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communism
The Bankrupt 'End of History' and the Trump Scam's Inevitable Failure
The yawning gap between the returning president's over-the-top MAGA rhetoric and what he’s really delivered should be instructive.
Jan 20, 2025
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” So declared Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ah, if only it had proved to be so.
Although my respect for MLK is enduring, when it comes to that upward-trending curve connecting past to present, his view of human history has proven to be all too hopeful. At best, history’s actual course remains exceedingly difficult to decipher. Some might say it’s downright devious (and, when you look around this embattled planet of ours today, from the Ukraine to the Middle East, deeply disturbing).
Let’s consider a specific, very recent segment of the past. I’m thinking of the period stretching from my birth year of 1947 to this very moment. An admission: I, too, once believed that the unfolding events during those long decades I was living through told a discernible story. Although not without its zigs and zags, so I was convinced once upon a time, that story had both direction and purpose. It pointed toward an ultimate destination — so politicians, pundits, and prophets like Dr. King assured us. In fact, embracing the essentials of that story was then considered nothing less than a prerequisite for situating yourself in the ongoing stream of history. It offered something to grab hold of.
What does this head-scratching turn of events signify? Could History be trying to tell us something?
Sadly enough, all of this turned out to be bunk.
That became abundantly clear in the years after 1989 when the Soviet Union began to collapse and the U.S. was left alone as a great power on Planet Earth. The decades since then have carried a variety of labels. The post-Cold War order came and went, succeeded by the post-9/11 era, and then the Global War on Terror which, even today, in largely unattended places like Africa, drags on in anonymity.
In those precincts where opinions are manufactured and marketed, an overarching theme informed each of those labels: the United States was, by definition, the sun around which all else orbited. In what was known as an age of unipolarity or, more modestly, the unipolar moment, we Americans presided as the sole superpower and indispensable nation of Planet Earth, exercising full-spectrum dominance. In the pithy formulation of columnist Max Boot, the United States had become the planet’s “Big Enchilada.” The future was ours to mold, shape, and direct. Some influential thinkers insisted — may even have believed — that History itself had actually “ended.”
Alas, events exposed that glorious moment as fleeting, if not altogether illusory. For several reasons — Washington’s propensity for needless war certainly offers a place to start — things did not pan out as expected. Assurances of peace, prosperity, and victory over the foe (whoever the foe it was at that moment) turned out to be false. By 2016, that fact had registered on Americans in sufficient numbers for them to elect as “leader of the Free World” someone hitherto chiefly known as a TV host and real estate developer of dubious credentials.
The seemingly impossible had occurred: The American people (or at least the Electoral College) had delivered Donald Trump to the pinnacle of American politics.
It was as if a clown had taken possession of the White House.
Shocked and appalled, millions of citizens found this turn of events hard to believe and impossible to accept. President Trump promptly proceeded to fulfill their worst expectations. By almost any of the measures habitually employed to evaluate political leadership, he flopped as a commander-in-chief. To my mind, he was an embarrassment.
Yet, however inexplicably, Trump remained to many Americans — growing numbers, it would turn out — a source of hope and inspiration. If given sufficient time, he would redeem the nation. History had summoned him to do so, so his followers believed, fervently and adamantly.
In 2020, the anti-Trump Establishment did manage to scratch out one final chance to show that it was not entirely bankrupt. Yet sending to the White House an elderly white male who embodied the politics of the Old School merely postponed Trump’s Second Coming.
No doubt Joe Biden was seasoned and well-intentioned, but he proved to possess little or nothing of Trump’s mystifying appeal. And when he stumbled, the remnant of the Establishment quickly and brutally abandoned him.
So, four years on, Americans have reversed course. They have decided to give Trump — now elevated to the status of folk hero in the eyes of many — another chance.
What does this head-scratching turn of events signify? Could History be trying to tell us something?
The End of the End of History
Allow me to suggest that those who counted History out did so prematurely. It’s time to consider the possibility that all too many of the very smart, very earnest, and very well-compensated people who take it upon themselves to interpret the signs of our times have been radically misinformed. Simply put: they don’t know what they’re talking about.
