Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair
The first 100 days of Trump’s second presidency have been enough for Trumpism to upset not only the certainties of the international order established by those from above, but also the dispositions and perception of that international order by those from below! And one of the first, but major, consequences of this upheaval is that the international landscape of those from above has suddenly become clearer, or even almost limpid and intelligible, in the eyes of the humanity made by those from below. For example, only six months ago, Putin was still presented, but also perceived by many of those from below, as a counterweight if not a ‘progressive’ antidote to North American imperialism. Today, this fable no longer holds water, it’s nothing more than a pile of ruins: Trump and Putin are allies and even partners in plundering and dividing up the world, and above all in wiping out all the rights and freedoms that humanity and the world of work have been able to win through their struggles over the last 15 or 23 decades!
Far be it from us to think that all this upheaval is the work of a single person, Trump and his ultra-reactionary delusions of grandeur. In reality, it is the result of a truly global groundswell that is the fruit of the more or less combined efforts of a myriad of people and forces on the far right, fascists and even fascists with no hang-ups, who are also on a roll. And it is precisely because these upheavals are not the work of a single person, that they have solid material foundations, that they will – unfortunately – not be short-lived, and that they must be taken very seriously.
Having said that, it has to be said that, like the American Democratic Party Establishment, (neo)liberals of all stripes are stalling and hesitating to resist this invading far right, when of course they don’t support its liberticidal measures. All in all, thanks also to the cluster of cataclysmic crises, the classist landscape, which was still blurred yesterday, becomes now much clearer, which is clearly helping everyone, especially those from below, to find their way through the modern-day class maze.
For example, several BRICS (South Africa, Brazil, etc.) and Black Africa countries, which thought they had found in Putin’s Russia a friend and protector against the rapacity of North American imperialism, are now having to reconsider this strategic choice, which has become virtually untenable since Putin got so much closer to Trump, in effect forming an alliance with him, now joined by the unpresentable genocidaire of the Palestinians, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu.
But this new political reality ushered in by the Putin-Trump tandem is turning the political landscape upside down and clarifying the ideas most of all of the plebeian masses, the workers, the oppressed and the wretched of the earth and – of course – people on the left. That is almost inevitable when the oligarchs so ostensibly ally themselves with the billionaires to join forces with the obscurantist, racist and neo-fascist scum in order to attack the multitude of poor, exploited and racialized people all over the world! This is a full-frontal attack by the rich against the poor, by the powerful against the weak, both in the deprived periphery and in the developed center of our world. It’s an assault of historic proportions that has no precedent, because this time it puts the very existence of humanity and our planet at stake…
So it’s in this new international context that we’re seeing the first attempts to unite the grassroots – regardless of their previous political affiliation – to form a front against the attacks of the powerful and the neo-fascists of the emerging Brown International. And it’s no coincidence, of course, that these attempts are currently most palpable in the United States, at the heart of the inhuman, reactionary monster: Bernie Sanders’ ‘Fighting Oligarchy Tour’ is breaking all-time records for popular participation wherever it makes stops, in big industrial metropolises as well as small rural towns, in Democratic states as well as Republican strongholds! And all this with Bernie Sanders lashing out with equal vehemence at both Republicans and Democrats, in the name of the American working class and its trade union movement…
But there is more to it than that. The popular movement that Bernie Sanders is in the process of propelling will inevitably become a reference point for resistance and struggle for those on the ground throughout the world, and will accustom them to making a distinction between the two Americas, a distinction that only yesterday they did not make: that of Trump’s billionaire and neo-fascist friends and that of the American citizens who are resisting them, with whom it will be in their interest to forge links of active solidarity in order to make their joint action more effective.
Even more importantly, this perception and awareness of the community of misfortunes, but also of struggles, is beginning to show its face in Palestine and Ukraine. ‘Thanks also to Trump and his rather more macabre than “peacemaking” initiatives, the two genocidal attempts by his friends Netanyahu and Putin are now tending to appear for what they have always been, ’twins”, thus fully confirming what Putin’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared as long ago as January 2024, to general indifference: ‘Israel is pursuing similar goals to Russia’ because ‘the complete destruction of the Hamas movement’ ‘and the ’elimination of all extremism in Gaza‘ are similar to the “demilitarization” and ’denazification” that Moscow is pursuing in Ukraine!” (1). Same imperialist and barbaric executioners, supported by the same international coalition of reactionaries and neo-fascists, same genocidal tactics, and same occupation and colonization of supposedly ‘unpopulated’ lands in the name of Greater Russia, Greater Israel and the right of the strongest!
Our conclusion is self-evident: faced with the deadly threat posed by this united front of billionaires, oligarchs, obscurantists, racists, genocidaires and neo-fascists, faced with the Brown International of Trump-Putin-Netanyahu, it is not just the peoples of Palestine and Ukraine who must join forces and coordinate their resistance. Inventing and practicing a fighting internationalism is now as important for all of us as the air we breathe…
Notes
The post Rich and Powerful Versus Poor and Weak: How Trump is Globalizing the Class Struggle! appeared first on CounterPunch.org.
This post was originally published on CounterPunch.org.