties to old-line WASP (white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant) industrialists and bankers — embarrassed by a potential candidate who openly brags about the size of his genitals. Rather, they oppose key elements of Trump’s program.

Although Trump is a capitalist, he does not represent any significant segment of his class. Though not above racist (particularly Islamophobic), misogynist, and anti-union politics, the Republican establishment and their corporate sponsors embrace neoliberalism and an aggressive foreign policy that seeks to secure the dominance of US capital across the world. Trump’s opposition to “free trade” agreements, from NAFTA to the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership, and his isolationist opposition to the second Gulf War and ambivalence toward Israel (the most reliable US ally in the Middle East), is repulsive to the US capitalist class.

Nor do Trump’s calls for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants find a resonance among most business people. Capitalists, large and small, want a politically vulnerable pool of immigrant labor available in this country to work for wages and under conditions that those with citizenship rights would not tolerate. The US Chamber of Commerce, the broadest organization of capitalists in the United States, supported suit by the American Civil Liberties Union and League of Latin American Citizens against Arizona’s law allowing local law enforcement to detain undocumented workers, which had led thousands of workers to flee the state and thus deprived the state’s agriculture and construction industries of cheap and pliable labor. The Chamber and the Business Roundtable, which represents the largest transnational corporations, back an immigration reform that will expand “temporary worker” programs for both high-tech and agriculture and “a tough but fair process for the 11 million undocumented people who are living in our country today to earn a legal status.” Put simply, capitalists want a pool of truly disposable and precarious “guest workers” to labor across the US economy, not their removal from the US labor market.

Where does Trump’s support come from? For many on the mainstream right and liberal left, the answer is clear — the white “working class.” Unfortunately, their definition of “white workers” is quite broad — all non-Hispanic whites without a college education. Not only does this conception allow mainstream commentators to caricature white workers as ignoramuses swayed by demagogic buffoons such as Trump, but it also allows them to misrepresent the social basis of Trump’s campaign. First, although approximately 55% of Trump supporters do not have a bachelor’s degree, this demographic makes up approximately 70% of the US population – this group is underrepresented among Trump voters. However, the college-educated white “new middle class” (professionals and managers), approximately 30% of the population, is overrepresented, at 40% of Trump supporters. More importantly, the category “non-college educated whites” includes both wage workers and the self-employed — the traditional middle class.

Whereas white workers, including some union members, make up a minority of Trump’s supporters, the majority is drawn from the traditional and new middle classes — generally older white males and the less well-off strata of these classes. According to the Washington Post, half of Trump supporters had individual incomes of less than $50,000 annually. The impact of three decades of neoliberalism, in particular, the stagnation of real incomes and growing inequality, combined with massive losses of personal wealth (mostly housing values), growing personal debt, and growing economic insecurity since the recession of 2007-2008 have produced a polarization of US politics in 2016.

The same social and economic forces that have shifted younger, more racially and gender diverse middle and working class people toward the left-wing populism of Bernie Sanders, have made the right-wing populism of Trump attractive to many older white men in the middle and working classes. Caught between a decimated labor movement and an extremely aggressive capitalist class, parts of the middle classes are drawn to a politics that scapegoats immigrants, unions, women, LGBT people, and people of color. The Trump phenomenon is part and parcel of the growth of right-wing populism among the middle classes across the capitalist world — the UK Independence Party in Britain, the National Front in France, and the Five Star Movement in Italy.

Right-wing populism is ideologically similar to the classic fascist movements of the 1920s and 1930s. Without question, the Trump campaign has allowed genuinely fascist elements in the United States — white supremacist organizations organized to physically confront unions, immigrants, native-born people of color, and LGBT people — to emerge into the political sunlight. Clearly, the candidate’s encouragement of physical violence against his political opponents and the emergence of the “Lion’s Guard” — “an informal civilian group dedicated to the safety and security of Trump supporters by exposing Far-Left rioters” — are alarming. However, Trump’s campaign is not fascist, nor do the fascist elements around it — nor Trump himself — have a significant chance of coming to power.

Populist ideology alone does not define fascism. Instead, fascism is a social movement of the middle classes that is organized as both an electoral party and a street-fighting organization that seeks to physically defeat the organizations of working people (left-wing parties, unions, etc.) and destroy the institutions of capitalist democracy. Fascism becomes a mass movement with the potential of taking political power when left-wing movements threaten but fail to take power and capitalist classes continue to fear challenges from below. Trump is attempting to win an election, not abolish representative government. More importantly, US capitalists, unfortunately, have not faced any serious challenge to their dominance in the United States. They have no need to turn power over to the radicalized middle classes. If the Republican establishment cannot stop Trump, they will likely cross partisan lines and support a neoliberal politician like Hillary Clinton.

The claim that Trump is a fascist is not simply an academic or analytic problem. More importantly, it buttresses a strategy for the progressive left that is self-defeating. Reasonably frightened by the prospect of a Trump presidency, the official leadership of unions and organizations of women, people of color, immigrants, and LGBT people will double down in their support of whomever the Democrats nominate at their Philadelphia convention — including Clinton — as the “lesser-evil.”

