It’s Getting Worse: The Increasing Reactionization of the United States

Editorial Board

Trump’s Executive Order Attacks Political Expression 

Ultra-reactionary chief of US imperialism Donald Trump signed an executive order targeting the “desecration” of the US flag as an act of protest on August 25. One can burn a US flag in private—Trump’s order targets only political speech associated with protest. This is the slimy loophole expressed in the language of the order: “The Order directs the Attorney General to vigorously prosecute those who violate our laws in ways that involve desecrating the flag, and to pursue litigation to clarify the scope of First Amendment in this area.” The executive order further indicates attacks on immigrants by directing the Department of Justice “to deny, prohibit, terminate, or revoke visas, residence permits, or naturalization proceedings, and other immigration benefits, or seek removal from the United States, wherever there has been an appropriate determination that flag desecration by foreign nationals permits the exercise of those remedies under applicable law.” 

The logic of the reactionaries is that the US flag—which represents butchery, plundering, and exploitation around the world—is a cherished symbol, therefore any act of burning it in protest, in public, is “uniquely and inherently offensive and provocative.” The reactionaries make a leap in assuming that it provokes anyone to break the law, revealing their decrepit old fear of protest. 

“Recent protests, including those in Los Angeles in June 2025,” the White House statement reads, “have featured flag burning alongside violent acts and other conduct threatening public safety.” The fragile old-state is recoiling and lashing out, knowing full well they cannot rule in the old way. It goes on to link burning the US flag to disrespecting “the sacrifices of Americans who bled for our country.” Since the executive order went into effect one man was arrested near the White House for burning a flag—20-year combat veteran Jay Carey, who said he was protesting Donald Trump. 

Since the beginning of Trump’s second term in office, his attacks on the already deficient social programs have included massive layoffs in the Department of Veteran Affairs, causing significant harm to veterans’ access to healthcare, including through nullifying contracts with the VA hospital nurses’ union and other VA unions. Military recruitment has a long history of preying on youth from desperate economic backgrounds. In the military, poor and working class youth seldom climb in rank and most often end up with the worst, most psychologically and physically damaging jobs, and this combined with the culture of the imperialist armed forces is reflected in the high addiction and suicide rate among the troops. Trump’s rhetoric about conduct that “disrespects those who bled for this country” cannot be isolated from reality. 

The 1989 Supreme Court Ruling protecting burning of the US flag is formally preserved but essentially gutted. The case Texas v. Johnson determined that “flag burning constitutes ‘symbolic speech’ protected by the First Amendment” by a 5-4 majority. The ruling explicitly stated that the government could not discriminate based solely on viewpoint. The case arose from the 1984 protest of the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas, where Gregory Lee (Joey) Johnson, a member of the Avakianite-revisionist “Revolutionary Communist Party” USA burned a US flag and was arrested. In response to the executive order, Johnson used the moment to press his revisionist and capitulationist opinion, writing that “this fascism must be driven from power by mass, non-violent protest and resistance.” In no point in history has fascism been driven from power “non-violently.” On the contrary, fascism has only successfully been confronted and driven from power by the arms of the working-class in a united front led by their actually revolutionary Communist Parties. 

Ultra-Reactionary and Right-Wing 5th Circuit Court Rules Structure of National Labor Relations Board “Unconstitutional” 

In what amounts to a massive reactionary attack on labor and decent working conditions, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals based in New Orleans determined that the structure of the NLRB is “likely” unconstitutional, specifically the protections the NLRB board and judges enjoy from no-cause firing by the executive branch. 

The attack is part of the US imperialist plan to destroy the overproduced means of production and working class jobs in the US in order to force wages down through increased competition. This follows their main goal of overcoming the economic crisis with preservation of the US as the world’s sole-hegemonic imperialist superpower. The US imperialists must overcome supply chain contradictions and secure particularly the technological sector. 

While the NLRB—itself a conquest of labor turned into a bribe by the old-state and labor aristocracy of the business unions—is most often ineffective, abolishing it has been a focal point of reactionaries like Trump and the world’s richest imperialist, Elon Musk. Certain “leftists” fall into a reactionary position through their subjectivism and end up in agreement with the imperialists by attempting to frame the NLRB and the business unions that utilize it as “state unions” and the main enemy of labor struggles. 

In addition to other monopolies, Musk and several of his companies, mainly Space X—which receives massive government contracts—filed a lawsuit this year arguing that the NLRB was unconstitutional. At the heart of their argument is that they want NLRB officials subject to presidential removal, thus neutralizing the marginal protections they offer to workers. This argument, like many coming from the ruling class and its current administration, seek absolute power of the president through concentration of power in the executive branch. 

