A rebellion has been raging in the largest city (Los Angeles) of the largest state (California) of the United States of America for five days now. For the moment, it seems to be getting hotter rather than calming down. It started in a small town near Los Angeles (LA), but, from the very first day, the rebellion spread from this satellite town to downtown LA itself.LA has now become the epicentre of the rebellion. And the revolt is slowly spreading to other cities of the country (San Francisco, New York, Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas, etc.), though not at the pace one would have liked to see. The crowds aren't large enough yet, but it's a start. A lot of violence has been witnessed in response to the brutality of “law enforcement”. Rows of police cars and almost a fleet of autonomous (i.e. driverless) vehicles, which the Americans call "Waymo", were seen on a video to be on fire. Trump immediately ordered the military (the reserve forces called the National Guard) to mobilise in response to the rebellion. His initial move was to mobilise 2,000 troops that belong to this force. But very soon, he raised the hand by sending in the most combative force of the US army, i.e. the Marines, 700 hundred of them for the moment.
This caused a friction between the president, on the one hand, and the Democratic governor of California, Gavin Newsom, over the powers that the president can use in such cases. The US system is loath to use military troops in dealing with social unrest, not out of respect for free speech, but more plausibly in order not to erode the popularity and the respectability of the army in the eyes of the plebeian masses. The last time such use of the military was made was in 1970, when the US military mowed down students protesting the extension of the Vietnam war to Cambodia at Kent State University in Ohio and Jackson State University, a black university in Mississippi, killing a total of six students and wounding several dozens. This incident caused so much uproar (and a student strike involving 4 million students) that mobilisation of federal troops has not been resorted to again ever since (with one slight exception as we shall see in a moment). The use of the US army against the people of the United States using their right to freedom of speech has been one of the pet projects of Trump for his second term. He did use the National Guard against the George Floyd rebellion only in Washington D.C. during his first term in office, but that remained a solitary attempt in that direction since the top brass, and in particular Mark Milley, the head of the chiefs of staff, was against using the power and prestige of the army in the service of Trump’s own political agenda. That unwillingness of Pentagon seems to have evaporated during the second term although nothing definite can be said yet.
The socio-political character of the rebellion
The satellite city of Paramount has a population of just over 50 thousand inhabitants and 80 percent of this population are Latino and Latina or, in other words, Hispanic. This is an immigrant population from Central or South America (and the Caribbean islands). Since the territory called California belonged to Mexico until 1850, there may of course be descendants of Mexicans who lived there before the mid-19th century and became citizens of the country after the US usurped California. So the vast majority are immigrants that settled in the United States.
These 40 thousand people (80 percent of the 50 thousand), and perhaps others in the town who support them, are in revolt. The immediate, tangible reason for this is that officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), clad in military gear, have been manhunting in the town since last Friday the 6th. As is well known, Trump considers it one of the most sensitive and important components of his overall policy to round up "undocumented" immigrants and send some of them back to their home countries, while others are sent to a notorious prison in the Central American country of El Salvador, which functions like a subcontractor in the field of “prison services”, assuming the role of torture centre acting on behalf of the US without being subject to the niceties of US law in the area of the rule of law. Until now, this has been done by searching for people singly and immediately deporting them without due process.
What is distinctive about the Los Angeles episode is that the raid on undocumented migrants was not organised in their private surroundings, in the communities where they reside, but in their working environment or while looking for work as day labourers. If the migrant apprehended is found to be undocumented, he or she will be deported like the others. The difference is very important. Because whether the raid is carried out at the workplace while they are working or waiting for work as day labourers in the labour market, the raid is carried out at a moment when these people are part of a collective, a set of people with a common socio-economic position. This is precisely why there were no riots in previous raids, but there were riots this time.
A working-class rebellion
The media approached this episode almost unanimously as a revolt of immigrants. On the surface of things this seems to be true. It is ICE that organises the raid, specialising in questions of immigration. ICE goes after Latino/Latina immigrants. And the intention of the former is to deport the latter. This is the immediate appearance and if one remains at that level, it is reasonable to characterise the entire event as a “revolt of immigrants” But as soon as one goes behind appearances and strives to capture the essence behind the appearance, taking into account the totality of the relations concerned, one discovers a much more complex reality.
