Why Trump's victory is mainly the defeat of Harris

Donald Trump's victory is the victory of the very wealthy. The United States has a long tradition of corporations and the wealthy sponsoring electoral campaigns of candidates - of both camps - in order to defend their interests after their candidate has been elected. In this campaign, 150 billionaires spent some $700 million in total to influence the election. The vast majority of that capital went to Donald Trump. A number of right-wing billionaires not only threw their money into the fray, but also mobilized the editors of their media groups and the algorithms of their social media platforms. Anything to get their fellow billionaire Donald Trump back into the White House.

Donald Trump has again proved himself a master of deception and lies during this campaign. While he presents himself as the defender of ordinary US-citizens, he is in reality the billionaire who steals from the poor to give to the rich. He claims to stand for peace, but he is preparing an all-out war against Iran and risking a world war against China. He is sowing fake news about his opponents trying to steal the election, while simultaneously announcing he will run the country as a dictator.

Trump's program is brimming with anti-social measures that will hurt the interests of working US-citizens, but he did not mention those measures once on the campaign trail. Tax cuts for the very wealthy, financed by severe cuts in social spending for the vulnerable. Abolishing social controls and regulations on large corporations, so that they will no longer be accountable to anyone. Curbs on trade unions and restrictions on the right to strike and collective bargaining. And continuing escalation of hostilities with China, hoping to eliminate the emerging Chinese competition by brutal means.

The Democrats alienated the youth and the working class

At the same time, Kamala Harris and her lot have failed across the board. The Democrats have lost in all seven swing states - the states where both parties were neck and neck, and where the actual winner is decided - and have also lost the popular vote, the total number of votes across all states.

A cursory glance at that popular vote shows that Trump has mainly won because Harris has heavily lost. At the time of writing, not all votes have been counted yet, but it looks like Trump will get only as many or even slightly fewer votes than he got in 2020, when he lost to Joe Biden ... but the Democrats lose over 10 million votes. They have lost these votes especially among young people and in urban areas.¹ This indicates a high level of distrust in the Democratic Party which has failed to mobilize a large part of the working class and of the youth.

Four years ago, Joe Biden managed to rally a record number of voters against Trump. To do so, among other things, he had to make a number of election promises as a concession to the movement around Bernie Sanders, the independent left-wing senator who had gained the support of many voters in the primaries. But once Biden became the president, little came of the promised economic justice and social progress.

Fundamental changes such as a higher minimum wage and affordable health care failed to materialize. Inflation has been high in recent years, meaning life was rapidly becoming more expensive. Housing and food became up to 25% more expensive. However, wage growth experienced a sharp decline, especially among lower-income jobs.² Thus, purchasing power (economics) was markedly the primary concern of voters. But the Democrats' message was: our policies are working, the economy is doing fine. The economy is indeed growing, but by no means everyone is benefiting. In the end, 90% of voters dissatisfied with the economic situation voted for Trump. The Republicans also did markedly better among workers without a degree.

"It should come as no surprise that a Democratic Party that abandoned the working class is now itself being abandoned by the working class" Bernie Sanders responded sharply. He points out that this time not only many white workers, but also many Latino and black workers voted for Trump for that reason. "While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change."

A second clear game changer was the war in Gaza. Biden and Harris gave a record amount of military aid to Israel over the past year, making them complicit in the genocide.

A protest movement of historic proportions, led primarily by young people, could not convince Harris to withdraw her unconditional support for Israel. In response, activists called to vote neither for Trump nor for Harris, in the spirit of the Vietnam movement that boycotted elections in the 1960s.

That call was widely heard, especially in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin where there is a large Arab-American community. In the Michigan city of Dearborn, for example, where Biden obtained three times more votes than Trump four years ago, Harris now finishes second with just 28%, and the Green Party's pro-Palestine candidate Jill Stein achieves an unprecedented result with 22%.

 Trump cleverly played on the fact that many people are tired of the "endless wars". Harris, on the other hand, was not carrying a message of peace. In her speech to the Democratic National Convention, she even said: "As Commander-in-Chief, I will ensure that the US always has the strongest and most lethal fighting force in the world."³

Kamala Harris did not focus her campaign on the discourse of the left wing of the Democratic Party or on that of the unions, even while the United Auto Workers (UAW) in particular has mobilized strongly against Trump with a clear class narrative.

On the contrary, like Hillary Clinton eight years ago, she focused instead fully on the center, with a narrative that was simply anti-Trump and lacked any independent positive vision.

In recent weeks, Harris even gave a more prominent role in her campaign to so-called "moderate" Republicans such as Liz Cheney (daughter of Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State and Vice President under Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. and partly responsible for two wars on Iraq), rather than to left-wing politicians such as Bernie Sanders or to militant unionists such as Shawn Fain of the UAW.

This meant the presidential election was not about a choice between two programs or two visions, but only about which person should become the president

The Democrats thus organized their own defeat, with their neoliberal policies that have nothing to offer working people who are struggling to survive, with their imperialist foreign policy and with their campaign that offered no prospect of change

Trump 2.0, a major threat to democratic rights

Trump had the support of the billionaires, the big tech companies in Silicon Valley and the oil companies in Texas. They want to bring the state under their authoritarian control even more than before.

Elon Musk, the world's richest man and owner of Tesla (cars), SpaceX (space) and X (social media), set up his own campaign headquarters in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, where among other things he handed out money to voters who registered to vote for Trump.

"The fact that the actual richest man on the planet throws himself into the fray with such fervor naturally pushes boundaries," Ruud Goossens writes in De Standaard. "This campaign can safely be called plutocratic⁴ event. Musk has completely transformed his social media empire to help put Trump in power."

