Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

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blindpig
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Sat Sep 05, 2020 1:00 pm

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Friday night banned federal agencies from conducting workplace training sessions on race that constitute "divisive, anti-American propaganda," the latest overture to his political base two months before the presidential election.
https://us.cnn.com/2020/09/04/politics/ ... index.html
There he goes again....like a drunk who means what he says but didn't mean to say it. Because racism is indeed as amerikan as apple pie and genocide. Though of course he meant to say it, cause anything beats the hoosegow. What's a little dirty laundry aired, after all, 'everybody does it'. Especially when 'everybody' is his class peers. And of course the marks who find justification for their own beliefs in their 'betters' espousing them. Beliefs reinforced by the bosses generation after generation.

Even as the mainstream of the ruling class has worked to defuse(not correct, not eliminate) the racism baked into US society with great heaping doses of tokenism while leaving the basic relationship in place this is too alarming for the unperceptive who take it at face value and see it as a diminishment of the pathetic white privilege afforded those of the working class. And to a degree it is, the bosses will trade off some of the privilege of one section to placate another, however superficially, if it can be done without rocking the boat. Especially given demographic trends. So that the profits keep on flowing without interruption. Trump is throwing sand into the vaseline of this class fornication.I got no idea what is next, only that the viability of bourgeois democracy is being diminished and that fascism, probably of a liberal flavor, will result. While in the short run this will buoy ruling class control it cannot but diminish their legitimacy.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:10 am

(CNN)President Donald Trump launched an unprecedented public attack against the leadership of the US military on Monday, accusing them of waging wars to boost the profits of defense manufacturing companies.

"I'm not saying the military's in love with me -- the soldiers are, the top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference.

(more)
https://us.cnn.com/2020/09/07/politics/ ... index.html
Shocking! How dare he? This'll put the Dems in imperial overdrive, defending every act of aggression, every bullet shot, as the very essence of 'our Freedom'. And they'll all be telling the truth, more or less. Will people notice? Is Trump courting the pacifist vote?(Hah!) Will he encourage mutiny against the brass?

The 'ratings' gonna be off the charts...and if Trump wins because he's the better showman the ruling class has only itself to blame for making it possible by the propaganda they've used to manipulate the working class all my life and which Trump himself is totally 'invested' in.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by solidgold » Tue Sep 08, 2020 10:10 pm

blindpig wrote:
Tue Sep 08, 2020 11:10 am
(CNN)President Donald Trump launched an unprecedented public attack against the leadership of the US military on Monday, accusing them of waging wars to boost the profits of defense manufacturing companies.

"I'm not saying the military's in love with me -- the soldiers are, the top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy," Trump told reporters at a White House news conference.

(more)
https://us.cnn.com/2020/09/07/politics/ ... index.html
Shocking! How dare he? This'll put the Dems in imperial overdrive, defending every act of aggression, every bullet shot, as the very essence of 'our Freedom'. And they'll all be telling the truth, more or less. Will people notice? Is Trump courting the pacifist vote?(Hah!) Will he encourage mutiny against the brass?

The 'ratings' gonna be off the charts...and if Trump wins because he's the better showman the ruling class has only itself to blame for making it possible by the propaganda they've used to manipulate the working class all my life and which Trump himself is totally 'invested' in.
“Back on his bullshit,” as my generation and younger say. This is archetypical Trump: spin his controversial moments into anti-establishment rhetoric. I’m not sure it’s gonna work beyond the fringes this time—things are very chaotic.

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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Tue Sep 15, 2020 3:11 pm

Another presidential assault on science as fires and pandemic rage

'I don't think the science knows'

Trump's dismissal of science is a power move

A scientific 'bible' corrupted by politics


https://us.cnn.com/2020/09/15/politics/ ... index.html
These the headline and paragraph headers of the piece. And on and on and on.....

Yep, it's all this guy's fault... he emerged from Hell a fully formed flower of ignorance, racism and arrogance, there is no precedent. That last phrase is true as the prez is a product of that stage of capitalism which we boomers were born into. But not the rest. As US capital has grown into a world devouring monster can we surprised that the fruit, the coddled progeny of the monster, does not fall far from the tree?

Yet the same ignorance, racism and arrogance can be found all over in this country, and it ain't no accident. It is the result generations of 'education' and entertainments dictated by class affinities and more recently direct government effort. The big difference between Trump and Joe Blow is of course money and class. Joe can hold forth in his bar or diner and it makes not a bit of difference, he has no platform, no access, no lawyers on retainer. Trump has all that, yet he also has the world view of his class compounded by the sort of 'education' meant for us peons: TV news, school not as education but as training suitable for those who work and consume for the benefit of the few. Jingoism, racism, exceptionalism, provincialism, these are the results.

