The American Volcano: Towards Fascism or Socialism

President Donald Trump is preparing to invoke the Insurrection Act against the American working class. He has already sent troops to major US cities and demanded unswerving loyalty from US generals in a war against the “antifa” and the “radical left”.

Four-and-a-half years after Trump made clear his intention to overthrow Constitutional law by instigating the January 6 coup attempt, he is moving rapidly to establish a presidential dictatorship.

Trump’s actions are not the product of individual evil, but the response of America’s capitalist class to an existential crisis of US imperialism. His administration represents the realignment of the American political superstructure to correspond with the real social relations that exist in the United States.

The President is acting on behalf of an ultra-rich oligarchy: the richest 1 percent hold a staggering $49 trillion dollars, one third of all US wealth. These grotesque fortunes represent the apex of explosive levels of social inequality which cannot be reconciled with even the most rudimentary elements of democratic rights.

A class war is brewing in America, and Trump is mobilising the forces of the ruling class.

This explains the free rein given Trump and his co-conspirators by the Democratic Party and the trade union bureaucracy. They are doing nothing to mobilise opposition to Trump’s dictatorship because their fear of a mass working-class movement—which would place the questions of socialism and revolution on the agenda—is far greater than any disagreements they have with Trump’s methods.

What is taking place in America is of the greatest political concern to workers and young people internationally. Not only because the consequences will be felt around the world, but because the US situation only reflects in the most extreme form the same global crisis gripping every other country.

Everywhere, governments preside over societies laid to waste by inequality, overseeing worsening living standards for workers, sweeping cuts to social spending and rapid remilitarisation. They attack democratic rights, demonise migrant workers, promote divisive nationalism and empower far-right and fascist parties.

In Britain, this takes place under a Labour government, led by Trump’s close ally Keir Starmer, which is carrying out an unprecedented crackdown on political opposition. Following the arrest of over 2,000 people for opposing the proscription of Palestine Action, Starmer has now announced sweeping restrictions on all peaceful protests.

Workers and young people are being posed point blank with the need for a socialist party to replace this right-wing monstrosity in power.

The Socialist Equality Party and its youth movement, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, insist that the dangers facing the working class cannot be resolved through parliamentary reform. Workers must be mobilised in struggle and won to a socialist programme of expropriating the oligarchy, taking state power and organising production democratically for need, not private profit.

In Britain, as in America and every country, the decisive question is the building of a revolutionary leadership, rejecting left-talking opponents of the class struggle like Jeremy Corbyn. “The American Volcano: Towards Fascism or Socialism” will be an opportunity for a serious discussion of this central political task.

The meeting will be addressed by David North, chairman of the World Socialist Web Site’s Editorial Board, speaking with the benefit of 50 years’ experience in the struggle for Trotskyism in the United States. He is the author of numerous books and essays, including, in recent years, The Logic of Zionism: From Nationalist Myth to the Gaza Genocide, Sounding the Alarm: Socialism Against War and Leon Trotsky and the Struggle for Socialism in the Twenty-First Century.

We encourage all workers, students and young people wanting to take on the fascist threat and fight for socialism to register for this unique event today. The choice is socialism or barbarism, and we have no time to lose.