Looking back on the Trump Presidency.

He was never meant to win, but we had an ally of the far right in the Oval Office for 4 years.

Donald Trump was never meant to become President. The interests of capital expected Hillary Clinton to complete her inevitable ascent to the Presidency, and it didn’t work. Trump was too unpredictable for capital, but once in office, he loyally served big money’s interests.

Trump positioned himself as an anti-establishment President. This was never true, this was a billionaire rapist who helped distribute wealth and power to the 1% through tax cuts, slavishly defended the regime in Saudi Arabia, brushed Israeli war crimes under the rug, betrayed his key promises (underneath a surface level veneer) to American workers, never took on a vested interest, decimated worker’s protections, and was the most conservative President since Ronald Reagan.

There WAS something different about Trump though. During his 4 years, must of the liberal and conservative establishments coalesced in opposition to him, and much of the entrenched functioning of government actively attempted to sabotage him. He was the first President who won without the most big money behind him, and without the express endorsement of capital backing his corner. How did he win? A corrupt conservative media landscape, growing resentment within the electorate, and a dire Democratic candidate who’s brazen corruption was blatantly on show.

Why did the establishment want to, and eventually succeed in, stopping Trump? Because he was the naked truth of what they are, he was the mask ripped off the face of Us imperialism, he was everything they are, but less respectable, and too unpredictable. Simple as that. He challenged certain foreign policy orthodoxies (some for better, some for much worse) and didn’t follow the line to the letter, but he posed no serious threat to vested interests. It shows how demented element of the establishment are in that they wanted to destroy someone who was handing them so many tax cuts and so much reregulation.

Trump was a genuine ally of the far right. He governed as an illiberal, backwards, conservative. But his mouthpiece was a mouthpiece for the far right. That’s never happened before, and it was extremely dangerous and corrosive.

Trump never challenged the neoliberal consensus. He merely tinkered around the edges in certain areas, and that was enough to drive the US establishment insane; this is what the left will be up against, but it’ll be 1000 times worse, since we pose a genuine threat.

Trump’s Presidency was chaos, partly because of his own ineptitude, partly because the deep state worked to sabotage his administration. He filled his cabinet with lobbyists and grifters, and served the interests of the 1% without exception. Trump was a con-man, a grifter, and one of the worst Presidents ever to be elected, with notable exceptions (such as Bush). The end of his administration is welcome, but unless the trends neoliberalism set in motion, that put him in power are challenged, another, more dangerous and effective, demagogue will rise.