The effort to bring anti-imperialist ideas into MAGA, & the steps in the class war that come after this

In the story of how the United States frees itself from monopoly finance capital, one of the most important mass elements is the antiwar MAGA crowd. The crowd which has voted for Trump out of desire to negotiate an end to the conflicts, and clear up a path towards the economic growth we need. In this progression of thinking, the next step is the idea of mutual growth; of a shared developmental effort between the USA, and the Russian and Chinese civilizations that our government wants to cut us off from. When you bring up this concept to Trump’s voters, you find that many of them are receptive towards it, even amid all the anti-China rhetoric from the MAGA leadership.

Palestine is another nation that one can find support for within this crowd; even as Trump calls to ethnically cleanse Gaza, those among his supporters who are most informed recognize that a genocide has been happening, and want Palestine’s rights to be respected. “If he can come and set a peace treaty with Israel and Gaza, they can stop massacring and genociding the Palestinian people, I will call him the greatest president in history,” said one man in a “Make America Great Again” cap on Inauguration Day. He was at an event that the Center for Political Innovation had put on with the goal of reaching people who think like him. Nearby there was a “Build the peace bridge” banner, referring to the proposed landbridge between Russia and Alaska, as well as a picture of Trump shaking hands with Kim Jong Un. These messages are easily capable of attracting those who’ve been supporting Trump with the hope that he’ll end the U.S.-Zionist death machine; the crowd of Trump supporters received the two banners quite warmly, and there were many who were glad to talk.

Of course, there are Trump voters who support the “Israeli” settler entity, or dislike China; but it’s also productive to have a dialogue with people like them, because we can’t only operate within the circles where incorrect ideas have already been unlearned. We must take an active role in shaping popular consciousness, and this is something I didn’t truly understand while I was still within leftist spaces. I credit the CPI with demonstrating to me that we must not retreat into leftism, like U.S. communists did during the mid-20th century. And it’s because of CPI’s challenging this insular belief that we continue to see efforts at smearing it, like when a fake graphic was recently created which claimed the org enforces extreme puritanical standards. In reality, the main thing it’s up to right now is to bring a deep economic analysis into the conversations the MAGA base is having.

These activities represent a wider trend within U.S. politics; one where actors across the ideological spectrum have been adopting the populist spirit of MAGA. Such a tactic can be used for good or for ill, depending on the intentions of the person who utilizes it; right now, there are many anti-woke grifters weaponizing the populist style to promote Zionism, and to demonize China. As we in the antiwar movement work to combat these pro-imperialist ideas, and to pick up those who may become disillusioned with Trump, we must account for how the state is going to react to our efforts. For how hard the imperial state is going to try to crush us as we challenge it during such a crucial moment. 

We’re picking this fight at a time when the empire anxiously seeks to solidify its narrative dominance, and thereby create the conditions for war with China. By committing to this struggle, we’re taking on many risks; but should we properly respond to these risks, it will end up strengthening our organizations, and giving the people the means for overthrowing their monopolist dictatorship.

There is a bipartisan plan to crush dissent against the empire’s war plans, and so far our government is going after those who are most vulnerable. The Trump administration has begun a campaign to find foreign students who it identifies as terrorist sympathizers, and take away their visas so that they can be deported. This is only the start of the crackdown, which is intended to target everyone who actively opposes U.S. foreign policies; but at this stage, the main goal is simply to prevent the pro-Palestine movement from regaining the energy it had last year. If this repression can stop the students from leading another revolt against the war machine, then in all areas the empire will have an easier time advancing its destructive designs. 

In the outcome that the state prefers, there will be no sustained mass momentum against the next parts of the war on Palestine, or against China, or against BRICS. The narrative managers want enough apathy and confusion that whatever revolutionary sparks exist, this won’t lead to any meaningful change. That way, the crackdown will also be able to go forward without sufficient opposition.

We will avoid this outcome if we give the masses the means to fight back. Nothing must discourage us; we have to reach everyone who has potential to join us, from the MAGA people, to the independents, to the libertarians, to the groups with particular class war experiences such as striking workers. A great deal of them will receive our arguments well; the interests of the USA’s people are in building an economy that works for the collective wellbeing rather than for profit, and in cooperating with other civilizations. Getting the people to agree with this agenda will not be difficult, because all we’re doing is adding onto the beliefs that so many workers already hold. 

The more challenging aspect is in providing the people with an organizational outlet which can aid them in all areas throughout the class war. Which will fight for them during strikes, will provide for their material needs both before and after the revolutionary moment, and will keep operating even if it’s forced underground. These are among our many responsibilities as those who’ve taken on the revolutionary mission. If we fulfill these duties, the people will have the allies they’ll need within the next stages of this fight. The present stage is about breaking the psychological control of ruling class media and political theater; in the next stage, the ruling class will strike back at the people, and we’ll have to overcome intimidation and repression. We must confront this task unflinchingly, like we’ve faced the obstacles that have already come up.