And there lies his political strength. As the US consciously wiped out the concept of class during the Cold War, many ill educated Amerikans, see the ignorance they share with Trump as a bond. The racism a stinking salve to smother and redirect class resentment, as Dr King noted about poor whites long ago. And what is the racism of poor whites but the echo of the slave owner. Not that all these whites are poor, far from that, but they think they are, relatively. Ruling Ideas, like shit, roll downhill.

Every action he has taken has been ultimately originated from or benefited capital, at least the sections allied with him. And it seems the more desperate things get the more the doctrinaire capitalism is nakedly displayed. Covid, racism and climate change will be ignored ultimately because addressing them properly would interfere with profits. As a member of the ruling class he knows this in his bones and acts(or doesn't act) accordingly, without hesitation, because he really is The Real Deal, Avatar of the Ruling Class(they can deny it all they want...),the Id of Capitalism.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 28, 2020 11:43 am

Donald Trump, Avatar of his class...
New York Times: Trump paid no income taxes in 10 out of 15 years beginning in 2000

Washington (CNN)Donald Trump paid no federal income taxes whatsoever in 10 out of 15 years beginning in 2000 because he reported losing significantly more than he made, according to an explosive report released Sunday by the New York Times.

In both the year he won the presidency and his first year in the White House, Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes, the Times reported.
Detailing payments gleaned from more than two decades of tax information, the Times report outlines extensive financial losses and years of tax avoidance that deal a blow to the business-tycoon brand Trump has built his political career on.
At a White House briefing Sunday, Trump denied the New York Times story and claimed that he pays "a lot" in federal income taxes.
"I pay a lot, and I pay a lot in state income taxes," he said.
Trump added that he is willing to release his tax returns once he is no longer under audit by the Internal Revenue Service, which he said "treats me badly." The President, however, is under no obligation to hold his tax returns while under audit, despite his repeated claims otherwise.
Trump also refused to answer how much he has paid in federal taxes in the briefing and walked out to shouted questions from CNN's Jeremy Diamond on the topic.
The expansive Times report paints a picture of businessman who was struggling to keep his businesses afloat and was reporting millions in losses even as he was campaigning for President and boasting about his financial success.
According to the newspaper, Trump used the $427.4 million he was paid for "The Apprentice" to fund his other businesses, mostly his golf courses, and was putting more cash into his businesses than he was taking out.
The tax information obtained by the Times also reveals Trump has been fighting the IRS for years over whether losses he claimed should have resulted in a nearly $73 million refund.

<snip>

The Times reported Sunday that Trump's tax information reveals specific examples of the potential conflicts of interests between the President's business with his position.
The President has collected an additional $5 million a year at Mar-a-Lago since 2015 from new members. A roofing material manufacturer GAF spent at least $1.5 million in 2018 at Trump's Doral golf course near Miami while its industry was lobbying the government to roll back federal regulations, according to the Times.
It also found that Billy Graham Evangelistic Association paid more than $397,000 to Trump's Washington, DC, hotel in 2017.
The newspaper reported that in Trump's first two years in office, he has collected $73 million in revenue overseas, with much of that coming from his golf courses but some coming from licensing deals in countries, including the Philippines, India and Turkey.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/09/27/politics/ ... index.html
Only a fool could be surprised. Not because Trump is an exceptional scumbag, which he is, but in this instance he is not exceptional. Much of his hideously obscene gaming of the tax laws is quite legal, or is at least is accepted as such by his class peers and the functionaries responsible to them(not us). To what extent? Who knows? But they have made the laws fungible for armies lawyers and bean counters, the sort of resources only available to the boss class. Are we to believe that the rich take a pass on this means of retaining every bit of value they steal from us? Or that their employees in these matters would neglect their 'due diligence' at risk of their considerable paychecks? Rather than focusing on the 'bad cheeto man' the socialist's criticism should use this 'ice breaker' as a discussion of class in general. He is after all the avatar of his class, whether his peers will admit it or not.
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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Mon Sep 28, 2020 2:57 pm

Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

U.S. Elections: Is a “Shitstorm” Coming?

BY OAKLANDSOCIALIST ON SEPTEMBER 26, 2020 • ( 2 COMMENTS )

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An article from Atlantic magazine is drawing considerable notice. The publishers considered the article so important that they published the October issue of their magazine (which contains the article) before its scheduled publication date.

