Is Trump Ending The US Empire?

What is the reality of the Trump gangs seemingly dramatic turn against agencies such as USAID and the NED? What we are witnessing is the manifestation of a recognition within the US ruling class that the last decade has seen a dramatic failure domestically and internationally. Domestically speaking the US ruling class required a new narrative to be established binding enough of the masses in the US to the system. They achieved a certain amount of success with regard to this in the Obama era and this is why they wanted to continue this shallow “we have overcome” narrative started by Obama and continued (they hoped) by Clinton.

The first Trump administration saw the ruling class desperately trying to reassert this narrative against Trumps confused petit bourgeois nationalism. The deterioration of the material conditions of the US working class and petit bourgeois though requires a change in the narrative because the US ruling class think, wrongly, that if they can just find the correct story to spin then this can confuse enough of the American masses. The problem they face is that previous narrative shifts were accompanied by at least a slight material improvement for some sections of the US working class. The deterioration in working-class living standards is why the Obama era national narrative failed and was destroyed by Bidens failure. The shift to Trump is an attempt to find a new version of Reagan, hence why the ruling class are dumping all of the Obama era propaganda. Trumps reorganisation of the federal government reflects this need to inspire new confidence in these institutions by engaging in this high profile purge.

Confidence needs to be restored in federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies because the US ruling class is preparing for a massive wave of repression against the American working class. This is the only way that reindustrialisation can occur, if the working class has its living standards driven into the ground. If you are going to do that then you need a state machine that is unified, ideologically coherent and has the support of at least a significant section of the petit bourgeois and labour aristocracy. These moves are designed to deliver that.

In terms of US imperialism and its strategies in its empire the story is more that certain tactics have had their day. USAID and the NED are busted flushes now, the tactics have been studied and matched by the Chinese and Russians, other nations will learn from their example. The US presence in target nations will now rely much less on “soft” power but an attempt at the crudest intimidation towards small nations as they have done already with Panama. The new tactics are even crude because the US ruling class have an urgent need to stop the advance of China. Hence the need for the use of force without subtlety. We will see more attempts at imposing military rule, more coups and more bombings all in the familiar name of “peace through strength”.

The overall aim of these changes both domestically and internationally is not to dismantle US imperialism. On the contrary these changes are designed to reinvigorate it via shaking up the state and ideological superstructure.

Will any of this work? That is a question that requires a good deal of examination and we will do so in the next article in this series.