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As the balance of forces keeps tipping in China’s favor, Trumpian neocons struggle to find the right strategy

What happens when a White House that’s fanatically invested in anti-China ideology sees the globe’s balance of forces keep changing in China’s favor? So far, the second Trump administration is responding to this by trying to put maximum pressure on Russia, seeking to take away the PRC’s biggest strategic partner. Marco Rubio’s stated goal of using sanctions relief to gain concessions from Russia, and Trump’s effort to portray himself as friendly towards the Russian people, represent an expansion of the diplomatic methods Washington has recently been using in its war against China. 

Since Russia’s Ukraine operation began, the U.S. has intensified its attempts to strengthen ties with Central Asian countries. Which has let it deepen its relations with countries like Kazakhstan, but with a catch: Russia and China have continued to gain bigger roles in the region as well. Russia in particular is building more intimate cultural and educational ties with its Central Asian neighbors, exemplified by the creation of Russia’s first Kazakh university. And Central Asia’s recent economic growth is bringing it closer to material independence, which the imperialists do not want it to have. 

The imperialists have reacted by trying to subdue Russia as a means for thwarting China, with Biden and Trump only having different preferred methods for advancing this mission. The Biden Ukrainiacs tried to get Russia to lose its resolve by introducing an extreme nuclear threat. And the Trump team’s foreign policy guides—who aren’t “Ukrainiacs” in the same way, but are absolutely neocons—have chosen to try buying off Russia’s bourgeoisie.

They want to turn Russia’s retreat within Syria into the event that leaves Russian leadership overwhelmed, and willing to make deals with the USA, Turkey, and Kiev. They’ve gotten the Zionist entity to pivot away from Gaza towards Syria, aware that the Israeli Offense Force is crippled and must concentrate its efforts within one front. Their plan depends on the Russian ruling class gaining enough of an incentive to accept the rewards Washington will offer them, in exchange for abandoning China and leaving West Asia open to imperial aggressions. 

Will this work? Looking at the way this plan’s executors are acting, and the contradictory nature of their goals, there are many factors which could undermine it. Which means they’ll keep resorting to more extreme, terroristic measures, adding to past Trumpian aggressions like murdering Soleimani.

The U.S. has failed to turn Central Asia into a neo-colonial center because Washington can’t offer the economic benefits that Russia or China do; Eurasia is already a massive hub for global development, and Washington’s tactical victory in Syria cannot change this. This event has even accelerated China’s rise by trapping the U.S. in another military quagmire, which will get even less manageable if the Zionist entity re-invades Gaza. And given the Trump team’s deep ties with the settler movement, that re-invasion will in all likelihood happen. The boldness of the Trump imperial strategy is only hurting Washington’s interests, like the Biden strategy did.

Historically, presidents and their handlers have only acted more brazenly when global events are already in their favor, while being cautious when things have gone unfavorably. Because Clinton’s presidency was right after the Soviet Union fell, Clinton took on a highly reactionary role, and the Democratic Party now felt comfortable fully betraying the working class. This represented a wider shift, wherein the U.S. ruling class became newly emboldened compared to when the USSR was still around. Presidents and their handlers once didn’t feel safe enough to wantonly impose sanctions, like they do today; they also used to be held back from invading many of the places they’ve invaded since 1991. 

A power once existed which could significantly restrict them, then that power went away; but now a great new challenger has emerged, and the imperialists are struggling to find the right way of handling it. As Eurasia has gained its unprecedented strength over the last couple decades, the hegemon has been unwilling to give up its post-Soviet sanctions powers, only further expanding the economic warfare. And though the blowback from Iraq forced Washington to start avoiding direct invasions, the U.S. has brought about multiple proxy wars as part of its mission to destroy China. It’s also been massively building up military forces around China, while working to escalate in Taiwan and Korea. 

Eurasia’s rise has prompted the Trump White House to adopt a seemingly more cooperative posture, with Trump claiming goodwill towards Russia while lifting some of the previous pressures upon Iran. Trump has also talked of working with China to “solve all the world’s problems,” and the founder of TikTok showed up to his inauguration after the two had met. Yet all the while, the neocons in Trump’s cabinet are underhandedly working to advance aggressions, and to create the conditions for a much larger confrontation.

The decision to halt global development aid to all countries besides Egypt and “Israel” shows the character of these warfare maneuvers. It’s a change that undoubtedly helps the anti-imperialist cause on a tactical level, cutting off crucial funding for the CIA’s NGOs; yet it’s part of an effort to consolidate imperialism’s strength, expand the genocide, and prepare for assailing East Asia. 

