EDITORIAL
The Whole Government Apple Barrel Is Rotten

Oct 14, 2019

The pressure to impeach Donald Trump has built over the past two weeks. Evidence mounts of Trump’s use of Rudy Giuliani as a shadow state department, and his involvement of top government officials like Attorney General Barr, Secretary of State Pompeo and Vice President Pence, all to serve his own political and personal interests. In addition, Trump’s moves to thumb his nose at State Department officials over Syria have caused Congressional Republicans to question some of their support for him.

Polls have shown a recent quick shift toward public support for impeachment and even removal of Trump, even rising a bit among Republicans and Trump voters. In the wake of this shift, some Republicans in Congress have come out in support of “allowing the process to play out.”

Over nearly three years of hirings and firings, Trump has bullied and harried any State officials slow to do his bidding. But it appears that career staffers, especially in the Justice and State Departments, are now starting to push back. State Department officials are defying orders not to testify, and are beginning to appear in front of Congress. Judges and appeals courts are ruling against Trump’s attempts to block information from coming out.

It seems that an important section of the state apparatus, and of the capitalist class behind it, are viewing Trump as a liability.

Make no mistake, if the politicians and the apparatus were really determined to remove Trump, they would do it right now—immediately. If they ultimately do remove Trump, they will be doing it for their own reasons and their own interests. They will do it because his cronyism and complete self-interest are throwing too much chaos into a process that the ruling class needs to depend on to act smoothly in the interests of U.S. imperialism as a whole—not just in one man’s political or financial interests. The capitalists will want to get this system back to “normal”—a system running smoothly for them, one they can depend on, especially on the international stage.

Politicians come and go. They are window dressing on a much larger apparatus, hundreds of thousands of people who are unelected and who stay in their positions decade after decade, through Republican and Democratic administrations. This is the stable system that the ruling class needs to act in its interests, quietly, no matter who is in office.

Part of the job of politicians is to take the heat, take the hit—and be replaced occasionally, keeping the system as a whole in place.

If Congress is reluctant to begin impeachment proceedings, there’s a reason. The ruling class would much rather let the electoral process play out, keeping the appearance of a system running smoothly, letting people feel they have made a difference in voting out one politician from one party and replacing them with another from the other party. Impeachment calls into question that process. It could be like an earthquake, shaking up the whole system.

So, the politicians would be taking a minor gamble in using impeachment in trying to get things back to “normal.” But whatever they do, their “normal” doesn’t work for the working class. We’ve seen our living standard deteriorate through forty years of “normal.” And we have no interest in waiting on the Democrats and Republicans to get through this chaos and reestablish their “normal” order.

Both parties, by what they’ve done over decades, have created the situation that led to this chaos. Sure, let them push Trump out—he’s rotten and corrupt, and holds nothing for us. But why should we focus on that? Push them ALL out. Grab this turmoil and push our own agenda, fight for our own interests. We have the forces to change the direction of any fight that starts. We can fight our own fight. We can build our own political organizations, and we can find our own leaders.