Trump Declares Global War on Socialism
By Bill Van Auken
Global Research, February 19, 2019
World Socialist Web Site
Region: Latin America & Caribbean, USA
Theme: History
26
8 4
39
US President Donald Trump unleashed a global tirade against socialism at a Florida university Monday, in which he targeted Venezuela as the front line in this fascistic crusade.
Delivered to a hand-picked audience of Republican operatives and right-wing Venezuelan and Cuban exiles chanting “USA, USA, USA” and “Trump, Trump, Trump,” both the speech—and the response to it—had a fascistic character. It resurrected the language not only of McCarthyism and the John Birch Society in the United States of the 1950s, but those of Mussolini and Hitler in the Europe of the 1930s.
Mimicking the fascist dictators, the president’s hysterical antisocialism was combined with imperialist warmongering. Trump delivered an ultimatum to the Venezuelan military to either capitulate to US regime change or be slaughtered. He made it clear that Washington views the coup against the government of Nicolas Maduro as only the first step in a hemisphere-wide war to overthrow the governments of Nicaragua and Cuba and eradicate the growing influence of the US’s geopolitical rivals—China and Russia—in Latin America.
For Trump, the speech in Miami no doubt represented one of the first salvos in his 2020 election campaign, in which he intends to mobilize the most ultra-right elements in the United States. He intends to place the Democrats on the defensive, compelling them to deny any connection to “socialism” or “leftism.” He is likewise counting on their congenital cowardice: that none of them will come out to warn the American people that the man in the White House has—as aides have revealed—studied the speeches and writings of Adolf Hitler and is carrying out policies that lead to outright dictatorship and police-state repression.
Trump’s speech, replete with vows of a global crusade against “communism and socialism,” reflected growing fears within the US ruling oligarchy—not of the insipid politics of the likes of Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—but rather of a dangerous challenge from below to their power and wealth. This ruling layer is rattled by a steady growth of strikes, including those breaking out in opposition to the existing unions, as well a widespread radicalization of both workers and youth. Recent polls have increasingly expressed the preference of the younger generation for socialism over capitalism. This fear among America’s billionaires and multimillionaires provides a core constituency for the fascistic agenda being promulgated by Donald Trump.
Trump’s “Mein Kampf” Tirade at the United Nations
The speech also comes only a few days after the declaration of a state of emergency, whose immediate purpose is to utilize the military to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. However, the implications are far broader. The declaration is a frontal assault on core constitutional norms and democratic rights, targeted at the growth of social opposition within the United States. Trump and his chief advisors are operating off a fascist playbook.
In his anticommunist tirade, Trump declared that “socialism by its very nature does not respect borders,” and is “always seeking to expand,” a complaint that reflects fears within the ruling class of the growing international movement of the working class. This includes the outbreak of strikes by Mexican workers in maquiladora plants that feed the US auto industry on the same US border that Trump wants to wall off.
Against this incipient expression of the international unity of the working class, Trump spouts the poison of nationalism and xenophobia, echoing the fascists of the 1930s.
“The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere,” Trump recited from a speech that was drafted by his fascistic aide Stephen Miller.
Socialism, he proclaimed, was “about one thing only, power for the ruling class.” It delivered, he said, only “corruption, exploitation and decay.” How this definition differed in the slightest from the government and the social order over which he himself presides, Trump failed to explain.
In relation to Venezuela, Trump declared in his speech that Washington seeks “a peaceful transfer of power, but all options are open.”
This direct threat of a US military intervention comes as the Pentagon has become increasingly involved in a transparent provocation on Venezuela’s border, using US Air Force C-17 cargo planes to fly cargos that are described as “humanitarian aid” into the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. Washington has a well-known record of employing similar “humanitarian” charades in Central America and elsewhere as a means of delivering arms to terrorist forces.
The aim of the stockpiling of USAID supplies on the border is to provoke a confrontation with the Venezuelan military that can then be used as the pretext for direct US military intervention.