It’s also not something that would have been done at an earlier stage in the empire’s decline; Trump didn’t de-fund USAID at the start of his first term, because back then imperialism’s crises hadn’t yet so severely damaged our economy. Trump has used rhetoric about improving the lives of the USA’s people while explaining the foreign funding cut; and though Trump won’t actually rescue the working class, he understands that the effects of liberalism’s collapse must at least be mitigated. 

He’s trying to do what U.S. presidents have historically done during moments of capitalist crisis, and get imperialism onto a new course so that the capitalist machine doesn’t break down. The Trump team’s hope is to turn the empire into something that more so resembles what it was like when the Panama Canal was first built, and Washington’s global imperial role was something new. That was an era of unrestrained monopolist exploitation, as well as a moment when the ruling class successfully revitalized capitalism through a big war. The wing of the ruling class which Trump represents sees that era’s version of imperialism as preferable, so it’s trying to pivot Washington’s focus back towards our own hemisphere. The hope is that by doing this, the USA’s unraveling will be stopped.

Will the Trumpist faction succeed in carrying out this strategic shift? That’s dubious, because the Atlanticist deep state has the greater sway in government; also, the Trump wing’s desires are self-undermining, as it wants a localized imperialism yet seeks war with China. The empire is being pulled in different directions, and its internal divisions keep intensifying. Should the revolutionary forces navigate this situation correctly, and unify the people behind an effort at defeating monopoly capital, we’ll be able to take advantage of these weaknesses.

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The state’s effort to manage the pro-Palestine movement, & the united front that can rescue it from this

There’s a battle going on over which direction the pro-Palestine movement is going to take next. On one side, there are the organic, popular elements; the earnest individuals who are willing to do whatever it takes to end this extermination campaign. On the other side, there are the NGOs, from which all the other problems within the movement are downstream. The impulse to de-center Palestine in favor of culture war issues, anti-Trumpism, or causes that are best focused on outside of pro-Palestine rallies; the dependence on donations from sources that are tied to the Democratic Party, or to the State Department itself; the lack of awareness about the practicalities of organizing, which leads to poorly disciplined protests where agent provocateurs can operate freely. All these weaknesses come from how the USA’s pro-Palestine cause is dominated by the organized left, which today is effectively an appendage for the NGOs.

This country’s communist and otherwise revolutionary organizations were mostly dismantled decades ago. Some of the authentic orgs from the earlier era, like the African People’s Socialist Party, have survived uncorrupted; but they’re the exception, existing in an environment where popular movements can easily be co-opted and sabotaged. The PSL, the primary “communist” org that’s taken on a role of facilitating the protests, has consistently backstabbed APSP and the other groups which challenge its organizing monopoly. At this point, the goal of PSL’s faction is to build an anti-Trump movement, which effectively negates the anti-Zionist aspect; and it’s because of this that the left made itself essentially irrelevant some time ago. 

When I discuss the left now, it’s only for the sake of pointing out how orgs like PSL are undermining the pro-Palestine struggle; there is no mass momentum behind them anymore, which is precisely why the state prefers for them to run the movement. When there’s a self-interested clique that’s attacking crucial allies within the struggle, and inserting Trump derangement syndrome into the conversation, that acts to blunt the movement’s momentum. And when no particular left org is able to co-opt a given protest, the state’s counterinsurgency can take advantage in a different way, sending in its agents to sabotage protests with impunity. The goal is to make street actions as adventurist as possible, inviting protesters to commit crimes that range from throwing paint on buildings to physically assaulting people.

PSL also does adventurism; it’s blocked roads, which within our conditions only has the effect of alienating the masses. Such actions are only productive when the org behind them has already gained widespread popular connections, which PSL certainly has not. Road blockages were what PSL was doing a year ago, when the struggle against the genocide still had enough of its initial energy that it could survive being damaged in this way. Since campuses imposed severe new speech rules, though, and the media successfully took Gaza out of the regular discourse, the movement has been crippled. There are new attempts to revive it, but it can’t afford to be harmed by unwise or malicious actors. There's a path towards sustained mass solidarity, and therefore victory against the genocidal war machine; but there are many forces working to lead us away from this path.

Because of how effective the imperial state has been at destroying our revolutionary institutions, there’s little that can stop it from employing the standard wrecking tactics at protests. The fact is that many of the Palestine events you’ll come across are going to either be NGO-tied, or ill-thought-out projects by people who don’t know how to recognize federal saboteurs. (Or both at the same time.) However, this doesn’t mean we can’t connect with the many good-faith people who these events attract, or build an alternative to the NGO-run groups. In fact, because of how much the left has isolated itself, we’re now in a better place than ever to construct such a force.

