“He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” President claims

(This is the first of two parts. The second can be found in Part II.)

By Argiris Malapanis, Duane Stilwell, and Francisco Picado

In its first month in office, the administration of U.S. president Donald Trump has made clear in word and deed it represents a break from liberal democracy — the form of government that has prevailed in the United States through most of the country’s 250-year-long history. It is an abrupt shift to the right in U.S. politics, one with grave perils for the working class and all who favor democracy.

The evidence points to the danger of the rise of an incipient fascist movement. “Incipient” in the sense of beginning to come into being or to become apparent.

Trump has already defied Congress and the courts. An executive order seeks to rewrite the Constitution’s 14^th amendment adopted after the Union victory in the Civil War. He is openly disregarding what all previous presidents have called the “rule of law.”

Sensing the weakness of liberals and the labor officialdom in responding to this radical course of action, Trump is becoming bolder and blunter about his intentions. On February 15, Trump posted prominently, first on his social media platform Truth Social, and then on the website X, this statement: “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.” The official White House account on X posted this message later that evening.

The likely origin of this quotation is a pronouncement by French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the 19^th century.

Trump is making it clear he intends to establish a regime ruled by one man who stands above the law — justified by anointing himself the nation’s “savior.”

NEWS ANALYSIS

To help understand the changes in U.S. politics we have called attention in the past to the writings of Marxist scholar George Novack.

“Not all modes of bourgeois domination are the same,” Novack explained in his book Democracy and Revolution: From Ancient Greece to Modern Capitalism. All forms of rule by the minority capitalist class “are arrayed against the proletariat and must be combated,” Novack wrote, but “some are more dangerous than others because they hold out a greater immediate threat to the existing rights and organizations of the working class.”

He continued: “From this standpoint a bourgeois democracy is preferable to any dictatorship.”

Trump’s actions go well beyond what he attempted in his first administration and what he openly campaigned for in the 2024 presidential election. Last year he claimed he had “nothing to do with” the right-wing policy blueprint known as Project 2025. Now architects and supporters of this plan staff his administration. In a December 2023 interview, he claimed he would not be a dictator “except for day one.” Day one is well behind us while the triumphalist and dictatorial moves accelerate. Trump is rapidly seeking to lay the groundwork for one-man rule.

His claim that he is dismantling the “deep state” is simply rhetoric to provide cover for his radical reshaping of the federal government and all of its agencies to serve his rightist political aims — those already openly stated and others to come — and to staff them, at all levels, with individuals who express and display personal loyalty to him.

Nowhere is this clearer — or more dangerous — than in the steps he is taking to reorganize the repressive apparatus of the state. This includes the Department of Justice, the FBI, and the CIA. Yet to come are moves to ensure the same kind of fealty to Trump within the officer corps of the U.S. military. Trump has already dismissed Admiral Linda Fagan, the commander of the Coast Guard. This is not likely to be the only move along these lines.

Fascism has generally relied on extralegal shock troops to prepare the way for taking power. This has not — yet — been a defining feature of Trump’s rise. However, on his first day in office Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of those connected to the January 6, 2021, mob action aimed at overturning the 2020 presidential election. Those pardoned include more than 1,100 who had been convicted in court. These are people who have already auditioned for the role of such shock troops. Many will respond to new calls from Trump, should he find them necessary, to confront resistance to his moves.

On January 6, 2021, Trump deemed these armed ultra-rightists “great patriots.” He termed their actions a “day of love.” Trump later railed against the “deep state” for allegedly framing them for storming the U.S. Capitol — a violent action, which resulted in seven deaths, aimed at overturning the will of the voters. He recently extolled them as “J6 hostages” just before pardoning them in his first act on inauguration day. Those pardoned, and others who view them as “heroes,” are now likely to be even more loyal to Trump and prepared to act again extralegally.

Trump and his allies are effectively using rightist demagogy — often centered on scapegoating immigrants for many social ills — to confuse millions of working people about the source of the many problems we face. That demagogy is used to justify laying the foundations for autocracy, which can only serve the interests of the capitalist class.

We are only at the beginning of this dangerous process.

Mass mobilizations in the streets by working people and all those who favor democracy are now needed to put the brakes on the avalanche of Trump’s dictatorial moves.