Let us pose a question: Is Trump's policy of deporting undocumented immigrants an unmitigated symptom of Trump's racism? There is no doubt that Trump is racist, discriminating against blacks, Latinos and Muslims to differing degrees, even if he tries at times not to show it in order not to alienate his prospective electorate. So, yes, Trump is a man caught up in a reactionary ideology of white supremacy. But that is not the question we are asking. Is that why Trump is implementing the current deportation policy? That is the question to be answered.
The answer to that question will give us the key to understanding the essential character of the period we are entering. No, decidedly not. Trump is not driven by racist sentiments; he is implementing this policy in order to divide the working class. And why does he want to divide? Because the neoliberal and globalist policies long practiced by the capitalist class have devastated the American working class (and those of other imperialist countries), taking away their jobs, leading to the outright collapse of their cities or satellite towns and to unprecedented impoverishment and misery in the bosom of the class. From Trump's MAGA movement to all the so-called "far right" or "populist" parties in Europe, the most important characteristic is to blame other elements within the working class (immigrants, minorities, Muslims etc. depending on the country) for this crisis for which, as a matter of fact, capitalism is responsible. This is the defining characteristic of fascism. Fascism is not just racism. Fascism is indisputably racist, but its racism has a specific purpose: it aims to divide the working class and, thereby, divert its rage against its suffering away from the system, away from capitalism towards other nations, ethnicities, faiths. Not all racism is fascism. This is what distinguishes fascism from simply or purely racist parties and movements. Anyone who does not understand this has not understood fascism.
Therefore, the masses’ revolt against Trump's policy, even if they themselves have not yet attained this political consciousness, is a working-class reaction to their predicament. They are not simply fighting for their rights as immigrants, but more so as workers, as proletarians who are trying to protect the possibility of looking after their families and their children. So this revolt is not a "revolt of immigrants" but a "working class revolt".
Unfortunately, neither the American left nor the international left has yet grasped this decisive aspect of the situation and so they are being dragged along by events without adopting a proper strategy to fight fascism.
What way forward?
Socialists around the world who do are carefully following the events in the United States are thereby only proving how disconnected they are from the working class and, as importantly, from real politics, from the element that is to play the decisive role in future confrontations with Trump and his ilk. One need only pose oneself the following question: “Which one have I followed more closely and with greater curiosity, the Trump-Musk conflict or the events in Los Angeles?” If, in the quiet privacy of their conscience, the reader has answered this question in sincerity, they can then easily grade themselves against the background of the requirements of proletarian socialism!
The US state apparatus is in disarray. Trump claims to have suppressed the uprising precisely at the same moment on day 5, when the Democratic mayor of Los Angeles has decided to impose a curfew!
The major disadvantage of the movement is that the segment of the working class targeted by Trump cannot participate in the protests by definition. As undocumented immigrants, they cannot because if apprehended they would be deported immediately. White workers who are not organised (the majority) are currently Trump's backyard. The unionised segment enjoying relative job security and receives a living wage is still looking to the Democratic Party. This party of the American capitalist class has demonstrated its nature once again. Even California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is a strong contender for the presidency the next time around, is clashing with Trump, but only on the question of the powers of governmental authorities of, respectively, state governor and president of the United States. This aspect of things will surely play an important part in the future, but what is a crying fact is that no one has heard him say a word about the predicament of immigrant workers. The Democratic mayor of Los Angeles has imposed a curfew, ostensibly to restore public order, but effectively to quell their actions. The hero of the American designer left, Bernie Sanders, who calls himself a ‘democratic socialist’ and Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, whom he is helping prepare for the future, have so far remained deafeningly silent. Talking is of course not enough, but they have not even done that.
The LA revolt is a litmus test that will demonstrate who is on the side of the US government, the state of the bourgeoisie, and who on the side of the working class. Proletarian socialists must see the seeds of the future here, learn their lessons, and prepare themselves and the American working class, in all its heterogeneity, for the future.