This force needs to look like the Rage Against the War Machine coalition, the united front between communists, Libertarians, MAGA people, and others who aren’t tied to the left. Because of its independence from the leftist “protest cage,” RAWM has played an important part in pressuring Trump to halt most foreign aid for 90 days. If not for the organizers who prioritized fighting NATO when Ukraine was the main issue, the Ukrainiacs would have been able to operate essentially unchallenged. Now they’ve experienced a partial defeat; though the aid suspension doesn’t cover weapons shipments, development aid has been halted to all countries except for “Israel” and Egypt. Which is proof that what we do as U.S. Americans can impact how our government’s wars go; if we build upon these gains, the wars themselves will start being disrupted. The war machine depends on narrative control, and we’ve already largely taken away this control.

We’ve only been able to achieve this once we’ve broken from the established activist orgs. The organized left hasn’t been willing to take Ukraine seriously; the only socialist orgs that supported Russia’s anti-fascist operation were the ones which either joined the RAWM coalition, or refused to participate in the smears against the coalition. PSL effectively took a neutral position on Ukraine; it opposed Russia’s operation out of desire to appeal to liberals, and to appease the NGOs. Conceding to the Ukrainiacs on this point had the effect of weakening the entire anti-imperialist movement; but then a united front appeared that wasn’t held back by the NGOs, and that in turn could gain momentum.

In the new Trump era, when over a year of genocide has profoundly changed U.S. politics, our united front can only succeed when we’ve accounted for all the ways the conditions have evolved. Since RAWM’s big rally two years ago, we’ve seen certain developments that have worked to our advantage, and others that have worked to our disadvantage. The narrative managers have been using a combination of psyops to try to kill all future interest in an antiwar movement on the right. They’ve portrayed Palestine as a “woke” issue; and for the conservatives who are anti-Zionist, they’ve propagated narratives about the “Jewish question.” These manipulations have worked, insofar as they’ve prevented another anti-imperialist rally like the original RAWM event from happening again; there have certainly been huge anti-imperialist rallies in the last year or so, but they haven’t had RAWM’s message or ideological makeup. 

In a post-October 7 world, Palestine is the antiwar issue that’s most capable of gaining attention; that this has come at such an expense for the anti-NATO movement, and that conservatives have almost totally been alienated from the pro-Palestine movement, is the product of deliberate social engineering. The orgs that run the protests have exclusively tried to appeal to the left, trying to cover a myriad of left-wing issues at once; this has both limited their appeal, and reduced how much attention the genocide has gotten. The anti-woke grifters have pointed to this rhetoric—along with foolish individual actions like flag burning—and used this to discredit the Palestinian cause in the eyes of their audiences.

Just because these manipulations have largely been effective so far, doesn’t mean there won’t come about new opportunities for our movement to gain mass participation. Such an opening has just appeared, in the form of the backlash towards Trump’s refusal to halt any aid to “Israel.” There is a certain part of the MAGA base which has been consistently getting upset about Trump’s pro-establishment actions since the election; once he won, he no longer had any perceived excuse. They haven’t liked how he’s picked neocons for his cabinet, or how he’s backed H-1B, or how he’s blatantly given “Israel” special treatment.

This element of MAGA is not acting like how the QAnon crowd did, and rationalizing everything he does by saying it’s all part of a secret plan. There are many who’ve gone down a path of disillusionment over Trump, and this has made them quite advanced in their revolutionary consciousness. Many of the people who are communists today became so after getting alienated from Bernie Sanders, and something similar has the potential to happen with MAGA.

Our ruling class sees where this trend is headed, so it’s employing the old bourgeois tactic of anti-Jewish conspiracism. How effective this tactic will be depends on how well we combat the JQ psyop, and how effectively we can argue for class struggle. We have real potential to bring the most advanced among the conservatives into our united front, as well as connect with the tens of millions of independents who share a proto-revolutionary consciousness. The pro-imperialist arguments, put forth by the liberals and the Ben Shapiro rightists, are not capable of persuading most U.S. Americans. The prevailing attitude is that the wars must end, and our society should instead work to solve its profound living standards crisis. The idea behind RAWM was that if we work to transcend the old ideological barriers, we’ll be able to unify the people around these goals. Whether the primary force that advances this mission is RAWM itself, or another entity, this idea will be what brings us to victory.

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The Palestinians have gained a strategic victory, & this shows the world how the empire can be defeated

There is something extremely important for us to understand about this ceasefire deal: even if the colonizers break it, that will only accelerate their demise. The Zionist entity and the U.S. empire did not come to this decision from a place of strength; they did this because so-called “Israel” is collapsing, and the only way to manage that collapse is by pivoting away from Gaza. The Palestinian resistance has made the military goals of “Israel” unreachable, as well as driven the entity to military, energy, economic, and demographic crisis. It’s clear at this point that “Israel” will never be able to eliminate Hamas—whose membership has grown since October 7–and won’t manage to ethnically cleanse North Gaza. Which means that if the entity is to have any hope of fulfilling its goals in Syria, it will need to de-prioritize Gaza, and invest its resources in the war front that’s more strategically important.