Trump’s fusion of US imperialism’s ambition to enslave Latin America with rabid anticommunism must lead, if not stopped, to a hemispheric war and mass repression within the US.
Within this political context, special note should be taken of Trump’s increasingly violent threats against those whom he perceives as his personal enemies. His demand for “retribution” against Alec Baldwin, whose latest Saturday Night Live parody of Trump angered the president, was nothing less than an incitement for a physical assault on the actor. This political episode must be taken seriously. However, as is to be expected, the threat against Baldwin, as well as Trump’s tirade in Florida, was ignored in the Monday evening news broadcasts of the major television networks.
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Copyright © Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site, 2019
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Articles by:Bill Van Auken
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: publications@globalresearch.ca
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Global Research, February 19, 2019
World Socialist Web Site
Region: Latin America & Caribbean, USA
Theme: History
26
8 4
39
US President Donald Trump unleashed a global tirade against socialism at a Florida university Monday, in which he targeted Venezuela as the front line in this fascistic crusade.
Delivered to a hand-picked audience of Republican operatives and right-wing Venezuelan and Cuban exiles chanting “USA, USA, USA” and “Trump, Trump, Trump,” both the speech—and the response to it—had a fascistic character. It resurrected the language not only of McCarthyism and the John Birch Society in the United States of the 1950s, but those of Mussolini and Hitler in the Europe of the 1930s.
Mimicking the fascist dictators, the president’s hysterical antisocialism was combined with imperialist warmongering. Trump delivered an ultimatum to the Venezuelan military to either capitulate to US regime change or be slaughtered. He made it clear that Washington views the coup against the government of Nicolas Maduro as only the first step in a hemisphere-wide war to overthrow the governments of Nicaragua and Cuba and eradicate the growing influence of the US’s geopolitical rivals—China and Russia—in Latin America.
For Trump, the speech in Miami no doubt represented one of the first salvos in his 2020 election campaign, in which he intends to mobilize the most ultra-right elements in the United States. He intends to place the Democrats on the defensive, compelling them to deny any connection to “socialism” or “leftism.” He is likewise counting on their congenital cowardice: that none of them will come out to warn the American people that the man in the White House has—as aides have revealed—studied the speeches and writings of Adolf Hitler and is carrying out policies that lead to outright dictatorship and police-state repression.
Trump’s speech, replete with vows of a global crusade against “communism and socialism,” reflected growing fears within the US ruling oligarchy—not of the insipid politics of the likes of Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—but rather of a dangerous challenge from below to their power and wealth. This ruling layer is rattled by a steady growth of strikes, including those breaking out in opposition to the existing unions, as well a widespread radicalization of both workers and youth. Recent polls have increasingly expressed the preference of the younger generation for socialism over capitalism. This fear among America’s billionaires and multimillionaires provides a core constituency for the fascistic agenda being promulgated by Donald Trump.
Trump’s “Mein Kampf” Tirade at the United Nations
The speech also comes only a few days after the declaration of a state of emergency, whose immediate purpose is to utilize the military to build a wall along the US-Mexico border. However, the implications are far broader. The declaration is a frontal assault on core constitutional norms and democratic rights, targeted at the growth of social opposition within the United States. Trump and his chief advisors are operating off a fascist playbook.
In his anticommunist tirade, Trump declared that “socialism by its very nature does not respect borders,” and is “always seeking to expand,” a complaint that reflects fears within the ruling class of the growing international movement of the working class. This includes the outbreak of strikes by Mexican workers in maquiladora plants that feed the US auto industry on the same US border that Trump wants to wall off.
Against this incipient expression of the international unity of the working class, Trump spouts the poison of nationalism and xenophobia, echoing the fascists of the 1930s.
“The twilight hour of socialism has arrived in our hemisphere,” Trump recited from a speech that was drafted by his fascistic aide Stephen Miller.
Socialism, he proclaimed, was “about one thing only, power for the ruling class.” It delivered, he said, only “corruption, exploitation and decay.” How this definition differed in the slightest from the government and the social order over which he himself presides, Trump failed to explain.
