John, > On Jun 6, 2026, at 08:12, John Reimann via groups.io > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Bonapartism normally arises during a crisis of capitalism, one in which the > clash of the classes becomes so severe that the capitalists can no longer > rule through "normal" (democratic) means.
The crisis is in world imperialism with the end of a half-century of US neoliberalism and no clear consensus on what to replace it with. Without that consensus, there can be no hegemony. IIRC, this is one of Gramsci's characteristics of a Bonapartist (Caesarist) regime that distinguishes it from a fascist one. > Then the capitalists have to help enable a ruler who is partially independent > of them. That has been almost the norm in Latin America for over a century. > In the United States, however, there was no major clash, no major > confrontation, between the capitalist and the working classes. Their domestic working class is one problem of many for US imperialism. The inability to maintain the US world order is part of the crisis; the emergence of China as a military threat after US neoliberals outsourced US manufacturing to China makes it worse, and successfully competing with China seems out of reach given the current US order. There may be no major clash between US workers and capital at this time; capital's fight is with past victories: Past gains are codified in the US administrative state with environmental protections, voting rights, and labor protections. The Heritage Foundation speaks for a collection of US capitalists who want to dismantle all of these things, and Trump has been doing that. > Instead, while the capitalist class lost its legitimacy within the working > class (as well as the petit bourgeoisie), the working class itself was > collapsing as an independent force in society. The result was that a huge > vacuum opened up and politics, like nature, hates a vacuum. Into that vacuum > entered Donald Trump in 2016. > I think a larger problem with Teso's article is that it underestimates the > degree of working class support for Trump and, thereby underestimates the > absolute crisis in the working class in the US That crisis is a crisis of leadership that results from the fusion of US labor with the Democratic party. As Teso described the Democratic Party: "It can win elections, but it cannot build real working-class independence. When the left joins this project, it ends up sidelined, doing the work that helps restore the old order. "The second strategic implication concerns the demobilising function of protest cycles under Bonapartist conditions. The airport occupations of the first term, the Women’s March, the George Floyd uprising and the “No Kings” protests all demonstrated genuine mobilising capacity, but none produced durable organisational power. This was not due to a failure of commitment or imagination; rather, it represents a structural problem." Indeed, the point of No Kings, the Women's March, and the Tea Party, which inspired both, was to get out the votes for Democrats (in No Kings and Women's March) or Republicans (Tea Party). Mark -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#41950): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/41950 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/119660195/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