Syria has become the most important front for “Israel” because “Israel” is a U.S. military base, and right now what Washington needs from it is assistance in pressuring Russia. The U.S. foreign policy establishment cares much more about winning on the geopolitical chessboard than about letting “Israel” set up more settlements; that’s why even though President Trump’s family wants to build real estate in North Gaza, Trump has embraced the effort to shift away from fighting Hamas.

Whether or not the most fanatical Zionists get their wish for a renewed bombing campaign, this won’t change how the resistance has won; how the Palestinian armed forces, and the broader Palestinian people, have made Gaza permanently within indigenous jurisdiction. If a fifteen-month genocide can’t enable the settlements to expand into Gaza, then anything the colonizers do next can only backfire on them further. The Zionist project cannot be sustained, and the imperial state is coming to realize this; so it’s using the entity in the most strategic ways that it can, before Zionism’s unraveling reaches the next stage and Palestine becomes fully free.

This is the crucial context that’s missed when observers simply conclude that the ceasefire is a farce, and can’t be trusted in the slightest. It’s true that the enemy the Palestinians face has no honor or morals, and that it will resume the massacres when it gets the chance to. If the entity takes that path, though, it will face repercussions so severe that the bulk of its leadership doesn’t seem to understand how catastrophic they’ll be. The Zionist project’s true believers do not live in reality; they think they’re immune to history’s laws. The U.S. empire’s strategic thinkers, found within the CIA and other deep state elements, are only using the Zionist fanatics for their larger geopolitical goals; so when they see “Israel” collapsing, they get a desire to pull back. 

The resistance has forced the imperialists to retreat, and to pursue a different strategy. Whether this strategy succeeds depends on how successful the hegemon’s next wars will be. Everyone, especially those of us in the empire’s core, have a duty to combat these imperial plans; and as we embark on this revolutionary task, all of us can learn from what the Palestinians just did.

What has Gaza’s resistance coalition done that’s different from how Baathist Syria waged its war before Assad fell? Like Ansarallah, the Palestinian forces have fully committed to the fight against the hegemon. They’ve operated with a true understanding of the strategic situation amid multipolarity’s rise; with the knowledge that in the multipolar era, conflicts are inevitable, and the only way for the anti-imperialist side to triumph is by embracing this reality. Baathist Syria did not fully recognize this, because it believed that it could defend against NATO’s jihadists while seeking to appease the U.S.-aligned Gulf states. 

Tempted by the UAE’s proposal to lift the Syria sanctions in exchange for Syria’s distancing itself from Iran, the Baathist government rejected Iran’s offer to help open a war front against “Israel.” Thereby, it negated the possibility of accepting Iranian assistance in fighting Turkey’s jihadist blitz. The government believed that if it befriended certain parts of the imperialist forces, these forces would save it from the other ones. But this could never be the case, because the Gulf monarchies work for the same imperial master that Turkey, “Israel,” and HTS work for. It was all the same enemy. And this enemy can’t be bargained with, no matter how much one may want to believe so.

Certain factions of Iran’s government share this ideology of compromise, and since last May’s assassination of Raisi, they’ve gained enough power to start seriously undermining the resistance. When Iran’s reformist president Pezeshkian replaced Raisi, he uncritically believed a promise from “Israel” that Lebanon would be spared if Iran didn’t retaliate for Haniyeh’s assassination. And because the reformers wanted to keep up this narrative about “Israel” having been successively restrained, they told Nasrallah that it would be safe for him to travel within Beirut. 

When this lie allowed “Israel” to assassinate Nasrallah, Iran’s people mobilized in outrage, and the Khamenei faction momentarily gained more political capital; but even though Iran has since undergone a legislative movement to build a nuclear weapon, the reformers continue to block this project’s completion. They also continue to delay Operation True Promise 3, even though “Israel” crossed a clear red line in October by attacking an Iranian nuclear facility. These are the developments that have led to this last year’s partial collapse of the Axis of Resistance: a proliferation of capitulationist ideas, which the enemy has taken full advantage of.

Ansarallah and the Palestinian resistance have kept the Axis going, if in a different form, because they fully grasp the character of the anti-imperialist mission. By their nature, these forces can only exist as consistent fighters of the hegemon; Hamas came to power due to how Fatah failed at combating the occupation, while Ansarallah emerged out of a popular desire to throw off neo-colonial rule. Iran’s revolution obviously also had anti-imperialist origins; the problem is that Iran’s economy became opened up to neoliberal reforms, letting the reformists inject liberalism into the country’s government as well. The structure of the state in which the revolutionaries operated allowed for their enemies to gain a foothold. In Syria, a comparable problem prevented the consistent anti-imperialist forces from sufficiently guiding policy; the Baath regime’s basis was Arab nationalism, not dictatorship of the proletariat. Which made Syria’s defense effort falter during the most crucial moment.