Much of the capitalist class backs Trump

Most of the ruling capitalists are either energetically backing Trump’s onslaught on what have been the long-established norms of bourgeois democracy or quietly acquiescing to this seismic change. This is a shift from the attitudes of most capitalists four years ago. Elon Musk, the richest man on earth, has been authorized by Trump to spearhead this assault.

Among his many reactionary public statements, Musk addressed a January 25 campaign event of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) — endorsing and openly praising the ultra-rightist party and boldly advising it to be proud of its pro-Nazi roots. Trump’s recent order cutting aid to South Africa and his plans to punish it with tariffs echo Musk’s reactionary views that the country has “racist ownership laws” and has failed to stop the “genocide” of white farmers.

This is the billionaire who, with Trump’s blessing, is now functioning as the unelected and de facto co-President through his unprecedented actions as head of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE).

Democratic Party in state of shock, paralysis, disarray

Since Trump’s election, the Democratic Party is in a state of shock, paralysis, and disarray. The top labor union officials are largely taking their cue from the Democratic Party leadership, as they have done for decades. The result of this class collaboration has been a half century of nearly uninterrupted decline of the labor movement.

Democratic elected officials have filed lawsuits against some of Trump’s moves, hoping the courts will slow Trump down and reverse some of his actions. Many clearly fear Trump but place all their eggs in the courts’ basket while declining to mobilize mass opposition to him in the streets. This is a dangerous strategy.

Many media reports suggest that Trump is looking for just such a legal confrontation. He and his supporters hold the view that the U.S. constitution must be interpreted to uphold a form of executive power that no previous president has ever wielded; certainly not as universally as Trump intends. He hopes that view will prevail at the Supreme Court.

That outcome cannot be known in advance, but recent Supreme Court actions encourage Trump. The most important Supreme Court decisions throughout history have been political, not narrowly legal ones. The court ruled last July to largely absolve Trump of any criminal responsibility for trying to overturn the 2020 election. The court majority said in effect that the 2020 election is history, and the constitution gave Trump wide legal authority for his efforts to challenge the results. This bodes poorly for any hopes that the court will limit presidential power today.

In the meantime — again in words and deeds — Trump and his allies have begun to defy the courts. If the Supreme Court were to challenge this defiance, a new stage will be opened. Federal courts have limited enforcement powers. They ultimately rely on the state apparatus — including the armed forces and police — to enforce their decisions. In addition, there are no guarantees the Supreme Court won’t again defer to Trump as it did in its ruling that gave him a free pass for trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Top Trump administration officials are itching for such a confrontation. Vice President JD Vance and Elon Musk have taken the lead. Both have openly called on Trump to defy court orders that obstruct his agenda. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” Vance declared.

It is no accident that Musk and Vance have led the calls for defying the courts. Such actions have characterized dictatorial regimes in the past. Both men have openly identified with political figures of this kind.

Last year, for example, Vance, helped promote Unhumans: The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them). This book praises Francisco Franco, the fascist dictator who led Spain for decades, and U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy who became the point man for the post-WWII anti-communist witch-hunt in the United States, among other such characters.

The future will be decided in struggle

The danger of incipient fascism has been posed before. In a series of articles on “Fascism and the Workers’ Movement,” published in 1954, socialist leader James P. Cannon sounded a warning about the dangers of McCarthyism,^[1] which he argued was just such a development.

Cannon explained that it was necessary to alarm the labor movement “to the reality of the danger and, from that to the necessity of organizing the struggle on the right basis while there is yet time. The workers still have time to organize the countermovement, but they don’t have forever; and the sooner they recognize the central reality of the whole problem — that the issue will be decided in struggle — the better chance they will have to be the victors.”

U.S. and world politics have changed in many ways in the 70 years since. But we are highlighting Cannon’s analysis because it can help us understand and think about the challenges we face today, in a new and even more dangerous situation.

 “A fascist movement,” Cannon explained, “does not arise from the bad will of malicious demagogues. Neither is a radicalized labor movement created by the propaganda of revolutionists. Both are products of the incurable crisis of capitalism, which renders it unable to maintain a stable rule through the old bourgeois democratic forms. One way or another — these forms will be changed.

“The latent crisis, which has been artificially suppressed and disguised by war and military expenditures, promises to break out with redoubled fury in the coming period. This will spell impoverishment and misery for tens of millions of people, and it will generate an enormous discontent with the hopeless state of affairs. The unfailing result will be a widespread desire for a radical change.

