Supporters of Jon Ossoff, Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico celebrate their victories. They represent tens of millions of voters.

As my neighbor, a middle aged black woman, rolled past me she flashed a big smile. “We won!” she proclaimed. “Yeah, the KKK Party got its ass kicked,” I replied. She smiled even more broadly. That is the general feeling of tens of millions of voters, mainly young ones. “At last we’re going to put a check on these corrupt imperial royalists. At last we’re going to stop their racist attacks on immigrants. At last we’re going to find a route towards some sort of economic stability.” That was what drove them to the polls in unprecedented numbers, and that is what they’ll be expecting. Even a black Democrat – a black Democrat – seems on the way to representing Mississippi in Washington DC!

No doubt about it, the Trump cult received an ass kicking above and beyond anything anybody expected.

Even Trump himself was apparently stunned at the breath and depth of his rejection. He had been planning to try to steal the election, and in fact he initially took some steps in that direction. The NY Times explained that he couldn’t go further because of the total wipeout his cult had received. Trump seemed so stunned that even went so far as to declare that he was willing to “work out a deal” with the Democrats. Then the inner Donald Trump reasserted itself, and he declared war.

Stephen Miller appointed
He appointed fascist/white nationalist Stephen Miller as chief of staff. That position is the most powerful one in any administration. He or she controls access to the president and has a powerful influence over what comes out of the president’s office. They play a huge role in actually implementing executive policy. This means in actually determining policy in the first place. In the case of a president who is notoriously unfocused and fickle and anyway is fading fast due to dementia, the chief of staff’s power is many times greater than normal. Miller will be replacing Susie Wiles. The Wall St. Journal reported that in recent months Wiles, who is more of a pragmatist and less of an ideologue, had been complaining that her influence was waning. The Journal wrote: “Her influence increasingly irritated people on the hard right, who called for her ouster.” According to the WSJ, Steve Bannon among others called for her immediate removal.

In other words, this appointment may also be a step towards regaining the support of Tucker Carlson and other Nazi-friently ethno-nationalists, who oppose the war while they support mass deportation of non-white immigrants.

Miller is not just some “extremist”. He is a committed white nationalist and a fascist.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) Miller has favored the racist, white nationalist book Camp of Saints. Here’s how SPLC describes that book: “In ‘The Camp of the Saints,’ masses of Indian people storm France as refugees, led by a nonwhite antagonist referred to as the “turd eater.” He eats human feces ‘in time of famine’ and physically plays with it using his hands, according to one passage. He is described as a monster’ and ‘giant’ with ‘stinking hands.’ White nationalists, such as the writers of the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer, commonly associate people from South Asia and the Arab world with defecation.” (We omit some of that review for the same reason we would not publish the “n” word, even in quoting others.)

According to the SPLC, Miller is also associated with the racist/white nationalist group VDare. (The name stands for Virginia Dare, supposedly the first Virginia-born white child in America.) The SPLC quotes some comments from VDare. A sample is the following: “White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with. There have of course been some blots on the record, but I don’t see how it can be denied that net-net, white Europeans have made a better job of running fair and stable societies than has any other group.”

The SPLC quotes a Vanity Fair article which reported regarding pictures of Latino children being ripped out of the arms of their parents “Stephen actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border.”

Miller was out in the open in his speech at the memorial for fellow white nationalist Charlie Kirk. Here are excerpts from his speech, the full text of which

“The Stormer” was the name of the Nazi daily newspaper to which Stephen Miller was apparently alludiing.

is available here In an apparent allusion to the Nazi daily newspaper The Stormer, Miller said: “The storm whispers to the warrior that you cannot withstand my strength and the warrior whispers back, I am the storm….” Miller then sounded Euro-ethno nationalist themes: “Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello. Our ancestors built the cities. They produced the art and architecture. They built the industry…. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity….To our enemies: you have nothing to give. You have nothing to offer. You have nothing to share but bitterness. We have beauty. We have light. We have goodness. We have determination. We have vision. We have strength. We built the world that we inhabit now, generation by generation.”

