Trump's return, with his court of funny reactionaries, raises some
interesting questions: if on the one hand there are clear continuitieswith the Biden administration, such as the militarized management of the
border with Mexico, on the other hand we can see elements of
discontinuity both in the relationship with minorities and in the
relationship with allied countries. ---- The Obama presidency had made
these two points distinctive features: rebuilding a social pact in the
United States with the federal government that acts as guarantor of
minorities - African-Americans, Latinos, but also LGBTQ people - and
overcoming that excess of US unilateralism within the countries of the
Atlantic Pact that had caused important ruptures, with France and
Germany - the two countries that together with Italy hold the "majority
shares" of the EU - first and foremost, during the Bush presidencies.
After Trump's first presidency, Biden's presidency had resumed Obama's
rhetoric but adopted a muscular approach to bring Germany back under
duress completely within the Atlanticist fold, destroying Merkel's
Ostpolitik. If on the one hand Trump could - and we want to underline
the use of the conditional - impose an end to the Russian-Ukrainian
conflict, but not necessarily in the terms hoped for by Moscow and its
supporters, on the other hand he will force European countries to take
charge of their own defense. If on the one hand this is in continuity
with the US strategy of Europeanizing the conflict, and in this the
greater involvement of Germany, even just as an industrial base for war
production, is fundamental, on the other hand this strategy changes tone
and approach. Abandoning the good diplomatic manners of the Democrats, a
crude property developer arrives with the manners of a landlord who
comes to demand rent: one of those who increase the rent after having
cut the heating.
A discontinuity not only in form as it imposes a much more hierarchical
vision of Atlanticism. One explanation for this behavior is that the US
ruling class wants to strengthen its positions in view of a possible
conflict, more or less open, with China. Closing the hot phase of the
conflict with Russia, which has now suffered the destruction of its
power projection capacity with the Black Sea fleet incapacitated by
Ukrainian attacks, the army bogged down in Donbass, the air force in
crisis and the unusable Syrian bases, and delegating the management of
the same to the EU countries means being able to concentrate US forces
in the scenarios that most worry the US ruling class: Indo-Pacific and
Arctic (hence Trump's obsession with Greenland).
Isolationism can also be a way to better prepare for a war and it would
not be surprising if this isolationism were accompanied by a new Monroe
Doctrine to cement US control over the entire American continent. There
are plenty of clues to this, first and foremost the diktat in Panama for
control of the Canal.
As far as the Levant scenario is concerned, we can imagine a relaunch of
the Abraham Accords, which however will have to pass through the
resolution of the Palestinian issue, something on which the Saudis seem
to be banking a lot also in order to re-qualify themselves in the eyes
of public opinion in other Arab countries, and we will have to see how
much, beyond the rhetoric of certain figures in the Trumpian court who
seem to be to the right of Ben Givir, Trump will decide to take into
account the Saudi pressure in this sense. It is not at all certain that
Netanyahu has made the right calculation in banking on Trump to
guarantee his political survival. It certainly greatly increases the
possibility of direct US military involvement in the war against Iran.
Up to now, the US has not provided the weapons necessary for Israel to
independently strike Iranian nuclear sites and has proven reluctant to
take the fateful step. But with Iranian air defense capabilities
severely weakened by the latest Israeli operation and the axis of
resistance having disintegrated under the blows of the IDF (Hamas and
Hezbollah reduced to the bare minimum military terms and the loss of an
important Syrian ally) it is possible that Washington will feel the
urgency to close the Iranian game once and for all: the Maoist maxim of
beating a drowning dog can also be applied to a hierocracy.
It is also extremely likely that the pressure of the settlements in the
West Bank will increase.
Ultimately we can assume a certain continuity of direction in terms of
foreign policy (Europeanization of the conflict with Russia, strategic
redeployment for the purpose of containing China, some form of Pax
Americana in the Levant) with a discontinuity in the form (a hegemony
characterized by a certain authoritarianism in the relationship with
allies, greater willingness to have an open conflict with Iran). If the
elements of continuity are certainly relevant, the elements of
discontinuity are equally so. Since the end of the Second World War, US
alliances have been played out on three levels: a first level of allied
countries made up of other Anglo-Saxon countries, a second level of
other countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Japan, a third level of
countries that have a more explicitly clientelistic relationship with
the hegemonic power. Trumpian methods seem to want to reduce the allies,
or at least part of them, of the second level to this third category.
The European ruling classes are certainly worried about this evolution
but will end up adapting.
The Italian ruling class led by Fd'I has already rushed to kneel before
the new master.
As regards internal politics, however, we can detect strong elements of
discontinuity. As we were saying, Obama's and then Biden's policies were
characterized by the attempt to rebuild a social pact with the
marginalized components of US society: the policies of inclusion of
African-Americans and Latinos and towards LGBTQ people fit into this
groove. This happened both by offering forms of federal protection from
the most reactionary elements of white supremacy and by sponsoring the
so-called affirmative actions, but also with the launch of anti-trust
actions against web giants like Google and, in general, a more sensitive
approach to workers' demands (remember that in the US in the last decade
there has been a significant resurgence of labor struggles).
It is worth remembering that these democratic policies did not come
about courtesy of a particularly enlightened ruling class but are the
openly theorized attempt to rebuild a social pact in a situation that
risks becoming explosive and a response to important workers'
mobilizations and social uprisings like that of Ferguson or the Floyd
Rebellion.
The Trump presidency with its reactionary cohort is already imposing a
major change of pace. We are moving towards a strengthening of
repressive structures, of surveillance apparatuses, in which all
companies in the technology sector have something to gain, of deliberate
and ferocious attacks against LGBTQ people and that irregular component
of the workforce made up of Latino immigrants. To this we can add an
approach more oriented towards the protection of employers' interests
and we can expect the legalization at the federal level of serious
anti-union practices as well as an increase in extractivism, without
even the fig leaf of the "green economy". Let us remember that the
increase in the production of US fossil fuels was a central element of
Obama's policy that allowed the US to free itself from the Iraqi quagmire.
Trump's defeat in 2020 was played out on the theme of the poor
management of the pandemic, the same pandemic that the employers of
every latitude now pretend never existed because evoking its spectre
means talking about how the current social order is irrational and
exposed to catastrophes, and on having created excessive divisions
within American society. His victory in 2024 was played out on galloping
inflation and a white middle class that is unable to emerge from the
crisis. At the moment Trump is in a position of strength but he would
not be the first US president to start his mandate galloping and then
turn into a lame duck in the mid-term elections.
The liberal-progressive component of the European ruling class is
already waving the spectre of Trumpism to relaunch forms of sacred
alliance against the horrid Trumpian reactionaries of our latitudes;
they gloat satisfied hoping to be able to replicate Trump's deeds. The
dynamics of the clash between the different factions of the ruling class
are always interesting to analyze, but hoping to find a solution to our
problems within those dynamics means hoping that the master uses a
softer truncheon instead of a heavier one.
In a world where the tensions between the different imperialist projects
are combined with an ever-increasing social inequality, a strengthening
of authoritarian policies, the stone guest of the climate crisis and the
ever-increasing risk of recurring pandemics, challenges arise that must
be faced with the necessary determination, without deluding ourselves
that one component of the ruling class is better or worse than the other.
lorcon
https://umanitanova.org/di-padrone-in-padrone-a-volte-ritornano/
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