Multipolarity will continue to be the world’s reality; the question is what kind of multipolarity it will be. A West Asia that’s dominated by Turkey is actually compatible with a multipolar paradigm; the neo-Ottomans are trying to take advantage of the new possibilities for geopolitical change. And if unchallenged, they’ll eventually replace the Zionists as the hegemon’s main proxies in the region. The Palestinians and the Yemenis, as well as the many Syrians who hate HTS, will continue bringing Zionism towards its demise; these peoples have been left with no choice but to wage a serious war against the empire. Whether the empire gets defeated depends on if the global class struggle applies the Gaza coalition’s logic, and commits to this fight without any reservations. The lesson from Syria’s fall is that anti-imperialists can only win on the basis of class struggle, and we must apply this lesson.

This isn’t just a matter of being principled as individuals; it’s also about purging our movements of elements that are reformist, and that want to sell us out. The Palestinians in Gaza have gained this victory because they’ve had nothing left to lose, and no reformists have been able to influence their leadership; it’s been a kind of triumph that’s born out of the most extreme and inhumane circumstances, wherein a people have been motivated to fight out of necessity. And though Gaza is not a dictatorship of the proletariat, nor is it a state, the dire nature of the crisis which Gazans face has in itself created the revolutionary spirit behind the resistance. Gaza won’t be able to build socialism until it’s had the opportunity to become a state, which requires an end to the genocidal occupation and blockade. But this horrific situation which the Gaza strip’s people find themselves in has produced a raw kind of class struggle, a class struggle that’s equivalent to the American slave revolts.

Most other peoples aren’t experiencing such an exceptional degree of violence and suffering, so we’re mostly behind the Palestinians in how developed and ready our movements are. We must study the Palestinian resistance, and work to close this gap in seriousness; we owe it to the Palestinians who remain occupied, and we owe it to the entire revolutionary cause.

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If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here. 

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All the ruling class ideologies keep failing. Only the revolutionary forces are in place to rise.

At this moment, the U.S. ruling class and its allies are using a myriad of tricks to derail the anti-imperialist struggle. These psyops are both small and big; they range from efforts at dividing and disrupting our organizations, to street provocations designed to inflame the culture wars. With the inauguration, the forces of reaction are attempting to manufacture a major amount of drama; the radical liberal wing of this reaction is organizing rallies that center Donald Trump, which only acts to weaken the pro-Palestine cause. It diverts attention away from the genocide, and from the domestic class struggle, in favor of a personality obsession.

The hope of the narrative managers is that these actions will strengthen the anti-Palestine, anti-China, and anti-woke psyops, enabling greater repression while aiding the far right. At this point, that’s the effect the organized left is having: to unintentionally advance the state’s propaganda campaigns. These radlib groups will keep being mobilized, as will the other controlled opposition forces, with the goal of pushing anti-imperialism out of the discourse. That’s the empire’s strategy for our era: to create greater chaos, both abroad and in the U.S. itself, so that those opposed to imperialism become disempowered.

A problem with this plan is that every ideology which the ruling class has set up to counter revolutionary politics is now either in decline, or struggling to find its role within today’s political landscape. Which gives communists and their allies an unprecedented opportunity to build mass power. The crisis which all the different reactionary forces are facing is that they can’t gain substantial connections with the masses, no matter how much they may try to mimic the revolutionary spirit. 

The Democratic Party has reached a new stage of collapse, and hasn’t learned anything from the last election; neocons are only going to have even greater control over the party from here on. There are elements of the Democrats who want to create their own version of the MAGA brand, embodied by John Fetterman with his faux-populism. But this can’t turn the Democrats into a successful tool for managing mass discontent, because it’s taken on a role as the ideological appendage of the national security state. The Democrats are fundamentally anti-populist in nature, like the organized left is; which is why the Democrats have become barren of any working-class momentum, while the left has made itself isolated. 

The ruling class actors which try to posture as populists are now undergoing their own decline. Silicon Valley MAGA, the high-tech oligarchic clique which has bought off Trump, cannot go through Trump’s second term without having its true character be utterly exposed. Musk and Trump’s support for the H-1B immigration visa program has provoked a backlash from parts of Trump’s base; one that’s even greater than the outrage which erupted over Trump’s appointing neocons. These early troubles are only the start. When Trump gets the chance to fail, and doesn’t fulfill his anti-war, anti-monopoly mandates, it will create splits within his coalition that MAGA can’t handle. 

The populist ideas behind MAGA will live on, of course, and they’ll become more prevalent than ever as the country’s crises get worse; but the version of MAGA that its leadership has created cannot survive. The idealism of Silicon Valley MAGA is going to clash with the material realities of our times, and take away the movement’s momentum. Actors like Ron DeSantis will then try to portray themselves as the true embodiments of MAGA, but they’ll be limited in their effectiveness. As will the other kinds of opportunists who seek to fill the hole which Trump is going to leave.

