Lindsey German on stateside responses to the POTUS shock and awe

Protest makes a difference. Millions of demonstrators against Donald Trump and his policies took to the streets across the US on Saturday. In doing so they showed that there is very widespread opposition to his policies and helped to counter the gloom and despair that so many of us outside the US feel about the pronouncements coming daily from the White House. They also showed that a mass movement has formed which can only get stronger in the face of domestic and foreign policies which are harming many people and creating a climate of fear.

There were an estimated 1200 protests across the US. Some were massive. One friend on Facebook said the Boston demo was at least 100,000 – probably more. Pictures of protests in Washington, Chicago, New York but also St Paul, Minnesota, Boise, Idaho, and Salt Lake City, Utah, show very large turnouts. Another friend reported that over 200 demonstrated in pouring rain in Carbondale, Illinois – a town with only 21,000 population.

Even many who voted for Trump are now concerned at the effect of his policies on working class people – the huge job cuts insisted on by Musk’s ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, the brutal deportations, attacks on women’s and LGBT rights, attacks on various democratic or civic institutions, the erosion of reference to equal rights, and much more.

There are criticisms that can and should be made of some of the slogans – hands off Nato especially. There is also the absence of Palestine as an official slogan, although clearly in some places demonstrators made it a demand. Its leadership also will want to use the protests in order to strengthen the Democrats in the next elections and channel the movement towards electoralism and the supposed ‘lesser evil’ of the party of Biden and Clinton, which has shown itself incapable of offering any real alternative to Trump.

The left in the US needs to fight against this and not find itself dragooned behind the Democrats at election time, as has happened so often in the past. But these demonstrations show the potential of organising across the US. Trump claims that he is going to restore the jobs and incomes of working-class people who have suffered as a result of deindustrialisation over the recent decades of neoliberalism. That is supposedly the idea behind his imposition of global tariffs. But the reality is already or is about to be very different for many workers.

The US working class has been hurting because of neoliberalism. Many of them have seen Trump as at least a partial answer to their problems. Unions have too often gone along with this, not least over tariffs. But billionaires like Trump and Elon Musk are not capable of delivering any long-term solutions to their problems. The potential of campaigns against Trump, Musk and all the rest of them are huge, if organised on a class basis which can challenge the power of capital, and not just used as a stage army by the liberal wing of the US ruling class.

It seems to me that this upsurge in the US is also reflected elsewhere. Just this weekend alone we had a mass protest in Rome against European rearmament, and huge demonstrations across Spain against landlords and unaffordable housing. The death throes of neoliberalism are leading towards more threats of war and further attacks on public services and the social wage. This is nearly two decades after the world banking crash which led to austerity.

Workers across the developed world who were hit so hard then are now being told that good times are not just around the corner. In fact the opposite. Here in Britain the chief secretary to the Treasury, Darren Jones, announced on Sunday that the era of globalisation has come to an end and things will be tougher for the global economy. We can be sure that this will mean tougher for the working class, not our rulers. There are many signs of growing resistance here as well. The summit for We Demand Change last weekend showed the audience for radical left ideas is growing. We can expect a very large demonstration in June against austerity.

The left needs to seize all these opportunities – the far right has no answers to the crisis other than scapegoating and division. The left does have an alternative based on production for need, collective ownership and cooperation not competition. These arguments need to be to the forefront.

Trump’s second term has sent the world into turmoil – driving up arms spending, promoting far right ideas, and now imposing tariffs on a scale unknown since the 1930s. This in itself marks the failure of the neoliberal free trade model, which the US pioneered, outsourcing its jobs to countries with much lower wages and employment costs. It has led to a race to the bottom in wages and conditions internationally which is still very much in place.

It is impossible to judge the exact impact of what is now a global trade war. It has already created much greater instability, with big falls in stock markets and retaliation from many countries, not least China. In Britain Keir Starmer has been desperate to appease Trump. It hasn’t worked – Brazil and Turkey received the same 10% tariffs without sucking up to Trump and publicly inviting him to a state visit.

The poor state of the British economy will face the combination of inflation and economic stagnation. There will be job losses – Jaguar Landrover has already suspended for a month its luxury car exports to the US.

The response from Starmer and Reeves – already deeply unpopular after the spring statement that cut disability benefits while increasing ‘defence’ spending- is bound to avoid any serious attempt to tax the rich and the corporations while almost certainly increasing taxes for most of us, despite election promises. This is predicted to happen in the next budget in October, but the economic turmoil may bring matters to a head earlier. We will also see more cuts. In short, they are going to screw working class people.

One argument they will use to get working class people to accept worsening living standards is that this is in the ‘national interest’ in response to greater division between different ruling classes. This is an argument which every country’s rulers will be putting. It can only lead in one direction – towards more scapegoating and war. All European governments are talking about rearmament, and we have seen before how economic conflict can lead rapidly to military conflict.

That’s why the slogan welfare not warfare is so central to fighting back against our government. It is also one which can mobilise large numbers. A recent poll of Labour members showed high levels of disaffection with government and lack of support for increased spending on arms- in fact nearly one quarter thought it should be main priority for cuts. This gives us a fertile space to organise – not least in the unions. We must seize the time.

This week: In a week where two Labour MPs have been refused entry to Israel, and the lies of the IDF over its killing of emergency workers in Gaza have been exposed, the national day of demonstrations for Gaza next Saturday takes on an added importance. Please join one near you. I will be speaking at a meeting in Newcastle about Welfare not Warfare on Saturday – look forward to seeing some of you. As an antidote to Trump you might want to watch The Residence about a murder in the White House, solved by a black woman ace detective who is also an avid birdwatcher.