Democrats, Republicans—They’re All Guilty

Impeachment and U.S. Imperialist Crimes

We Need a New Ruling Class—The Workers!

FEBRUARY 3—The spectacle of the two parties of the ruling class during the recent Senate impeachment trial evoked Shakespeare’s The Tempest: “Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.” On one side stood the Democrats and the national security spies, who have promoted hysteria about Russian electoral “interference” while maneuvering against Donald J. Trump since his 2016 Electoral College victory over her bellicose highness, Hillary Clinton. On the other side were the more undisguised representatives of racism and religious reaction, the Republicans, who represent the same decaying and exploitative capitalist system as the other party. Tellingly, the dog and pony show on Capitol Hill hardly piqued the interest of the majority of the population. The working and oppressed masses had no stake in this bourgeois brawl.

The Democrats knew full well that the Republican-dominated Senate would not convict and remove the president. Trump was impeached for “abuse of power” and “obstruction of justice” based on the allegation that he paused military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure Kiev to investigate his political rival, Democratic primary candidate Joe Biden. Behind the claims of protecting the “legitimacy” of the 2020 elections and stamping out “misconduct,” the impeachment trial was a cynical attempt by the Democrats to manipulate disgust among sections of the population with the vile Trump administration in order to advance their chances to regain the White House. Their beef is that the mercurial Trump, including with his flagrant bigotry and sexism, has brought the imperial presidency into disrepute.

There is true irony in the Democrats indicting Trump for political extortion of the Ukrainian government when in 2014 the Barack Obama administration, supported by the imperialist powers in Europe, was pivotal in fomenting a fascist-infested coup in Kiev. Then president Viktor Yanukovych had rejected a European Union trade agreement, which included an IMF austerity loan, and instead opted for an economic deal with Russia on better terms. He was subsequently overthrown during a series of protests dubbed the “Maidan Revolution” in which neo-Nazis played a leading role. Washington then helped bring to power an ultranationalist, anti-Russian regime headed by billionaire Petro Poroshenko.

Like the long line of Democrats and Republicans before him, Trump has committed real crimes against the working class and oppressed at home and abroad. But the Democrats carry out the same crimes when in power—from the cop killings of black men on America’s streets and the deportation and terrorization of immigrants to the gutting of workers’ wages and benefits and the slaughter of civilians around the world. (read on)