EDITORIAL
Preparing for Dictatorship, War or Both

Aug 24, 2025

Look carefully! American capitalism is preparing to take this country to war.

There are three kinds of preparation for war. The first involves material preparation—production of armaments and weapons of destruction. In this regard, the U.S. has long been over-prepared, spending more money on its military than do the next 12 countries put together, having its own military forces based in 170 different countries, when no other country has even one base in this country.

But, there is also a moral preparation for war. Young working class men and women must be convinced to kill and be killed by other working-class men and women just like themselves. They must be convinced to fight and die in wars from which the wealthy classes will derive even more wealth. Workers must be tricked into accepting this inhumane absurdity.

And,finally, capitalism wants a still more repressive regime. This is why Donald Trump is allowed to play at being an apprentice dictator.

Donald Trump’s regime sends the FBI to raid the homes and offices of former advisers who once worked for him, people like John Bolton, his one-time national security adviser, former FBI director James B. Comey and former CIA director, John Brennan—not to mention Justice Department officials who once filed civil and criminal charges against him. They are people who know his secrets.

Donald Trump’s regime fires his own officials when their agencies don’t back up his exaggerated claims: for example, his claim that good jobs are plentiful, or his claim that the bombing of Iran was a total success.

Donald Trump’s regime took over functions of the Washington, D.C. elected city government. He said it was to deal with crime. Really? If so, he would have left the Florida and Mississippi National Guard in their home states, which have higher violent crime rates than does D.C. The takeover of Washington, D.C. by military bands from Mississippi and Florida, just like the takeover of Los Angeles, is a threat—a statement that his regime will use military force to impose its aims on a population that doesn’t agree.

Why did Trump push extra-legal moves to take over cultural institutions like the Smithsonian Museums? He claims these institutions give an ugly view of American history. Could it be they bring up some uncomfortable truths?

Why did Trump cut off or threaten to cut off funds for research projects carried out by major universities? Trump claims that universities sponsor anti-Semitism. If he is opposed to this vile ideology that justified the slaughter of six million Jewish people, why does he invite modern-day Nazis to Mar-a-Lago? These real anti-Semites celebrate the Holocaust. No, Trump’s threat to cut off government funds is aimed at getting the universities to reduce their curriculum, that is, to block access to knowledge.

Why did Trump cut off or threaten to cut off access for different news media? Maybe he’s doing someone a favor—his buddy at X, for example. But there’s a bigger issue when he attacks various news media. The attack aims to cut the population off from any views not those of a dictatorial regime.

Yes, most of the big media have supported capitalism’s wars. But the attacks on the media make sure all of them will march in lockstep.

Trump certainly acts like a dictator. And up until now, he has proven himself ready to defend the interests of the capitalist class, on whose class dictatorship he rests.

In that regard, his most important action was to decree that federal workers will be denied the right to choose a union to represent them. As weak as unions are today, as tied into the state apparatus as they have long been, their origins hint at the power the working class could have when it organizes itself.

There is power inherent in the working class when it mobilizes for a fight. Based on the workers’ position in the center of the economy, that power can wreck capitalism’s plans for war AND get rid of its dictatorship.