Viewed in retrospect, perhaps the collapse of communism did not signify the turning point of cosmic significance so many of them then imagined. Add to that another possibility: Perhaps liberal democratic consumer capitalism (also known as the American Way of Life) does not, in fact, define the ultimate destination of humankind.
It just might be that History is once again on the move — or simply that it never really “ended” in the first place. And as usual, it appears to have tricks up its sleeve, with Donald Trump’s return to the White House arguably one of them.
More than a few of my fellow citizens see his election as a cause for ultimate despair — and I get that. But to saddle Trump with responsibility for the predicament in which our nation now finds itself vastly overstates his historical significance.
Let’s start with this: Despite his extraordinary aptitude for self-promotion, Trump has shown little ability to anticipate, shape, or even forestall events. Yes, he is distinctly a blowhard, who makes grandiose promises that rarely pan out. (If you want documentation, take your choice among Trump University, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump Steaks, Trump Magazine, Trump Taj Mahal, and even Trump: the Game.) Barring a conversion akin to the Apostle Paul’s on his journey to Damascus, we can expect more of the same from his second term as president.
Yet the yawning gap between his over-the-top MAGA rhetoric and what he’s really delivered should be instructive. It trains a spotlight on what the “end of history” has actually yielded: lofty unfulfilled promises that have given way to unexpected and often distinctly undesired consequences.
That adverse judgment hardly applies to Trump alone. In reality, it applies to every president since George H.W. Bush unveiled his “new world order” back in 1991, with his son George W. Bush’s infamous 2003 “Mission Accomplished” claim serving as its exclamation point.
Since then, at the national level, American politics, especially presidential politics, has become a scam. What happens in Washington, whether in the White House or on Capitol Hill, no more reflects the hopes of the Founders of the American republic than Black Friday and Cyber Monday express “the reason for the Season.”
In that sense, while Trump’s return to the White House may not be worth celebrating, it is entirely appropriate. It may well be History’s way of saying: “Hey, you! Wake up! Pay attention!”
The Big Enchilada No More
In 1962, former Secretary of State Dean Acheson remarked that “Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role.” Although a bit snarky, his assessment was apt.
Today, one can easily imagine some senior Chinese or Indian (or even British) diplomat offering a similar judgment about the United States. America’s imperial pretensions have run aground. Yet the loudest and most influential establishment voices — Donald Trump notably excepted — continue to insist otherwise. With apparent sincerity, President Biden all too typically clung to the notion that the United States does indeed remain the planet’s “indispensable nation.”
Events say otherwise. Consider the arena of war. Once upon a time, professing a commitment to peace, the United States sought to avoid war. When armed conflict became unavoidable, America sought to win, quickly and neatly. Today, in contrast, this country seemingly adheres to an informal doctrine of “bomb-and-bankroll.” Since three days after the 9/11 attacks (with but a single negative vote), when Congress passed an Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or AUMF, war has become a fixture of presidential politics, with a compliant Congress issuing the checks. As for the Constitution, when it comes to war powers, it has become a dead letter.
That he, too, will disappoint his followers, no less the rest of us, is, of course, foreordained. Yet his failure might — just might — bring Americans to rethink and renew their democracy.
In recent years, U.S. military casualties have been blessedly few, but outcomes have been ambiguous at best and abysmal — think Afghanistan — at worst. If the United States has played an indispensable role in these years, it’s been in underwriting disaster, spending billions of dollars on catastrophic wars that were, from the moment they were launched, of distinctly questionable relevance to this country’s wellbeing.
In his inconsistent, erratic, and bloviating way, Donald Trump — almost alone among figures on the national stage — has appeared to find this objectionable and has proposed a radical course change. Under his leadership, he insists, the Big Enchilada will rise to new heights of glory.
To be clear, the likelihood of the incoming administration making good on the myriad promises contained within its MAGA agenda is close to zero. When it actually comes to setting basic U.S. policy on a more sensible course, Trump is manifestly clueless. Buying Greenland, taking the Panama Canal, or even making Canada our 51st state will not restore our ailing Republic to health. As for the team of lackeys Trump is assembling to assist him in governing, let us simply note that there is not a single figure of Acheson’s stature among them.