This strategy is based on two illusions. First, there is the notion that Trump has a reasonable chance of being elected president. Most political commentators agree that Trump can win only if there is a sharp decline in voter participation, especially among young people, women, and people of color. If Trump is nominated, there is a strong likelihood that most traditionally Republican corporate donors will jump ship and support Clinton. Her record as “co-President,” Senator, and Secretary of State demonstrates that she is a reliable neoliberal representative of capital. Armed with a larger war chest and able to appeal to widespread loathing of Trump, Clinton will probably be able to build a massive “get out the vote” machine. Quite likely, she will be able to mobilize voters in as great numbers as Obama did in 2008, when slightly more than 57% of eligible voters came to the polls — the largest percentage in 40 years.

Second, “lesser-evilism” has actually accelerated the drift to the right in US politics. The fear of alienating their Democratic “allies” has led the official leadership of reform movements in the past 80 years to derail the sort of social movements — militant labor struggles, mass movements against racism, sexism, and war — that can win reforms and build left-wing consciousness and politics. In the name of “being realistic,” these forces adapt to the Democrats and drop demands for real reforms. The Democrats are then free to “compromise” with the Republican right. With social movements weakened and invisible, the “alliance” with the Democrats allows the populist right to remain the main voice of militant opposition to the failed policies of the Democrats.

Fortunately, we have a concrete example of how to fight Trump and the right. The mass mobilization against Trump initiated by immigrant students at the University of Illinois-Chicago that led him to cancel his rally is an example that needs to be replicated whenever and wherever Trump attempts to campaign. Along with rebuilding effective social movements among working people, these sorts of mobilizations will build the basis for a real independent political alternative to both right-wing populism and mainstream neoliberalism.

KKK and Trump. The AFL-CIO tops: Silence is Golden

by Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

I was just thinking about the piece I wrote about Rome Aloise, the Teamster leader who was making deals with the bosses and signing what they called "sham" contracts. As I said in my commentary, the entire labor leadership signs "sham" contracts really as they all agree that workers, their members, and the entire working class, must take concessions. Even leaders of small locals not so bureaucratized sign  "sham" contracts because they refuse to openly campaign against the policies of the leadership of organized labor in the higher bodies, what we call the bureaucracy. This is basically the management of organized labor. Different from the management at work but similar in their world view.

This management in organized labor has a whole army of staffers that ensure their philosophy and view of how to relate to the bosses is carried out. It is a philosophy that that arises from the labor officials' relationship to the bosses that is based on labor peace and the free market.

Rome Aloise is not an exception but the rule in the ranks of the labor hierarchy. Below him are a number of budding recruits, just like in a tech company, aggressive young upstarts who seek to rise within the ranks of labor's management strata.  This view and the policies that flow from it, is a disaster for working people.  But it's not just in lower wages, benefits, and "sham" contracts where the damage occurs.

What is also a huge plus for the bosses when union officials are found with their hands in the till or making backdoor deals is that it confirms the bosses' ideological propaganda that our leaders always sell us out. That "power always corrupts" that its human nature to be greedy and selfish.

Of course humans have the capacity to be greedy and selfish. We can be extremely violent depending on the objective conditions. We can degenerate like all animals. But human progress came about through collective struggle and extreme sacrifice on the part of people and individuals. History is written by the victors and writing the history of resistance, of the oppressed in their struggle against the oppressor, is not their task. To occupy a people's homeland, to colonize a people, the support of the oppressors own working class is needed and for that, the colonized have to be demonized. Describing the Irish as "White Chimpanzees" did not spring from the head of an English peasant or coal miner but an English bourgeois, or one of their theoreticians. It is this betrayal on the part of workers' leaders, a betrayal of all workers no matter what race, religion or background, that is the most treasured by the capitalist class. It's a psychological victory.

As the movement against austerity and the ravages of the so-called free market develops, the best of us, the new fighters, within organized labor and without, will be thrown up and rise to the occasion as the old crap is discarded. This is inevitable.

On another note, I remember a co-worker some time ago sharing the uncomfortable feeling he had at a rally being around black nationalists. I can understand that. He wasn't  particularly political person but he associated it with being anti-white or against him because he was white.  And white workers react differently to this than the white, class privileged middle and upper middle classes.

There's different types of nationalists and I'm not going in to details about nationalism in general but I saw a clip last night of a Trump rally and I saw a person in the front of the audience with a KKK tee shirt on.  Trump is appealing to the most anti-worker, racist and sexist elements in society. As Jack pointed out in an earlier commentary, "Trump’s not-so-subtle message that his election will mean it’s open season for racist attacks on blacks." He is far worse than a labor leader who gets busted for making deals.  The only reason the bosses' go after them is to strengthen their lies that our leaders always sell us out.  Trump, is not a NAZI in the sense that he has an military apparatus behind him or a state, but he is a clearly a racist and xenophobe and things can change.

How can a person with a KKK tee shirt be allowed at a rally of a candidate from the Republican Party?  What sort of party is this? It is clear it has a right wing, semi-fascist Christian fundamentalist element to it. It is predominantly Christian Zionists that determine to a great degree, US policy toward Israel. But it's clear that it is white nationalism, the ideology of the ruling class,  that has to be combated.

And we have elected representatives endorsing Trump. The latest being Chris Christie, the governor of New Jersey.  He is obviously looking for a position in a Trump administration. But where are the voices of influential people, especially labor leaders.  There should be a vicious and loud assault against these people calling them what they are, racists and ant-worker.

