Trump’s inauguration party will be funded by America’s billionaires. They are overjoyed to have someone who so blatantly stands up for the wealthy in the White House.
In the past, capitalists like Mark Zuckerberg pretended to be ‘progressive’. They talked a language of ‘diversity’ and even ‘equality’ but made it clear that no one would touch their wealth.
Today all this pretence is gone. The billionaires are fully behind Trump because they know that he will look after them- and still try to keep a popular base.
Trump uses open sexist and racist rhetoric for this purpose. He says he wants to deport millions of migrants from the US – even though US capitalism could not function without them. He attacks trans rights as part of a wider discourse of attacking a woman’s right to choose and gay people.
His aim is to divide working people so that they take their focus off the gross inequalities of wealth in US society
The Irish guests who are celebrating Trump include such luminaries as Conor McGregor and Ian Paisley Junior. McGregor took a photo of himself and the upper class toff, Nigel Farage, at a pre-inauguration celebration in Washinton. By his friends, you know Trump.
Trump’s style is to carefully watch social media and pretend that he is giving the people what they want.
Nobody should be under any illusion that he is a peacemaker. He only pushed Israel to agree a ceasefire so that he could more openly back their wider agenda of annexing the West Bank and establishing its hegemonic role in the Middle East.
He is revoking a ban on TikTok but only as a way of US corporations grabbing part of the profits from Chinese rivals.
Trump will try to push politics to the far right across the world. He will be backed up by tech giants like Musk and Zuckerberg.
But socialists will keep the focus on how his policies benefit his billionaire friends and the wider project of US imperialism.
Let’s get ready to resist.