“Trumpism” can only be challenged by the revolutionary ideas of the left
Paul Le Blanc, US Historian and Author
Joe Dwyer reports back from the recent lecture presented by renowned US Historian Paul Le Blanc, who visited the Marx Memorial Library in London shortly after Trump’s election victory.
In anticipation of the 1908 American Presidential election, the Irish socialist republican, James Connolly wrote, “Today the governmental machinery of the United States is completely in the hands of the servants of capital, and Senate and Congress are but instruments for registering the decrees of the trust magnates of the United States.” Before adding, “Freedom lies within the grasp of the American wage slave, he needs but the mind and knowledge to seize it.”
A cynic might say, ‘plus ça change!’ But, as the left must always bear in mind, cynicism is not wisdom. While economic, civic, and political freedom remains within the grasp of the American worker; the knowledge that it required to seize it – alas – remains allusive. Not that this, however, should not be cause for despondency or dejection. Instead, it should be seen as an opportunity for improvement and progression.
In this respect, it felt appropriate that on November 6, 2024 – as the world was still reeling from the news of Donald J. Trump’s triumphant return to the White House – left-wing activists of assorted hue and tradition gathered in London’s renowned Marx Memorial Library, in Clerkenwell, to reflect on the new political terrain that now exists.
The keynote speaker for the evening was the acclaimed historian, and veteran left-wing activist, Paul Le Blanc. His address was the latest contribution to the Lenin 100 lecture series, a venture launched to mark the centenary year of the death of the Bolshevik leader, generously supported and aided by the Arise Festival of Left-Wing Ideas.
Le Blanc’s latest work, ‘Lenin: Responding to Catastrophe, Forging Revolution’, has already acquired a richly deserved reputation as a practical summation of Lenin’s political thought, specifically when facing the domestic class struggles and global anti-colonial struggles of today.
The evening began with a considered examination of so-called Trumpism as a political movement. As outlined by Le Blanc, Trumpism draws its strength from three central elements.
Firstly, there is its armed and dangerous element. This face of Trumpism was most on display with the January 6 storming of the Capitol. It is the pseudo-militarised face of the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers, and various other neo-Nazi and white supremacist groupings. As Le Blanc remarked, during President Trump’s previous term in office, “These once-marginalised elements had come into the political mainstream, and had grown substantially, with the active encouragement of Trump and others around him. But this cunning, avaricious, profoundly limited individual and his acolytes were hardly capable of controlling them. Indeed, as a whole, the huge and diverse “Make America Great Again” movement cannot be understood as being under his control.”
As Le Blanc noted, blended into many of this segment of Trumpism is a coal seam of “Christian nationalism.” Namely, a religious zealot trend that rejects the ideals of American secular democracy, as established in the Declaration of Independence, and instead asserts that the United States was founded as a “Christian nation” first and foremost. To illustrate this point, Le Blanc referenced the neo-conservative Robert Kagan who recently observed how, “what Christian nationalists call ‘liberal totalitarianism’,” the signers of the Declaration of Independence might have just as readily called “freedom of conscience”.
Secondly, Trumpism finds its roots in a cluster of varied conservative entities and individuals, largely drawn together in The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project. Established in the 1970s, the Heritage Foundation has served as an epicentre for conservative academics, intellectuals, and policymakers since Ronald Reagan. The organisation has most recently issued a 900-page policy-making guide for Trump’s second administration, titled, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. As Le Blanc explained, “The bottom line of this conservative manifesto is a defence of unrestrained capitalism. The primary goal of the US president, we are told, should be to unleash “the dynamic genius of free enterprise.” This dovetails with proposals to impose a centralised authoritarian regime to enforce a wide range of right-wing policies.” While it is true that, during the course of the election campaign, Donald Trump sought to distance himself from Project 2025, principally to court the support of moderate voters. There is no denying that many of its key advocates and adherents remain steadfastly loyal to the Trumpist movement.
The remaining essential element that bolsters Trumpism is today’s Republican Party. As Le Blanc recalled, most of the leading figures, staffers, and representatives of the party did not begin as Trump supporters. However, at first gradually but then suddenly, nearly all got on board the Trump bandwagon. Le Blanc cited the ex-Republican operative, Stuart Stevens, who suggested that it would be a mistake to conclude that Trump had “hijacked” the Republican Party. Instead, Trump is best understood as “the logical conclusion of what the Republican Party became over the last fifty years or so, a natural product of the seeds of race, self-deception, and anger that became the essence of the Republican Party.”