My response years ago to my co-worker who was a bit put off by the NOI newspaper, a paper of black capitalism, was that he needn't worry, they have never held state power and never will. There is no history that I know of, of roaming mobs of black nationalists including the NOI dragging white people from their homes and lynching them. In fact, if I was in an impoverished black community (I lived in one and was a part of it which is the best community service) when a riot began that took a hostile attitude to all whites I'd head for the nearest mosque.  I'd be safe there.

But what must the millions of people in this country that are not white, (not white males as white women have been savaged by Trump), not of European descent, not citizens, are Muslims or Arabic, what must they feel like when they witness these disgusting spectacles?   What we are seeing is people in power, people with influence supporting policies that are reminiscent of the NAZI's in pre-war Germany. These are not some backward right wing workers. What must those people in New Jersey, who will be victims of a Trump/Christie administration be feeling?

How can we not expect separatist or nationalist formations arising that would be hostile to unity with white workers?  It is inevitable. unless we combat it openly and fiercely.  The bosses and their media love Trump in that sense when they see all these backward white workers at his rallies. It helps to undermine class unity. It strengthens the mood for separatism.  That's why he gets so much media attention. When I was in Iraq in the 1970's I would tell Iraqi's that I spoke with that the Queen and I drank tea, had white skin and spoke English, albeit it with different accents, but the similarity ended there. My mum was a worker, I rejected Britains role in that part to f the world.

Having said all this, or written it, I cannot see the US ruling class supporting Trump and I don't believe the American people would elect him.  Some friends and I have also discussed this and my view is that it is Hilary that they see as their best bet. Those white workers that are supporting Trump would be savaged by his polices but sometimes stupidity and racial prejudice trumps common sense and class consciousness, but most workers are more class conscious I reckon and reject Trumps statement that we're paid too much.

It is important to note that when it comes to foreign policy, and US foreign policy is at the root of the formation of groups like ISIS and others, there are no candidates, Democrat or Republican, that will attack or condemn US foreign policy, including Sanders.  The US military industrial war machine is off limits.

Finally, the greatest crime the labor hierarchy commits is its deafening silence in the wake of these developments. They sit atop an apparatus with 12 million members. They have social structure, thousands of local unions,  a thousand or so county labor councils and many state federations, including in South Carolina. The LA Central Labor Council alone has some 800,000 members affiliated to it.  Where are their voices as their members and the working class as a whole is coming under such an assault from all angles. Where is their condemnation of Hilary, Trump, the dictatorship the two Wall Street parties have over US political life?

All the developments that have been ongoing from the killing and outright assassination of black youth to the destruction of living standards that took 150 years to win, demand an aggressive counter attack yet they say nothing.  Their most militant stand has been to not yet endorse Hilary Clinton wary that the few unions that are supporting Sanders might be joined by others and an actual debate open up within organized labor.

As for their criminal abstention from any opposition to US capitalism's foreign policy, it is beyond criminal, it is supporting mass murder.

White workers must speak out at Trump's divisive racial message

Stephen Bannon Trump's Chief Strategist endorsed by Nazi Party and KKK

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

As some readers know, I am retired and worked for a public utility for almost 30 years. Black folks, Portuguese, Irish and Italian Americans are just some of the people I know who built my union, who had the courage and class consciousness to recognize that without organization, we were easy pickings for the boss. It didn’t make racism or sexism go away, and I know that the black workers and the women had a more difficult time of it. Nevertheless, all of us benefited from it and it did change consciousness to a certain extent as it is through struggle that this change occurs.

I am proud of my union and its history. I also know that the vast majority of white workers I worked with were not raving racist, bigoted people. An old friend long dead who was in the Black Panther Party and the US army assured me that it is only natural that most white folks would have prejudicial views of black people, we live in a racist society and they’ve been indoctrinated with it for 300 years. He said this without any sense of blame, simply a historical fact and he also believed it was unnatural for us to be this way.

The white activists, along with black and Latino brothers and sisters in my union local took up many issues facing the black and brown communities, from police violence to jobs and mass incarceration.  We campaigned for the release of Geronimo Pratt, imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit. We supported workers on strike from the great battles of the 1980’s like Patco, Hormel and Eastern Airlines, to the Apartheid struggles in South Africa and the persecution of workers and union activists there. We were instrumental in helping save the life of Mahmoud Masawra, Palestinian trade union leaders who led a strike of Jews and Muslims.

Like most unions not dominated by the bureaucracy, it was an activist minority, the most conscious politically, that made this happen. But in areas where the union was strong-----had strong representatives----class-consciousness was greater. This was a reflection of the consciousness of the leadership or certainly important sections of it.

So most of the membership did their own thing, they were quiet, they got on with their daily lives, working overtime, taking care of the kids, paying the mortgage and enjoying what leisure time they had doing what they wanted to do.

I want to say to the white worker, not just at my former workplace but throughout the country, you can be silent no longer. 

A local West Virginia official in Clay County has just been suspended for posting the following on Facebook:

"It will be refreshing to have a classy, beautiful, dignified First Lady in the White House. I'm tired of seeing a Ape in heels."

The Mayor of Clay responds with: "Just made my day Pam."

This follows after Kentucky Republican Dan Johnson, ousted the incumbent Democrat Linda Belcher in Bullitt County in a race for the state House of Representatives.