The article’s author, Barton Gelman, predicts what he considers a likely state of complete confusion in the outcome of the presidential election. He explains that the real threat does not come from Trump refusing to vacate his office if he officially loses. “The worst case scenario is that he uses his power to prevent a decisive outcome against him” in the first place he writes. “He could prevent the formation of consensus about whether there is any outcome at all. He could seize on that un­certainty to hold on to power.”

As if by magic, on the exact day that the article was published, Trump held a press conference in which he said, “Get rid of the [mail-in] ballots and we’ll have a very peaceful… There won’t be a transfer, frankly, there’ll be a continuation….”

A large part of the problem stems from the lack of fight of the Democrats who, in addition to responding to the Covid 19 crisis, were trying to find a way around the Republicans’ voter suppression by encouraging mail-in voting. They did this instead of mobilizing in the streets to actually put a stop to voter suppression.

In-person vs. Mail-in Ballots
As a result, it is entirely possible that Trump could win enough in-person votes in enough states on November 3 to “win” the presidency, but then in the following days and weeks, the counting of the mail-in votes reverses this. Known as the “blue shift”, this has happened with increasing frequency in recent elections.

In that event, all sorts of legal and political maneuvering both at the state and federal level could leave both parties to declare their candidate actually won. In addition, it’s legally possible that the Speaker of the House, presently Nancy Pelosi, could assume the presidency since she is third in line after the president and vice president.

Legal Maneuverings
The legal maneuverings would happen at all different levels. If neither side backs down, then at the state level, it’s even possible that state legislatures could select the electors (who actually determine who will be president) rather than the electors being selected by the voters. It’s also possible that the votes of two different and competing slates of electors reach congress, where these votes are counted. At the national level… well, it would require several pages to explain the possibilities, but suffice it to say that neither the Constitution nor the law is clear on how such disputes must be resolved nor even who, exactly, counts the votes. (You should just read Gelman’s article.) Also, there will be hundreds, possibly thousands of court challenges.


Trump supporters trying to intimidate voters in Virginia at early voting polling place.

Cries of Anguish and Enflamed Passions
All of this will be accompanied by outraged cries of anguish on both sides. Much of that may be just theater, but it will stir up already enflamed passions among tens of millions. That will add to the threats we’re already starting to see. Trump has said he’s sending 50,000 poll “observers” on election day. There will also be the various militias and other racists and xenophobes out in numbers.

“Brooks Brothers” Riot

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As for counting the many millions of mail-in votes after November 3, we should remember the “Brooks Brothers riot” of 2000. In that event, some thousands of Bush supporters rioted to prevent officials from recounting the ballots in Florida’s Miami-Dade County, in order to ensure the installation of Bush. If counting of mail-in ballots looks like it may reverse a November 3 in-person–vote victory for Trump, that riot may well be like a child’s birthday party in comparison. This time, instead of Brooks Brothers suits, many of the rioters will be wearing camouflage and will be armed to the teeth in the open carry states at least.

To avoid such a complete “shitstorm”, as one Republican advisor called it, one of the two parties would have to back down. Is that likely?

Would Trump Back Down?
It would be extremely difficult for Trump to back down. His having sent the poll “watchers” itself will drive him further down the road he’s already headed down. He has also amped up his violent and unreasoning base who are already starting to interfere in early voting. Along with them are the violent militias and similar types. Finally, his party has a lot to lose since if he backs down, many of them will also lose their offices together with all the perks and possibilities for skimming.

A key question is whether the capitalist class would unite to convince Trump to back down. At present, the great majority of the capitalist class favors Biden. We see this, for example, in the letter of nearly 500 former top military and civilian leaders who took the unusual step of urging a vote for Biden. Prior to that, we saw the outcry of many retired military leaders when Trump threatened to call out the military against the Black Lives Matter protests.

Extreme Weakness of Base of Capitalist Class
Some may conclude from this that Biden will be the next president. That is similar to the mistake many of us – this writer included – made in 2016. Then, it was clear that the vast majority of the capitalist class preferred Hillary Clinton. Even the editors of the Wall St. Journal were continually attacking Trump. We drew a mistaken conclusion from that. After Trump won, at least this writer figured that the capitalist class would be able to get him into line. Wrong again.

What I and others didn’t account for was the extreme weakness of the base of support for the mainstream of the US capitalist class.

