Editorial for issue 17 of The Communist. Subscribe now or get a copy from MarxistBooks.com!
The assassination of Charlie Kirk has hyperpolarized the country along culture war lines.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s public murder, the White House has vowed “retribution” against the “radical left,” and fears of political violence and talk of civil war have spiked.
On an episode of the Charlie Kirk podcast, hosted—bizarrely—by Vice President JD Vance, Trump’s top policy adviser Stephen Miller alleged that “a vast domestic terror movement” is running rampant: “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks.”
Behind these threats is a clear attempt by the Trump administration to make full use of Kirk’s martyrdom to rally the president’s angry populist base at a time when Trump’s popularity has hit a record low.
Kirk’s killing has drawn parallels to last summer’s near-miss against Trump’s own life in Butler, PA. That attack galvanized MAGA and helped tip a section of public opinion toward Trump’s candidacy. Now that he’s in the White House, responsible for a system in terminal decline, it’s a different story.
TROUBLES IN THE TRUMP CAMP
A poll conducted by YouGov and The Economist the week after Kirk was shot found that just 39% of Americans approve of Trump’s job performance—the lowest rating of his second term so far. This brings his net approval rating to -18, surpassed only by the lowest point in his first term, when he scored -21, in 2017.
Trump may have temporarily escaped the headache of a news cycle dominated by his role in the Epstein scandal, but the months-long decline in his popularity has not turned around. Among voters ages 18–29, he suffered a 54-point negative swing between February and July, with his youth disapproval peaking at 72%.
None of his bombastic policy plans have turned the tide. After the “shock and awe” of deploying National Guard troops in DC, approval for his handling of crime is at -7 points. After his massive campaign of ICE raids, his handling of immigration scores -8. As for the new “Golden Age” he promised, his rating for jobs and the economy scored -22. His handling of inflation—arguably the decisive factor in his electoral victory over Biden—received the lowest approval rating of any issue: -34.
KIRK’S KILLING GALVANIZES MAGA
The fracturing of the MAGA coalition was proceeding at a rapid clip before Kirk was killed. GOP voters were becoming disillusioned in Trump. Many were even open to hearing out a class-struggle message from the communists. More than one comrade in the RCA today is a former Trump supporter.
In the short term, this process has been cut across by an act of individual terror—which communists oppose. It has allowed Trump and the MAGA mouthpieces to pass from defense to offense, painting “the left” as a violent threat backed by dark networks of money and power. Many people who had never heard of Kirk will now give his reactionary message a sympathetic hearing. His campus organization, Turning Point USA, is reporting a surge of tens of thousands of new applicants. Many conservative youth will now cling even more fervently to the right, and their hatred of “the left” will be hardened.
These are all reactionary consequences of Kirk’s murder. Instead of advancing class consciousness, it again brought the culture war to the fore. Instead of helping to cleave the working-class section of the MAGA coalition away from Trump, it has temporarily pushed a layer of them back into his corner.
But this won’t last forever. Attempting to unify voters around a figure like Kirk will only get them so far. YouGov found that more people have an unfavorable view of him—even after his death—than a favorable one. Most of Trump’s working-class base wants better jobs and an end to inflation, not a “red scare” against a phantom network of “antifa cells.” The demagogy of the culture war is no match for the crushing reality of daily life under capitalism. And the economic pressures are only intensifying.
THE ECONOMY: THE KEY QUESTION
The Wall Street Journal summed up the conundrum facing Trump:
“The US has added just 598,000 jobs so far in 2025. Outside of 2020, when the pandemic hit, that is the fewest for the first eight months of the year since 2009, when the economy was buckled by the financial crisis.” In other words, Trump 2.0 has ushered in the most anemic job growth since the Great Recession. On top of this, a string of downward revisions to the official jobs reports over the summer revealed that there were 1.2 million fewer jobs created than previously reported. The economy has been losing steam for months.
The U-6 unemployment rate suggests that nearly 14 million people are either out of work, or are stuck working part-time though they need full-time employment. And as of last month, there are fewer available jobs than there are job seekers, for the first time in over four years.
Trump’s plans to “bring back industry” have failed spectacularly. After a loss of 87,000 manufacturing jobs last year, 33,000 more have been lost so far in 2025, along with 7,000 construction jobs, and 17,000 jobs in professional and business services.
Trump has brushed all of this aside, saying the “real” jobs numbers will come next year after more technology sites open. “You’re gonna see job numbers like our country has never seen before,” he said. The reality is that in the coming years, workers will likely see economic devastation and decline like they’ve never seen before.
If the US isn’t already sliding toward recession, an economic crisis at some point during Trump’s term is all but guaranteed.
CLASS ANGER IN NEED OF AN OUTLET
What is the basic content of the culture war message spread by the right populists to the working class? You’re right to be angry, your life has gotten harder and the “left”—a meaningless term meant to include the liberals, the media, the political establishment, and even billionaires—is to blame.
Meanwhile, what basic message do MAGA voters hear from the liberal establishment? Trump’s base is full of ignorant, low-income voters, with deplorable social views rallying behind a fascist. Oh, and the economy was doing just fine under Biden.
What the US working class is not hearing from any prominent force is consistent class politics. The task falls to the communists to advance this message systematically: all of us who work for a wage have more in common with one another than we do with the tiny handful of billionaires who profit from their control of society’s wealth. The capitalists are the enemy class. Their rule, and their system, are the source of our misery. And collectively, we have the power to put an end to it.
A mass communist party would communicate this program in a thousand ways, using every event to make it more concrete. When this class outlook takes root deeply enough among the working class, it will spell the end of the culture war, and will cut the ground from under the feet of right demagogues like Trump and Kirk. But this political struggle can only be won through the battle for clear ideas.
THE DIRECTION OF HISTORY
During the Red Scare of the postwar era, the American ruling class was united and confident in its rule. The world market was expanding, and the capitalists’ growing profits allowed them to give a few material concessions to the working class.
Today, there is no national unity, the era of globalization is over, and the rulers are gripped with pessimism. US imperialism is in rapid decline and in retreat from the world stage. World capitalism is in an era of senile decay, and this makes it an unstoppable motor force of social discontent. The anger in society is here to stay. But it needs to be channeled in a revolutionary direction.
The RCA is as yet a modest force with a tiny voice in the political landscape. But history is on our side, and although it will not proceed in a straight line, our message will continue to resonate more strongly in the years ahead. The ruling class is powerless to stop this process. It is up to the cadres of the Revolutionary Communist International, armed with the power of Marxist ideas, to carry it to its revolutionary conclusion.