The US President’s flouting of legality, and his use of militarised policing to terrorise working-class Americans is frightening, but mass movements can fight him, argues John Clarke

It would hardly be a revelation to suggest that Donald Trump brings to the White House a reactionary and enormously authoritarian political agenda. His first presidency demonstrated this and his second term is proving to be even more dangerous in this regard. Moreover, there is strong evidence that the threat that Trump poses to democratic rights and political freedoms is intensifying, as he proceeds with his plans.

I shall consider Trump’s authoritarian approaches from three perspectives. Firstly, his administration is fully committed to a right-wing law-and-order crackdown, with deeply racist implications. He wants to fill the prisons and unleash a massive wave of deportations that will trample on any concept of due process for those caught up in this massive exercise in state repression.

Secondly, Trump wants to redefine the balance of power that exists between the executive, legislative and judicial wings of US state power. He seeks to elevate the powers of the presidency to a massive and fundamental degree, turning the executive orders he issues into something more akin to royal edicts.

Thirdly, Trump’s reactionary social base is highly dangerous and includes openly fascistic elements. As he proceeds with his agenda and faces mounting opposition, it is clear that Trump is ready to mobilise that base, in order to silence critics and confront movements that oppose and challenge his plans and directions. 

State repression

In April of this year, one of Trump’s executive orders spelt out his commitment to unleashing the most brutal forms of policing against targeted poor communities. It proclaimed that: ‘My Administration is steadfastly committed to empowering State and local law enforcement to firmly police dangerous criminal behavior and protect innocent citizens.’

Leaving no doubt what was meant by ‘firm’ policing, the order promised to ‘unleash high-impact local police forces’ and to ‘work to ensure that law enforcement officers across America focus on ending crime, not pursuing harmful, illegal race- and sex-based “equity” policies.’

The order even went so far as to offer the administration’s protection to ‘high-impact’ police officers whose conduct led them to face legal challenges. It stated that the ‘Attorney General shall take all appropriate action to create a mechanism to provide legal resources and indemnification to law enforcement officers who unjustly incur expenses and liabilities for actions taken during the performance of their official duties to enforce the law.’

At the end of August, Trump issued orders to eliminate cashless bail in Washington DC and to threaten federal-programme funding in states that allow the practice. Introduced in 2020, this measure has enabled people without the financial means to post bail to have a chance of avoiding pretrial detention. In the first year it was in effect, 24,000 people in New York State alone were able to avoid imprisonment as they awaited trial. Obviously, Trump’s order will ensure that the poorest people are locked away but police and prosecutors approve of this step because it will increase the pressure on accused people to forego their right to trial and to offer guilty pleas.

The most shocking initiative that Trump has taken on this front is his decision to deploy federal law-enforcement agents and National Guard troops on the streets of Washington DC, in order to supposedly ‘rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.’

Since this operation began last month, according to one resident of a low-income community in the city: ‘They’re going into public housing units where people live and they are basically doing stop and frisk … just fishing to see if they can find something or someone that they can harass and arrest … There are checkpoints across the city where cars are being stopped for no real reason. We are literally a city under siege.’

Undoubtedly the most notorious element of Trump’s crackdowns has been the immigration raids and mass deportations he has set in motion. There has already been widespread opposition to this, particularly in Los Angeles. On 31 August, as reported by NBC News, ‘Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem confirmed Sunday that the Trump administration plans to expand Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in major cities, including Chicago.’

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has directed the city’s legal department to find ways to counter increased federal immigration enforcement but Noem made clear that National Guard deployment in that city was entirely possible. The escalation of the immigration raids and their normalisation is clearly a key objective for the Trump administration.

The greatly expanded executive powers that Trump seeks to establish are to be used arbitrarily and without effective oversight. He has invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in order to justify rushed deportations, yet this legislation is clearly only applicable if the US has declared war on another country.

The use of such pretexts has led to legal challenges and has called into question the limits of presidential powers and the ability of the courts to engage in judicial oversight, which is a significant factor, in terms of the checks and balances that exist within bourgeois democracies.

 As the administration pursues its objectives with increasing recklessness, the need to be free of accountability becomes more and more necessary for its leading officials. As the International Bar Association has put it, there ‘have been some commentators saying it may get to the point where President Trump just has to assert executive authority and ignore the courts … To say that it’s still an open question as to whether or not the executive can simply defy the courts would severely challenge respect for the institutions.’

Republican administrations before Trump were always ready to be critical of their Democratic rivals but this president has taken things to a different level. When he was running for office last October, he spoke in these terms, telling Fox News that ‘I always say, we have two enemies. We have the outside enemy, and then we have the enemy from within, and the enemy from within, in my opinion, is more dangerous than China, Russia and all these countries.’

Trump’s readiness to treat opposition, be it the form of protests or even that which comes from within the US establishment, as an enemy within is very much linked to his authoritarian agenda. Dissenting views are to be crushed, as expressions of disloyalty, and democratic rights to be stifled by an unaccountable presidency.

Trump’s reactionary base

It has also become very clear that Trump is more than ready to mobilise his reactionary social base in order to further his objectives. In 2020, during his first presidency, he infamously counted the fascistic Proud Boys among his supporters, telling them to ‘stand back and stand by.’

This was followed, on 6 January of the following year, by Trump’s incitement of far-right supporters involved in the disturbances on Capitol Hill, when he disputed the electoral result that put Joe Biden in the White House. Though some have exaggerated this ragged display and elevated it to the level of an insurrectionary near miss, it certainly did show that Trump was prepared to utilise a right-wing street army when the need arose.

Now, back in power and heading a second administration more focused and dangerous than his first term, Trump is preparing to recruit these same elements as armed enforcers to be used against those who mobilise to challenge his reactionary agenda.

An executive order, issued on 25 August, would create a ‘standing National Guard quick reaction force [that] can be deployed whenever the circumstances necessitate … where public safety and order has been lost.’ This new body would be selected through ‘an online portal for Americans with law enforcement or other relevant backgrounds and experience.’ Its commanders would ‘deputize the members of this unit to enforce federal law.’

Common Dreams reports that ‘Alec Karakatsanis, the executive director of the Civil Rights Corps, described it in a post on X as ‘an online portal to permit random fascist vigilantes to join soldiers,’ adding that it was ‘one of the scariest things I’ve seen in US politics in my adult life.’ The article also notes that the concept of a ‘rapid deployment force’ has previously been advanced by the far-right Oath Keepers and that the Proud Boys ‘seemed to be particularly pleased by the government’s exciting career opportunity.’

Donald Trump’s second term in office is taking ever more dangerous and repressive directions. On 1 September, which was Labour Day in the US, more than a thousand rallies took place across the country ‘to reclaim worker power against billionaires who hoard unprecedented wealth and power.’ It is further confirmation of the growing sense of anger against Trump’s attacks and of a desire to fight back and defeat them.

It must be said, however, that stopping Trump and his relentless assault will require a strong and united movement that involves the use of the strike weapon and the mass mobilisation of communities that are under attack. This administration is creating the conditions that make such a movement possible and the deeply authoritarian and highly dangerous Trump administration is neither invincible or unstoppable.

Join the protest against Trump’s state visit 2pm September 17^th central London. See details here