The return of Donald Trump to the presidency has reignited a storm of reactionary policies, authoritarian rhetoric, and deepening social divisions. In just the past two months, his administration has unleashed a wave of aggressive economic nationalism, escalated attacks on immigrants, and a renewed consolidation of executive power. Though this escalation marks a shift in tone and intensity, Trump does not represent an aberration. Rather, he is the concentrated expression of a decaying social order rooted in the logic of capital itself.

Trump’s second term does not emerge in a vacuum. It arises from a world system plagued by contradictions: a deepening global crisis of capital, ecological breakdown, intensified class struggles, and the hollowing out of bourgeois democracy. His brand of rightwing populism wrapped in economic protectionism, white nationalism, and annexationist imperialism works to redirect mass discontent away from its source: the alienating, exploitative, and dehumanizing nature of capitalist relations.

To expose the reactionary content of his policies, but also to situate them within the deeper structural crisis of capital, one needs take stock of recent developments under the Trump presidency.

One of the most consistent features of Trump’s political project has been the mobilization of hatred, fear, and repression toward oppressed groups, whether targeting immigrants, people of color, women, or trans and queer people. Taking pages from the fascist handbook, Trumpism weaponizes identity not simply out of prejudice, but as a core strategy of social control.

In recent months, Trump’s administration has ramped up attacks on bodily autonomy. His Department of Health and Human Services has proposed nationwide restrictions on gender-affirming care and reproductive healthcare. This was aimed at seeking to end gender-affirming medical treatments for children and teenagers under the age of 19. Although this policy was met with legal challenges, and a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking its enforcement, it has not stopped states led by Trumpist Republicans from escalating efforts to curtail trans rights under the guise of “protecting the children” and “moral order.”

Trump’s racialized anti-immigrant rhetoric has also returned with a vengeance. He has called for mass deportations, the expansion of detention centers, floated the use of the military for domestic immigration enforcement, and even proposed expanding deportations to include natural-born U.S. citizens, suggesting they be sent to El Salvador’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), a megaprison notorious for human rights abuses.

Since taking office, he has escalated deportations in major cities across the country through ICE and the DHS. prompting a response in the form of mass protests in defense of immigrants in these cities. These proposals are of course deeply connected to his economic policies claiming to protect “American jobs,” but the racialized element cannot be overlooked.

Under capitalism, the human body becomes a bearer of labor-power to be shaped, managed, and exploited. The regulation of gender, race, and sexuality functions to segment the working class and enforce differential access to life, dignity, and autonomy. In this light, Trump’s attacks on marginalized groups are not isolated culture war skirmishes, they are central to the maintenance of capital’s rule.

On March 20, Trump signed an executive order directing the Secretary of Education to “facilitate the closure of the Department of Education and return authority over education to the States and local communities”. While a complete shutdown of the Department would require congressional approval, the administration is taking steps to minimize its operations. He stated that “It’s doing us no good. We want to return our students to the states.” This was announced after previous plans to cut down the federal workforce. The administration plans to transfer certain functions of the Department of Education to other federal agencies. For instance, the management of federal student loans would move to the Small Business Administration.

This executive order to shut down the Department of Education is framed as a move toward local control. But this devolution is strategic; it’s about stripping federal protections especially those won through decades of Black, feminist, LGBTQ+, and disability rights struggles, and giving conservative-governed states the ability to roll back progressive policies with impunity.

The administration has also taken steps to influence policies at universities receiving federal funding. For example, federal funds have been frozen for universities that do not comply with directives to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs or to cooperate with immigration authorities. Notably, Harvard University has faced a freeze of over $2 billion in federal funding after refusing to dismantle its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and to cooperate more closely with immigration authorities. Columbia University agreed to federal demands in an attempt to regain $400 million in funding, leading to significant administrative changes.

Campuses that previously offered sanctuary to undocumented students now face increased scrutiny, with the administration seeking to penalize institutions that do not cooperate with immigration enforcement. This has led to visa revocations of over 1.000 current students and recent alumni across 180 universities. These actions often occur without clear explanations or prior notifications, leaving students uncertain about their legal status and academic futures. Moreover, many of these revocations are believed to be tied to students participating in the protests against the genocide in Gaza. This is the case with Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student at Columbia University, who was detained by ICE agents without a warrant on March 8th, allegedly for his participation in pro-Palestinian campus protests.

DEI programs, which often rely on federal funding or oversight, are among the first casualties of the administration’s attack. By gutting the federal apparatus that enforces anti-discrimination laws, Trump enables reactionary states and universities to dismantle DEI infrastructure under the guise of independence. Trumpism’s hostility to DEI is not simply rhetorical, but it reflects a drive to erase any institutional recognition of structural oppression. DEI programs, however limited by liberal frameworks, represent the residual gains of decades of social struggle that the reactionary right seeks to erase.

