Versión en castellano

The legislative midterm elections that will take place next Tuesday 6^th has turned into a key proof for Trump.  A setback of the Republican Party could mean the loss of the majority that he possesses in both chambers. If this would happen, it would be a severe blow to the bonapartist attempt that the tycoon incarnates, in the search for a personal power regime over the Congress and the American institutions. The tycoon would turn into a “black duck” –i.e. a president weakened for the two years left of mandate.

Fragile recovery

In fact: the polls foretell a republican defeat in the representatives’ chamber. In exchange, they are more uneven in what regards to the Senate, where the democrats are the ones that renovate a greater number of benches. Trump comes doing a feverish tour by the country. The tycoon boasts himself that the economy, under his rule, has recovered vitality: the annualized growth ascents to 4,2% and unemployment has decreased to one of its historical minimums. The “America first” would have begun, according to the official propaganda, to give results.

But the recent collapse of the stocks exange –the second one in the year- reveals the fragility of this advertised “resurrection”. The economic drive has had as base a major tax cut. But the investment keeps on being anemic, and the same could be said on the utility margins. The corporations have used the resources formerly reserved to pay taxes to repurchase their own shares or to financial collocations, not to the productive sphere. Each time is more pronounced the divergence between the stocks valuations and the performance of the companies in the real economy. That’s the base of the quake in Wall Street, which comes replicating two weeks after its initial burst. The present collapse is leaded by the leading tech companies. The United States possesses twin deficits and its public debt surpasses the GDP, which adds to the increase of the corporative and the private consumption indebtedness.

The rise on the interest rate disposed by the Federal Reserve agitates the phantom of a new recession. Besides, the increase in the price of financing threats to sweep many indebted corporations. Trump has violently reacted against the Federal Reserve, to which he makes responsible for the present chaos, with more reason when we are a few days from the election that could seal his fate. But the rise in the interest rate is not the cause but the consequence of the extreme impasse and historical decay of the American capitalism. The tax cut is revealing its limits. Besides, we assist to a deceleration of the main economies of the world, including China, which would barely go over the 6% of growth. Not to talk about the collapse of the emergent countries.

The democrat opposition

As a consequence of this situation framework, the elections are dominated by an increasing division of the American bourgeoisie. A part of it is reluctant to the commercial war that the government comes pulling forward, pointing out that it threats with provoking a dislocation of the world economy and could drive it into a collapse. It is remarked that the costs of this policy are higher than its supposed benefits. The tariffs are increasing the industrial costs, increasing the consumption prices and harm the exportations, as the ones of the agriculture products. The commercial, monetary and financial war, they point out, sharpens the tendency to market closure, by the countries affected by the measures took in Washington.

Another controversy factor goes round immigration. Trump has raised the wager posing more barriers, while the Hondurans caravan marching through Mexico advances in direction to the American border. But the hostility of Trump clashes with the capitalist class that usufructs the migrant labor force, as from the qualified mass, as the Silicon Valley companies, as from the most unqualified one, as it happens with the agricultural crops in the south and west of the country, and which take from the temporary personnel for their exploitations.

The role of the Democrat Party

The president moves among quick sands. But is he achieved to pass the storm is because of the Democrat Party behavior. During the past two years of Trump’s mandate, the democrats have had adapted themselves to the rightist escalation, which included the prosecution of migrants, the fiscal cut of 1.5 trillion dollars for the capitalist and the designation of two far right judges in the Supreme Court. Besides, they have approved the military budget of 716 billion dollars. The democrats has officiated as contention dam of the struggle movements that had emerged in rejection to the Trump policy, beginning with the vigorous women movement.

This policy has not passed unseen among the youngster mass and workers that follow the democrats. The existent abyss between that popular base and the party leadership has already remained expressed, two years ago, in the rejection to Hillary Clinton’s postulation and the enthusiastic support that Bernie Sanders’ candidacy received, sweeping the industrial districts and in the new generation.

This tendency has extended. The press stands out the appearance of “new faces and a turn to the left. Women, young and ethnic minorities people star this wave of insurgents in a party that searches for a revulsive to Trump after the electoral trauma of 2016” (El País, 9/16).

Ayanna Pressley gave the surprise in Massachusetts and became the first black woman elected to represent the district in the Representatives’ Chamber. A few days before in Florida, Andrew Gillum, raised as the democrat aspirant to State’s governor, being the first afro-American candidate for the chair. They continue the path opened by Alexandria Ocaso-Cortez, the 28 year old young woman and with Latin origin that in July took the candidacy to a party heavy-weight. But what could even shake the Washington ammeter even more is Rashida Tlaib, who in August wan over her democrat rival in Michigan and now struggles to become the first Muslim in the American Congress. This litter of candidates mainly comes from the left wing of the party.

By mid July, the number of new aspirants which searched for taking the square to a legislator in functions has risen to 280, before the 60 of the same date in 2014. The arrival to the scene in this sector has incorporated to the agenda diverse cultural matters: from improving the health protection of the Obamacare to posing a universal coverage; reforming the immigration security and borders customs force or even abolish it; claiming a minimum wage of 15 dollars and other improvements for the purchasing power of the workers.

Perspectives

The Trump policy encloses explosive contradictions, as in the internal field as in the international one. The tycoon bets to survive deepening this policy. His route sheet includes a reinforcement of the police State and the persecution of migrants and minorities, an accentuation of the commercial war, first place with China, militarism and warmonger escalations. This spurs the intestine clashes in the bourgeoisie and the political regime, what is already expressed in the agencies and media war, with denounces of corruption, sex scandals and espionage revelations and Russian interference in the past presidential election in favor of Trump and his close ones, which has left beating the threat of an impeachment.

A democrat victory, even circumscribed to the Representatives Chamber, could accelerate this framework, though they effort to avoid an overflow. It would weaken the power of the tycoon and his projects, and would activate the claims of political trial. A framework of growing cracks in the upper level could encourage the tendencies to popular irruption, with more reason if the economic activity declines.  This scenario could be the breeding ground for the impulse to an independent political alternative from the system parties. This tendency has already insinuated itself in 2016, when legions of youngsters, workers and women that supported Sanders claim for him to break with the Democrat Party and present himself independently. Sanders rejected to take that step and keeps himself tied to its structures. But the irruption of Trump on the right as the Sanders one on the left, expressed the decomposition of the political system and the traditional parties that support it, and the tendencies to a political polarization. The next legislative elections are an episode of this process. The international capitalist bankruptcy is doing its relentless mole job and forces renovated economic and political crises, starting in the United States.