i think there are several very debatable points here, mainly on the class side (especially concerning ngo-s/size of working class/petit bourgeoisie), but still interesting summary of some divides which will drive trumpo
The Trump regime is a regime of betrayal. It is already leading to the abandonment of the lower-middle class, which through the MAGA movement brought it into power, as well as the working-class majority.74 What it offers to its core lower-middle class constituency is a kind of nationalist culturalism, which is a mere veil for a system of far more centralized capitalist control of the state in a White House now filled with billionaires, ultimately leading to the increased economic exploitation and expropriation of the underlying population. The material betrayal of the working class will be absolute, economically and politically. For such a regime of capitalist overlords to continue, it will have to increase its repression of the body politic at every step. Its greatest fear is that the enraged masses, especially the working-class majority, would mobilize and rise up in resistance, bringing with it all of those in the society as a whole who are committed to democratic rule and to the survival of humanity in the face of growing environmental perils.
self-evidently, majority of working class don’t particularly care about environmental perils. The betrayal likely would be at the petit-bougie side, especially farmers/advertising driven small businesses
Excellent article, JBF is always really good for modern “theory-posting” IMO. I hope you all have a MR subscription.
i think it’s good on the ideological side, a little bit iffy on the class side, i don’t think a lot of writers engage with class compositions seriously enough. working class would be this or that, but what part of working class? farm workers? logistics portside? logistics warehouse side? product designers whose firm outsources to china? doctors? nurses/care workers? manufacturing? oil?
It could be more clear but to me it’s apparent that he’s distinguishing between the “lower middle class” (not a real thing in purely Marxist terms but useful for this discussion) who are comfortable but generally don’t have a lot of the luxuries and education that the professional and managerial classes have. Anecdotally it’s a fine description of the MAGA base which also includes a portion of PMCs, but they really tend to be MAGA-enabling Republicans and Democrats.
Since the PMCs are mostly Dem territory, it explains why they are always going after “never trump/reasonable” Republicans; they can’t see through the class boundary (cause they’re liberals).
If they could, they would be engaging the disengaged, probably not registered to vote, and barely making it working classes that sit below the “lower middle class”(for purposes of this discussion). Bernie had a ton of traction with this in 2016/20 and it was a nightmare for the bourgeois Democrats so they had to shut it down.
I think this article correctly examines the contradiction between Trump’s billionaire class interest and the MAGA true-believers. If a left existed, it wouldn’t be hard to round up the working class and drive that wedge clean through. Yes, you would end up with a Bernie-style succdem, but this is in the absence of all other options. Let the PRC or some future revolutionary state lead the charge into global socialism, and give some breathing room to the global south so they can start resisting capitalism. This would need to be a movement that is external to and subjugates the Democrats. I think the US can do a tad but better than Bernie, but it would still be a fight to get there and doing it under the Dem umbrella will lead to absolute failure.
oh the contradiction is obvious, i just think that lower middle class obscures a lot of shit occupation wise, it can be uber driver, warehouse worker or failing petit bourgeoisie, care worker on call etc these people would get hit by different sides of trump, some in non-obvious or bipartisan ways, some unrelated to billionaires even, but migration stuff.
i can assume that something like lumber production/mines are fairly thrilled with trump, while oil workers and dock workers probably would get big mad. car guys seem split (evidently, by uaw), no one gives a shit about farm workers and so on
