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on Donald Trump we know no It is all that appears, although what appears is disastrous. The first week of his second government ended with confirmation for a narrow margin of the nationalist Christian Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, a person accused of abusing alcohol and women. With a hundred executive orders, the new administration aims launch an economic war against Mexico, Colombia and other allies. His actions are creating the conditions for the domination of the ultra -right, without talking about the corruption that allows. The wave of transformations driven by Trump has weakened progressive sectors, leaving them without voice and without energy. Although Trump declared in his inaugural speech that God saved me to make great America again,
The future promises something different. With a majority in the Senate, the Congress and the Supreme Court, the march to the victory of the extreme right and the imposition of a system of autocracy, religious fanaticism and systematic corruption seems inevitable. But reality indicates something different.
Trump won the presidential elections in the US promising to resolve two central issues: the poor state of the economy, reflected in the rise in prices, and undocumented immigration as an expression of a so -called crisis on the border between the US and Mexico, where it insisted that the country was being invaded by criminals and terrorists. Trump sought to impose the association between Immigrant and criminal
and between economic crisis and undocumented immigration. But behind this smoke curtain, there was another scenario, a class struggle where a technoburguesia proposed to concentrate power and monopolize access to information. His presence in the campaign was evident in Trump’s investiture when all the executives of the large information companies occupied the positions that traditionally belonged to their cabinet. Instead of refuting this dangerous association, the leaders of the Democratic Party contributed to their production.
When focusing on the issue of immigration, Trump seeks to manipulate two central themes in the history of US: racism and xenophobia, historical factors in the politics and even the culture of this country. It must be added that the issue of immigration is also linked to the call replacement theory
where sectors of the right insist that immigration is part of a plan of the Deep state
And the elites cultural
To displace the population white
and Anglo -Saxon. With this ideology, Trump mobilized some sectors of the white working class against the liberal elites of the two coasts and immigrants.
Despite Trump’s anti -nelite rhetoric, a new elite coalition supported the former president – participating a group of billionaires, the calls Tech bros that technofuturism ideologies advance, or rather technofeudalism, the most famous of which is Elon Musk, and others such as Marc Andresen and Peter Theil. These individuals are freeing a class war, promoting a vision of a transhuman future, driven by artificial intelligence and funded by cryptocurrency that are impossible to trace. They dream of a technological utopia that will control. Andresen recently commented that he supported Trump because his employees had become wild
and because the government tried to regulate the crypto industry. This new group joined an old industrial bourgeoisie, the real estate and finance sectors.
In the 2024 election, the Democrats were not able to mobilize against the social revolution of the right. They adopted a defensive position, and to avoid criticism of the right, the then President Joe Biden adopted the policy of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, supporting a migratory reform without proposing legislation and deporting more immigrants than Trump himself. The differences between both parties on immigration became imperceptible and contributed to the defeat of the Democrats. On the other hand, Kamala Harris and most of the Democratic leaders simulated that they did not face a classes and that the elite objective was not the total power, and that the old coalition of liberal elites with the working class with the working class could simply be rebuilt and people of color. Although more billionaires supported Harris and the former vice president raised much more money than Trump – almost 2 billion dollars compared to 1.2 – even so, this advantage was not enough. Harris’s strategy to campaign as a candidate of the traditional center, to continue the neoliberal consensus policy, did not allow him to overcome the enthusiasm for the change generated by Trump’s movement or the frustrations of his base for the state of the economy.
Even when you have won, Trump’s power is fragile. The republican coalition is not homogeneous, nationalist Christians, elites pro immigration, populists anti -migration, expansionists, antiguerous workers, and an influential sector of racist, coexist. Given that complex scenario, Trump can only unite them with their ability to impose their domination. However, there are indications of weakness in Trump’s power, although with the disorder he generates, it is difficult to see them.
There are political fissures, particularly among Tech bros and the antimmigrant forces, which could weaken the Trumpist coalition and open an opportunity for progressives in the US. Trump insists that he won a blunt mandate. The truth is that both the country and Congress are almost divided between the two parties. It is likely that Trump will not have the ability to handle conflicts in his party without resorting to authoritarianism. The question is whether progressive democrats and sectors will have the ability to take advantage of these contradictions. EU is facing a class war, where the enemy is not the immigrant, but an elite that aims to monopolize the wealth of the world.
* Emeritus professors, History Department, Pomona College