“This mass discontent and desire for a change can take one of two forms, or both of them at the same time.

“The workers are the strongest power in modern society. If they show a resolute will to take hold of the situation and effect the necessary revolutionary change, the millions of desperate middle-class people — impoverished farmers, bankrupt small businessmen, and white-collar elements — who have no independent power of their own, will follow the workers and support them in their struggle for power….

“On the other hand, if the workers, as a result of inadequate or pusillanimous leadership, falter before their historical task, the allegiance of the middle classes will rapidly shift to the support of the fascists and lift them into power.” [Emphasis added.]

“In Italy, and later in Germany, the movement of labor radicalization had a big jump on fascism at the start,” Cannon pointed out. “In these two countries fascism began to become a mass movement and a formidable power only after the workers had failed to carry through their revolution when they had the chance — in 1919-1921 in Italy, and in Germany from 1918 to 1923.”

In the United States there was a different development of the two antagonistic forces — fascism and workers’ radicalization — and a different rate of speed in their evolution than previously seen in Italy and Germany, Cannon explained.

“The extraordinary thick-headedness of the labor bureaucracy in this country, and the lack of a revolutionary party with a base of mass support, have given incipient fascism the jump on the labor movement,” Cannon noted. [Emphasis added.]

“A form of preventive fascism, of which McCarthy is indubitably the chief representative, has already got a head start and has widespread ramifications of support, inside the governmental apparatus as well as outside it. To recognize that fact is not to conjure up imaginary dangers but simply to recognize the obvious reality of the situation.”

Conditions that led to the rise of Trumpism

Decades have passed since Cannon offered this analysis. The political situation in the world and the United States has changed in countless ways. But the widespread dissatisfaction Cannon expected to arise is today a fact. As many media reports on the 2024 election confirm, it was a large factor in why millions voted for Trump — including many who do not endorse his most reactionary views.

One thing is certain: Senator Joseph McCarthy could have only dreamed of the power Trump now has and is using.

The anti-communist witch hunt of the late 1940s and early 1950s — begun under Democratic president Harry Truman well before McCarthy became its most strident voice — did terrible damage to the labor movement. However, the main organizations of the working class, the trade unions, are far weaker today than they were by the end of the witch hunt in the mid 1950s. The labor officialdom has engaged in 70 more long years of “inadequate or pusillanimous leadership.”

U.S. imperialism, once the undisputed number one world power economically and militarily, has been in decline for some time. Washington faces increased competition for domination of global markets, trade, and technological innovation, especially from China, which is rapidly rising as the world’s second capitalist power and threatens the status and profits of U.S.-based businesses.

Many among the billionaire families that rule the United States are no longer confident the policies of traditional liberal or conservative administrations over the last half century can reverse this decline. A considerable number of them, by backing Trump, are opting for autocracy at home, combined with visions of territorial expansion abroad, to salvage their declining international position.

That’s why Trump’s imperial proposals for taking back the Panama Canal, threatening the use of military force to pry Greenland away from control by Denmark — a NATO ally, taking over Gaza after driving out the 2 million Palestinians living there, and even turning Canada into the 51^st U.S. state have not been dismissed by many among the wealthy. The trade war Trump is unleashing with new tariffs, first on Chinese imports and most recently a blanket 25% fee on all steel and aluminum imports, with promises of more to come, is part of this pattern.

The in-your-face, take-it-or-leave-it imperial attitude of the Trump administration toward friends and foes alike around the world is on full display in the current rapprochement between the Kremlin and Washington aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine by rewarding Moscow with 20% of that sovereign country’s territory.

In these “negotiations,” Trump officials attempted to coerce Ukraine’s government to fork over half the profits from mining valuable metals in the country’s soil as back pay for aid already extended with nothing more in return! No wonder Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky, who made the blunder earlier to suggest such an exchange to Trump, said “no,” at least initially.

Such expansionist saber-rattling, attempts at resource grabbing reminiscent of the colonial era, and aggressive protectionism could lead to new wars and possibly another world conflagration. This is more likely in an increasingly unstable world in which ultra-rightist forces have already ascended to power, or are knocking on its doors, in a rising number of “first-world,” or more accurately imperialist, countries.

What about the working-class in the United States?

