On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump once again took the oath of office, as President, to ‘’preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States’’. Donald Trump also, once again, immediately broke that oath of office! True to his word, on that same day, he signed various executive orders, including that of mass deportations of ‘’illegal immigrants’’, including those who are ‘’American citizens by birth’’! In direct violation of the Constitution!
On the ‘’bright side’’, so to speak, the opposition to Trump, and his completely reactionary agenda, is spreading, becoming ever stronger. Ever more broad sections of the population are becoming involved. The ‘’Women’s Protest March’’, of 2017, has been replaced by the ‘’People’s March’’, of 2025. Although the number of people taking part in these Marches was less than in 2017, partly as a result of the deep cold, it is now broader and deeper. The mass movement is now no longer gender specific.
The press is reporting that thousands of people, from all across the country, from all ages and backgrounds, came to DC, to protest the inauguration. They are reported to represent over one hundred different ‘’resistance’’ groups. Clearly, the mass revolutionary movement, the ’’opposition’’ has risen, to a whole new level!
This opposition has even extended to the upper stratum of the middle class, the ‘’petty bourgeois’’. Their concern with the election of Trump, as well as other ‘’recent events’’, is perhaps best illustrated in a video posted by Robert Reich, a highly respected economist, author and professor. As it is so instructive, I have chosen to document it here. It provides us with a very clear cut example of the thinking process, including the delusion, of the petty bourgeois.
The fact is that a ‘’small section of the ruling class’’ is about to ‘’cut itself adrift’’, and ‘’join the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands’’, according to the Communist Manifesto. This ‘’small section’’ will no doubt include the more intelligent, progressive members of the middle class, those who are destined to join the ‘’revolutionary class’’, the proletariat, as that is the ‘’class that holds the future in its hands’’.
The following video exposes the entire range of thinking of the petty bourgeois:
‘’If you are feeling despair over Trump’s Second Regime, I completely understand. Yet I am still hopeful about America. There are ample reasons for despair, but Trump’s second term is exposing a reality that has been hidden from most Americans: the raw stinking power of the American Oligarchy, and its use of obscene wealth to gain this power’’.
As a well educated member of the middle class, the author is supremely well aware of the existence of classes. Yet he chooses to refer to the ‘’upper class’’, the monopoly capitalists, the multi billionaires, the bourgeoisie, as the ‘’Oligarchy’’! As if classes do not exist!
Perhaps this can best be explained by the fact that, as Lenin stated, ‘’the middle class is the most patriotic class’’. As a patriotic American citizen, the author refuses to face the fact that classes exist, and that there is a war going on between the classes. That war is about to break out into open hostilities!
Now to return to his video:
‘’My hope is founded on Americans seeing and responding to this reality. Trump is planning another giant tax cut for the wealthy. To pay for it, he is giving two billionaires…the ability to target programs average Americans rely on. He’s putting billionaires in charge of key departments. Meanwhile, CEO’s are descending on Mar a Lago, like moths to a flame, in order to curry Trump’s favour…’’
The author has a fine grasp of the current situation! If anything, he understates it. Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that those are ‘’multi billionaires’’, worth tens and even hundreds of billions! By comparison, Trump is a pauper! Worth a ‘’mere’’ few billion! He is a puppet in their hands! They are not going to Mar a Lago to ‘’curry favour’’! They are going there to ‘’pull his strings’’! Trump in turn is ‘’putting billionaires’’, these unelected officials, ‘’in charge of key departments’’!
Now to proceed:
‘’The richest person in America, has turned his giant media platform, X, into a cesspool of lies and bigotry, in support of Trump. The second richest person in America, and owner of Amazon, has reportedly agreed to pay $40 million to Melania Trump, for which she’s executive producer. Previously, (he) blocked the newspaper he owns, the Washington Post, from endorsing Kamela Harris, in the 2024 election…. The third richest person in America, has chosen to allow lies and bigotry on FaceBook and Instagram, presumably in support of Trump. He says the deciding factor for doing this, was the ‘’cultural tipping point’’ of Trump’s election. And this is just the beginning, of the oligarchic takeover under Trump’’.
Excellent! The author just exposed a few of the lies and deception, the method of rule, of the ruling class of bourgeoisie! Including out right bribery! Precisely what the working people have to hear! So what does he conclude from this?
‘’So why am I hopeful? Because Americans do not abide aristocracy. We were founded in revolt, against unaccountable power and wealth. We will not tolerate this blatant takeover’’.
Once again, most excellent! It is most emphatically true that ‘’Americans do not abide aristocracy’’! It is also true that America was ‘’founded in revolt’’, against the British Empire, in the Revolutionary War of 1776! It happened once before, and it is about to happen once again! A Second Revolutionary War! After all, the American ‘’founding fathers’’ have thoughtfully given all Americans the right to ‘’abolish any government’’, which does not represent them. This right is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence.
Rest assured, the current government is in the hands of the multi billionaires, currently referred to as the ‘’Oligarchy’’. In fact, they are members of the class of people known as the bourgeoisie. So what is his recommended course of action?
‘’There will be a backlash, and we will respond, by helping our communities, and protecting the most vulnerable. And we will also respond in the 2026 midterms, and the 2028 presidential elections, by electing true leaders, who care about working people, and the common good. And just as we did at the end of the First Gilded Age, when the oligarchy revealed its hubris and grandiosity, we will demand and get fundamental reforms. Big money out of politics, higher taxes on the wealthy, to pay for what most Americans need. Busting up giant corporations, regulating big finance, holding huge social media platforms, accountable to the public’’.
