This article is the editorial for issue #13 of Communist Revolution. Subscribe here!
Trump’s now infamous meeting with Zelensky demonstrated to millions that the old order was dead on its feet. In his characteristic disdain for the norms and customs of bourgeois diplomacy, Trump made it clear that he was tossing the world order established after WWII out the window.
This explains the outrage in political circles from Ottawa to Brussels.
Support for Ukraine—in reality, support for NATO’s proxy war against Russia—represents the old so-called “rules-based world order” holding on for dear life. But Trump has now issued a new set of rules, of which abandoning Zelensky and the U.S.’s former allies in Europe is just one part.
The U.S., once the largest voice for “free trade”, now threatens tariffs against country after country, including its traditional allies. The institutions of the bourgeois state, including its bureaucracy and court officials, have lost their sacred status as Elon Musk visits a real-life Texas Chainsaw Massacre on them. The U.S. government no longer speaks in the words of “human rights” and “democracy” as Trump makes plays for places like Panama and Greenland in the more honest language of “America First.”
The liberal elite looks on Trump’s actions with abject horror. They denounce him as an “imperialist”, an “oligarch” and worse.
But one should not throw stones in a glass house. Was it not the liberal order that gave us the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq? Was it not the U.S. state apparatus, including agencies like USAID, that interfered in the affairs of dozens of foreign countries, engineering regime change? Was it not “free trade” agreements like NAFTA that wiped out industries and jobs in foreign countries in the interests of U.S. corporations?
In truth, Trump is no more an “imperialist” or “oligarchic” than those who came before him. He has simply recognized the U.S.’s limits and is pivoting away from Europe and the Middle East and towards the U.S.’s traditional sphere of influence in the Americas. And worst of all for the defenders of the status quo, Trump is saying openly what would have before been couched in phony democratic phraseology.
The liberal elite are right to fear Trump—and not just because their jobs are on the line. More importantly, Trump’s actions threaten to expose the entire system for what it always was: a system designed to protect the interest of large corporations at the expense of humanity. This is the real reason for the liberal malaise.
The mask of capitalism has slipped off. The task now is to organize to overthrow it.
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