Bluebird argues that Donald Trump's recent presidential victory has planted the seeds of a Bonapartist state and, as a result, the end of US bourgeois democracy may be in sight.

Introduction

It brings us no pleasure to announce that our anticipation of a Donald Trump victory in the 2024 US Presidential election was well-founded. In a recent article written in the wake of the Trump-Biden debate, we discussed in excruciating detail all the forces at play in the 2024 Presidential election, how they evolved out of previous election cycles, and how they pointed towards a Trump victory. Before Kamala Harris replaced Biden as the Democratic Party’s nominee for President, we speculated that this would probably be insufficient to defeat Trump. Though we were hoping Trump, or more accurately, Trump’s movement, would be temporarily defeated, we did not see anything between July and November 2024 that inspired faith in us that Trump would lose the election. All of the debates, all of the polls, none of it changed the underlying forces driving this election cycle and US politics more broadly. We therefore stood firm in the face of it all, maintaining that while we would like extra time to prepare for the coming of an American Bonaparte, their arrival is probably already upon us.

Then, finally, with all the context established, we explained that we believe that Trump is leading a highly developed Bonapartist movement in the United States. And that this is highly significant, as the rise of a Bonaparte anywhere in the world has always coincided with inter-imperialist war, but also because a Bonaparte has never come from the world’s foremost Capitalist country before. There are no limits to the destruction that might be caused by a fully-realized American Bonapartism, and that is something that the entire world should take very seriously.

We ended our last article, however, with a glimmer of hope—a glimpse of a potential phoenix rising from the ashes—as the forces driving the development of an American Bonapartism are the very same that drive the development of revolutionary Proletarian movements which will inevitably oppose Bonapartism. Trump, no matter how hard he tries, will not be able to fully kill the Proletarian movement, as the reindustrialization of the US required to wage a world war will necessarily provide a catalyst for the regeneration of the industrial Proletariat; the most revolutionary segment of the Proletariat. Hence, the more Trump embraces Bonapartism, the more fully realized American Bonapartism becomes, the more Trump creates the conditions for a viable American Bolshevism. What he will produce, above all else, are his own gravediggers. But in order that the realization of that glimmer of hope occurs, it is of utmost importance that people take action to build the movement that will oppose American Bonapartism. People do not simply passively experience history; history is made by people, but not in conditions of their choosing.

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  • SweetLava [he/him]
    ·
    28 days ago

    Damn I feel like I'm nitpicking, but

    Trump, no matter how hard he tries, will not be able to fully kill the Proletarian movement, as the reindustrialization of the US required to wage a world war will necessarily provide a catalyst for the regeneration of the industrial Proletariat; the most revolutionary segment of the Proletariat.

    Is this implying that the US' lack of proletarian movement is due to a lack of an industrial base? And is the industrial proletariat the most revolutionary segment as a general rule, or is this particular to the US, or some other option? The most revolutionary segment of the proletariat has been service workers

    Hence, the more Trump embraces Bonapartism, the more fully realized American Bonapartism becomes, the more Trump creates the conditions for a viable American Bolshevism

    By American Bolshevism, we aren't referring to something like an Israeli 'Marxism' or an 'Israeli left' - correct?

    People do not simply passively experience history; history is made by people, but not in conditions of their choosing.

    I've read the above quote in full context, in reference to Marx's Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte - this statement would be meant for Mr. Trump and his ilk, not for ourselves

    While the Democratic Party deserves credit where it is due for passing such historic legislation, this does not ultimately change the fact that these progressive policies are an exception to the rule. The New Deal had explicit carve-outs designed to keep racialized peoples in poverty. The Democratic Party fought hard to maintain racial segregation until it was essentially forced to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts by mass movements.

    Thank God we are able to discuss this more openly as Marxists, I cannot stand pretending that presidents like FDR or Kennedy or Carter were good people or even 'progressive'

    All these “progressive” Democrats really do is help the larger party launder its image.

    But why would we even want a “return to normal”? The “old normal” is precisely what produced Trump. The “old normal” wasn’t good for most people. The “old normal” was never sustainable. The conditions we currently find ourselves in are the results of that “old normal.” There is no salvation to be found in the old status quo, nor in the current one. What we require is a real movement which seeks to abolish the current state of things.

    Agree and agree

    The story of Trump’s 2024 election victory is not so much a story of growth, so much as it’s a story of consolidation. Even though Trump lost the 2020 election, the high vote counts of both he and Biden were, at the time, speculated to be an anomaly, as the necessity of mail-in voting created by the pandemic allowed both candidates to reach more voters than during a regular election. With the passage of the 2024 election however, we can see that Trump’s 2020 vote total was not a fluke, but, in actuality, was the emergence of a political formation which Trump began constructing in 2016. The 2024 election served as an affirmation of the vitality of the formation Trump has built.

    Along with the best analysis of the increase in American Latino vote I've seen thus far, I would like to point to the emphasized sentences above as extremely relevant