How about today? The mainstream of the US capitalist class has been trying to get Trump at least partly under control for over three years now. Not only have they failed, he’s getting worse.

What means do they have of ousting him? With the exception of Fox, all the news channels have anti-Trump commentary and news just about 24/7. Yet he is still in striking distance of Biden. He is steadily moving to assume direct, personal control over many of the key federal bureaucracies – the Department of (in)Justice, for example, where he’s installed a loyal flunky in Barr, and where untrustworthy officials are removed one by one. Same in the State Department.

True there are limits to this process. Unlike an outright dictator, Trump cannot just execute those who aren’t loyal to him. He can’t even fire all of them. Just the other day, September 25, his head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, testified before congress that there are no examples of serious vote fraud through mail-in voting, but it will be politically difficult for Trump to fire Wray at this time. However, overall it is very difficult to see how Trump could back down unless he loses on election day itself, which is possible but very far from assured.

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Joe Biden. Not exactly a powerful figure.

Can the Democrats Back Down?
How about Biden? Could he concede if Trump & Co. try to steal the election through a combination of voter suppression on election day plus “getting rid” of the mail-in ballots as Trump has called for? It’s possible. That’s what the Democrats successfully pressured Gore to do in 2000. This time, though, the stakes are far, far higher and a far wider layer of the US capitalist class is much more determined that the Democrat take office on January 20. One detail, which may not be such a detail, is that in 2000, that concession by the Democrats required no challenge from any US Senator or Representative. There was a challenge from a few Representatives, but the party was able to enforce discipline and prevent any senator from challenging the result. It seems unlikely but not impossible for the tops of the Democratic Party to conclude that it’s better to allow Trump another four years than have a state of utter chaos. What does seem even more unlikely is that some Senator would not break ranks and make a challenge such as did not happen in 2000. In fact, if Biden were to back down to Trump’s voter suppression, fraudulent vote counting and outright terrorism in the streets, it could only happen with enormous battles inside the Democratic Party.

If the Democrats did back down, then in the face of such craven cowardice, a movement towards a mass working class party could spring to life overnight.

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Trump or Biden?
A return of Trump to office will be a huge setback for the US working class and for all especially oppressed peoples. It will greatly increase the confidence and aggression of the armed and dangerous militias and similar groups. It will also accelerate Trump’s tendencies toward one-man dictatorship (aka “bonapartism”). If Biden slides in, this will also be a setback for the working class and the oppressed, except less of one. After a brief “honeymoon” period of popularity for Biden, the same far right groups would likely regroup. In fact, some of them, feeling bitter, could launch terrorist attacks soon after Biden came to office or even before. And anybody who expects Biden to really fight for the working class and the oppressed simply has not been paying attention.

Overall, the choice amounts to one between overt bigotry and further steps toward one man dictatorship vs. capitalist democracy. Even with capitalist democracy’s lies and hypocrisy, exploitation, oppression and environmental disaster, that choice should be a no brainer. That choice, though, doesn’t mean we should be campaigning for Biden or any Democrat.

As things are being “planned” for the moment, the working class as a class would be mainly a spectator. As things stand, an independent role for even a sector of the working class is not even being considered.

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The Juneteenth port shutdown in Oakland. It showed the potential power of the working class. That potential has yet to be capitalized on.

Working Class
The main task of socialists and others is to call for and try to build an independent movement of workers. Since the only mass working class organizations that exist in the US presently are the unions, that means trying to get the unions to mobilize their base. Many of the unions are filled with right wing white bigots, but many are not. In addition to the public sector unions, there are those like the ILWU, transit workers, health care workers, hotel workers and grocery clerks. That would be a basis for starting to build an independent working class mobilization, including political strikes and leading towards a general strike against the attacks on democratic rights by Trump as well as against police assaults.

For that, a program of demands is needed. This is not the place for an adequate discussion of such a program, but it would have to include economic demands as well as demands around the police, special oppression, international working class links, and Covid 19 and the environment. The main point is that the unions should actively organize and fight for its members on the job and for all workers and the oppressed in society as a whole. For that to happen, rank and file union members will have to build an organized opposition to the current leadership.

This means a sharp conflict with the entire union leadership, including its “progressive” wing. Such conflicts are outside the comfort zone for many socialists and many other activists. They should consider stepping outside that zone because what is headed down the railroad tracks may be far, far more “uncomfortable”.

Such a campaign is the best way to transform the mood and start to establish at least a sector of the US working class as an independent force in society. This would be the first step towards building an independent working class party. As a side benefit, it would also be the best way to assure that Trump is not returned to office.