Still, here we may find reason for at least a glimmer of hope. For far too long — all my life, in fact — Americans have looked to the White House for salvation. Those expectations have met with repeated, seemingly endless disappointment.
Vowing to Make America Great Again, Donald Trump has, in his own strange fashion, vaulted those hopes to a new level. That he, too, will disappoint his followers, no less the rest of us, is, of course, foreordained. Yet his failure might — just might — bring Americans to rethink and renew their democracy.
Listen: History is signaling to us. Whether we can successfully interpret those signals remains to be seen. In the meantime, brace yourself for what promises to be a distinctly bumpy ride.
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Are Political Labels a Farce? The Case of the (non-)Radical Left
Radical social change does not take place on its own, and surely not without viable solutions to the very problems confronting contemporary capitalist societies.
Nov 20, 2023
Political labels, more than any other time in the late modern history, which traditionally begins with the French Revolution of 1789, not only have lost their former relevance but have become a poor substitute for critical thinking. Think for instance of Trump and his ilk when they attack Democrats as “communists” and “radical left-wing socialists,” label Black Lives Matter as “Marxists,” and link the radical left in general with anarchism and looters, with people “who want to tear down our statues, erase our history, indoctrinate our children or trample our freedoms.”
What’s in a name? Let’s talk about the Radical Left by explaining why it is in fact not radical and why it’s failing to become relevant in today’s capitalist environment. Let’s talk specifically about Europe’s Radical Left since we actually have radical left political parties across Europe. The United States doesn’t even have a left-wing party, and what passes for radical left-wing economic agenda in the U.S. (thanks to the contributions of Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) has been mainstream party agenda in Europe for several decades. In fact, rarely does one come across a far-right party in Europe that favors a free market economy. And many of them, such as Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, favor essentially “socialist” economic policies. Targeting a working-class vote, Le Pen’s far-right party promotes an anti-globalization economic agenda in which the “protection’ of workers takes priority over economic “freedoms.” Setting prices, taxing the rich, giving out subsidies to collapsing sectors of the economy, and retirement at sixty are part of the “social populism” agenda of the National Rally party, which explains why it has attracted traditional left-wing voters.
The political and ideological profile of today’s European radical left parties and organizations has been largely shaped by the experience of the collapse of communism. Those parties that did not remain committed to communism after the dissolution of the communist bloc and the integration of the former communist countries into the Western capitalist system shifted to a variety of different left-reformist political outlooks, ranging from an exclusive emphasis on “green politics” (ecological parties of the Red-Green type found mostly in Scandinavian countries) to the adoption of postmodern radicalism and the politics of multiculturalism built around a resistance project that emphasizes primarily non-class forms of oppression. In Greece, the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) combined a blend of ideological perspectives, ranging from anarcho-communism and environmentalism to Maoism, Eurocommunism, and even social democracy.
Today’s radical left parties in Europe represent what we might call “left reformism.” None of them qualify as being “anti-system,” and most of them are “anti-neoliberal” rather than “anti-capitalist.”
There are two key factors that explain the shift toward “left reformism.” First, the collapse of “actually existing socialism” itself and the overall lack of ideological appeal that Soviet-style communism had on the majority of western European citizenry; and, second, the fundamental changes that have taken place inside capitalist societies since the end of World War II, not the least of which have been the growth of the middle class and the sharp decline of the industrial proletariat—even though we seem to be returning to a stage where the poor working class appears to be growing rapidly while the middle class is shrinking.
But there is a third factor, less frequently mentioned in explanations for the shift on the part of Europe’s radical left-wing parties to “left reformism,” which is none other than the realization that revolutions represent rare phenomena while the few revolutions that succeeded have taken place in the periphery of the global capital system.
Marx may have been right when he wrote in The Communist Manifesto that “the proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains,” but the Western proletariat, even before World War II, seems to have felt that it had much to lose by risking a socialist/communist revolution. Fully aware of the fact that economic deprivation and political oppression can drive people into rebellion, the capitalist classes and their political representatives sought to prevent this scenario from happening by increasing the standard of living for working-class people and by providing some type of social security for them, as well as certain types of freedoms and individual rights. Bismarck’s social welfare reforms in the 1880s were undertaken with the explicit aim of improving the position of German workers in order to keep socialism/communism and radicalism at bay. In the United States in the 1930s, the New Deal was intended by its planners to keep capitalism alive and stave off social unrest and rebellion.
