WASHINGTON D.C, January 20–There is one thing the now 29 day old government shutdown shows for sure; neither Donald Trump nor his Democratic opponents have any concern for workers, the main victims of this power game between the main imperialist wing of the ruling class and the domestically oriented, Republican Trump supporters.
 78 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck (CNBC, 1/9).Now 800,000 federal employees and hundreds of thousands of contractors, who are 40 percent of government personnel, are without one, whether or not they are being forced to work. To understand the devastation, we must know that 21.2 percent of U.S. families have no savings, including over 32 percent of Latin and 37 percent of Black families. 40 percent of all families have less than $400 in available cash for emergencies, according to the Federal Reserve. What more proof need there be that workers cannot afford to live under this capitalist system?
Indigenous workers living on federally funded land have been hardest hit. Snow covered roads are not being cleared, ambulances are not running and a 60 percent unpaid healthcare workforce devastates medical care. Some of the other concrete effects of the shutdown, which disproportionately affects Black and Latin workers, are: food stamps, used by 38 million people, were given out early for February and will no longer be available; federal cash welfare for $34 million is gone and being temporarily replaced by states; USDA loans and federal rent subsidies for low income rural dwellers will end by 2/1; food inspections have markedly decreased; approvals for opioid drug antagonists (drugs that counteract narcotic overdoses) cannot be had. If workers have not already died from these measures, some soon will, and it is certain that widespread effects of the stress and deprivation will continue long after the shutdown ends.
Why make a crisis out of immigration?
Trump pretends that there is an “immigration crisis,” but illegal border crossings have dropped from 851,000 in 2006 to approximately 62,000 in 2016, and both documented and undocumented immigrants commit crimes at a much lower rate than the native born and have a lower unemployment rate (NYT 1/11). Most illegally imported drugs are smuggled through legal ports of entry. Given the falling fertility rates of native-born Americans, the U.S. would need to admit more than a million immigrants a year until 2050, more than double the current number, just to maintain current levels of production (NYT, 1/15).
What the maintenance of legal barriers to immigration does accomplish is to keep this large body of workers in a state of constant fear, drastically limiting their ability to demand higher wages or organize. By branding immigrant workers as dangerous and criminal, racist and nationalistic divisions are also sown between them and other workers, including Black workers and legal immigrants or their descendants.
Why is this happening now?
There may be no better explanation than that Trump is a bumbling politician, without any stable advisors representing the usual ruling class forces. He sees himself as beholden to his most racist and reactionary base to fulfill a campaign promise to “build the wall” and earn his racist and nationalist stripes. However, there should be no illusions that the Democrats or liberals who oppose him have any interest in treating immigrants with humanity. Since a century ago, Presidents Wilson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Clinton, both Bush’s and Obama have set up draconian barriers to immigration and increased deportations. Obama deported more immigrants than any president ever (about 3 million), and Democrats have built more of the existing wall than Republicans. Workers should not only fight against this racist border wall and this racist government shutdown; we should fight for a world without borders – communism.
The Democrats today, representing the main finance wing of the ruling class, are anxious to weaken Trump, who is destroying years of policies that strengthened the U.S. ruler’s international military, political and financial alliances. They are horrified by his general undisciplined behavior. They fear that his withdrawing from Syria and Afghanistan, and threatening to withdraw from NATO threatens their worldwide, imperialist empire. They also oppose his total destruction of environmental regulations, overt racism, and destruction of “free trade,” all damaging to the reputation and sway of America’s large corporations and their international imperialist alliances.
Ultimately, workers must rise up collectively to defend ourselves from both parties. Mass sickouts among airport workers are already happening and may spread. Although federal workers are legally banned from striking, job actions are needed to fight for survival as all the bosses ignore their needs. Once again it is clear that capitalism cares naught for workers’ lives and that we need, in the end, to be fighting for a society we control–communism.