Trump has stormed guns blazing into his second term. Like a Roman emperor, he paraded, waved, and signed a flurry of executive orders. Invoking “Manifest Destiny,” he restored Mount McKinley, baptized the “Gulf of America,” and set his sights on Mars. Styling himself a modern-day King Midas, he promised a “golden era” and the end of American decline.

There are big expectations for a serious shake-up and the restoration of American primacy. Just two in ten Americans believe the US “stands above all other countries in the world.” An astonishing 88% of American adults believe the US political system has been broken for “decades” or the “last few years.” Desperate for a change—any change—Trump was given a second chance by a narrow swathe of the electorate. But he has overpromised and will find himself in trouble when he underdelivers.

Even a force of nature like Trump can’t pluck golden apples from the rotting pear tree of capitalism—nothing he has decreed or promised changes the fundamental basis of the system. The “shock and awe” of his early days notwithstanding, it amounts to tinkering with a dysfunctional machine.

A government of billionaires

Trump has appointed 13 billionaires to his cabinet. The combined assets of the leading circles of Trump’s second administration amount to nearly half a trillion dollars—more than the GDP of 88% of  the world’s countries. This figure is largely inflated by the wealth of Elon Musk, head of the budget-slashing “DOGE” agency. So much for Trumpism’s image as a grassroots “peasant revolt”!

The deep-seated economic discontent­­—including plenty of healthy class rage—that carried Trump into the White House is very real. The US working class has suffered a sharp decline in living standards since 2020, and all the Democrats could do was praise “Bidenomics.”

Trump skillfully tapped into the anger in society, although considering the role played by Kamala and “Genocide Joe,” it hardly took much skill. Despite running a multi-billion dollar campaign backed by even more billionaires than Trump’s, millions of people were simply unconvinced by the liberals’ perennial “lesser evil” arguments. It is ultimately the hated Democrats and the capitalist ruling institutions that are to blame for Trump’s appeal in the first place.

Biden “warned” about the rise of an “oligarchy … of extreme wealth, power, and influence” in his farewell address, less than two weeks after awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to billionaire megadonor George Soros. The cynicism is revolting. As Biden well knows, the US government—and both of its ruling parties—have always been a tool for the capitalists to maintain their power and control of society.

Trump’s demagogy got him past the finish line in November. But now his voters will expect him to deliver, and the spectacle of his executive orders will not be enough to appease them as long as the sting of inflation remains. As of last month, only two-in-ten Americans say they are confident Trump can reduce the cost of groceries, housing, or health care.

What is clear is that the political landscape of this country is ripe for bold, class-struggle politics. There’s a reason Luigi Mangione is hailed as a hero. And when right-wing pundits like Ben Shapiro tried to paint those sympathizers as the “evil revolutionary left,” his viewers replied in clear class terms: “It’s not right vs. left, it’s up vs. down.”

The “up vs. down” class lines will eventually shatter Trump’s electoral coalition. You can’t create a populist movement against the system and then invite the richest members of the ruling class to join it. After posing as an approachable everyman, the billionaire cabal that surrounds Trump says everything we need to know about his real class interests. Whenever and wherever the next major strike or mass movement breaks out, he will be forced to choose sides.

Trumpism is doomed to eventually fracture on class lines. When it does, the communist movement stands to gain the support of a vast segment of society. That is, if we succeed in building our forces today.

Managing the decline of American imperialism

Needless to say, the world has changed, and the balance of power has shifted since Trump’s first term. World capitalism is in serious trouble, and US capitalism is at the heart of the rot. The two-time president’s unenviable task is to manage the systemic crisis of capitalism, and in particular, American imperialism’s accelerating decline relative to other rising powers. “Fortress America” is no lasting solution. It cannot stave off the class struggle and revolution indefinitely.

Trump promised peace in the Middle East, but even he has no confidence in his Gaza peace deal, standing by as the Zionist annexation of the West Bank accelerates. He is out of his depth and woefully misinformed when it comes to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and he failed to end the war within 24 hours, as promised. And he both over- and underestimates the strides Chinese imperialism had made in his absence.

The dueling presidential pardons expose the cynical lie of the “rules-based order.” So, too, do Trump’s threats to annex Greenland, the Panama Canal, and to invade Mexico to take on the cartels. As Solon of Athens explained, “Laws are like spiders’ webs: if some light or powerless thing falls into them, it is caught, but a bigger one can break through and get away.”

Trump’s promise to drill like there’s no tomorrow may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. It may temporarily lower energy prices, but only by accelerating the existential climate calamity.

And while he may succeed in taming inflation, no president has meaningful control over the macro economy, which is governed by the ruthless and invisible hand of the market. You can’t plan or control what you don’t own. The anarchy of the capitalist economy will reign supreme until a workers’ government nationalizes and plans it rationally—something not on Trump’s agenda.

The same applies to the reshoring of manufacturing by threatening tariffs. Capitalists produce for profit, not for the sake of it. American workers’ wages are simply “too high” for the capitalists and too low for the workers. Not only is this an impediment to mass-scale repatriation of their operations, it is a ready recipe for clashes of the class struggle. Mass deportations and cutting the flow of low-wage immigrant labor will also exacerbate this contradiction.

In short, there’s no magic wand Trump can wave to resolve the contradictions of capitalism. Like the Wizard of Oz, all the smoke, mirrors, levers, and pulleys cannot hide the reality of the fraud behind the curtain.

Golden age of class struggle

In the final analysis, all ideologies reflect the interests of a class or system. Capitalism is exhausted as a force for general human progress, as are its ideological expressions. Trump’s reactionary bravado is the mirror image of the deep crisis of liberalism and the so-called “left.” He is a classic example of accident expressing necessity, an accelerant for the deepening divisions in the US ruling class, preparing the way for tremendous upheaval at all levels of society.

Capitalism exceeded its best-by date long ago. No longer the vibrant and vicious up-and-comer of its youth, it is living on the inertia and momentum of the past. Like any dying organism, it can experience brief spurts of energy and rejuvenation—the process will not be linear. But its overall trajectory cannot be altered.

Faced with this situation, the RCA is confident that a golden age is indeed on the horizon—a golden age of class struggle and clarification of the irreconcilable class lines that divide society.