Interspersed in his speech were religious justifications of violence. “They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble…. We will defend this world. We will defend goodness. We will defend light. We will defend virtue. You cannot terrify us. You cannot frighten us. You cannot threaten us. Because we are on the side of goodness. We are on the side of God.”

Miller translates his ideology into policy. For instance, in May of 2024, he demanded that ICE arrest 3,000 immigrants per day. The administration subsequently had to walk that back as mass protests erupted in Minneapolis. Now that will be on the table again.

Coming attacks will not be limited to just Latino immigrants and other people of color. Trump has already used the Department of Justice to attack prominent opponents from Ilhan Omar to James Comey. With Miller’s new role, the administration will step up these attacks in order to defend its other repressive policies.

It’s bad enough that some in the Trump administration are perfectly willing to help execute Trump’s violent and racist policies in order to advance their careers. Miller is ideologically committed to these policies.

The Trump sycophant Scott Jennings (who is currently being sued  by Hasan Piker for defamation  for $72.5 million) tried to play the Miller appointment off as just another appointment of somebody who simply carries out the President’s policies. That is nonsense and Jennings knows it. “Personnel is policy” goes the cliche and it’s doubly so with the ever-simple minded Trump. 

The media and the Democrats criticize Miller as an “extremist”. Some CNN are saying the same thing. According to the Wall St. Journal, Chuck Schumer said “Trump couldn’t have made a worse choice. Our Democratic majorities will fight him every step of the way.” And Hakeem Jeffries… called Miller “a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist.” Schumer, Jeffries and the mass media don’t want to alarm us. As we showed, Miller is not just a garden variety “extremist”; he is a fascist and we use that term advisedly.

Prior to Miller’s appointment, the Democratic Party leadership and its mainstream nourished hopes of “bipartisanship” and compromise. They were dreaming of a return to the good old days when the two parties collaborated in administering capitalism while they maintained a friendly competition. Trump has shattered that dream.

Iran War
Before the election Trump had threatened a major new attack on Iran. That may yet materialize as the USS Theodore Roosvelt carrier convoy heads to the region from Singapore. It is expected to arrive in the Mediterranean towards the end of November. Not only will such an attack be met with an outcry here in the US, it may cause a crisis in the Trump administration.

Miller apparently lines up with fellow white nationalist ideologue Tucker Carlson regarding the war in Iran. The NY Times reports “Mr. Miller’s pitch for the job as the gatekeeper to the president, according to people who heard it, was that the president needed to wind down the Iran war, a conflict that the president’s core supporters viewed as a betrayal.”  However, Trump’s other white nationalist advisor – Pete Hegseth – favors new attacks on Iran. If Trump carries out renewed attacks, it’s possible that Miller could even resign. A renewed attack will also cause friction with Trump’s vice-president JD Vance. This sort of weakening of a government can help boost a movement from below

Ukraine war
Miller has not expressed himself very much regarding Ukraine, but Professor Phillips Obrien wrote that Miller “has always been one of the most vocal anti-Ukraine voices around Trump.” That would be completely natural since Miller’s politics align closely with those of Putin and such Russian voices as Aleksandr Dugin. In defending Trump’s move to seize Greenland, Miller said, “You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else, but we live in the real world that is governed by strength. It is governed by power….We are in charge…. we set the terms and conditions… For them to be able to run their economy, they need our permission… This is foundational: The United States is using its military unapologetically to assert our interests in our hemisphere. We’re a superpower, and under President Trump we are going to conduct ourselves as a super power.” That aligns perfectly with Putin’s move to seize Ukraine and is part of the Trump-Putin world view that Europe belongs to Putin and the “Atlantic” belongs to Trump.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was not discussed very much in the election, but it remains a major issue. For one thing, almost all elements of the U.S. capitalist class are horrified at Trump’s alliance with Putin. According to a recent YouGov poll 46% say the US should continue sending support to Ukraine while 34% oppose it. However, 69% of registered Democrats support aid. Sixty-five percent of registered voters support Ukraine in general. As we see, support for Ukraine is far higher among Democrats, and the issue will come to the fore again at some time. Most Democrats will tend to support US aid, but most of the eight DSA members of the House of Representatives have joined forces with the likes of Tucker Carlson. They apologize for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Incoming Senator Abdul El-Sayed supports Ukraine but he has created a problem for himself: In opposing the US war against Iran, he has simply called for spending money for domestic needs vs. for “war” in general. By putting matters in this way, el-Sayed has not prepared his base for support for Ukraine.