Reforms! Fundamental reforms, no less! Could it be that this highly respected writer, this economist, is not aware that we live under a state of monopoly capitalism, technically referred to as imperialism? Is it possible that he is also unaware that ‘’imperialism is reaction, right down the line’’, according to Lenin? In fact, this is made quite clear in his excellent article, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.
Yet our esteemed author has visions of ‘’busting up giant corporations’’, presumably as a means of reverting to a state of pre monopoly capitalism. Reality check! That is not about to happen! The monopolies are here, and they are not going away. On the contrary, they are growing, becoming ever bigger, ever more complete, ever stronger. No amount of pious wishes is going to change that!
That being said, it is certainly true that ‘’there will be a backlash’’. Yet that will involve something more than ‘’helping communities’’, and the ‘’most vulnerable’’. Just as in 1776, the working people are about to rise up, to overthrow the corrupt government, which does not represent them.
The Second American Revolution will ‘’kick off’’ with an Insurrection, a popular uprising, just as it did in 1776. At that point, the existing state apparatus, which has been set up by the monopoly capitalists, the bourgeoisie, in order to crush the ‘’lower classes’’, especially the working class, the proletariat, will be destroyed.
A new state apparatus will then be established, in order to crush the ‘’desperate and determined’’ resistance of the bourgeoisie, as they make every effort to restore their ‘’paradise lost’’, as per Lenin. This new state appears is referred to as the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, the true form of Scientific Socialism.
The distinguished author then finished his presentation, with that which can only be described as a ‘’flight of fantasy’’. I have chosen to include it, as an example of how even the best of the bourgeois intellectuals, can fall into errors:
‘’On the path we were on, the sludge had been thickening, even under Democratic administrations, There were fundamental systemic flaws that remained unaddressed, inequalities have continued to widen, corruption and bribery have worsened. We were on the way to losing our democracy, without even knowing it’’.
As this distinguished economist refuses to acknowledge the existence of classes, it follows that he also refuses to acknowledge the fact that we live in a class society. Further, the monopoly capitalists have thoughtfully simplified the class struggle. On the one hand, we have the bourgeoisie, and on the other hand, the proletariat. All other classes, such as the family farmers, or peasants, as well as the middle class, the petty bourgeois, have been reduced to the point that they have no great political power, at least here in North America.
As that is the case, the two mainstream political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, serve the same class! They are both bought and paid for by the bourgeoisie! To portray the Democratic Party as ‘’progressive’’, is pure nonsense!
The economist ended his video with an attempt at pacifist philosophy:
‘’But as a friend put it, authoritarian forces have been building for years, like the pus in an ugly boil. The only way we work up enough outrage to lance it, is for the boil to get so big and ugly that it disgusts all of us. A few years of another Trump regime, even more disgusting than the first, will be hard on many. We cannot gloss over the magnitude of the suffering that will occur. But when the Oligarchy that controls us is exposed for what it is, the nation will see more clearly than ever before, that we have no alternate other than to take back power. Only then can we continue the real work of America: The pursuit of equality and prosperity, for the many, not the few’’.
This is rather sad. Typical, for the petty bourgeois, but sad. He started the video with a rather accurate description of the current situation, even though devoid of class content. This was followed by documenting a few details of the method of rule, of the bourgeoisie. He even made a reference to the Revolutionary War of 1776, which gave birth to America. Then he suggested a policy of paltry reforms, and concluded with a summary which can best be described as pacifist. Non violent. As he put it, ‘’when the Oligarchy is exposed’’, then the ‘’nation will see’’ that it will have to ‘’take back power’’.
It is a fundamental tenet of Marxism, that the working class is not aware of itself, as a class, with its own class interests. The conditions of life, of the proletariat, do not lead to that awareness. It is up to class conscious members of the middle class, the petty bourgeois, to bring that awareness to the proletariat. That makes so much more sense than enduring ‘’a few years of another Trump regime’’, in order to ‘’expose the Oligarchy for what it is’’!
This video, by one of the finest of the bourgeois intellectuals, is rather typical. We can compare this to a statement, by a dedicated British imperialist, which Lenin quoted in his article, Left Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder. That statement started by stating the facts accurately, but then fell into fantasy. As Lenin wrote:
‘’It may be said, in passing, that this argument shows in particular how muddled even the most intelligent members of the bourgeoisie have become, and how they cannot help committing irreparable blunders. That, in fact, is what will bring about the downfall of the bourgeoisie. Our people however, may commit blunders, (provided of course that they are not too serious and are rectified in time) and yet in the long run, will turn out to be the victors’’.
We can only hope that the progressive, more intelligent members of the middle class, who choose to ‘’cut themselves adrift’’, and join the revolutionary proletariat, will be able to avoid making those ‘’irreparable blunders’’. I can only stress the importance of thinking in class terms!
The fact is that the approaching Second American Revolution, will lead to the destruction of the existing state apparatus, and the over throw of the ruling class of bourgeoisie. It will give birth to a system of Scientific Socialism, in the form of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
We will know that we are getting our message across, when the Leftist videos, posted on the internet, contain calls for:
Insurrection!
Scientific Socialism!
Dictatorship of the Proletariat!
Revolution!
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 