The 5th Circuit Court nakedly sides with the ruling class by affirming Musk’s complaint, a decision that will likely end up in the Supreme Court with sweeping implications, since the court is stacked with lifetime-appointed judges of which several are loyal to Trump and were placed there by him. 

Particularly since the 1970s, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has become increasingly reactionary; the majority of appeals from criminal defendants in the federal court are routinely rejected, even in cases of clear constitutional violations. The court has led attacks against minorities, served banning Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), and restricted access to abortion medication. It is considered the most conservative appeals court in the country, and a testing ground for right-wing extremism by activists and NGOs alike. 

It is unclear how the union bureaucracy will respond to the ruling, to what degree their narrow self-interests can coincide with the inevitable pressure from below or if the ranks will force them to put up a reluctant fight. It is likely that labor rulings in regard to injury and unfair labor practices will face stalling in the interests of the capitalists. Trump’s firing of the NLRB President Gwynne Wilcox in February and General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo already stalled union recognition, leaving the NLRB without quorum to rule on appeals and the bourgeoisie jumping on the opportunity to refuse to recognize workers’ organizations. 

What is certain is that the ruling class is desperate, that it cannot rule in the old way and has to restrict even its former, deficient concessions. This is to lower wages and destroy regulations on manufacturing as the US imperialists seek to gain footing strategically in tech. This re-organization operates in the context of the economic crisis and the reactionization of the old state. For the working class, more will be forced to compete for fewer and worse jobs at a lower wage, wages already diminished by the rising costs of commodities necessary to live. 

The State Increases its Direction of the Economy and Raises its Direct Stake in Monopoly Capital 

Imperialism is characterized by monopoly capitalism: privately-owned monopoly capital, which is the most common type in the US, and state-owned monopoly capital, which under both administrations in previous years has been increasing in response to economic crisis.

The Trump administration has taken a stake in US Steel and MP Materials, the latter being the US’s only rare earth mining monopoly. In late August, the tech monopoly Intel agreed to allow the US government to take a 10% stake in the company, amounting to $8.9 billion. 

While the US imperialists still prefer private monopoly capital—and the particular kind of demo-liberal reactionary system of government that comes with it—rather than the forced merger of monopolies under the system of government ownership of fully developed state monopoly capital, both represent private ownership over the means of production and both serve to exploit profits from the labor of the working class. When compelled by severe crisis, the old-state will extend its control over the economy, including by taking a more direct stake in monopolies critical to its interests, and in some cases owning infrastructure monopolies outright. On one hand the reactionaries fight for sweeping privatization of socially-necessary programs, while on the other hand directly take parts of strategically important monopolies.

The government stakes in steel, rare earth minerals, and tech follow its general goals of preserving the current status of the US as the sole-imperialist hegemon, by controlling technology and increasing domestic manufacture of parts necessary to weaponry as well as infrastructure. For the same reasons, the US has increased its imperialist intervention in Latin America to increase its plundering of the continent of its rare earth minerals. The process took place through the CHIPS and Science Act, Biden-era policies that allocated billions of dollars for domestic microchip manufacturing and technology which the Trump administration converted into direct stakes into companies. This is likely to be reproduced in other tech, mining, and transport industries, though the organization of the entire economy is likely to remain primarily in the hands of private, non-state-owned monopolies.

Since the 1930s, the government has used full or partial nationalization during economic crisis, as well as generated government corporations to compete with private corporations. The government has routinely took control of banks during severe economic crisis: Roosevelt’s “New Deal” accomplished this by establishing government corporations, while in 1984 the government nationalized the Continental Illinois Bank and Trust and held it for ten years before selling it. In 2008 the government took control of multiple financial institutions, as well as taking a 60% controlling stake in General Motors only to sell its shares by 2013. During both Imperialist World Wars, the government took significant control over the coal mining industry.

The DC Federal Take-over and Threats to Send National Guard to Other Cities 

The ultra-reactionary Trump administration carried out a federal take-over of the Washington DC Police Department beginning on August 12, following the same pattern established by the troop mobilizations in Latin American and Caribbean waters—strengthening military control under the cover of crime prevention. 

The Trump administration, like the Biden administration before it, is increasing power around the executive branch in response to the general economic crisis. Building on the use of the military in an attempt to quell the Los Angeles anti-ICE rebellion, Trump has now deployed over 800 National Guard troops to the US capital, which operate under his personal authority, as well as bringing the DC police under federal control. Additionally, Republican governors have collectively sent over a thousand of their National Guard troops to DC upon Trump’s request, bringing the total to around 2,000 troops. The deployment is yet another of Trump’s terror tactics against the broad masses, especially immigrant workers, arresting dozens daily for alleged petty crimes. 

