The impeachment acquittal of openly corrupt U.S. President Donald Trump has exposed the disarray of the finance capitalist section of the U.S. ruling class. Overwhelmed by self-interest and chaotic infighting, these main-wing Big Fascists have lost significant control over their state apparatus and institutions. With growing threats to their power and profits, the bosses will be forced to impose fascist discipline on their own ranks—followed by even sharper and more deadly attacks on the working class.
A fraudulent system
The doomed impeachment effort by the Big Fascists’ Democratic Party was driven by the demands of big donors loyal to arch-racists Bill and Hillary Clinton. This group is still furious over Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in the 2016 election. The Democrats focused on Trump’s pressure on the president of Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden, the one-time vice president and hack U.S. senator who’s now running another hapless campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. The Republicans focused on Biden protecting his parasite son, Hunter, who skimmed millions as a do-nothing director of the biggest Ukrainian natural gas company. Each side accused the other of shameless corruption and of tearing apart the country for political gain. Neither side was wrong.  
This partisan mud-throwing splattered the most hallowed institutions of U.S. liberal “democracy,” the bosses’ capitalist dictatorship: the Presidency, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. The rulers’ fraudulent electoral system—after yet another fiasco in the Iowa primary —has likewise been exposed. The Republicans, terrified of losing Trump’s white nationalist base, couldn’t even pretend to make the impeachment process seem fair or legitimate. They refused to hear witnesses like former national security chief John Bolton, who’s cashing in with a book that confirms Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The pro-acquittal Republians argued that presidents can do almost anything they want, even if it means illegally undermining an ally (Ukraine) by withholding military aid. So much for the “rule of law” under capitalism!
The main wing bosses are up against it. They desperately need to unify the U.S. and prepare for the coming global conflict against their inter-imperialist rivals, China and Russia. But they’re also fighting a two-front war of their own. On one side, they’re facing a rising challenge from the domestically oriented bosses, the Small Fascists, who have hijacked the Republican Party. On the other, the Big Fascists and their Democratic Party have deep internal problems: internecine warfare, individualism, subjectivity, greed, and a self-destructive lack of discipline and long-term thinking.
Self-dealers and capitalist reformers
Joe Biden’s whole career has been based on selling his votes in Congress to serve the credit card, health care, oil, real estate, and Wall Street bosses (Guardian, 1/20). While everyone knows that’s just business as usual in Washington, Biden is now straining to reinvent himself as a working-class champion who will clean up Trump’s corruption.  
Meanwhile, the Clintons and the old Democratic Party power structure—including Barack and Michelle Obama, who have raked in $40 million since leaving the White House—are busy sabotaging the main wing’s long-term interests. Instead of using the primaries to unite the Democratic Party against Trump, they have turned it into a war on Biden’s behalf against social democrat Bernie Sanders. Beyond Hillary Clinton’s open sniping, the old guard is conspiring to rig the primary process against the fake-left Sanders, as it did in 2016: “Democratic operatives have been in discussions about putting together an effort to attack Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) should he end up winning this week’s Iowa caucus and, potentially, the New Hampshire primary a week later” (Daily Beast, 1/27).
While Sanders may not be the Big Fascists’ first choice for president, he just might be their best shot to regain control. With the possible exception of Elizabeth Warren, he’s the capitalist reformer best equipped to keep anti-racist workers and youth trapped inside the bosses’ dead-end electoral system—the same people the rulers will need for their next big war. Sanders leads all candidates, including Trump, in fundraising among suburban women, active-duty military, and college students. He is the only presidential candidate mobilizing significant numbers of young Black and Latin workers. Openly cheating Sanders and further alienating his base is a losing strategy for the main wing.
Even if they manage to overcome their divisions and beat Trump in November, the main wing bosses will still be challenged by Trump’s Small Fascist base. It will be very difficult for the rulers to win back these open racists while trying to build a multicultural, imperialist campaign.
Fighting Fascism
In the short term, the impeachment farce highlights the main wing’s weaknesses. In the longer term, it marks a significant step toward fascism. As the rules of liberal democracy lose their legitimacy, it will be even easier for the finance capital Big Fascists to suspend them the next time—when it suits their purpose. Raw power is becoming the new normal. In the 1930s, as the German ruling class moved toward fascism, their system saw similar infighting. In a massacre now known as The Night of the Long Knives, they settled their factional differences through mass arrests and executions. Then came the fascist deluge against the working class.
Progressive Labor Party must prepare ourselves and the international working class for the next fascist onslaught. That means mounting the struggle wherever we are, among the people we know, to build PLP and seize state power with communist revolution. Join us!