In relation to Venezuela, Trump declared in his speech that Washington seeks “a peaceful transfer of power, but all options are open.”
This direct threat of a US military intervention comes as the Pentagon has become increasingly involved in a transparent provocation on Venezuela’s border, using US Air Force C-17 cargo planes to fly cargos that are described as “humanitarian aid” into the Colombian border city of Cúcuta. Washington has a well-known record of employing similar “humanitarian” charades in Central America and elsewhere as a means of delivering arms to terrorist forces.
The aim of the stockpiling of USAID supplies on the border is to provoke a confrontation with the Venezuelan military that can then be used as the pretext for direct US military intervention.
Trump’s fusion of US imperialism’s ambition to enslave Latin America with rabid anticommunism must lead, if not stopped, to a hemispheric war and mass repression within the US.
Within this political context, special note should be taken of Trump’s increasingly violent threats against those whom he perceives as his personal enemies. His demand for “retribution” against Alec Baldwin, whose latest Saturday Night Live parody of Trump angered the president, was nothing less than an incitement for a physical assault on the actor. This political episode must be taken seriously. However, as is to be expected, the threat against Baldwin, as well as Trump’s tirade in Florida, was ignored in the Monday evening news broadcasts of the major television networks.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons below. Forward this article to your email lists. Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image is from WSWS
The original source of this article is World Socialist Web Site
Copyright © Bill Van Auken, World Socialist Web Site, 2019
Comment on Global Research Articles on our Facebook page
Become a Member of Global Research
Related Articles
Trump’s State of Emergency: A Step Towards Presidential Dictatorship
Feb 16, 2019
As Congress Enacts Huge “Border Security” Bill, Trump to Declare National Emergency to Build Wall
Feb 14, 2019
US Congress Rejects Trump’s Warmongering, Won’t Support Military Intervention in Venezuela
Feb 13, 2019
Venezuela Regime Change ‘Made in the USA’
Feb 11, 2019
Denouncing Socialism, Practicing Fascism
Feb 10, 2019
Unity and Exceptionalism: Trump’s State of Union Flurries
Feb 10, 2019
26
8 4
39
Articles by:Bill Van Auken
Disclaimer: The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). The Centre for Research on Globalization will not be responsible for any inaccurate or incorrect statement in this article. The Centre of Research on Globalization grants permission to cross-post Global Research articles on community internet sites as long the source and copyright are acknowledged together with a hyperlink to the original Global Research article. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: publications@globalresearch.ca
www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.
For media inquiries: publications@globalresearch.ca
Latest News & Top Stories
Securing the Future Of “Truly Independent” News
Challenging Dollar Hegemony: Russia and China Are Containing America’s Attempts to “Reshape the World Order”
Venezuela False Flag Brewing? Under the Cloak of “the Humanitarian Convoy”
Trump’s Big Lie Pledge to Lower Drug Prices
Selected Articles: Consequences of Imperialism
The Twitter Smearing of Corbyn and Assange. Britain’s “Integrity Initiative”
Black Alliance for Peace: Struggle in Haiti and Venezuela Connected
Postmodernism: A Realm Beyond Renaissance Humanism
When It Comes to Middle East Policy, the UK Is Nothing but a Rogue State
Walter Jones and the Vote to End US War on Yemen
How Much of Venezuela’s Crisis Is Really Maduro’s Fault?
American-Style Drone Warfare and How and When Humans Count
Yellow Vests and Red Unions Strike Together
Cuba, China, PAHO to Send 933 Tons of Medicines to Venezuela
Trump Declares Global War on Socialism
Most PopularAll Articles
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Click Here To Order Online
NEWS
THEMES
I-BOOKS SERIES
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Join Us On Facebook
youtube
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9/11 & ‘War on Terrorism’
Media Disinformation
Militarization and WMD
Oil and Energy
Police State & Civil Rights
Religion
Poverty & Social Inequality
Science and Medicine
United Nations
US NATO War Agenda
Women’s Rights
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