United States President Donald Trump is making clear to the people of the US and the world that he is transforming the world’s most powerful military state into a one man, one party-ruled country.
He has succeeded in taking over the Republican Party, which has become a bulwark of authoritarianism and supports his rule.
Trump’s plan for an authoritarian state is outlined in detail in Project 2025, written by far-right think tank, the Heritage Foundation. During the 2024 presidential campaign Trump said he hadn’t read the 922-page plan to dismantle the government and its institutions, but didn’t agree with it.
Yet, he appointed contributors to Project 2025 as his top advisers and many to his cabinet. Ohio senator and Vice President JD Vance wrote the foreword to the document. Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget — the agency helping Trump implement his vision across the executive branch — was Project 2025’s chief architect.
Vought is now front-and-centre in the October 1 government shutdown, announcing federal funding freezes and cuts on top of what has already been cut this year.
Dictates
Trump’s actions since retaking the presidency on January 20 come out of an authoritarian playbook.
He says “I alone make all key decisions”. He demands cult-like loyalty from his government and gets it from followers who praise his false proclamations as words of wisdom.
He has gutted civil liberties, civil rights and free speech.
He has declared the “radical left” as his “opponents” and “enemies” and wants to suppress them. That includes the neoliberal Democrats.
With the endorsement of the reactionary majority of the ultra-right Supreme Court, Trump has succeeded in imposing presidential authority over the Congress, including control over government finances and federal government agencies.
This includes independent agencies, not under the control of the departments headed by members of the Cabinet. There are many such agencies, like the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more.
These agencies had been exempted from presidential control, but the Supreme Court overturned that, subject to further consideration next January. Such decisions have been a way the Court has allowed many of Trump’s dictates to take effect.
One exception has been the Federal Reserve. When Trump fired Lisa Cook, one of the Bank’s five-person Board of Governors, and the first Black woman on the Board, the Court allowed her to stay on until January, when it will consider the matter again.
Trump has said he intends to take control of the Board of Governors. He already has one loyalist on the body and Board chair Jerome Powell’s term is up next May. Trump gets to nominate his successor, whose appointment will be subject to the Republican-controlled Senate’s approval.
The Supreme Court may consider the dire economic consequences if the “Fed” — which sets basic interest rates — is no longer seen as independent and its rulings are called into question domestically and internationally.
Trump has made big strides toward imposing his will on colleges and universities, with fines and threats if institutions do not adhere to his positions. This includes prohibiting the teaching of anything “negative” about the US, including the real history of slavery and racial segregation, the oppression of women, the exploitation of workers under capitalism, and climate change.
Trump has dictated that university and college curricula must eliminate any references to diversity, equity or inclusion (DEI) and that DEI play no part in the makeup of administrations or faculty.
Black people must be subordinated to the white majority in Trump’s view. He sees all qualified Black and Latinx workers as without merit. The attempt to abolish DEI is fundamentally a racist assault.
The attack on DEI is the club Trump is wielding against the fight for equality and to strike fear into those who speak for it. DEI goals have been killed off across society, from businesses to high school education.
The same message is being driven home to the big business-owned mass media: bend to Trump’s dictates or be destroyed.
Racist assault
Trump has unleashed Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents — who are answerable to the White House — against Latinx communities. His deportation agenda is about fear and intimidation. Trump is turning ICE into the country’s largest police force.
Masked ICE agents are seizing men, women and children in the streets, on their way to school, at their workplaces and while sleeping in their homes. People are also detained when they show up to immigration centres to renew work permits or advance their road to citizenship.
Trump’s fake “war on crime” is his excuse for sending military troops into cities with large Black and Latinx populations. He aims to intimidate Black mayors and arrest citizens, immigrants and others and soften up the population to accept military occupations.
Trump uses racial profiling in immigration raids, which has been approved by the Supreme Court. Hands off whites but all Brown skin people are targets.
Trump has also targeted Portland, Oregon and Chicago, Illinois — Democratic-led cities and states — with National Guard troop deployments. Since June, National Guard, FBI and ICE agents have been on the streets of Los Angeles — in defiance of the state governor and city officials.
Trump is denying funding to social programs alleviating poverty and providing health care and job training.
He has also taken away funds approved by Congress for transportation and other infrastructure projects for states run by Democrats.
These are not the typical actions of a ruling class party that doesn’t like the policies of the (ruling class) opposition. Even bourgeois critics have noted this.
The US ruling class, so far, has supported Trump’s accelerated transformation of the government and state.
Complaints from Democratic Party establishment figures come across as whining, and the party has no strategy to defeat the drive toward dictatorship.
Trumpism v the world
Trump told the world in his September United Nations speech that the only rules he follows are his own.
He declared drug cartels as “enemies of the US” and “terrorists” giving the US military the right to summarily execute alleged drug traffickers in international waters and on foreign soil.
He aims to overthrow the Venezuelan government, and any other government that doesn’t bow to his demands.
His message to Palestinians in Gaza is to surrender to Israel or face “obliteration”.
His threats are also directed at traditional imperialist allies — from Europe to Japan, to Australia — through huge import tariffs imposed on these countries.
Lessons of history
Understanding the dynamics of this authoritarian drive is a key challenge facing the working class and the movement against Trump’s agenda.
His project can’t be defeated by electoralism or waiting for the ruling class to reject Trumpism.
History teaches an important lesson. There is a parallel to the period prior to the American Civil War of 1861–65 when the country faced permanent breakup over the issue of slavery. It could only be settled by war, not by talks.
The pre-civil war rules under the founding Constitution were no longer viable. Major changes — in the form of amendments to the Constitution to radically redefine white supremacy — were required. The constitutional changes after the civil war led to freedom and citizenship for former slaves.
These legal changes also created birthright citizenship for all children born in the US, regardless of where their parents came from. One of Trump’s first executive orders was to overturn that right, which the Supreme Court has agreed to consider.
Trump is on a path to establishing a totalitarian state. If he succeeds, the democratic space to organise against his pro-capitalist agenda will shrink even further.
Trump cannot be defeated by half measures. He must be countered by mass mobilisation, and the creation of a new working-class-led political party to lead this struggle.