Johnson had previously posted a series of racist rants on FB Facebook depicting Barack Obama and his wife as monkeys. 

And what happened other than him being elected?

“Republican officials, including likely new House Speaker Jeff Hoover, had called on Johnson to drop out of the race.”,  reports Yahoo News,  But Hoover declared last week that Johnson would be 'welcome in our caucus.'"

I don’t support the Democratic Party or it’s president. But workers have to fight racism in all its forms, this is disgusting. It's always been there of course, it's built in to the system. But Trump has given it life.

I have written enough about the disgusting, criminal role played by the trade union hierarchy, the members of which ingratiate themselves and beg at the feet of the degenerate Trump in the hope of getting a few crumbs from the master’s table. We have come to expect nothing less from them.  Their myopic worldview will not protect or preserve their members’ living standards. It is a position aimed only at keeping the revenue coming in, them in jobs and their obscene salaries and perks intact until they die. They will do nothing until they are forced or replaced.

But the ranks of the trade union movement and white workers throughout the nation must speak out, must stand up and condemn the degenerate racist Donald Trump.  If you don’t want to be seen as a racist then you can’t stay silent when white racists, especially those in powerful positions, promote their ideas, speak openly and without fear of retribution. If you want to feel secure and safe in our communities or working as some of us do in the black communities, then make sure people know whose side you are actually on and that means making it clear. If you don’t like being lumped in with Trump, Breitbart and the white nationalists then separate yourself from them.

And that means through action over time, not words. It is easy for those of us with white skin, the same color as the dominant ruling class, to opt out, to keep our mouths shut, “At least it’s not me they’re after”.  It is this racist divide that has allowed the living standards of the white working class population to decline along with their life expectancy. Trump will increase that tendency, not halt it.

As you go in to work today think of how your black brothers and sisters and other people of color feel in this climate. You work alongside these people every day, you cooperate at work, you might be in a union together socialize once in a while although that is what is lacking because if you don’t socialize with a people you can’t know them.  How can you stay silent when the future president of this country is talking about them the way he does and filling political posts with neo-Nazis.

Believe me, people of color are frightened. They are frightened for their children, themselves, their loved ones. The Nazi’s and racists are getting bolder. Why wouldn’t they? The Commander in Chief has given them the Green light. At very least on a moral and for some of you, a religious level you must not stay silent.

If the white worker who has remained silent on this issue for so long does not speak up, you are betraying your own children’s future because they are coming after you. Racism is a divide and rule tactic that weakens us, strengthens them. I have had a decent life in this country because of the struggle for racial and sexual equality and what it has brought us so far. I want future generations to have a decent life.

Those that know me know I am not a liberal. I am not ashamed of my skin tone. I don’t feel guilty about being white or a man or my having an accent that is popular in general, all of which are assets in the US. But I know damn well it has its advantages in a society where the ruling class is the same color and they use that, try to con me in to thinking I’m one of them, that we have unity. We do not.

In my work life and all the years I lived in the black community I never met black folks who wanted me to apologize, have me beat myself up or deny anything about myself like the white liberals do. All they ever wanted, like us all, is to be treated equally and fairly and not be denied such treatment on the basis of color or race; it makes people so angry when they raise these conditions and white folks deny them. You’re calling someone a liar when you respond to these concerns lightly or discount them altogether There are rare exceptions, very rare, and these examples don’t attack white the power structure, management or the rich, they simply want to be part of it. It is white workers they attack.

So start talking up this disgusting situation in the workplace. Let the black folks, women, people of color, know where you stand because we do look like the ruling class, a superficial similarity really but made in to a crucial one for divide and rule purposes. Tell them you feel for them right now, that this must be awful for them and that they must worry about their kids because they do. If you’ve been silent on this issue all your life of course you might be suspect, plus, the petit bourgeois white lefty types overdo it as a means of proving their “non-racist” status. The liberals are often condescending and act like they feel sorry for people and all that. The point is we should feel inspired by people’s struggles in the face of adversity. It’s no skin off my back. Black workers see through the phony liberal solidarity. Class-consciousness may be weak but it is exists.  In the future it will emerge with a vengeance as the “Whip of the Counterrevolution” in the form of Trump and his racist gang is felt across our backs, including the backs of those who in desperation or foolishness voted for him. This will not always be smooth, reaction too will have it's day given the absence of leadership, but it is in times of struggle that workers tend to unite along class lines and the divisive tactics of the ruling class weaken.

If you have a local union get down there and have it make some statement, preferably, a resolution calling on the trade union leadership at the national level to organize a huge protest on inauguration day against racism and to defeat Trump. At very least make your union’s voice heard in condemnation of the direction our society is going. Talk to your relatives and friends in unions and get them to pass them, help them pass them. Silence under these conditions is taking a side, the wrong side.

Black workers are natural allies of white workers as are all workers no matter what their sexual orientation. The divisiveness is not our creation but overcoming it is our responsibility.

Union "leaders" bow to predator Trump. I support call by Richard and FFWP.

Cowardly, traitorous pro capitalist union leaders bow to degenerate predator Trump. Wonder what is written on the pieces of paper on the table. "How to sell out our members to the degenerate racist, sexist anti worker predator. 

by Sean O'Torain.