The expansion of the social state in Europe after World War II was also undertaken with similar objectives in mind, although the ideological and repressive state apparatuses played an equally crucial role in the legitimization and reproduction of the capitalist social order. The U.S. intervened to suppress popular progressive forces and defend the interests of U.S. corporations not only in Latin America, Asia, and Africa, but also in western Europe, including countries like Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Belgium, Holland, and France. The CIA interfered even in British politics, and it is estimated that it spent hundreds of millions of dollars (more than $65 million in Italy alone between 1945 and 1968) on various subversive operations against parties of the left, trade unions, and political activists in postwar Western Europe alone.
But let’s return to the politics of “left reformism.” In today’s global capitalist environment, “left reformism” implies by necessity a certain degree of inevitable ideological and political ambiguity as well as plenty of confusion around economic policy. Social classes are not divided into two highly rigid groups—rich and poor, or capitalists and workers—nor do ideological proclivities or political affiliations stem naturally from one’s given social class. Support for France’s National Rally party is increasingly derived from various social classes, but with a common outlook: They stand for traditional conservative values, including deep-seated nationalism, defense of the French welfare state and of national industry, and an overtly anti-immigration policy mixed with a strong dose of anti-EU sentiments.
If the multilayered structure of social class and social stratification and the non-determined correspondence between ideology/politics and class present an inherent problem for the Radical Left, so does the ever-increasing global character of capitalism, including the entire project of the European Union.
In a truly globalized environment, and with global economic and financial elites literally dictating—either directly or indirectly via the enormous power they hold over economic resources—political processes and policies, the strategies to be pursued for the radical restructuring of the system’s operations and ultimately for the political and economic transformation from capitalism to socialism entail far greater difficulties and substantially more significant risks than ever before. Indeed, as the current eurozone regime demonstrates, even fairly “capitalist-friendly” policies that seek to provide a less extreme balance between capital and labor, such as those inspired by Keynesianism, have become extremely difficult to implement. The balance of power has shifted so overwhelmingly to capital that perhaps nothing short of massive popular rebellions might work in order to change the system. That, however, just isn’t in the cards in today’s Europe for all the reasons mentioned above.
The ambiguity on the part of the Radical Left’s project as to the task of “reforming” or “transforming” capitalism isn’t of course merely because of the greater challenges that global capitalism poses to this undertaking but also because of a rather serious gap in the political economy spectrum.
To put the matter bluntly, while Marxist and leftist theoreticians have made huge progress toward our understanding of capitalism as a socioeconomic system, contributions to the literature on the political economy of alternative economic systems (i.e., socialism or some other variant of people-centered economics) remains a rather underdeveloped area of study, with our understanding of the economics of socialism (growth, efficiency, distribution and even the relationship of socialism to the regulation of social relations by markets) being scant at best. Little wonder then why there are so few—and far in between—fully fledged alternative visions or why the Radical Left has failed to become politically relevant on the European political scene since the collapse of communism.
Notions like cooperation, equality, and participatory and radical democracy (ideas which, shockingly enough, are rarely raised or explored by the intellectuals or the parties of the Radical Left in Europe) are in urgent need of discussion and elaboration if the hope is to make inroads on the project of envisioning and working toward building a new social order with mass support.
Likewise, issues such as the fit between immigration and the domestic economy (an issue which, again, the Radical Left appears simply incapable or unwilling to address beyond vague humanistic proclamations, thereby allowing right-wing and far-right parties in Europe to gain popular support at its expense), the balance between environmental protection and growth, public employment schemes for tackling the massive problem of unemployment, and alternative forms of ownership and means of production need to be addressed and raised to the highest level of public awareness for the successful transformation of capitalism into a more humane and just social order.
Undoubtedly, this is a tall order. But radical social change does not take place on its own, and surely not without viable solutions to the very problems confronting contemporary capitalist societies. Indeed, in a way, what distinguishes the old communist left from the (non-)Radical Left of today is that "at least the Bolsheviks in Russia had a plan.”