The far right also seeks to pick up the MAGA elements which are becoming disillusioned, selling frustrated conservatives a narrative about a Jewish anti-white conspiracy. And the far right has gotten algorithmic success, but that only helps it so much. The problem of the online Hitlerite “groypers” is that success on social media doesn’t translate to a mass base; not unless you have the program and the will to materially aid the masses. The country’s serious communists have these things; they’ve been feeding the homeless, assisting workers on strike, and handing out disaster aid that the state won’t provide. 

The groypers have the support of the deep state and its tech monopolies, but they’re divorced from the people, which cripples them. There are rural parts of the far right that have community aid programs, but how much effect they’ll be able to have is negligible; in the last two decades, the white nationalist movement has massively migrated online, and this will hurt it in the long term. 

The thing that truly matters is who will earn the people’s allyship; who will prove themselves to be friends of the people, and give them what they need to overthrow the imperial state. The Hitlerite pitch has had a degree of success in winning over this country’s young men, but the groyper psyop is built upon the online, and this contradiction is increasingly apparent. At this point, when leftism has lost its relevance, the groyper psyop is the best controlled opposition tool that our ruling class has available; yet it’s not enough to halt the revolutionary process which we’re seeing unfold. 

There’s no stopping the resurgence of authentic U.S. communism; the synthetic nature of the ruling class ideologies keeps being exposed, so the only ideologies that can make serious gains are the ones which threaten monopolist power. Communism isn’t the only one among these ideologies, but it has an indispensable role within this unfolding revolt against the liberal order. Communists will unify with the Libertarians; with the MAGA supporters who oppose the Silicon Valley wing; with the workers who’ve been alienated from bourgeois politics; with everyone who shares our interests. 

In response, monopoly capital will do all it can to crush us. With the breakdown of the state’s narrative control, it’s becoming clear to the ruling class that we can’t be defeated through psyops alone, so they’ll resort to more aggressive means. The state will try to dismantle our organizations through repression and terror, justified by new psyops that are designed to demonize us. But for these psyops to work, and for the suppression to be successful, the revolutionary forces will need to have failed in our tasks. Which we won’t do, not if we take this mission seriously.

We’ve gained an unprecedented opportunity for advancing the class war. Now we need to position ourselves for the struggle’s next stage. We must prepare to defend our organizations against all potential attacks, whether from law enforcement or from reactionary vigilantes. We must build enough mass connections that we won’t be left isolated when the state launches its big assault. The people are waiting for someone to present them with a serious solution; the inability of the ruling class ideologies to do this is why they’ve lost. It’s the revolutionary forces that are in place to win.

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The Trump team wants to put maximum pressure on Russia, & the Gaza “peace” deal is about making this doable

There is a wing of the U.S. foreign policy establishment that believes Russia can be brought back into the U.S. sphere of influence, and since the election, it's become apparent that this wing is the dominant one. This is a goal that’s shared by both wings of our ruling class, because though the neocons overwhelmingly endorsed Harris, they’ve easily been able to get their ranks into Trump’s cabinet. And this week, the Trump team’s predominant neocon Marco Rubio confirmed that he and his circle intend to try to assimilate Russia. A revealing remark was when Rubio said that sanctions relief can give Washington “leverage” over Russia, and that “sanctions and the release of sanctions” will “have to be part of this conversation in terms of bringing about a…resolution.” 

This is one aspect of how the bipartisan cold war clique hopes to make Russia capitulate: by trying to tempt the country’s leadership through promises of ending the economic pressures. But that alone is not enough, because Russia’s economy has continued to grow since the start of the Ukraine operation; this is Russia has pivoted even more towards the Eurasian economy, and become even closer with China. The only way this process may be reversed is if Russia’s leaders were to get a credible promise that Washington will cease its economic warfare, and sufficiently reward Russia’s bourgeoisie. 

That’s what the Trump team, and the deep state forces that largely control it, are prepared to offer Russia’s capitalist class. This isn’t a guarantee that Russia will stray from the anti-imperialist path; the proletarian forces within Russia still hold much leverage, and they’re prepared to bring wrath upon the government should it betray their interests. But everything we’re seeing from the United States indicates that the plan is to attempt a bribery of Russia’s ruling class, and we in the U.S. must act to disrupt this scheme.

A crucial part of this task is to combat the Zionist entity’s crimes, not just in Gaza but in the many other places it’s assailing. Washington’s desire for a deal with the Russian leadership is the essence of why this ceasefire (or supposed ceasefire) has happened; the cold warriors know that to pressure Russia, they’ll need to commit to waging war against Syria, and to do that they’ll need to redirect their resources. The Zionist entity can’t afford to fully dedicate its resources to both Syria and Gaza; it needs to focus on one or the other in order to delay full collapse. So the Biden administration has gotten Netanyahu to redirect his military efforts away from Gaza, and towards Syria. There will absolutely still be a blockade that prevents Gaza’s recovery, and it’s inevitable that the Israeli Offense Force will assault Gaza’s people again; but because of how weakened the entity has become, for the time being it can be expected to prioritize the Syrian front.