Yesterday in our Blog Richard and the Facts For Working People, (FFWP) called for the removal of the union leaders who had just met and socialized and supported the degenerate  anti women and anti working class Trump. Let us look at the actions of these so called leaders in its full betrayal and cowardice.

All the major institutions of capitalism, the Pentagon, NATO, the UN, the Vatican, 90% of the world's scientists all state that unless the rise in the world's climate is halted and reversed then life on earth as we know it will be destroyed in the decades ahead. I write "as we know it" because there will possibly be some insects left and some life at the bottom of the oceans. But life on earth and the human species will be wiped out. This is the reality. This climate change is being driven by the fossil fuel industry and their mad addiction to profit and flowing from this the changes in the planet's forestation and oceans. Climate change driven by capitalism is heading to end life on earth as we know it. But it is not only that. There is the threat of nuclear war. There are the so called natural disasters such as earthquakes, droughts, flooding, mass starvation. There is no end to it. Capitalism if it continues to exist will destroy life on earth as we know it and will do so in the decades that lie ahead.

The top representative and the most stupid and greedy and arrogant representative of capitalism on earth at present is the sexual predator Trump. He is moving immediately to take any restraints of the fossil fuel industry. To let the oil and gas capitalists do what they want. He and his cronies are leading life on earth over the edge of a cliff.

Then there is the other thing. Half the world's human species are women. 50% of the world's factory workers are women. And here is this sexual predator sitting in the White House and moving to take away the funding from programs which go to help women's health and reproductive rights. And it is this degenerate that the union leaders were sitting and socializing with in the White House yesterday!!!! 

What do they think their female members think of this? It can only put women off joining the unions. The truth is the union leaders are not much different in their attitude to women than the Trumps of this world. For all of them, women are to be seen and not heard, woman are to keep the machines in China and South East Asia working, women are to do the most of the work for less or no pay.  And talking about where the union leaders and where were they recently. Where were they on the women's marches?

These marches should have been festooned with huge union banners and great columns of union members marching for their rights and the rights of all women. But this was not the case. Why not? Because the union leaders did not want to antagonize the degenerate predator in the White House. Because they had in mind making their own deal with him and this involved selling out on the environment and developing clean air fuel systems and selling out on women's rights including not to be physically assaulted as is done and boasted about by Trump.

Imagine how the union movement could have been developed and strengthened if the unions had mobilized their 14 million members for the women marches and marched with their banners and heads held high and demanded an end to the abuse of women, an end to Trump's presidency, a minimum wage of $15,00 an hour or a $5,00 an hour increase whichever was the greater and equal pay for all for equal work and full and free reproductive and health rights and facilities for all. It would have changed the entire character of the marches to being women workers' marches, working class marches and strengthened these marches and made possible a real working class movement arising out of these marches..

Richard makes these points on his excellent video yesterday on our Blog where he deals with the so called US trade union leaders meeting with the sexual predator, the promoter of the oil and gas industry, the representative of Wall Street, the promoter of violence against the population of the US, and internationally. I entirely agree with what Richard says. These people who met with Trump are not leaders of the working class. They are betrayers of the working class. They went to the White House to be stroked by the degenerate Trump and to reassure him that he and his fossil fuel pals and his Wall Street pals and his right wing born again religious pals, had nothing to fear from them, that do not worry they are not going to bring up about his assaulting women.

They went to make their own deal with Trump and sell out their own members and the rest of the working class and women.  It is staggering, it is shocking, to see the photos of them sitting with Trump and laughing and hanging out. This is the guy who did not pay his workers, the guy whose father was in the KKK and who himself refuses to condemn the KKK. This is the guy who boasts of assaulting women. And there we had the union so called leaders laughing and sharing drinks with him. It was nauseating to see this. It is as with capitalism. Capitalism is much worse than you can imagine. So with the union leaders. They are much worse than you can imagine.

But it is not the correct response to only be nauseated. The correct response is to act. Set up anti Trump committees in your workplace, communities, schools and colleges. If you are in a union go to your union, and if you are not in a union join a union, if you can not immediately join a union, contact and discuss with a union member or members and work to remove these union so called leaders from their vastly overpaid positions in their air conditioned offices. They too are degenerates in their own ways, remove them from their positions. Let them go and find work on one of their buddies' Trumps sites and organize it. Some chance! As Richard says this present union leadership has to be removed. They are assisting capitalism and its most degenerate elements in dragging the world to destruction. If they are allowed to continue they will ensure that the children of today will have no future. Life on earth will be destroyed. 

The working class is the only force that can prevent capitalism destroying life on earth, that can preserve life on earth. But the problem is the union leadership, that is the people that occupy the leading positions in the trade unions, are committed to capitalism and so prevent the working class building a new society. If life on earth is destroyed by capitalism the fault for this will more than anything lie with the role of the union leaders, the obstacle they represent to the working class changing society.

There are many activists and left people in the US. What is our role? We have to fight for an alternative to capitalism. But that is not all. We have to fight for an alternative leadership to the pro capitalist leadership in the trade unions. This leadership believes in the so called Team Concept. That is working with the bosses. This must be ended. Left and union activists must build an alternative in their unions and work places and communities and schools and colleges to get rid of the pro capitalist leadership and replace them with a democratic socialist leadership which will fight with the most determined ruthless methods against the Trumps and the fossil fuel capitalists and Wall Street and all the capitalist class.