Musk also streamed live an hours long conversation with Trump on X, where Trump said, among other things, that workers who strike should be fired.

Peter Thiel, Musk's former business partner at Paypal, financed the campaign of Trump's running mate J.D. Vance. Thiel is one of the pioneers of the extreme-right turn in Silicon Valley. Many Big Tech entrepreneurs followed his lead in recent months, switching from the Democratic to the Republican camp.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos did not go that far, but did order his newspaper, The Washington Post, to retract a statement of support for Kamala Harris.

The political shift in Silicon Valley can make a big difference. These influential billionaires control strategic technologies and platforms that, among other things, determine how news stories reach us.

Their goal is first and foremost to eliminate the emerging competition from China, and for that they are counting on Trump.

But Trump also comes in handy domestically. As long as 15 years ago, Peter Thiel said that capitalism and democracy are no longer reconcilable. So to secure his capital, he chooses to demolish rights and participation. Thiel and co are of the opinion that a strong leader, unfettered by separation of powers or democratic control, would be much better suited to serving wealthy oligarchs like them. Through Trump, they can clamp down on labor unions, pay for tax cuts for the very wealthy through severe cuts in social spending (Musk would personally oversee this), roll back social regulations and environmental laws, and reduce scrutiny of anti-competitive practices and abuses of power.

Right-wing America is already getting ready to introduce an authoritarian state. The right-wing think tank The Heritage Foundation wrote a playbook for Trump's last term in office, two-thirds of which implemented.

This time, the think tank drew attention with its so-called Project 2025, a plan to eliminate democratic counterpowers in 180 days and centralize as much power as possible with the president. The roadmap includes a major purge of government agencies, where tens of thousands of officials would be replaced by loyal Trump supporters.

Unions would also be heavily targeted and even banned in the public sector. The Ministry of Education would be called in to ban leftist and socially critical voices from schools and libraries.

Another script from the same think tank, Project Esther, describes how the new government can not only quell the pro-Palestinian movement, but also generally implement harsher forms of repression against leftist protest movements and labor unions. 

 All of this would take place against the backdrop of unprecedented attacks on the rights of migrants, women and LGBTI+ persons. While the cuts and curbs on democracy affect the entire people, targeted attacks on abortion rights or the mass deportation of undocumented migrant workers will serve to divide the people and pit them against each other.

Seizing the moment for a nonaligned Europe

Trump's comeback forces Europe to rethink its position in the world. Indeed, Trump is anything but the peace dove he pretends to be.

His plans to get China under his thumb are so radical and aggressive that he is risking a world war.

Trump calls himself Israel's "best friend" and has been close to far-right Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for years. Together, Trump and Netanyahu intend to build a regional coalition against Iran, led by Israel and with the ultimate goal of unleashing total war.

It is often claimed that Trump is "pro-Russia," but in reality Trump desires the same as Biden and Harris: for Europe to not buy Russian natural gas but American LNG, and for European NATO countries to increase their military spending to contain Russia, leaving the US free to focus on China.

Blindly continuing to follow what the US tells us to do would only bring Europe industrial decline and skyrocketing inflation. The LNG deal Joe Biden negotiated with the European Union already made our industry dependent on extremely expensive and polluting American shale gas. With the Inflation Reduction Act subsidy program, the US is buying strategic industrial investment away from Europe. And now Trump may add a trade war to that: he has promised a 10% import tariff on all imports from Europe and as much as 60% on all imports from China.

At the same time, with Trump as president, pressure on European NATO member states to bear the full financial cost of the war in Ukraine will become much greater. This leaves Trump free to jack up the military escalation with China, with or without provocations in Taiwan. Mutual trade in goods between the EU and China amounts to nearly €740 billion annually. Thus, any conflict in this region would immediately have dire consequences in Europe. Not to mention the risk of a third world war.

European countries have in recent years allowed themselves to be drawn into a cold war logic, with Washington emerging as the leader of a pro-Western bloc directed against China and by extension against all emerging countries in the Global South. Europe's only future in that scenario is as a junior vassal of the United States, both economically and geopolitically dependent. "Europe would do better to cooperate with the new economic superpowers rather than letting Washington decide its future," says Peter Mertens in an interview about his book Mutiny. Only an nonaligned position offers Europe the freedom to chart its own course. Instead of locking ourselves into blocs, we should establish wide-ranging relations based on dialogue and partnership, including with the Global South, with countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

A non-aligned Europe is something very different from the call for more "European autonomy" that is echoed here and there by the George-Louis Bouchez and Theo Franckens of this world, who do not hide their slavish admiration for the United States and who want to further strengthen the alliance between Europe and the US. When Trump's running mate and future vice president J.D. Vance says "The time has come for Europe to stand on its own feet," then he means Europe must pay more to still remain dependent on the US. Indeed, higher military spending will in no way ensure greater autonomy if Belgium and other European countries remain under US military authority in NATO.

Don't mourn, organize!

Eight years ago, when Trump first came to power, a statement by legendary American union leader and singer-songwriter Joe Hill became the unofficial slogan of the social resistance: "Don't mourne, organize!" The militancy and organizational strength of the left in the US has only grown stronger since then.

A new generation of activists has emerged in the US. Newspapers describe them as ‘young and pro-union’. They include young unionist Nabretta Hardin, who established a union at Starbucks, and the charismatic Chris Smalls, who did the same at Amazon. Last year, the automotive workers, along with Shawn Fain's UAW union, forced the big three auto companies GM, Ford and Stellantis to their knees. Recently, workers at Boeing also won an important victory.

And then there is, of course, the courageous Palestine generation, which never allowed itself to be broken by repression or blackmail. Their revolt against the two-party system may even open the door to a true left alternative in the US.