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Why We Need to Disarm the Anti-China Discourse
From expanding military bases in the Philippines to building a fleet of AI drones to target China, militarists are creating conditions for a hot war in the Pacific.
Oct 21, 2023
From racist tweets to rising hate crimes, the media’s anti-China propaganda has created a climate of aggression. Two weeks ago, a man drove a car into the Chinese consulate in San Francisco, yelling “Where’s the CCP?” Arab Americans have been targeted during the Persian Gulf War, the War on Terror, and U.S.-backed atrocities in Palestine. It’s no surprise that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are in the crosshairs of white supremacy as the U.S. targets China. Back in April, a Columbia University found that three in four Chinese Americans said they’d suffered racial discrimination in the past 12 months.
When the Trump administration launched the China Initiative to prosecute spies, the Department of Justice racially profiled Chinese Americans and Chinese nationals. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of Chinese researchers who dropped their affiliation with U.S. institutions jumped 23 percent. The Biden administration has ended the initiative, but the Department of Justice and the congressional anti-China committee are still targeting political leaders in the Chinese community.
As Biden continues the crackdowns of his predecessor, his administration is also escalating in the Asia-Pacific region. From expanding military bases in the Philippines—including one potential base in the works intended to join contingencies in Taiwan—to building a fleet of AI drones to target China, militarists are creating conditions for a hot war in the Pacific. As the U.S. prepares for war, Forbes published an article on September 25 about an aircraft carrier “kill chain” and its potential use in a war with China. In February, CNN journalists accompanied a U.S. Navy jet approaching Chinese airspace. As a Chinese pilot warned the U.S. to keep a safe distance, an American soldier remarked: “It’s another Friday afternoon in the South China Sea.”
Not only are we normalizing U.S. aggression. We’re also relying on the military-industrial complex as an unbiased source. Pro-war propaganda is derailing China-U.S. ties, increasing anti-Asian hate, and hiding the realities of public opinion across the Pacific.
After launching the AUKUS military pact between Britain and Australia in 2021, as well as stiff export controls designed to limit China’s economy last year, the U.S. began 2023 with what appeared to be an olive branch. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was scheduled to visit China in February. Then came the “spy balloon.”
A Chinese balloon was blown off course and eventually shot down by the U.S. military. The Wall Street Journal and NBC uncritically printed and broadcasted statements from US Air Force Brigadier General Pat Ryder about the balloon's surveillance capabilities. On February 8, citing three unnamed officials, The New York Times said “American intelligence agencies have assessed that China’s spy balloon program is part of global surveillance.” The same story mentions the U.S. State Department’s briefings to foreign officials that were “designed to show that the balloons are equipped for intelligence gathering and that the Chinese military has been carrying out this collection for years, targeting, among other sites, the territories of Japan, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines.”
On April 3, the BBC and CNN published conflicting stories on the balloon that cited anonymous officials but contained inconsistencies about its ability to take pictures. It wasn’t until June 29 that Ryder admitted no data had been transmitted. In September, then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley told CBS the balloon wasn’t even spying. This matched China’s statements about the balloon, as well as that of American meteorologists. But the damage was done. Blinken had postponed his trip to China. He eventually went in June, after a trip to Papua New Guinea, where its student protesters rejected his plans to militarize their country under a security pact.
War profiteers are edging us closer to a conflict. From sending the Patriot weapons system to Taiwan to practicing attacks with F-22 Raptors in the occupied Northern Marianas Islands, Lockheed Martin is raking in lucrative contracts while residents of the region fear an outbreak of war.
On May 26, Blinken made a speech, referring to China as a “long-term challenge.” Politico went further, publishing a piece on May 26, called “Blinken calls China ‘most serious long-term’ threat to world order” with a same-day USA Today article also taking the liberty of using challenge and threat interchangeably.
A Princeton University study found Americans who perceive China as a threat were more likely to stereotype Chinese people as untrustworthy and immoral. Intelligence leaks about a China threat combined with the age-old Yellow Peril syndrome have allowed for incessant Sinophobia to dominate our politics.