Things are entering a new phase in the US. Trump is the whip of the counter revolution. By his actions he will demonstrate to the US working class that they have no choice but to organize and to fight. An essential part of this is to get rid of their present pro capitalist and cowardly leadership and build a leadership that will fight with the most determined and ruthless methods against the capitalist class and their system.  Let us never again see the cowardly and sell out union leadership meet with the degenerate Trump in the White House or anywhere else. Let us also adjust our own thinking, our own psychology. US society has entered a new phase. The workplaces, the cities the streets, the schools and colleges, they will all be convulsed with the struggle for what kind of future this country will have. We are in a new era. Anybody who is thinking the same, acting the same today as they were a month ago is making a bad mistake.

If you agree with these ideas, if you would like to discuss them further, especially if you would like to join us in Facts For Working People and help us in our work please contact us. We see our work as fighting capitalism and doing so by fighting for the consciousness of the working class, fighting to convince the working class it can change the world. Please contact us and join us in our work. Help us write for and develop our Blog and join and participate in our weekly Think tanks where we discuss the struggles and events in the US and internationally. We need your help in developing our ideas and understanding. Sean O'Torain.

Trump Supporters, You Own This. Be Honest and Claim it.

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

I do not condemn everyone that voted for Trump in the same way. When it comes to white workers and white workers whose lives and material conditions have been savaged the past few decades by Democratic and Republican administrations alike, I approach them differently to other white workers like my former co-workers who were fortunate enough have landed in one of the best jobs for blue collar workers that exist in this country. Yes, we are under attack like all workers here in the US. But a job like the one I had and retired from was one in a million. In fact, it is not a US job, it is a job more akin to what we would find in the social democracies like Germany or Norway. It is, as I say to some of my friends, a "socialist" job. It's a public sector job, and the public sector is under fierce assault now. In the US I have been told that a national health plan is socialism or even communism by the way.

For my former co-workers, the white ones, that proudly applaud Trump, I have no time at all for your hypocrisy and, to be honest, your motives are always suspect. It is either racial prejudice, xenophobia or a combination of the two that motives you to support a president who also wants to put an end to jobs like the one you have now and the one that gave me a living and a retirement that is the envy of millions of people. I am not ashamed of it. I don't feel guilty, I just feel lucky and grateful I came to the US at the time I did and found the employment where I did. We are a fortunate group and I want all workers to receive a decent living and retirement. Perhaps, I will add in reflection, that a third reason for being gung ho on Trump is you are simply not the brightest bulb in the pack. But it's hard for me to be forgiving given Trump's own words that are hard to misinterpret.

I also approach a small business person differently and I'm talking here about the plumber, the locksmith, the coffee shop or liquor store owner, not a 250 employee tech firm in Sunnyvale. This section of society, or individuals in this group I have talked to voted for the Predator in Chief in many cases for financial reasons only. This is a section of our class society that is sandwiched between two powerful class forces, the working class on one side and big business on the other. I met many of these individuals who were very envious and wished they had a job like mine. Their existence is precarious and they have to finance their own retirements and health care for example. Those that weren't already racially unsound or anti immigrant, closed their eyes and ears to Trump's racism and misogyny and voted for some financial relief. I get it.

I understand that because it's what people do if they don't see a way out or a means of advancing their material existence through a united class conscious movement. It's not unlike the workplace. There are only two sources of power in the workplace, the bosses and the organized workers. If the workers are not organized then the bosses' office is the only source of power and it is there that workers will turn in what is now an every man or woman for themselves atmosphere. Security is relating to the employer in an organized collective way.  And we can all do this, ignore the plight of others and hope we're not next.

As I have mentioned many times, a major blame for the rise of Trump falls on the shoulders of the heads of organized labor in the US, the leaders of the national trade union movement with some 14 millions members. Their failure to defend the interests of all workers, including their own members, has contributed to the present situation. Their refusal to use the resources they have at their command to build an alternative political party that workers can join, build and use in our interests has allowed the degenerate Trump to fill the vacuum that they have helped create. I accept that Democrats are in the main no different. Not on the basics. But Trump is particularly odious. A fortunate son that has never worked in his life.

But I will end with this. Those co-workers of mine and workers throughout the country who mistakenly thought Trump was different have the opportunity to reflect on this and retreat from this position. I have more respect for the 100 million that abstained from the election they are so disgusted with the choices. What you see in the video above is a direct result of Trump's racist and xenophobic assault on Latino's in particular. The increased attacks on Jews, blacks, and all immigrants is the result of Trump's behavior, he's given the most backward elements of society confidence, the confidence to come in to the open a bit more. In a sense this is a good thing as they have always been there and it's best we deal with it, but he has given them the green light and will have given answers, albeit false ones, to those whose ignorance about how the system in which they live functions has them searching for why their lives offer little hope for a future and immigrants and the poor are an easy target. This is another area where the heads of organized labor has failed dismally.

