Donald Trump’s misogynist, racist, anti-immigrant, and anti-environmental politics show the deep retrogression inside the USA as a whole that brought him to power. Trump’s narrow Electoral College victory hinged on not only appeals to all the above reactionary sentiments, but also on the defection of a section of the white working class. This sector was seduced by his demagoguery about job creation after over a decade of recession and stagnation, as seen in the measly 1.6% economic growth for the year 2016.  Trump’s ascendancy is a product of the crisis of capitalism exemplified by the Great Recession and it constitutes a 21st century form of authoritarian state capitalism that is prepared to crack down on all forces of resistance.

Trump’s reactionary agenda — and his links to Vladimir Putin and other authoritarians abroad — has sparked an unprecedented wave of popular protest and resistance that shows no signs of letting up, from the gigantic women’s marches to the anti-Islamophobia airport demonstrations.

The International Marxist-Humanist Organization and the Black Rose/Rosa Negra Anarchist Federation stand at the far left of such protests, and yet we come from different revolutionary traditions with important divergences today. At this meeting, we will explore those differences in a conversation about the theory and practice of anti-capitalist and anti-statist revolutionary politics in the era of Donald Trump.

JAVIER SETHNESS CASTRO is the author of “Eros and Revolution: The Critical Philosophy of Herbert Marcuse” and of “Imperiled Life: Revolution Against Climate Catastrophe.”

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