As Gaza’s people continue being subjected to disease and starvation, Washington will have the entity expand its aggressions against Syria, with the goal being to add an extra stressor for Russia. The neocons figure that if they can wage an effective war within Syria, then Russia will come to feel limited in its options, and accept Trump’s “frozen conflict” Ukraine deal.

For as much destruction and horror that this is going to involve, the nature of the plan shows how weakened the hegemon has become. It’s a bargaining effort, where the empire is searching for its best chances at success after suffering great defeats. Notice how the neocons don’t hope to subdue Russia in Ukraine through any actual military victory; instead, their strategy is to make Russia willingly give up the fight by applying pressure against it on other geopolitical fronts. 

The imperialists know that they’ve lost in Ukraine, and that this proxy war has represented a defeat for them not just militarily but economically. They also know that so-called “Israel” has come closer to full collapse than ever, experiencing an energy, security, economic, and demographic crisis which threatens its entire existence. Zionism’s unraveling is why Washington has been supporting Turkey so much: it needs a backup proxy for when “Israel” goes away. The empire is also trying to use Turkey as a tool of leverage against Russia, working to make Russia dependent on Turkey amid its Syria retreat.

To an extent, such a Russian pivot towards Turkey has already happened, and that’s a setback for the anti-imperialist cause. All of these events, though, are part of a larger transition process, where the old unipolar order gets replaced with something else; with a new global paradigm, one where the revolutionary forces get the opportunity to prevail. What more anti-imperialists are coming to understand about multipolarity is that it’s not in itself the thing which brings revolution; it only creates conditions where new revolutionary developments can happen. This entails the expansion and intensification of conflicts, which the revolutionary forces have the responsibility to win. They’re not guaranteed to win, that depends on how well they navigate their task.

Within this series of conflicts, the anti-imperialist side has prevailed in eastern Europe, and is ready to defeat the hegemon in East Asia; China and the DPRK are prepared to use whatever means necessary for thwarting the enemy’s next aggressions. On the West Asian front, the anti-imperialists are on the retreat, but not to the consequence that multipolarity has been defeated, and not so much that the hegemon can now be comfortable within the region. West Asia is a tactical front, while eastern Europe and East Asia are strategic fronts; and the resistance forces throughout West Asia continue to bring Zionism closer to death. Hamas and the Houthis have driven the entity towards terminal decline, and Hezbollah is fully within its rights to start attacking the entity again after all the latest Zionist attacks on Lebanon. 

Khamenei has reminded us that this fight is absolutely not over: “various events – either our own events or regional events like those in Syria – should not diminish the Palestinian issue in our minds. The fundamental essence of Resistance, is resistance against the Zionist regime's evil actions. That is what Resistance is. The Resistance is alive and must be kept alive. It must become stronger every day. We support the Resistance. We support the Resistance in Gaza, the Resistance in the West Bank, the Resistance in Lebanon, the Resistance in Yemen, and wherever they stand firmly and resist in confronting the malicious actions of the Zionist regime.” This isn’t bravado; Khamenei has real reasons to expect that the resistance will keep wearing down the entity, and the empire by extension. He believes that Syria’s youth will succeed in taking back their country, as part of a wider counter-offensive by the region’s liberation forces.

For we in the heart of the beast, the crucial thing is to not abandon any aspect of the anti-imperialist struggle; which means continuing to center Palestine, and building a pro-Palestine movement that can organizationally withstand repression. Our ruling class wants us to stop paying attention to Palestine, or at least become complacent in our current practices and assume that we don’t need to do more. From both a moral and a strategic standpoint, we must keep making Palestine a core part of what we do; we must press this issue harder than ever, and fortify our orgs for the next crackdowns on Palestine activism. 

It’s important to remember that West Asia is a tactical front, and certain recent imperialist victories in this front are actually hurting it within the strategic fronts. There are many reasons for optimism about this situation. But if we abandon the people in West Asia who are being subjected to genocide, those people will be left in an even worse place, and our domestic class struggle will be crushed. Which would weaken the struggle on all fronts, as well as prolong our capitalist dictatorship. The only path forward is to commit to every part of our revolutionary task, and to combat the imperialist maneuvers from every U.S. leader who facilitates them.

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If you appreciate my work, I hope you become a one-time or regular donor to my Patreon account. Like most of us, I’m feeling the economic pressures amid late-stage capitalism, and I need money to keep fighting for a new system that works for all of us. Go to my Patreon here. 

To keep this platform effective amid the censorship against dissenting voices, join my Telegram channel.