Misinformation, the other pandemic
In May 2020, Trump told a scared country with 1 million recorded COVID-19 cases and almost 100,000 dead that the pandemic was China’s fault. Again, our leaders cited undisclosed intelligence. For its part, CNN showed images of wet markets after The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by Walter Russell Mead called “China Is The Real Sick Man of Asia.” A year later, Politico eventually acknowledged Trump cherry-picked intelligence to support his claims but the Biden administration ended up also seeking to investigate the lab leak theory. And the media went along with it.
For The Wall Street Journal, pro-Iraq War propagandist Michael Gordon co-authored an article claiming that “three researchers from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology became sick enough in November 2019 that they sought hospital care.” An anonymous source said, “The information that we had coming from the various sources was of exquisite quality.” But the source admits it’s not known why researchers were sick.
The article relies on the conservative Hudson Institute’s Senior Fellow David Asher’s testimony and the fact China has not shared the medical records of citizens without potential COVID-19 symptoms. It is even admitted that several other unnamed U.S. officials find the Trump-era intelligence to be exactly what it is—circumstantial.
A year earlier, during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries moderated by CNN, Dana Bash asked Bernie Sanders: “What consequences should China face for its role in its global crisis?” She asked the question referencing how Wuhan’s authorities silenced Dr. Wenliang but failed to mention China’s People’s Supreme Court condemned the city’s police for doing so. She also didn’t acknowledge how Wuhan Institute of Virology’s Shi Zhengli revealed in July 2020 that all of the staff and students in her lab tested negative for COVID-19. Shi even shared her research with American scientists. Georgetown University COVID-19 origin specialist Daniel Lucey welcomed Shi’s transparency: “There are a lot of new facts I wasn’t aware of. It’s very exciting to hear this directly from her.”
But from the Page Act of 1875, which stereotyped Chinese as disease carriers, to job discrimination during the pandemic, it is Asian Americans who ultimately pay the price for the media’s irresponsibility and participation in medical racism. They are already among the casualties of the new cold war. But that war not only threatens residents of the U.S. but the entire planet too.
Profit, not principle
This summer, the U.S. armed Taiwan under the Foreign Military Transfer program, reserved for sovereign states only. This violates the one-China policy which holds that both sides of the Taiwan Strait acknowledge that there is one China. Biden is also trying to include Taiwan weapons funding in a supplemental request to Congress. Weapons sales to Taiwan go back to the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act, as well as Reagan administration’s assurances that the U.S. will keep sending weapons but not play any mediation role between Taipei and Beijing. In 1996, a military standoff between the U.S. and China erupted in the Taiwan Strait, followed by an increasing flow of lethal weaponry up to the present.
The New York Times published a story on September 18, mentioning Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan, which it says was “a show of support for the island.” Never mind that the majority of Taiwan residents surveyed by the Brookings Institute felt her visit was detrimental to their security. The media also often ignores voices from Taiwan who don’t want war, favor reunification, or reject attempts to delete Chinese history in their textbooks.
Still, Fox News continues to give a platform to lawmakers like Representative Young Kim who wrote a piece on September 20 advocating for more military patrols in the South China Sea. On October 17, The Washington Post published a story about the Pentagon releasing footage of Chinese aircraft intercepting U.S. warplanes over the last two years. The story does not share the context of U.S. expansionism or how multiple secretaries of defense have threatened Beijing over its disputed maritime borders. Microsoft is even getting in on the action, with articles from CNN and Reuters last month uncritically sharing the software company’s claims that China is using AI to interfere in our elections, despite no evidence shared with the voting public.
It demonstrates how war profiteers are edging us closer to a conflict. From sending the Patriot weapons system to Taiwan to practicing attacks with F-22 Raptors in the occupied Northern Marianas Islands, Lockheed Martin is raking in lucrative contracts while residents of the region fear an outbreak of war. RTX supplies Israel’s Iron Dome and is now designing engineering systems for gunboats in the Pacific. When arms dealers make money, victims of imperialism die. With strong links to the military, it’s hard to imagine that Microsoft, News Corp, and Warner Bros. Discovery would care as long as their stocks go up too. Intelligence spooks and media moguls don’t know what’s best for people or the planet. And it’s time for a balanced and nuanced understanding of China. That begins with disarming the discourse and keeping the Pacific peaceful.
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