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/09/26 ... rm-coming/

This is quite good, though I do not see where there is time for a union make-over before this election. Still better late than never. The analysis of Trump's relationship with his peers is accurate, I think. There is a 'Trump is the choice of his peers' opinion out there but I see this as a variant of 'resistance is futile'. He has the backing of a booj minority, the so-called 'extractive industries', who he has benefited mightily, and a handful of rich Christian whack-jobs, or else he'd have gotten nowhere. But the majority of rich assholes are not pleased: he has stabbed agriculture in the back, put a serious hurt on 'China investors', pissed off the manufacturing sector by screwing up their supply and fucked up everything by his inept handling of the pandemic, even by capitalist standards. His ham-handed racism has stirred the right and left when his peers require Order. His treatment by the bourgeois media should make this plain enough. Other presidents have been pilloried by the press but there has never been a campaign like this. I don't normally watch TV but after having spent a week with some news junkies all I can say is 'Holy Shit!'

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The trick for them is to relieve themselves of this irritant by means that will at least appear 'Constitutional'. Which ain't gonna be easy as he is employing every tool available to him that is at least marginally legal, trashing all previous custom common to our ruling class. This is as important as the legality, custom is a powerful social bond, a 'given' which if discarded leaves all relationships in question. And as the piece pointed out the Dems might accept Trump's blackmail in the hope of minimizing the damage to bourgeois democracy, as in 2000. As to the hope that such an outcome might stimulate some real action on the Left, well it didn't happen last time. On the other hand shit does accrete, and did I not hear a guy chanting at the funeral "enough is enough!"? A tipping point, the rancid fruit of bourgeois dominance could prove the point like an over-ripe mango falling from a tall tree. Whatever happens, there will not be a 'return to normalcy', that train has left the station for the US empire.

Here is a comment from the article:

https://www.cwgusa.org/wp-content/uploa ... -FINAL.pdf

To survive capitalism’s death agony: Build a Fighting Workers/Labor Party Now!

For working class political independence and class struggle!

Electoral politics cannot solve the multi headed crisis of capitalist rule!

The working class and the oppressed, facing economic crisis, COVID, racist cop terror, unemployment and evictions cannot wait for yet another election that will solve nothing in our favor no matter who wins. It is long past time to form our own fighting Workers/Labor Party. A National Convention is needed of the trade unions, the many thousand organizations of the oppressed and the various Marxist organizations to form a united front to build such a party and to fight within the unions, and to fight within the protest movements and the broader wage labor society for this party. It is already time to see that the DSA is standing deadwood, its basis for an organizational existence destroyed by the Democrat Convention,replaced by the popular front of Sanders, Biden, Trumpka and Meg Whitman.

We need to do this NOW, as the capitalist duopoly partnership is NOT DEALING WITH the multi crises: disease/pandemic, starvation/survival, eviction/homelessness, war danger, the lost rate of profit as megabanks stagger and the Democrats have nothing but the election to offer.

The election was all they really ever wanted: the proof is their failure to mobilize the working class to remove Trump, substituting their cynical “impeachment” that was designed to fail. If they are elected we’ll get austerity in the neck and continuing attacks on Social Security. We DON’T WANT the reformist labor party foreseen as inevitable by Shachtman, and we don’t want the Green Party for whom social revolution is excluded and we don’t want the micro program of pragmatism, which we will ceaselessly critique as a plan for inadequacy.

We would take part in any true mass labor party regardless, but only fight for our program and only take responsibility for it. In all cases we insist on a program that can remove the dictatorship of the capitalist class and replace it with the dictatorship of mass organs of the workers and the oppressed. We see parliamentarism as the soapbox where we argue for socialism as the only survival road to a planet with a future. All the bourgeoisie has to offer is death and division, whether by sectoral/intersectional means with oblivious lack of concern for the masses as a whole, or the secret legal and judicial agenda of the Koch fossil fuel empire; the secret lifetime Trump Bonapartist Presidency plan, where a Trump dynasty was even floated, as testified to by the no-platform RNC focus on the family…Trump family that is.

The Labor Party we want, fights vote suppression and wants the working class to vote on every important question at work, in schools and the community, making every day election day, with far less “representative” substitution and an end to ruling capitalist class secret back room government, as we will go on to expose that racket at every turn.