A guy from my workplace said in answer to my question as to why he supported Trump that he promised to "Make America Great Again." Well that tells me nothing, Hitler said that. But  you can't get away with meaningless statements like that, I will call you out. And I will call you out in this way. What you see in the video above, you own it, you must defend the action above by this white racist or retreat from your position; you have a responsibility to defend your ideas and not shirk that responsibility. Trump was endorsed by the Nazi's and the KKK, you must proudly and openly proclaim your support for these fascists; this is  not a game. You support the rape and sexual abuse of women. You support the shifting of resources form the rich and taking them from the poor and working class; yet you have had the luxury of the one of the best jobs the US can offer the American worker. You support opening up all our precious lands and giving energy companies free rein to exploit them. You support the massacre of 100,000 people in Yemen (and Obama is responsible for that too). You are defending racism. Be honest with your co-workers who are Latinos, black folks, women, be honest with the world and yourself, and say you are defending these values.

I'm not arguing from a Democratic Party position. I realize this political party has participated in the assault on the material conditions of the US worker and is in some ways worse as it plays the "good cop" in the good cop bad cop game the two capitalist parties play in order to extract as much as they can from the US working class. But Trump is particularly odious and the present Republican Party has ingested right wing religious fanatics and white nationalists, that many old time genuine conservatives find  repulsive. The world is changing and the oldest capitalist party in the world, the British Tories is at the end of its days. We need our own party in the US that's for sure.

But that argument is for another time.

Trump: A man - a system - just filth.

Sean O'Torain

KKK endorse Trump. Trump refuses to denounce KKK. 

There are many issues involved with this recent exposure of the degenerate creature Trump and his attitude to women. The most immediate is to see that in spite of the gains made, sexism and male domination is still rampant in capitalism. Paid less, held down with the glass ceiling, denied control over their own bodies in country after country, women remain a specially oppressed section of society. Capitalism and the special oppression of women are inseparable. It is a fact, but one that is not much realized that the difference between wages for males and wages for females is less in those sectors of the economy that are most highly unionized, that is where the bosses are weaker. The greater the unionization the more equal are the pay and conditions. The fall in union membership has tended to increase the special oppression of women. This has only been partly made up for by the rising of  women themselves, the women's revolt of the 1960' and since. The working class movement must place the fight against the special oppression of women at the forefront of their agenda, must step up a battle to organize the unorganized to make gains against the special oppression of women. Now back to the degenerate creature Trump, back to his vicious sexism, racism, rape mentality, capitalist mentality, and actions. This creature who has millions of dollars to make his oppression and rapist attitude to women possible.  

The authors of this Blog have not supported and do not support and will not support any of the capitalist party candidates, Clinton, Trump, Johnson. Our analysis of what would happen in this election from the beginning was that Clinton would most likely be elected because the big bourgeois wanted her as she is the most experienced and stable and knowledgeable from the point of view of their class. We of course said this was not certain because of the political crisis in the US capitalist class, it was possible they would not get their way, but we have maintained our position throughout, and that was that Clinton would be far and away most likely to  win the Presidency.  She is tied into the financial bourgeois, the military industrial complex, the oil and gas industry and the so called intelligence apparatus of US imperialism. They have seen her operate as Secretary of State and they in the main feel they can trust her. The big bourgeois hold their heads in disbelief and horror at the idea of the idiot Trump in the White House. 

We also said that Clinton's election was most likely because of the crisis and splits in the Republican Party. The tape now flooding the airwaves about Trump makes this just about definite. Unless there is some way the Republican Party can get Trump off the ticket that Party will be be defeated, probably heavily, with many down ballot races also being lost. It could be a rout. The US political system which has been dominated by the two main capitalist parties could be coming to an end. A whole new era in US politics could lie ahead. A great vacuum is possible in the immediate period ahead.  We the authors of this Blog continue to support Jill Stein and the Green Party. But we recognize its inadequacies and the changes that have to be made. We stand for the Green Party to become an eco socialist party, a workers party and for its internal life to be made democratic so that it can operate as a serious party. It is not clear how the Green Party will do in this election. The argument that voting for the Green Party would risk letting in Trump is weaker now with Trumps disgrace. This would especially be the case if, as is possible the hard and most reactionary wing of the Republican Party openly broke with the Republican party maybe even formed their own party. This is possible. See the open opposition from the Trump wing to Republican party leader Ryan and other party leaders in Wisconsin over the weekend. The existence of this most backward layer must not be ignored.Sections of them are so backward and stupid they will not be shaken even by the recently exposed tape.

However if as is practically certain, the possibility of Trump getting elected diminishes, (however we have to be careful even here, there could be a lot more tapes out there and not just on Republican leaders but also Democratic Party leaders and there are the emails showing Clinton's support for the Trans Pacific so-called Partnership, however it is most likely that the fear of Trump winning will diminish. This  could possibly lead to the Green Party getting increased support, getting more support than the very low numbers it now has in the polls.However there are a number of conflicting issues and problems within and around the Green Party that have to be considered before it is seen as a serious party. This is shown by its very low support. How come at this time of unprecedented opportunity for a party as an alternative to the Democrats and Republicans the Green party is doing so bad. This is something the Green Party will have to sort out? This has to be discussed and the necessary changes made.

