Trump’s regime is ‘dripping in ruling class decadence’

Trump has survived fractures in his base before (Photo: WikipediaCommons)

What is the current state of the Trump administration?

People who voted for Trump are reconsidering their support for a range of reasons. The Jeffrey Epstein scandal is one of them.

This is a regime dripping in ruling class decadence. Trump had a Great Gatsby themed party at his Mar-a‑Lago resort. And there’s the building of a new ballroom at the White House. It is like the twilight of empire, with people reorganising chairs on the Titanic.

The sexism of Trump’s operation is extraordinary. The accusations of trafficking young girls go hand in hand with state policies against women, the elimination of abortion, attacks on LGBT+ rights and the criminalisation of trans+ people.

Trump’s public misogyny towards women is the political expression of domestic violence. It gives legitimacy to how men raise the hand—in the home and in the nation. Trump is enabling rampant misogyny at every level, cutting benefits to single mothers, leaving families without a safety net.

What are the contradictions in Trump’s Make America Great Again base?

Trump has managed to hold together an alliance with the Christian nationalist right. This movement started in the 1980s with the “moral majority”. The Republican party aligned with this Christian nationalism.

This aspect of Trump’s coalition is being jeopardised by the Epstein scandal. Majorie Taylor Greene is associated with this Evangelical wing of the party and fought for the release of the files.

She just announced her resignation from Congress saying she refused to be a “battered wife” to Trump. But this is a faux feminism from a very right wing orientation.

Greene is definitely not calling for women’s emancipation. The right she is part of celebrates the idea of the “trad wife”. It is this idea of womanhood that is being violated and despoiled by Trump and Epstein.

So there is moral outrage from the far right, from people who don’t see women as emancipated subjects. The Republicans have two choices to offer women—be a “trad wife” or be a “Mar-a-Lago woman”.

These sort of tensions are destabilising the regime.

We should have low expectations about whether the Epstein scandal will derail Trump’s regime—it has survived fractures in the coalitions before. And Trump maintains strong control of the party overall.

Is inflation having an impact on Trump’s support?

Prices continue to go up and working class people everywhere are struggling. Trump’s economic policies are unpopular. There could well be a new economic catastrophe for those at the bottom.

So there is potential in the new year for real resistance in workplaces. There is also the ongoing resistance to the Ice immigration raids. Last week, students in Charlottesville walked out in protest at Ice.

The resistance in cities like Chicago is really organised. The Ice assault is massively unpopular and it is creating mass resistance, with black and brown people beginning to vote against the Republicans and to organise together.

This is a reconstruction of those forces which, since Black Lives Matter and the Palestine movement, have been trying to come together.

Of course, people have to be careful. I have friends who were chased by Ice cops because they were filming them. Sometimes they come knocking at your door days later. This is house to house state surveillance. We have to be strategic—but we have to keep organising.