The Republican “Convention”

The Republican Convention was held during the backdrop of the Jacob Blake post-shooting demonstrations and was used to expand Trump’s call to the armed right wing to come out and form up the white citizens councils of old. They came out in Kenosha, armed and ready to kill and they did, egged on by the local racist police and sheriff and in large part by the McCloskey’s ‘special moment’ of hero worship for pointing guns at #BLM protesters walking by their house. This was seen widely as an invitation to come armed into the streets to confront the protesters whom Pence and Trump consistently call rioters and looters, egged on by the Fox network, as the Hannity’s and Ingraham’s compete for Trump’s attention with the Sputniks at One America News.

The prognosis on the elections is changing back in favor of Trump as we write. He is driving towards Bonapartism as he whips his fascistic base into a frenzy. Trump is closing the gap in the swing states and that may crush the Biden majority vote just like Clinton’s in 2016. … In any event, the Democrats are not able to defeat Trumpism and its causes which are about to graduate from their first season of the Reality TV ‘Apprentice’ to the first season of multi-generational TV drama ‘Dynasty’, with Donald playing Juan Peron and Ivanka playing Evita. Capitalist crises can only be solved through socialist revolution.

Picking up where Kyle Rittenhouse left off, 600 MAGA maggots drove into downtown Portland August 29th in a caravan against the BLM protesters. This implicitly threatens to weaponize their vehicles as has been done numerous times coast to coast, mimicking the Charlottesville murder of Heather Hyer. Some of the MAGAs were openly carrying firearms as well. So this is not just a paintball duel, but a foreshadow of gun battles should Trump lose; in fact, we can foresee, and have heard of plans by Trumpsters to suppress the anti-Trump vote on Nov. 3rd with arms. This was how the Jim Crow vote suppression was carried out before 1965.

We note the emergence of groups like the NFAC (Not F-ing Around Coalition.) And the shooting of the Patriot Prayer thug on August 28th is an indication that the Ghandians are losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the protesters. This development is only positive IF individualism also loses and disciplined, trained Labor-Black-Brown Community Defense Guards are formed. More and more the left is learning that passive acceptance of the violence of the right and the police only leads to deaths on our side. We need to make the jump from disorganized individual self armament to organized self defense guards that are built in every union hall and in community centers and churches, mosques and synagogues of the oppressed.

Revolutionary workers need to exploit the contradictions of the nationalists, the theocrats and the identity politicos of all stripes to show that only working class unity can defeat the forces of repression and reaction and the causes of the crisis of capitalism. We need our own party to accomplish these tasks. To advance on this course, please read:

COVID-19 Pandemic and Capitalist Economic Crisis As Young Workers Reject Racism: A Class Struggle Workers Action Program

Let’s resolve racist capitalism’s crisis in favor of our class!

How to Build a Labor Party (by our predecessors of HWRS)
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 07, 2020 11:34 am

excerpt:
The most obvious sign of U.S. political decay that emerged from the debate arose from questions about the legitimacy of the election itself. For four years, corporate media outlets and the Democratic Party have delegitimized the U.S. electoral process by claiming without any evidence that Trump stole the presidency with help from Russia. U.S. intelligence agencies have stirred up a brew of uncertainty about foreign interference to the point where reports are issued routinely warning of Russian, Iranian, and Chinese meddling in U.S. elections. Trump has exploited the illegitimacy of Russiagate to serve his own ends by claiming that the Democrats are rigging each and every election against him. The fear of Trump rejecting a loss to Biden is now common among the U.S. liberal class. When Trump and Biden were asked about whether they would accept the election results, Biden’s affirmative was countered with Trump’s guarantee that the results would need to be “looked at” if he were to lose.

That the U.S. political system has resorted to delegitimizing itself to reinforce the broader imperial project is a clear indication of system breakdown. U.S. economic supremacy is waning and the global capitalist system is locked into a future of slow growth and permanent overproduction. The global working class is trapped in a Race to the Bottom of endless austerity brought about by financial and corporate monopolies seeking to maximize their private profits at all cost. Mass misery and unemployment means short term enrichment for individual capitalists from reduced labor costs but long-term decline for a system that relies on an abundance of labor to service its profits in the long-term. The U.S. has led the charge to prop up the system with massive amounts of liquidity in the form of debt—making the economic crises of 2008 and 2020 all the more painful.

https://www.blackagendareport.com/debat ... -thug-thon
Short sighted personal and partisan grasping has put the consensus and custom which regulate the rule of the bourgeoisie in the shitcan. They'll not put these worms back into the can, it's out there for all the working class to see, what so many of us have long suspected. De-legitimising the illegitimate ain't no bad thing, it is shovel and rope they hand us, if we have the wit to use them.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Wed Oct 28, 2020 1:55 pm