There is a great deal of understandable pleasure being felt now amongst all decent thinking people, especially most women, in seeing the humiliation of the vicious misogynist Trump. The vicious bully. The vicious racist. The vicious anti working class thug. The vicious degenerate who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, whose father was involved with the KKK and who himself still refuses too condemn the KKK. There will be celebration amongst the majority of women and minorities as they see this creature exposed. This is the same creature who referred to Mexican people as rapists. Yet by his own taped words where he describes his way of approaching women he is the rapist. He has a similar approach to that of the top man in the financial world who was accused of sexually assaulting a woman worker in his hotel room in New York City. This person, just a more polished version of Trump, explained that his philosophy, which he said was taught to him by his father, was that women should be approached with "firmness" (his word) and they could be made to do what men wanted them to do. By firmness he meant threats and force. By men he meant rich men like himself. This more polished Trump equivalent degenerate  got off the charge against him because he was rich enough to discredit his woman victim who was an immigrant low paid hotel worker.

This feeling of at last bringing down one of these vicious misogynists, which is especially felt amongst women, but also by sections of the male population, will want to make sure it expresses it self as fully as possible. The strength of this feeling is shown by the many rats that are jumping the Republican ship and the so called Trump wagon. Of course it was these Republicans who created the environment within their party in which Trump was able to flourish. They all knew what was going on. The opportunity now exists for a strong movement to identify misogyny as the oppressive and divide and rule weapon that it is and to weaken this ideology. It is possible to see more clearly now why Trump was campaigning against "political correctness." What he was really campaigning about was to be left alone to act and think and speak in his own sexist misogynist anti women way. Against this background it is likely that in spite of her right wing capitalist views there will be a majority for Clinton just to make sure that the stake is driven as deep as possible into this creatures and misogyny's heart. It is possible that with Trump being seen as less likely to be elected there could be a reduction in the feeling that people must vote for Clinton to keep him out, and that this could result in more support for the Green Party. However while possible this is not very likely because of the Green party's lack of a clear program and the party's chaos and un-democratic internal life which puts many people off from seeing it as a serious party.

This exposure of Trump and the large section of this rich class and the Republican Party with the same sexist attitude will have an affect on the mass consciousness. The millions who supported Trump were composed of different layers. There was a strata who followed Trump's ranting because of his attacks on so called political correctness. This was just a cover to allow Trump and others  to remain racist and sexist in their thinking while covering this up with code words or sneering at racism and sexism and trying to make out these evils did not exist, it was only about words.. This attack on "political correctness" will receive a big blow now. Trump has dragged out on to the table the worst of the language and thinking of the male dominated sexist attitudes and shown them to really exist. Especially the sexist and misogynist attitudes of the bourgeois men. Talking about grabbing women in the most sensitive and intimate parts of their bodies, in a brutal violent way to make them do what he wanted. There will be a very serious and very positive reaction against this, opposition to this. 

Many female family members who have kept quiet and let their male family members spout this sexist language and act in a sexist violent way will speak up and demand change. As well as that many people who use this language will now think about it seriously and conclude that it is not correct to use with their family members and workmates. Workmates in the increasingly gender diverse workforce will also speak up and act to demand change. As the saying goes sometimes the revolution needs the whip of the counter revolution. in this case the creature Trump's brutal crudity and rapist actions and mentality and words will make many people think about how they speak and think and act and make them change their ways for the better. More women will be more defiant and demand that sexist behavior and language is ended and it will make many more men think about how the act and speak. This will be good for society. It will also be good for the working class as it will increase the unity of the working class. It is hard to unite in struggle if men are talking about violently grabbing women and the other type of rapist language and actions that Trump, and it has to be said a large section of his class, including those at the top of the Democratic Party, use to act and think in relation to women.

The priority for the working class is to unite against capitalism. The capitalist class at all times seek to divide the working class. Divide and rule is central to their strategy at all times. Divide and rule is usually thought of as dividing workers on the basis of race or religion or nationality. But divide and rule is also based on sexism and gender. A real opportunity exists here for the trade unions and the workers movement to lead the struggle against sexism  and misogyny and for gender equality. But as usual, and it is almost enough to make any working class person and anti capitalist person despair. Once again the trade union leaders are absent. Where are these inert specimisms.  They should be leading the movement against Trump, against sexism and misogyny, and linking this to a movement for equal pay and income for all workers, equal rights including the right to choose for all women. But not a bit of it. They once again insist on remaining silent. If instead of this they took action and mobilized their 14 million members they could build a mass movement which could begin to  transform US political life. But once again ensconced in their air conditioned offices, stroked by the capitalist politicians and bosses, pocketing their high salaries and benefits, these people, this caste are absent. They allow the capitalist class and its propaganda machine and political parties to have unimpeded access to the consciousness of the working class. These people will have to removed from their positions and replaced with people who are prepared to fight the system. They are the biggest obstacle to progressive change in US society and internationally. 

As a man I was shocked by Trumps language and the description of how he used his fame and wealth to force himself on women. Remember he also used his fame and wealth to deny African American people and minorities access to his apartment buildings. But to return to my point of my initial response to when I heard Trump's words about how he treated women. I was so shocked I broke out in a sweat. I took me a moment to realize it was so bad. It reminded me of another experience recently. I remembered that highly paid degenerate dentist from here in the Mid West who went to Africa and organized to get some safari outfit to set up an animal so he could shoot it. This he did. Then he posed beside it with his high powered rifle sneering. Although I could never have done nor ever have done such a thing when I saw this degenerate killer I felt ashamed to be of the same species. In relation to Trump and his words and what he described what he did and said to women even though I never have done or said the things Trump did and said to women I was ashamed to be of the same gender. 

Sean.

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