By Donal Devlin
Two related stories featured in the news in the weeks before arch-climate change denier Donald Trump was sworn in to serve his second term as US President:
1. In 2024, the global average temperature crossed a crucial barrier, exceeding 1.5C above pre-industrial levels – a level agreed by the world’s governments in 2015 as crucial to remain under to prevent irreversible, runaway climate change.
2. The terrifying reality of this global warming was brought to bear as Los Angeles was devastated by an inferno of unrelenting wildfires, resulting in tens of thousands of homes being destroyed, 27 (at the time of writing) dead, and countless livelihoods ruined.
“Drill, Baby, Drill”
One of Trump’s first acts will likely be to withdraw the United States, the world’s second-largest polluter after China, from the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement for the second time. Unlike other governments, his administration will not even make a nominal commitment to tackle climate change; on the contrary, he boasts of his desire to wage war on nature – his characteristically crude campaign slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill” exemplified this. His Presidency will give oil and gas companies free rein to engage in unlimited extraction and fracking regardless of its deeply destructive cost.
Trump’s pick for Secretary of Energy is fracking evangelist Christ Wright, CEO of oil and gas company Liberty Energy. In his eagerness to prove its safety, Wright drank fracked fluid in a video posted on Facebook in 2019. Like most Trumpians, he seems blissfully ignorant of the science of climate change. Liquified natural gas from fracking contains 85% methane, which is 80 times more potent than CO2.
Trump’s billionaire appointees
More generally, Trump’s cabinet is filled with billionaires and Wall Street executives who espouse toxic racist, transphobic and misogynistic ideas and conspiracy theories. These include his pick for Secretary of Health, Robert Kennedy Jr, who has spread the disgusting ableist myth that vaccines cause autism.
His ambassador to the UN will be Elise Stefanic, who has echoed the racist ‘great replacement theory’, including in her campaign ads for Congress. The new ambassador to the Israeli State is Mike Huckabee, who has spouted the Zionist trope that “there is no such thing as a Palestinian” – an argument used to justify 76 years of Israeli ethnic cleansing, occupation and genocide.
Trump is also threatening to impose sanctions, such as travel bans to the US, on members of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in retaliation for its decision to issue arrest warrants for Israeli war criminals Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister for Defence, Yoav Gallant.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will head the new, euphemistically titled Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an agency likely to be filled with Silicon Valley bosses. The agency’s purpose is to devise a plan to cut federal government spending, with a target of $2 trillion—fulfilling the neoliberal fantasy of reining in “big government” spending. They have set their sights on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
Fundamental political barriers exist to such a programme. For example, many Trump supporters have expressed sympathy for Luigi Mangione’s actions and hatred of private health companies, which indicates opposition to the gutting of the state’s role in providing health services. Moreover, in an era of inter-imperialist rivalry, notably with China, US capitalism needs a ‘big government’ to continue investing in crucially strategic industries such as the semiconductor sector.
Far right emboldened
Like in 2016, the re-election of Trump will further embolden the far right globally, given the position he occupies and the racist rhetoric and policies he espouses. He is committed to ending birthright citizenship (that you have a right to US citizenship if you are born there) – criminalising the children of millions of so-called ‘illegal’ immigrants, and vows to deport 11 million of them. Criminalising migrants is not only blatantly racist, it is utterly hypocritical. The fear of deportation and arrest means they can more easily be used as a source of super-exploited labour, which is crucial for US capitalism and undoubtedly part of the calculation.
Trump’s election has been met with a real sense of trepidation on the part of trans and queer people in the US and beyond. This comes against the backdrop of a vicious onslaught on their rights and attempts to whip up LGBTQphobia in what are misleadingly called “culture wars”. Trump has vowed to “keep men out of women’s sports” and withhold Medicare and Medicaid funding from hospitals that provide gender transition treatment to minors. This comes as 26 Republican-led state legislatures have already enacted such legislation.
Capitalist rule exposed
With his victory, Trump is now being embraced by different sections of the US ruling class, including those who would have previously supported Democrats. Time magazine proclaimed him “Man of the Year.” After being banned from Meta in 2020, one of his top supporters, Dana White, CEO of UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship), has been brought onto its board. Mark Zuckerberg promised to abolish ‘fact-checking’ on Facebook and Instagram, paving the way for them to be awash with racist and backward conspiracy theories. Amazon, Uber, Google and Microsoft, and Apple CEO Tim Cook have all donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
In a period of crisis and systemic decay, capitalist leaders are more and more dispensing with a thin progressive or “woke” veneer that it was forced to put on in the context of the anti-oppression revolts of the last decade. Trump is their new representative in the White House, and he is the living embodiment of everything rotten about this system.
His election is a wake-up call. In the face of rising racism, LGBTQphobia, genocide, climate catastrophe and massive wealth inequality, the need to build a multi-gendered, multi-racial and international movement for socialism is more urgent than ever.