There is no crime here:
New York Times: Tax records show Trump had over $270 million in debt forgiven after failing to repay lenders

By Paul LeBlanc, CNN

Updated 7:57 AM ET, Wed October 28, 2020

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump has had more than $270 million in debt forgiven since 2010 after he failed to repay his lenders for a Chicago skyscraper development, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

An analysis of his tax records by the Times shows that after the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Chicago encountered financial problems, big banks and hedge funds cut Trump considerable slack, granting him years of additional time to repay his debts, much of which was ultimately forgiven.
And while the previously unreported forgiven debts would usually fuel a large tax bill, Trump appears to have managed to pay almost no federal income tax on them, the Times reported, partially because of the significant financial losses his other businesses were enduring.
Trump Organization chief legal officer Alan Garten told the Times that the organization and Trump had paid all necessary taxes on the forgiven debts.
"These were all arm's length transactions that were voluntarily entered into between sophisticated parties many years ago in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis and the resulting collapse of the real estate markets," Garten said.
Trump defended his conduct Wednesday morning, tweeting, "I was able to make an appropriately great deal with the numerous lenders on a large and very beautiful tower. Doesn't that make me a smart guy rather than a bad guy?"
Still, news of Trump's extensive forgiven debts deal a new blow to the business-tycoon brand the President has built his political career on, just a week from Election Day.
According to the Times, Trump arranged for two of his LLCs to borrow more than $700 million for the Chicago development and went to Deutsche Bank for the majority of the money.
The bank agreed to lend $640 million to the project, the newspaper said, but after construction delays, the loan came due while portions of the building were still unfinished.
While Deutsche initially granted Trump an extension on paying back the loan, after it denied an additional extension request Trump sued the bank along with Fortress Investment Group -- which had provided a $130 million loan for the project -- and other banks and hedge funds that had bought parts of those loans, the Times reported.
Trump, according to the newspaper, charged that Deutsche had engaged in "predatory lending practices." The bank responded with its own lawsuit demanding repayment of the loan.
In July 2010, Deutsche Bank, Fortress and Trump reached a private settlement without disclosing the terms, the Times reported. But Trump's federal tax returns and a loan document show that he had about $270 million in debt from the project forgiven.
The new details gleaned from the President's tax records build on previous New York Times reports that detailed how Trump paid no federal income taxes whatsoever in 10 out of 15 years beginning in 2000 because he reported losing significantly more than he made.
In both the year he won the presidency and his first year in the White House, Trump paid just $750 in federal income taxes, the Times reported.
Trump has denied the New York Times story and claimed that he pays "a lot" in federal income taxes.

https://us.cnn.com/2020/10/27/politics/ ... index.html
bolding added

Indeed, Boss Man, indeed. Taking advantage of the laws written by, of & for the Owning Class ain't no crime. Imagine how well the rich who are actually smart play this system. It is the laws themselves that are criminal. The accusation of predatory lending is the cherry on top, that thing about honor & thieves...Meanwhile millions face foreclosure or eviction and will not get a penny of 'forgiveness'.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Sun Nov 01, 2020 6:20 pm

Hmm...
Stop Trump! Stop Trumpism!
BY OAKLANDSOCIALIST ON NOVEMBER 1, 2020 • ( LEAVE A COMMENT )

The police pepper spraying of the marchers in N. Carolina who were marching to support Black Lives Matter…
The Trump vigilante car caravan interference with the Biden campaign bus in Texas…
Trump’s response to this: “I love Texas”…
This tends to confirm the more serious worries about what may happen on election day and after…
It also confirms the very worst fears about what will happen if Trump steals the elections and gets back into office…
The only way to assure this won’t happen is a mass, working class campaign to stop him.
Such a campaign can only be successfully built if the unions are directly involved in a way that the leadership has prevented up until now.
That is why we should encourage and help the rank and file of the unions to organize opposition caucuses and fight for power inside he unions.
That should be the focus of socialists, not opposition to voting for the “lesser evil”.