Washington DC claims to be a “sanctuary city” yet has made increasing gestures to accommodate the anti-people terrorist campaigns of the government most clearly indicated by ICE raids. Just as in Los Angeles, the city’s willingness to capitulate by cooperating with ICE was not able to prevent the federal take-over and shows exactly how toothless and dishonest the Democratic Mafia is. In 2020, DC city council passed the Sanctuary Values Amendment Act, restricting cooperation with immigration authorities. With the second Trump administration came threats to lose federal funding, resulting in DC Mayor Bowser fighting to repeal the sanctuary city laws, particularly the law that prevents the city’s police from cooperating with ICE, and allowing ICE to interview people in custody without a court order. Instead of being public about this, the mayor tucked these repeals into another bill and smuggled them in. None of the Democrats’ capitulationism could stop the federal take-over. 

The catalyst for Trump’s take-over comes in response to a “Department of Government Efficiency” staffer being beaten by DC youth during an alleged carjacking. The mounting cuts to public funding and the mass job layoffs, carried out in part by DOGE, have only increased the crisis among the youth.

However, the main purpose behind the take-over is not violent crime prevention; violent crimes have decreased in the city in recent years with homicide being down by 15% and sex crimes seeing a 48% drop. While violent and property crimes have decreased, youth crime has markedly increased, unmasking the old-state’s role in attacking the youth through public cuts, austerity against working people in the interest of state coffers, and increasing repression. The state cannot solve the root problems in society related to poverty and lack of resources, because fundamentally this is a question of private interests owning the means of production and privately taking the profits rather than the working class seizing them for social benefit. 

As part of the reactionary playbook, the Trump administration issues sweeping cuts to public schools, freezes federal programs such as 21st Century Community Learning Centers—which fund after-school programs—and threatens to shutter more programs that working class families rely on, resulting in increased youth crime. On the other hand, using the conditions of its own creation, the administration calls for being harder on crime and finds an excuse to carry out a military takeover of the city. This is in the context of the developing economic crisis that sees the ruling class enact mass layoffs, suppress wages, and attack the people’s rights broadly. 

Trump is now threatening to expand the National Guard troop mobilizations to other cities—foremost Chicago, and also New York City and Baltimore. Chicago’s violent crime rate has been dropping in recent years, in line with Washington DC’s rates. In the case of Baltimore, Trump has responded to Maryland’s Democratic mafioso governor’s rebuke of the threats by threatening to take back federal money allocated to help rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge—destroyed in 2024 in a collision by an understaffed cargo ship, killing six immigrant construction workers.

In line with the expanding series of military deployment threats, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has begun as of August 25 drafting orders to allow for rapid National Guard deployment to quell “civil disturbances.”

As Things Worsen, Revolutionary Conditions Become More Acute 

The reaction to the crisis is one of pessimism among the diminishing small proprietors, the petty bourgeoisie, but it calls for revolutionary optimism among the working class. The objective conditions provoking revolutionary upsurge are present and increasing, and this is reflected in the frequency of mass rebellions and increasing workers struggles at the point of production—which must be led to go beyond what is permitted by the ruling class. At the same time, the full leadership of the proletariat is not possible without the realization of its political party which is greatly impeded by the relative dispersal of the revolutionaries of the United States. There exists the contradiction between cynicism and optimism, reflected in the contradiction between reconstitution of the Communist Party and the liquidationism that has persisted since 1944.

The revolutionary class-conscious proletarians, revolutionary students, and democratic people must struggle sincerely and earnestly to overcome the dispersal of forces in order to maximize and organize the spontaneous rebellions of the masses, which are now fomenting in explosions. The errors of cynicism and division—whether it comes from defeatist demoralization or deviations and accelerationism—must be fought. The imperialist crisis is a cyclical crisis. It will not sort itself out, rather it will return in new and worse forms. We are faced with reality—do everything necessary for socialist revolution, or endure the increasing barbarism of imperialist society and the plague imperialism unleashes on the world.

Photo: Retrieved from Democracy Now!

---

The Worker is an entirely volunteer-run revolutionary newspaper free from and radically antagonistic to corporate influence. We rely on the support of our readers to sustain our editorial line in service of the working class and the reconstitution of its party, the Communist Party. Make a one-time or recurring donation to our newspaper today: