Trump Indicted, Capitalist Political Crisis Continues

Claire Bayler
Worcester, MA

On March 30, 2023, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) formally charged Donald Trump in one of four major court cases connected to his presidency. The results of the four major cases could impact Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, announced November 15, 2022. As the Independent Socialist Group (ISG) reported during the 2020 presidential race, 

“The capitalist class has split and partially abandoned Trump. Although Trump championed their interests with spectacular success through the corporate COVID bailout and the 2017 tax bill, he’s now deemed too unpredictable and polarizing to pull US capitalism back from the brink of social explosion.” 

Build a Movement to Fight the Far-Right

In the context of the enduring damage of the COVID pandemic, historic inflation, and two major bank collapses, the capitalist class is scrambling to stabilize their system. Unfortunately in the eyes of the ruling class, Biden has been unable to provide US capitalism and the US government with the clean slate they desired after the damage Trump dealt to their system. 

The crisis of political leadership continues for both the capitalist class and, in a different way, the working class. The court cases regarding Trump’s Presidency, especially the ones related to the 2020 election, are one strategy for the capitalist class to try to re-legitimize their political rule through the two corporate parties, the Republicans and Democrats.  

Trump has been indicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments. Trump sought to bury the story of his sexual encounter with adult entertainment actress Stormy Daniels and a long-running affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal until the end of the 2016 presidential campaign. Trump surrendered, pleaded not guilty, then was released only to fly down to a campaign fundraising rally in Mar-a-Lago. Then, on May 6, a federal jury found Trump guilty of sexual assault, civil battery, and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the mid-90’s— another of the 40 total active legal challenges against Trump.

Possible (but unannounced) options for the “concealed crimes” charges may fall under New York State election law regarding “crime to conspire to promote a candidacy by unlawful means”; federal campaign finance law amounting the payments from Cohen to Daniels to a campaign donation or expenditure; or NY tax law for mischaracterizing the purpose of the payments. This indictment does not prevent Trump from running for president, nor would a conviction with jail time (max four year sentence). 

Trump is facing three other major political cases simultaneously: intent to falsify election results in Georgia, improper handling of classified documents, and inciting the January 6 “insurrection”. The Georgia case involves Trump’s demands to “find 11,780 votes” and the attempt to create a slate of fake Electoral College members. The Justice Department is investigating unsecured storage of and refusal to return classified documents from Mar-A-Lago and whether Trump “unlawfully interfered with the transfer of power” or with the “certification of the Electoral College vote”. During his Presidency, Trump was also impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate over his dealings with Ukraine and his role in the Capitol attack.  

Not Out of the 2024 Race

The day after the indictment, Trump’s fundraising campaign received $4M in donations, totaling $34M between January 1 – April 15, 2023. 

Biden announced his presidential re-election campaign April 25, campaigning again as the competent alternative to a scandal-plagued, unfit, “threat to democracy” Trump —a strategy that barely won in 2020. His current and former campaigns are weakened by continuing the neoliberal policies that made Trump’s “anti-establishment” candidacy viable, including the Obama/Biden’s bailout of the banks in 2008. How can Biden campaign on “defending democracy” while defending capitalist minority control of the political and economic system, including a government with undemocratic measures built in? 

Biden’s current approval ratings are underwater among a slew of groups that supported him by a wide margin in 2020. Despite Trump’s wide margin in the polls among GOP candidates, substantial majorities of Americans don’t want either Trump or Biden as the 2024 candidates – a clear indication that capitalism’s “business as usual” has no political or economic solutions for the problems most working people face. 

Increasing emphasis on the January 6 case paired with a Biden campaign to “defend democracy” may allow sections of the capitalist class to edge Trump out of the race. The capitalist class could use the primaries and national convention, Electoral College, or Senate confirmation to prevent a second unreliable and overly-provocative administration. 

These undemocratic institutions enabled Trump to win in 2016 despite less than one-fourth of eligible voters electing him. US capitalism, in general, wants a stable administration with minimal controversy and increased legitimacy as it reels from continuous crises. However, the March 30 indictment is not significant in preventing a Trump 2024 campaign.

Trump’s Big Money Crimes

Despite Trump and his businesses facing over 40 active legal challenges, out of an estimated 3,500 federal and state legal actions since the mid-80’s, the capitalist legal system has never made Tump and his family pay for their class crimes against working people. If they were to convict the Trumps, they would have to convict the entire capitalist class.

Real justice would mean taking away Trump’s wealth, properties, and companies to put them at the service of all of society. Like the rest of his class, Trump’s wealth came from exploiting workers and receiving millions in financial support ($413M in today’s dollars) and inheritance ($236.2M) from his capitalist family, starting as a toddler. 

Like other capitalists, Trump’s father—real-estate tycoon Fred Trump—built much of his empire on government aid and systematic abuse of already-limited tax and financial laws. His fortune was valued well over $1B by the time he (illegally) transferred it to his children. To acquire it, Fred Trump ingratiated himself into Brooklyn’s Democratic Party machine by donating, giving favors, and making friends who could help a real-estate baron.

Federally-Funded Housing

Fred Trump became a multi-millionaire by becoming one of the nation’s largest recipients of the postwar wave of cheap government-backed building loans. $26M granted in the late 1940’s funded two of Trump’s largest developments, both in Brooklyn. In 1972, Fred and Donald Trump received 90% of building costs ($7.8M) nearly interest-free to build a high-rise for the elderly in NJ. Trump received profits, consulting fees, management fees, and even air conditioner rent while his father’s employees managed the site. 

Around that time, Fred Trump invested for himself and his children in the largest subsidized housing project in the nation—Starrett City in Brooklyn—to use its losses as tax-write-offs on the profits from his empire.  

By forming All County Building Supply & Maintenance (owned by Trump and siblings) in 1992 as the “purchasing agent” for their buildings, the family could pad purchasing invoices to justify higher rent increases for thousands of tenants in rent-regulated buildings despite residents’ protests. That year the Trumps removed two Trump Village buildings from an affordable housing program in order to raise rents and profits. The Trumps’ appraiser valued the complex at -$5.9M to cancel out the lost property-tax exemption. 

Another complex under the same program, Tysens Park, had no listed value in Fred Trump’s estate taxes since rent caps drastically reduced its market value—yet Tysens Park was removed from the program before Fred Trump’s death, and rents were already raised.

Tax Avoidance

The Trump empire has systematically avoided paying income, property, and inheritance taxes for decades. In total, the Trumps only paid $52.2M (5%) of the $550M owed on the 55% tax rate for gifts and inheritances. The IRS (even before Trump’s funding and staff cuts), along with the courts, approve many tax avoidance tricks allowing the richest Americans to rarely pay what they legally owe (and taxes rates for the rich are already low).

Since 2011, Congress repeatedly cut the IRS budget, reducing the enforcement staff by one-third and tax audits by 42%. One-fifth of the income of the top 1% is omitted from tax reports, compared to only 7% for the bottom 50%. Yet the IRS spends a full third of all audits it conducts investigating recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit, who typically make only around $20,000 annually. Business owners like Trump, who self-report their taxes, unlike wage earners, avoid $125B in taxes each year. 

Racketeering

Donald Trump increased his wealth through many other ventures that exploited working people worldwide. For example, in 2004, Trump and a Bear Sterns executive launched an unaccredited real-estate training program under the name “Trump University”. The “investment training” scammed attendees out of thousands of dollars each while teaching them to “prey upon homeowners in financial turmoil and to target foreclosure properties”. The business collapsed by 2011 and ultimately settled three lawsuits (two class actions), awarding $25M to over 7,000 former students—but Trump never had to admit wrongdoing. 

As we reported in 2021, 

President Trump, of course, brazenly promoted his businesses during his time in office, withover 3,400 publicly documented instances of using his position for personal financial gain. Yet neither of his impeachment trials even touched on this abuse of power, with the silent understanding on both sides of the aisle that such an investigation would implicate not just Trump, but most of Congress and plenty of other politicians too.

Class Crimes

The worst of Trump’s crimes against the working class, both during and outside of his presidency, are ones in which the entire capitalist class is equally guilty. The financial exploitation, fraud, and crime described in part by the New York Times mirrors much of the financial practices revealed by the leaked Pandora Papers in 2021, the Paradise Papers in 2017, and the Panama Papers in 2016. Globally, offshore tax evasion is estimated to be between $400B and $800B. 

This wealth is held by the same politicians and corporations who cried “poverty” and left billions to suffer during the COVID pandemic. For the capitalist class, 

The Trump and Biden campaigns and their parties both opposed Medicare for All during the most severe pandemic in over a century. They refused to even consider government-run, public control over development, manufacturing, and distribution of free and effective treatments and vaccines on a mass scale. Completely off the table was any mention of nationalizing the pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms, the hospitals, and manufacturing medical equipment making huge profits from COVID-19. Trump and Biden are both committed to “handling” COVID-19 by pumping billions of dollars in government revenue into private corporations. They put capitalist profits over people’s lives.

The Trump administration’s COVID response pushed for a fast reopening, hoping to return to normalcy without a huge death toll until after the election. Trump and Congress passed a stimulus bill with $250B for cash payments to individuals and families. But they granted $500B for big business bailouts, $350B for “small business aid” mainly claimed by large corporations, and injected $1.5T into debt markets to stall the market crash for a mere 20 minutes. 43,000 millionaires received a stimulus averaging $1.6M each.  

The Trump administration’s tax cuts for the wealthy, policies worsening the climate crisis, out-of-control military spending, detention and deportation of refugees and immigrants, racist rhetoric, and attacks on women’s rights, democratic rights, and workers’ rights are all crimes Trump is guilty of serving as a representative of US capitalism. The capitalist class is taking him to court for attacks on the legitimacy and stability of their political system, but they will never pursue justice for the working class.

Fighting the Right & Trumpism

There is no effective way to fight Trumpism and the far-right by using the capitalist state. The Democrats, media, and many liberals proclaim that democratic rights are being defended from Trump and the far-right by the courts. But the courts pick and choose when to enforce laws and when to ignore or reinterpret laws in order to defend capitalist economic and political interests. Trump and the Republicans routinely did this, but now Trump is out of favor with the majority of the ruling class.  

The Georgia case is using electoral law against Trump’s vote meddling, yet the state and federal governments regularly ignore or actively aid illegal efforts to block third/independent party efforts. For example, in the 2020 election, a longtime Democratic Party donor submitted a false complaint to the Wisconsin Election Commission that resulted in removing the independent Green Party and socialist Hawkins & Walker campaign from the ballot thanks to the help of three Democrats on the commission. In direct conflict with state law, three liberal judges and one conservative judge on the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld this decision.

FBI Director James Comey did not charge Hillary Clinton  for sending emails with classified information to her personal email, yet Trump is being investigated for paper documents in boxes at Mar-a-Lago. Trump shouts about the investigations being “politically motivated,” and he is right in a sense—the working class can see capitalist politicians and courts manipulating the legal system to protect their class interests (ex: tax avoidance). This is ultimately the role of the state under capitalism, backed up by the power of the police and military. 

Trump’s campaigns and administration have emboldened far-right groups, including those involved in the January 6 violent riot. As a result, many working people are worried about the rise in public presence and activity of fascist groups alongside the open attacks on workers rights coming from local, state, and the federal governments. 

Some may have illusions in the court system to “defend” society against anti-democratic attacks and far-right violence. However, despite the current legal crackdown on January 6 participants (over 1000 now charged), the capitalist state—Congress, the police, the legal system, local governments, etc.—finds the potential power of a fighting workers’ movement, including peaceful mass protests, to be a greater threat to them than even armed right-wing mobilizations. 

The state mobilized the National Guard and military equipment against unarmed Black Lives Matter protesters but fraternized peacefully with armed protestors during “end the shutdowns” and January 6 events. Various accounts and evidence show the Capitol police posing for selfies with rioters, helping move barricades and open doors, urging people up the stairs into the building, chanting with the crowd, greeting and passing by protestors smoking weed in the Capitol, and otherwise interacting in a congenial or supportive manner at points during the riot. The FBI claimed they lacked the authority and means to monitor social media sufficiently to prepare for January 6, but conducted such mass surveillance during the wave of racial justice protests less than a year earlier. DC Democrats specifically discouraged the organization of potentially mass counter-protests against right-wing groups mobilizing in Washington.   

Sections of the government are now staging a huge legal circus in hopes of restoring voter confidence in the two-party system while at the same time using the attacks on Trump to roll out new legal measures and technology against protests and intimidate social movements. 

What Way Forward

Biden’s administration demonstrates that while Republicans often initiate attacks on social benefits and civil rights, the Democrats – despite posing as the alternative – implement and protect the same basic policies to defend the capitalist status quo. So-called “progressives” like Sanders and members of “The Squad”, who channel the aspirations of working people into the corporate Democratic party over and over again (having endorsed Biden for 2024), play a key role in protecting that system from the independent, organized political power of the working class. 

The two corporate political parties seem to be lining up for a Trump/Biden re-run election. This further exposes the lack of choice or real democracy in a system firmly dominated by big money and capitalist interests. Millions of working people in the US want a serious alternative this election. Yet another opportunity exists for unions, progressive groups, and left organizations to finally break free from the Democratic Party and organize a political party of and for working people.

Without a clear alternative to the capitalist crisis or a strong organized left, the political vacuum is filled by lesser-evil and far-right ideas. The working class has proven that we can push back Trumpism, the police, and right-wing forces, from the three-million-strong Women’s March to the Black Lives Matter movement, to the 40,000-strong anti-fascist march in 2017 that drove alt-right supporters out of the Boston Common.

But even such heroic protests are limited without a determined sustained movement, organized politically by an independent workers’ party and based on the power of the unions, community groups, and mass protests. Armed with a political party, the workers’ movement would be able to campaign for workers’ immediate needs – wage increases above inflation, universal healthcare, mass housing and jobs programs, a Green New Deal – and begin to overturn the exploitative and oppressive capitalist system.    

As we raised in our article, Build a Movement to Fight the Far Right, in 2020:

Our advantage today is that far-right violence lacks a serious social base. But that base will grow if a serious left alternative does not organize to address the crises that workers face today. A serious left alternative will not be organized by supporting Biden or other capitalist politicians responsible for the current situation. Short of a sustained progressive or left mass movement and the threat of a left political alternative, the two corporate parties have no need to support pro-worker policies. 

Nor will the far-right be defeated by individuals beating up fascists. We have to organize to make sure no fascist groups are able to use any public space. We need to help organize mass groups of working people into active defense of protest movements, union actions, strikes, or occupations. We must be prepared through collective action to drown out and deny platforms to genuine fascist forces that rear their head—no matter how small—to prevent them from organizing, growing, and spreading their anti-human ideas. 

Really fighting the right and smashing fascism includes building an independent working-class party that fights for a working-class, anti-racist program that can draw vulnerable workers away from reactionary ideas and help dismantle the economic and social conditions that engender far-right tendencies. We can and must do battle with the forces of reaction in the immediate term to defend and extend the rights and conditions of workers. But reaction will only cease to rear its head when capitalist interests defending inequality, exploitation, and oppression are cut out root and stem through building an international revolutionary movement for a socialist world.