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/11/01 ... -trumpism/
*****************************************************

Why I voted for the “lesser evil” – AKA Joe Biden – this time
BY OAKLANDSOCIALIST ON OCTOBER 31, 2020 • ( 5 COMMENTS )
After 50 years of never voting for any “lesser evil” Democrat, I voted for Joe Biden the other day. I waited for weeks to fill in the little circle by his name. I joked that I was hoping for an earthquake that would destroy my home and bury my ballot in the rubble so that I wouldn’t have to decide. But I finally did so. After reading all the arguments on why I should not vote for the “lesser evil” again this time, I’m more convinced than ever that I did the right thing. Here’s why I think I’ve been right for the last 50 years (including not supporting Bernie Sanders) and why I think I was right this time:


Proud Boys. If Trump is returned to office, it will give these violent fascist groups a boost like never before.

Trump, Vigilantes & One Man Rule
If Trump gets back in, it will be an enormous boost to the violent far right vigilante groups and individuals. Also, if he gets back in it will be through stealing the election, including suppressing the right to vote of black and Latino voters. He would also use his return to office to further his efforts to take personal control over one wing of the government after another.

In other words, it would be a major step towards one-person rule in place of democracy. Yes, democracy under capitalism is extremely limited and has all sorts of crimes to answer for, but it is better than one person dictatorship (also known as Bonapartism) for sure. That’s not exactly the same as fascism, but it’s bad enough.

<snip>

Voting for Biden is not the same as voting for a lesser evil Democrat in the past. That’s because the situation is so different. Nor does it change the need for nor undermine building an independent working class campaign to stop Trump and Trumpism. But if we are going to build such a campaign – a working class campaign against Trump – then there is no contradiction to at the end of the day voting for the only candidate who can replace him. In fact, it is entirely logical.

https://oaklandsocialist.com/2020/10/31 ... this-time/
The 'Trotsky' in Oakland strong is. A lot of idealist thinking going on here. Anybody who thinks Trump is going to erect a personal dictatorship on the shoulders of the Proud Boys has been dipping into the rat cheese. Correlation of forces, fer chrissake. Are a handful of thousands of these boys playing army gonna control a country of 380 million, when the majority of the ruling class and masses oppose them? Cheeto Man is toast because he has fucked up entirely too much of their shit on his watch, the pandemic being the last straw. He will be gone, by hook or crook, even if the bosses gotta bend some of their own 'sacred' rules.

And if by chance he ain't he will continue to run down the US Empire, using it as his personal fiefdom. And make life in the US even more hellish it is true, but many people overseas will be thankful that he's killing us instead of them.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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Re: Donald Trump, Avatar of his Class, Capitalism & the Decline and Fall of Bourgeois Democracy

Post by blindpig » Mon Nov 02, 2020 3:15 pm


<snip>

THE LOSS OF LEGITIMACY OF THE GOVERNMENT WILL BRING MORE POWER STRUGGLES AND VIOLENCE

Two polls serve to illustrate the state of disbelief of Americans about the institutions of the Federal Government. The first, from YouGov , collects from different gender, age and ethnic groups, the percentage of those who think that they will never know what the real results of the elections were. On average, 40% of the population in the country of the North thinks that way.

The second, from Pew Research , indicates that "about eight in ten Americans (79%) say that news organizations tend to favor one side when presenting news on political and social issues." It should be noted that this survey was carried out between January and March 2020, before the conflicts surrounding the elections spread to the current situation.

The tendency to distrust the media is greater among Republicans (91%) than among Democrats (69%), but the levels are high in both cases. "The push for a political agenda" is the main reason why Americans perceive unfair coverage of the news.

<snip>

Trump has not given a firm answer on whether he would accept a defeat on November 3. On the contrary, it has speculated on the electoral fraud scenario if the results are not favorable. In such a situation, having a private army of right-wing extremists can go a long way, even to avoid it, by intimidating voters until the date of the election.

But it is not only on the Republican side that they refuse to respect the electoral rules. Neoconservatives have rehearsed hypothetical scenarios in which Joe Biden is not victorious, and thus prepare responses that lead to the seizure of power, or at least to institutional destabilization that could be instrumentalized in a new Democratic presidency. Analyzed by journalist Whitney Webb, the simulations of anti-Trump officials ended in institutional crises and military coups.

https://misionverdad.com/globalist%C3%A ... es-en-eeuu
Regardless of the outcome bourgeois democracy comes outta this at least tattered and perhaps much more damaged. Tattered if Biden wins and Trump eventually concedes. More damaged by any other scenario.

Through his utterly self-serving promotion of the idea of 'fake news' Trump has done us a service. The breakdown in the confidence people have in the ruling ideas/institutions, the adoption of a rational nihilism, can only lead to ruthless criticism of commensurate scale. And then, like Jackie Gleason used to say, "And away we go!"

Paging Comrade Rakhmetov.....
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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