On the question of whether Trumpism today could be regarded as a fascist ideology, Le Blanc urged a measure of caution. As he said in his opening remarks, “The term fascist has certainly become a freely used insult applied to ideas, practices and people we detest.” Instead, Le Blanc considers the description “quasi-fascism” as more apt. Questioning whether Trump is consistent or coherent enough to play the role of a true fascist. As he suggested though, this is not grounds for comfort. As the term quasi-fascism, in the present moment, could be understood as “fascism in the making.”
Having identified the ideological and structural underpinnings of Trumpism, Le Blanc turned his attention to the collective response of the American Left to this new political dispensation.
With superb detail and insight, Le Blanc traded the history of the American left and demonstrated that is not the lamentable tale of failure that many might wish it to be. As he concluded, “Over the past century, the organised left has had a powerful impact, influencing politics, laws, consciousness, and culture within the US. The labour movement, the waves of feminism, the anti-racist and civil rights movements, the struggles against the Vietnam war, the various student movements, and more, were all instrumental in bringing about far-reaching changes on the US scene over many decades. This would not have been nearly as effective (and might not have come into existence) without the essential organising efforts of left-wing activists.”
However, by the end of the twentieth century, this organised Left had largely been co-opted or marginalised. With much of its rhetoric, values, and reforming agenda migrating over to a new political sphere – in considerably diluted terms – within the Democratic Party. As he reflected, by the turn of the century, “a sincere and practical commitment to replace the economic dictatorship of capitalism with the economic democracy of socialism was no longer on the table.”
This helps to explain why the opponents of Trump have often found themselves incapable of providing a durable alternative to Trumpism. Le Blanc traced how Kamala Harris consistently expressed her support for capitalism, advocating for a “forward-looking economy that helps everyone.” The only hurdle being that capitalist profits are often not consistent with “helping everyone.”
In contrast with the compromising political figures of today, Le Blanc juxtaposed the historical figure of Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known as Lenin. As he remarked, “The logic of Trump is to manipulate mass pressure, mass consciousness, and mass struggles to his advantage, for the enhancement of his position and power, but also to unleash the “dynamic genius” (and profits) of capitalism. The logic of Lenin (to use the old radical-labour slogan) is to “agitate, educate, and organise”. Draw together more and more of the working class, with a deepening sense of class consciousness, to struggle for immediate improvements in the condition of labouring people and the oppressed, and replace the power of the capitalists with the collective power of the working class.”
Le Blanc advanced that those who shared Lenin’s commitments carry a historic responsibility to adapt his perspectives to what has unfolded since his death one hundred years ago. In doing so, however, the Left must recognise Trumpism’s superiority as a global political force. As he surmised, “For now, Trumpism is far more powerful than the meagre and disparate forces currently drawn to the Leninist alternative. Yet the logic of Trumpism pulls toward the deepening disintegration, violence, and catastrophes of global capitalism. The logic of the alternative pulls toward economic democracy, expanding liberty, and justice for all. The choice, as Rosa Luxemburg noted long ago, is between socialism and barbarism.”
Le Blanc’s address left those assembled with much to contemplate. As the world, almost collectively, watches the United States with a sense of uncertainty and trepidation; President Trump’s unpredictability is perhaps the only thing that is predictable about his administration. The dramatic decline and fragmentation of the working-class movement in the capitalist centres where it once flourished remains the key challenge for those on the Left. Faith must be kept, however, that it is a process that can be reversed. Indeed, its reversal is fundamental to any hope of surmounting the problems of our time. How to respond to catastrophe will be the principal test in the time ahead. (“plus ça change!” – cynic.)
- Paul Le Blanc is the author of ‘Lenin. Responding to Catastrophe, Forging Revolution,’ ‘Unfinished Leninism’ and ‘Lenin and the Revolutionary Party’. He presented a lecture on ‘The Logic of Lenin Vs the Logic of Trump’ in the Marx Memorial Library in London on 6 November 2024.
- Joe Dwyer is a political organiser for the Sinn Féin London Office. You can follow him on Twitter/X here.
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