The Democratic Party has attempted to oppose Trump’s policies, particularly his efforts to dismantle the Department of Education and suppress DEI initiatives. Democrats have supported legal actions challenging the administration’s attempts to ban DEI programs among federal contractors. A notable case in early April resulted in a federal judge temporarily blocking the Labor Department from enforcing such a ban, citing potential First Amendment violations.

Key figures such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have played prominent roles in this resistance. They launched the “Fighting Oligarchy Tour” in February. This nationwide series of rallies has aimed to mobilize grassroots opposition to corporate dominance and advocate for progressive policies such as universal healthcare and wealth taxation. The tour has drawn significant crowds, including 34,000 attendees in Denver and over 36,000 in Los Angeles. While attracting large numbers of disaffected people, they still receive criticism from the left for not taking a more principled stance on key issues like the genocide in Gaza.

Despite these efforts, several challenges persist for the Democrats. They have faced increased criticism for its perceived lack of robust opposition to President Trump’s aggressive policies. Several factors contribute to the Democratic Party’s constrained response but above all their leadership remains reactive and presents no unified national strategy. Notably, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to support a Republican-led funding bill to avert a government shutdown sparked significant backlash within the party with some calling for him to resign (covered here).

Schumer’s support for the Republican funding bill is seen by many as a capitulation that weakened the party’s stance against the administration’s policies and signifies a deeper fragmentation in the Democrat’s leadership. ​Despite the criticism and the grassroots approach by more left-wing figures like Sanders and AOC, the party has not coalesced around a viable alternative to Schumer.

One of the most dramatic developments in Trump’s return to power has been the imposition of sweeping new tariffs. In early April, Trump implemented a sweeping set of tariffs, including a universal 10% duty on all imports and higher reciprocal tariffs targeting specific countries such as China, Mexico, and Canada. A 25% tariff was also applied to all steel and aluminum imports, including items like empty aluminum cans and foreign-made automobiles. Tariffs have escalated particularly against China, being raised to 145% on Chinese goods on April 9^th and with China retaliating with a 125% tariff rate on U.S. imports.

These measures, announced on what Trump dubbed “Liberation Day,” were framed as a reassertion of US economic independence and a corrective to perceived trade imbalances. But beneath the nationalist posturing lies a desperate attempt to manage the contradictions of a capitalist system in crisis.

The Trump administration presents protectionism as a means of restoring U.S. manufacturing and securing domestic jobs, yet the reality has already shown otherwise. Automakers like Stellantis have begun layoffs, retaliatory tariffs by other nations have choked exports, and the American working class has not remained silent. As in the first Trump presidency, the burden falls mainly not on capital, but on working people through higher prices, job insecurity, and the threat of economic instability.

On April 5, tens of thousands participated in over 1,300 “Hands Off!” rallies across the nation. These demonstrations unified various criticisms of the Trump administration, including mass layoffs, immigration crackdowns, war, and the rollback of DEI programs. Major cities like Washington, D.C., Chicago, and New York saw substantial turnouts, with protesters emphasizing threats to democracy and workers’ rights. Protestors could be heard chanting phrases like “Hands off Greenland” and “Hands off Ukraine”, referring to Trump’s annexationist foreign policy proposals. In Chicago one attendee remarked:

I should mention that there were quite a large number of number of banners and posters supporting Palestine—it did not predominant, but it was there. We have to make sure not to fall into the kind of politics of purism we seem in some of the Left who dismissed the marches because of their proximity to the Democratic Party, even as we call attention to their limitations—it will take a large front to reverse Trump.

In response to these demonstrations, the administration intensified efforts to suppress dissent. As of this writings, 41 anti-protest bills had been introduced in 22 states, aiming to expand criminal penalties for peaceful protests. Trump’s political brand has long rested on the myth of being a champion of the forgotten American worker, but behind the façade of populism lies a presidency fundamentally hostile to labor’s self-activity and autonomy.

Donald Trump’s re-election is not merely the resurgence of a reactionary personality, it marks a deepening crisis of global capital, which, in its terminal phases, increasingly sheds democratic illusions and embraces open repression and authoritarianism. Over the past two months, we have witnessed the rise of a new wave of reaction with intensified attacks on workers, immigrants, trans people, and education itself.

One can liken Trumpism to a type of Bonapartism, where the state in times of capitalist instability may appear to rise above society, but in reality, it remains tethered to the class interests of capital. Trump’s appeals to national greatness and law-and-order are part of this Bonapartist logic: the presentation of a single, “neutral” figure who claims to represent the whole people, while in fact reinforcing the rule of property and capital accumulation. American workers including those who were part of his voter base have started to recognize this façade as favorable opinion has dropped.

At the heart of this critique lies the affirmation of an alternative, not a return to the centrism of the Democratic Party, but a revolutionary theory grounded in the self-activity of the working class and the vision of a society in which freely associated human beings can develop their capacities without domination. It means seeing through Trump not just to what he is, but to what must come after: a world in which the full development of each is the condition for the free development of all.