For reasons I explained in an earlier post, the bipartisan Democratic-Republican leadership of the U.S. ruling class finds the prospect of Donald Trump as U.S. president unacceptable. When the conventions were held in July, polls showed a Trump victory was not out of the question. Indeed, for a brief time in July, after the Republican convention but before the Democratic convention, Trump had a modest lead in the polls against Hillary Clinton.
The media, including media that normally support the Republican Party, then launched a campaign of ridicule against Trump. Trump has even been pictured as an agent of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In the wake of this media campaign, Trump plunged in the polls. Most recent polls show Trump rebounding but still trailing Clinton and some show Trump closing the gap.
In the course of his campaign, Trump has managed to insult or otherwise alienate huge sections of the U.S. voting population. These include African-Americans; Latinos; Muslims of all nationalities, or people who “look” Muslim; Native Americans; anybody else who doesn’t look “white”; and Jews. Trump is also extremely unpopular among many female voters, who represent around half the vote. Polls show that among African-Americans Trump has the support of maybe 1 percent, at most 2 percent, of the African-American population. This is an all-time low for any Democratic or Republican presidential candidate. There was a time when the “Party of Lincoln” got the majority of the African-American vote. In recent years, however, only 4 to 6 percent of African-Americans have voted Republican. Trump has managed to whittle this down further.
Trump is extremely unpopular among younger voters, or “millennials” as they have been dubbed. Never since modern polling began has a candidate of either the Democratic or Republican party polled so poorly among young people of all “races” and genders—who represent the future. This is in contrast to Adolf Hitler during his rise to power, who was particularly popular among the non-working class German youth. The Nazis captured the campuses even before they captured the streets and then the government.
If Hitler had alienated as much of the German population as Trump has managed to do, nobody would recognize his name today. Due to the U.S. empire’s advanced and growing state of decay, fascism remains a growing long-term threat. The Trump campaign has given a boost to those in the U.S. who are trying to build a genuine fascist movement. This development should not be taken lightly. However, the victory of fascism in the world’s dominant imperialist country is not imminent. If fascism some day comes to power in the U.S., it is hardly likely that now 70-year-old Trump will be its leader.
Though a Trump victory in November cannot be excluded at this time, it is likely that the world will have to deal with an extremely hawkish Hillary Clinton, who by all indications favors a more aggressive Bush-like foreign policy than that associated with President Obama.
Not that Obama’s foreign policy has been exactly “peaceful.” However, Obama has tried to avoid large-scale combat on the ground, limiting himself to using “special forces” numbered in the dozens or hundreds. Instead, he has made heavy use of drones combined with conventional bombers in Libya, Iraq, Syria, Yemen and other war theaters. The administration, fearing revived anti-war demonstrations in the streets, has done everything it can to fight its wars with minimal casualties
among U.S. forces.
It should be noted, however, that Obama did not keep his promise to end the war in Afghanistan. After a hundred thousand troops deployed to this war front failed to crush the Afghan resistance forces, Obama agreed to keep a U.S. ground force of around 10,000, combined with bombing using both drones and conventional bombers. This campaign is now set to continue indefinitely.
While Obama rejected the bombing of Syrian government forces, he later opened a bombing campaign in Syria against the Islamic State. The administration has now sent special forces into northern Syria to help Kurdish rebels trying to establish a Kurdish state in opposition to the Syrian government of President Assad—bringing the U.S. closer to open warfare with that government.
Under the more hawkish Hillary Clinton, chances of the commitment of large-scale ground combat forces in the Middle East, Africa or even Ukraine or other areas near Russia will, all else remaining equal, increase. And the increased warfare that Hillary Clinton is indicating she will bring can only, in the long run, strengthen the fascist forces that have been rallying around the Trump campaign in this electoral cycle. A Hillary Clinton victory in November will therefore in no way be a victory in the struggle against the growing danger of U.S. fascism.\
A Critique of Crisis Theory 