No independent mass party with a working-class program and base exists in the United States. For many decades the Democratic Party — like the Republican Party an organization fundamentally controlled by super-wealthy capitalists — has claimed to be the voice for working people in U.S. politics. However, both parties have presided for decades over the sharp deterioration in living and working conditions that have sparked so much dissatisfaction.

Incapable of and unwilling to lead a meaningful fight against Trumpism, the Democratic Party continues to advocate electing its members to office as the only long-term solution, while in the short term relying on the courts to meekly stand up to Trump. It will continue to use its influence to prevent working people and other supporters of democracy who still look to the Democrats from taking to the streets in massive numbers to defend democratic rights and oppose the unimpeded rise of radical rightism.

Trump’s 2024 victory confirmed that millions who once looked to the Democratic Party have lost confidence in it and are fed up. Seeing no other alternative many now put their hopes (more accurately their illusions) in the GOP as it has been transformed under Trump. But these hopes, like previous hopes in the Democrats, will not be fulfilled.

Under these conditions, many workers, family farmers and other middle-class people feel that radical solutions are necessary. The current leadership of the labor movement and organizations that claim to speak for Blacks, women, and others who face specific forms of discrimination or oppression, are incapable of putting forward radical solutions that are in the interests of working people because they remain tied to the Democrats. As a result — as Cannon explained — the dissatisfied millions look elsewhere.

The history of the last century shows that steep economic downturns, such as the 2008-10 financial crisis and the upheaval caused by the 2020-22 pandemic, breed radical attitudes ahead of triggering significant class battles. Before large numbers of workers become receptive to class-struggle proposals and open to political action independent of the capitalist class and its parties, radical rightist demagogy gets a hearing in the middle classes and among layers of workers.

The working class in the United States does not yet think and act like a class aware of its own interests. Much of the political initiative over the last 40+ years has come from right-wing currents. Ultra-rightist groups take advantage of their foothold within ruling-class institutions. They tap into the loss of confidence in the government and suspicions of the most prominent politicians. Conditions are ripe for rightist demagogy and conspiracy theories to gain a wide reach.

In U.S. Elections: Rightist Radicalism Needs Working-Class Answer (II), World-Outlook argued last August that “the decades-long failure of bourgeois liberalism to ameliorate worsening economic and social conditions, as represented by the record of Democratic Party administrations, has fueled the rise of Trumpism. It is based on the experience of millions of working- and middle-class people during the eight-year-long tenures of Bill Clinton in the 1990s and Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017, as well as Biden’s current stint in the White House.”

Or, as Cannon put it, “impoverishment and misery for tens of millions of people” generates “an enormous discontent with the hopeless state of affairs.” If no effective working-class leadership explains and mobilizes this discontent, rightist forces will — and they are doing so now.

(This was the first of two parts. The second can be found in Part II.)

NOTES

[1] What Is American Fascism? Writings on Father Coughlin, Mayor Frank Hague, and Senator Joseph McCarthy by socialist leaders James P. Cannon and Joseph Hansen offers a succinct description of McCarthyism.

“McCarthyism was the most virulent expression of the cold-war witch-hunt period,” it explains (p. 22). “Joseph R. McCarthy was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1946 with the support of the Communist Party and liberal organizations. In 1950, he suddenly emerged as the extreme exponent of the anti-communist witch-hunt then being carried out by the Truman administration.

“He whipped up widespread middle-class and even working-class support which charged that the State Department was Communist-infiltrated, that ‘Communists’ in high office had deliberately ‘lost’ China, and that the American political ‘elite’ was betraying the country to the ‘Communists.’ Coming into conflict with the top leaders of both capitalist parties and even with the U.S. Army, while spreading terror among socialists, labor militants, and liberals, McCarthy’s movement clearly evinced fascist characteristics.

“McCarthyism reached its peak during and immediately after the Korean war, when World War III was widely expected at any moment. With the turn away from head-on confrontation with the Soviet Union and the extension of prosperity into peacetime, McCarthy rapidly lost support and was deserted by his allies in the Republican Party. He was censured by the Senate in 1954 and died in 1957.

“Today, the term ‘McCarthyism’ is commonly used to describe all forms of the anticommunist witch-hunt of the post-World-War-Two period, as well as the incipient fascist development spearheaded by the Wisconsin senator.”

If you appreciate this article, subscribe to World-Outlook (for free) by clicking on the link below.

Type your email in the box below and click on “SUBSCRIBE.” You will receive a notification in your in-box on which you will have to click to confirm your subscription.