Incoming Democratic Party leaders Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer

Democrats
According to the Denver Gazette, the Democratic Party delegation in congress will number up to 268 seats in all. That delegation will be divided into several different caucuses. The largest will be the New Democratic Coalition, which stands at the political center of the Democratic Party. It will have the largest gain coming out of the election with 39 new members, and is expected to have 114 members in congress. They are the main ones nourishing hopes of “working across the aisle”. Joining them to one extent or another will be the  Blue Dog Coalition, which focuses on “fiscal responsibility.” It will have a small increase and will have ten members. Then there is the “Problem Solvers Caucus”, which is composed of a few Republicans and 22 Democrats. Arrayed both against and with these caucuses will be the “Progressive Caucus” which will have about 106 members. In other words, they will be in the minority, but they will be a vociferous minority.

DSA: They are tied at the hip to the “progressive” union bureaucracy.

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) will also play a role. They have eight members elected to congress – Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Claire Valdez, and Darialaza Avila Chevalier (all from N.Y.), Chris Rabb (PA), Matt Kiros (CO), Donavan McKinney (Mich.) and Angela Gonzales-Torres (CA). They will be in the forefront against any attempt by the Schumer-Jeffries wing of the party to try to compromise and work with Trump and the Republicans. In any case, Trump has made clear that it will be impossible to do so. For their own political survival (and maybe literally) they will try to advance legislation like refunding Medicare and Medicaid. Maybe they will push a bill banning stock trading by sitting representatives and presidents. They might even get enough votes from Republicans in the senate for such measures to reach the president’s desk. It doesn’t matter because he will veto it and the Democrats will be unable to override the veto in the senate.

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff sucking up to fascist connected Putin.

Some elected Democrats seemed to be toying with devoting themselves purely to advancing “affordability” legislation, but now they will have to start some investigations. One vulnerable target will be Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and possibly Donald Trump jr. Maybe an investigation of Elon Musk will be thrown in. The reason these targets are more vulnerable is that none of them is formally in the Trump administration, so “executive privilege” claims will be harder to defend.

It will be an all out battle directed by a president with dementia whose closest aides will be Stephen Miller (whom Trump has called a “weirdo”) and Pete Hegseth. All three are out of touch with reality, meaning a disorganized and aggressive new triumvirate vs. a reluctant opposition.

Among other developments, it is difficult to see how a prolonged government shutdown is not in the cards. If and when that happens, the Schumer-Jeffries leadership will probably try to engineer a “compromise”, meaning they will buckle.

Economic Crisis
Meanwhile, the possibility of an economic crisis looms – specifically the bursting of the AI bubble. Yesterday, two former members of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors Jared Bernstein and Ryan Cummings, predicted exactly that. “Mapping a dot-com style sell-off onto today’s markets would lead real G.D.P. to fall by more than three times as much as it did during the 2001 recession: 1.4 percent versus 0.4 percent. The unemployment rate would steadily climb from its current rate of 4.2 percent to above 7 percent,” they wrote. Not only that, but an economic crisis would occur while a totally incompetent administration is in power. “One of our biggest concerns this time is whether our leadership can effectively respond to a crisis…. The consistently weak economic stewardship of the current administration is evident in persistently elevated inflation, interest rates and uncertainty. The extent to which officials are bogged down in their war of choice in Iran does not inspire confidence regarding their willingness and ability to respond effectively to a bubble-induced downturn, should it occur.” They conclude with the forlorn “hope that the newly elected Congress will have a mitigating effect.” If this happens, it will come at a time when the bond market is also shaky.

Raised Expectations
With or without an economic crisis, tens of millions of people will have had their expectations raised by the overwhelming Democratic victory. They not only expect an improvement in their economic situation, they will expect an end to the trampling of democratic rights, including ICE’s lawlessness and the self-enrichment of Trump and those who surround him.

