Donald Trump used his inauguration as US President to unleash a barrage of attacks—on migrants, trans rights, climate action, public services and more.
He repeated his threats to seize the Panama Canal and Greenland and declared an emergency on the country’s border with Mexico, despatching soldiers there.
A government app that allowed 1450 asylum-seekers to enter the US each day was shut down, the first step in Trump’s plan to deport 11 million undocumented migrants. He also declared he would remove automatic citizenship for children born in the US to undocumented migrants.
He signed an order withdrawing the US from the Paris Agreement on climate change, an order taking the US out of the World Health Organization and another freezing the recruitment of public servants. He declared that there were two genders—men and women.
The US government website providing information about abortion and birth control was taken offline.
Trump was cheered on by his tech billionaire supporters, Elon Musk (X), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon). After Musk spoke, he gave a fascist salute.
Among Trump’s guests were leading members of the global far right. They included the fascist prime minister of Italy, Giorgia Meloni; Eric Zemmour, a French exponent of the antisemitic “great replacement” theory; Tino Chrupalla, a co-leader of Germany’s AfD; Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK Reform party; and Argentina’s president Javier Milei.
Trump’s win will give confidence to the far right everywhere. Another early act was to pardon about 1500 of his supporters who stormed the US Capitol in January 2021.
Trump will have 13 billionaires in his cabinet and 19 of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News presenters in the administration.
Musk is being given the task of slashing public spending. Robert F. Kennedy Junior, who is a militant anti-vaxxer, will run the health department and Pete Hegseth, a Fox News personality who boasts far right tattoos, will run the military.
Trump’s supporters are celebrating his war on “woke”. Trump has ordered the cancellation of federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
As one top banker put it, “I feel liberated. We can say ‘retard’ and ‘pussy’ without the fear of getting cancelled … it’s a new dawn.”
Horror show
It is a horror show of reaction. Yet while Trump claims he is ushering in a “new golden age”, he faces substantial challenges.
Many of his orders will face challenges in the courts. But his bigger problem will be satisfying his support base.
Many people voted for Trump because of his promise to reduce inflation and deal with the cost-of-living crisis. But his plans to introduce tariffs will lead to higher prices and likely higher inflation—and working class discontent.
Trump’s deportation agenda also poses problems, with some economists suggesting that if fully implemented it could shrink the US economy by as much as 7 per cent and put upward pressure on wages and prices.
There are already divisions in the MAGA camp. In the days before the inauguration there was a public blow-up between two of his main supporters, Musk and far right headkicker Steve Bannon.
Musk wants to recruit migrants with high levels of skills to drive his cyber operations. Bannon denounced this as an attempt to deny jobs to US workers.
Trump publicly flip-flopped, not wanting to annoy either man. Eventually he needs to take a position and in doing so alienate supporters.
Fighting back
The US left is on the back foot. A protest rally in Washington DC before the inauguration attracted tens of thousands rather than the hundreds of thousands when Trump took office in 2017.
But there is the potential for resistance. There are millions who have taken to the streets over the past decade over women’s rights, Black Lives Matter and Palestine.
Workers are fighting back in bigger numbers than for decades. In the run up to the inauguration there were strikes among Amazon, Starbucks and health workers. More than 45,000 wharfies on the East and Gulf coasts are threatening renewed strike action to save jobs.
To turn that resistance into victories over Trump, the US left must break with the Democrats.
Biden’s administration laid the basis for Trump’s win, with billionaires in the cabinet, the deportation of 1.5 million people, staunch support for Israel, inaction on abortion rights and a failure to raise working class living standards.
Trump’s MAGA offensive can be beaten but it won’t be done by waiting for Democrat wins in two and four years’ time. Workers and students have to fight back where they are strongest—on the picket line and on the streets.
By David Glanz
