Biden’s failed presidency opened the way for Trump’s return, which represents a response to US decline by a reckless faction of the American ruling class, argues John Clarke

Donald Trump may have won the US presidential election but the city from which he will govern the country remains a stronghold of the Democratic Party. As the Guardian shows, the Washington establishment is awaiting Trump’s return to the White House with unease and distaste. Thousands of federal government employees in the city face the threat of job loss, as Trump proceeds with deep cuts to public services and subjects them to brutal restructuring.

The implications of a second Trump term in office, however, extend well beyond the impact it will have on the federal capital. Trump is an erratic figure and there are strong indications that his return will be even more unstable and confrontational than his first presidential administration. This is true both domestically and in a global sense.

It is important, if we are to understand properly the significance of Trump’s return to power, to appreciate the travails of the US system of government, as its dominant position in the world becomes ever more precarious in the face of economic uncertainty and global rivalry. In this regard, the glaring failures of the Biden Administration are decisive and can’t be understated.

Biden’s warm-up act

Earlier this month, Yahoo! news set out a bitter appraisal of ‘Biden’s legacy of failure’ that captures an essential consideration. The article points out that ‘Biden’s presidency has been an unmitigated disaster on its own terms: His entire raison d’être was to keep Trump—and Trumpism—from returning to the Oval Office.’ Now, ‘Democrats are staring at four more years of Trump and a generation of Republican politics shaped in his image—a reality that nominating and electing Biden in 2020 was supposed to prevent.’

Biden, far from providing political stability, produced only a wretched warm-up act for the return of a rival ‘with authoritarian instincts, more knowledgeable in the position and unconstrained by a quest for re-election, moving forward with alacrity on a conservative populist agenda without regard for the norms and strictures of constitutional governance.’

Though Kamala Harris had to take over at the last moment as the presidential candidate, it was primarily Biden who opened the way for Trump. Economic hard times, social instability, a deep sense of dissatisfaction with his administration and a disastrous loss of international legitimacy marked his presidency. He took power pledging to restore US ‘world leadership’ but he leaves office as ‘Genocide Joe’, with international institutions, including the UN, torn by deep divisions. Trump will play a dreadful role in the next period, but he will draw upon Biden’s legacy at every turn.

As he prepares for his inauguration on 20 January, it is clear that Trump intends to implement his reactionary agenda uncompromisingly and with considerable flourish. His promise to proceed with the mass deportation of immigrants is a case in point. His ‘border czar,’ Tom Homan, recently assured a Republican audience that the deportation drive will ‘start right here in Chicago’.

Homan promised a rapid influx of federal immigration agents and vowed to prosecute Chicago’s Democratic mayor, Brandon Johnson, ‘if he continued to “harbor and conceal” asylum seekers.’ He had previously promised to jail Denver’s mayor ‘for shielding migrants from federal forces’. Trump himself has gone so far as to suggest that he could ‘use the military and declare a national emergency to enforce the deportations.’

Trump has appointed tech billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to oversee an ominously named Department of Government Efficiency. Republican legislator Ralph Norman told the media that they’re ‘going to put everything on the table’ and that this will include the programmes that deal with basic social provision and poverty alleviation. Common Dreams reports that Ramaswamy has already asserted that ‘there are hundreds of billions of dollars of savings to extract’ from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, claiming the programs are rife with waste, fraud, and abuse.’

A November article in The Banker looked at the prospect of the radical deregulation of banking under Trump. It reported that bank ‘stocks are on a seemingly one-way upward trajectory, buoyed by the promise of lower corporate taxes and less regulatory red tape.’

The expectation in banking circles is that Trump will usher in a ‘new era after 15 years of harsher [post-financial crisis] regulation.’ With Republican control of Congress, as well as the White House, there will be little that can be done to avert such a course of action and ‘the Republicans will hand-pick a cast well-versed in deregulation to get the show on the road.’

On the international front, Trump’s ‘America First’ approach will play out in a setting that is already tense and dangerous. Modern Diplomacy points out that economic ‘and political friction between great powers has placed multilateral institutions under enormous strain.’ At the same time, the ‘global South, led by nations like BRICS, is creating alternative systems of trade, finance, and development, rejecting the dominance of the U.S.-led West.’

While Biden certainly leaves no positive legacy in dealing with these challenges, Trump brings to this situation an open contempt for multilateralism. His approach is notoriously ‘transactional’ in nature and he will seek to impose terms on other countries, be they Western junior partners or the Global South, without regard for the international mechanisms that have produced some level of compromise and consensus. He will be a bull in a china shop at a very fragile point in time.

With regard to the sites of conflict that Biden has played such a role in generating and sustaining, there are some contradictions. It may be that the incoming administration will be more anxious to bring the conflict in Ukraine to a conclusion. Trump’s ‘peace envoy’, Keith Kellogg, certainly indicates this. On the other hand, no such role will be played in the rapidly expanding conflict in the Middle East.

Pro-Israel administration

As the genocide continues in Gaza and Israel pounds targets throughout Syria, we have only to look at Trump’s choice for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. Mondoweiss describes him accurately as a political figure who ‘has been defined by his aggressive policy toward countries like Iran, China, and Cuba, as well as his staunch support for the Israeli government.’

Rubio has said that the murderous assault on Gaza is a ‘tragically necessary effort will come at a horrifying price. But the price of failing to permanently eliminate this group of sadistic savages is even more horrifying.’ The Republican Jewish Coalition has stated that ‘President Donald J. Trump is building the most pro-Israel Administration in US History. The days of weakness and appeasement are OVER. Peace through strength is back.’

Biden certainly wished to contain the rising power of China, as the main rival to US dominance, and Trump will pursue the same agenda with a more abrasive edge. Recently, the premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, floated the idea of removing Mexico from the North American trade agreement and restoring it to one between the US and Canada exclusively.

Ford based his position on the conclusion that ‘Mexico has allowed itself to become a backdoor for Chinese cars, auto parts and other products into Canadian and American markets, putting Canadian and American workers’ livelihoods at risk while undermining our communities.’ He insisted that Mexico must ‘place tariffs on Chinese imports to keep its car parts from the continental supply chain.’

It is unlikely that Ford issued this call on his own initiative and we may be sure that it reflects a broader strategy of limiting China’s advance by stopping its growing economic influence in countries that are still within the US fold. We may expect that trade wars and the threat of them going over to armed conflict will intensify under the belligerent Trump and his hawkish team.

The first Trump presidency, the Biden interlude and Trump’s return to office are all part of a process in which the US power structure has sought to come to terms with US decline in a period of volatility and uncertainty. Trump reflects the perspectives of the most reactionary and reckless elements within the ruling class and its establishment. He has assembled a team of senior representatives and advisers that reflects this. He has also been lifted to power by a deeply reactionary support base that includes openly fascist elements.

We may expect Trump to begin his term spectacularly and provocatively. He will seek to whip up racist hysteria and target immigrants without mercy. He will implement measures of austerity that will be taken to levels of class war. He will introduce sweeping measures of deregulation that will free up capitalism’s worst instincts. His pugnacious representatives will inflame the conflict in the Middle East and escalate tensions with rivals across the planet.

We may expect global resistance to Trump’s agenda and the unleashing of powerful struggles within the US. The second Trump presidency will indeed be a ‘wild ride’ that will be full of dangers, but it will also open up great possibilities for working-class and popular struggles on a range of fronts.