Protests in France, India and Spain. Will the U.S, be next?

A situation of heightened expectations frustrated by an increasingly divided government is a recipe for a new mass movement. Millions have paid attention to the protests in France, Spain and India. It is hard to see how people here – especially the youth – won’t seek to emulate them. Once again the missing ingredient will be the unions, but a movement that revolves around “affordability” will inherently tend to involve tens of millions of workers, including union members. From there, it will tend to spark a revolt within the unions. The resentment of  distanced, corrupt and self-agrandizing politicians will also infect the union rank and file, whose organizations are led by exactly that same type. The main difference in qualities is that the union leadership adds conservatism and cowardice to what characterizes them.

What role will DSA, including its elected officials, play? In addition to the members of congress listed above, DSA has five elected mayors – Zohran Mamdani in New York, Nithya Raman in L.A., Katie Wilson in Seattle, Janeese Lewis George in Washington DC, and David Morales in Providence, RI. So far, there has been a tendency for DSA to see a division of labor, with its elected officials avoiding building the movement in the streets. But a truly mass movement will inevitably involve clashes with the police. How will DSA majors handle that? Also, in general DSA is infiltrated through and through with union staffers, who represent the union bureaucracy. They will do their best to prevent DSA from carrying any movement in the streets into the rank and file of the unions. Hopefully this will at long last lead to a debate within DSA around the smothering role of the union leadership. 

Perspectives 
Here are some possible developments:

1. From a renewed war in Iran to continued lack of affordability, there will be multiple issues. Impatient with the impotence of the Democrats, tens of millions of young people will move onto the streets. 
2. Trump and miller will respond in the way that comes naturally: increased repression. In that situation, Trump is liable to call out the National Guard.
3. But the Guardsmen and women are the peers of the protesters and suffer from the same problems. With a hated president and equally hated Secretary of Defense, the National Guard members could start to openly disobey orders.
4. Meanwhile, the Trump administration starts to crumble from within and from without. Trump’s previous loyalists in congress will see that he is carrying them to defeat. Within the administration, a conflict between Miller (who is closer to the far right Tucker Carlson anti-war crowd) and Hegseth (who has staked his all on carrying the Iran war through to victory, possibly including use of nuclear weapons) will develop. Miller may be kept in line by promises of even greater repression, but the cohesion of the Trump administration will start to collapse.
5. Similar to how movements developed in Syria during the Arab Spring and in Ukraine in 2014, the movement in the US will harden. As it does so, it may tend to spread onto the work places (around the “affordability” issue if no other), and from there into the unions themselves.
6. Given the inevitable bureaucratic resistance of the entire union leadership,  and given a transformed membership, rank and file opposition caucuses could develop even to the extent that they have enough power to bring workers out on strike.

What will be the possibilities in that situation? Until now, socialists focused on the need for a working class party. A scenario such as painted here could jump over that stage. In the face of such a movement, working class socialists should call for the steps necessary to build the movement and give it more of a working class character. That would include going directly to the work places and to the union members. It would also include a call for the movement to be organized democratically, with elected local committees of struggle and representatives of those committees to meet nationally and, in fact, to invite international representatives as sibling observers. (There may be a tendency for everything to be decided at general assemblies similar to what was done during the Occupy movement. Such general assemblies are, in fact, run by an unelected leadership which operates behind the scenes. Their political agenda is never discussed and debated out in the open.)

A day or two after the election, I spoke with a white baby boomer who lives in rural Trump country. She put it this way: “My looming sense of imminent disaster has slightly abated.” The elevation of Stephen Miller – and all that goes with his elevation – means that the dangers are still very present. So is the potential for a movement that will exceed everything we have seen in nearly 100 years. 

Coming soon: Oaklandsocialist/John Reimann’s memoirs will be published by Sublation Media before the end of November. It focuses on discussing how we got to where we are. Check out this preview: “Born to Rebel: My 80 years as a revolutionary working class socialist“

Supporters of Jon Ossoff, Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico celebrate their victories. They represent tens of millions of voters.