Trump’s brutality is just the latest flare-up of a bipartisan imperial evil—one that funds genocide in Gaza, war in Ukraine, and repression at home while both parties serve the same billionaire class. Real resistance means targeting the system, not just its loudest figurehead.
Originally published in U.S. Peace Council.
Popular resistance to the Trump administration’s erratic, anti-people, and dangerous domestic and foreign policies is growing every day as seen with the massive demonstrations held throughout the country on and after April 5. We welcome these protests and the popular demands raised by them, but we must criticize significant flaws that block the political changes we desperately need.
Criticism is personalized against President Trump, Elon Musk, and the “billionaires” for actions that have been the hallmark of bipartisan policies for decades. Monied interests — not as individuals but as a class, and regardless of their political party — have always been in control of the U.S. government and have prioritized their interests over the interests of the majority, only limited by the organized people’s movements.
Personalizing the criticism and solely blaming the present administration for the problems created by both parties is tantamount to siding with one group of “billionaires” (Democrat) against the other (Republican). Such is the nature of the two-party duopoly as a system, regardless of personnel changes in the White House. Meanwhile, the entire U.S. body politic lurches from one administration to the next on a rightward trajectory toward fascism.
Largely organized by the Democratic party-based group Indivisible, the “Hands Off!” protests were silent about the U.S.’s bipartisan militaristic foreign policy and focused solely on domestic issues, except for “Hands Off NATO.” Revealingly, “Hands Off Palestine” was omitted from the official demands, though grassroots activists raised it.
This intentional silence on foreign policy, and its arbitrary separation from domestic issues, hide the fact that many domestic problems result from a militaristic foreign policy imposed on our country. Trillions of dollars of much needed funds are redirected from human needs to war mongering in Ukraine, West Asia, and Asia-Pacific. Achieving popular power can be most effectively galvanized if it is informed by politically and consciously recognizing the class basis of war and militarism. In contrast, official demands of the “Hands Off!” mobilization, with its embrace of NATO but silence on genocide in Gaza, obscures the class basis of war.
While official lawlessness did not start with Trump, the new president is bent on changing the present post-war imperialist order with another one that gives the empire even more impunity. The U.S. ruling class as a whole has been accelerating the tendency for the U.S. to operate outside the bounds of both national and international law, regardless of who is in office.
The West’s proxy war on Russia continues in Ukraine, while war clouds are gathering around creating another proxy war with the People’s Republic of China using Taiwan and South Korea. And, all the while, the U.S./Israel genocide continues against Palestine and its allies. The imminent war with Iran, supported by both parties, is yet another pressing issue that can best be explained within the framework of imperialism.
On top of all this, is a bipartisan commitment to enhance the repressive apparatus of the state domestically — from cop-cities to the repression on campuses, the criminalization of speech and assembly, restrictions on truthful education, and the further weaponization of the judicial system itself. Intensification of domestic austerity programs, deregulation and destruction of all government organizations that protect and enhance the lives of working people, and attacks on trade unions are the flip side for maintaining a militaristic empire.
All this should make clear that neither of the two billionaire-controlled parties will or can be the urgently needed opposition to imperialism. Current world conditions necessitate building an opposition movement to war and militarism that is even more materially focused on anti-imperialism. This requires understanding the clear link between the empire’s foreign and domestic policies and calling for an end to militarism and redirection of resources to human needs.
Instead of looking for the lesser of two evils, we urge joining people’s independent campaigns to cut the military budget, to close U.S. and NATO foreign military bases, to establish Zones of Peace in our region, and to stop the militarization of police and domestic repression. An anti-imperialist understanding is key to the success of our people’s struggle for peace and a more just society.
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Orisanmi Burton is an assistant professor at American University’s Department of Anthropology.
