United States

On Wednesday, June 14, Americans received the jarring news that a US Congressman had been shot down during practice for a bipartisan baseball charity event. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) remains critically wounded. The gunman, who perished in the shootout with police officers, has been identified as James T. Hodgkinson of suburban small-town Illinois. A nation chronically desensitized to images of sensational and senseless violence stopped its morning routine to observe the disturbing development of a mass shooting—something ordinarily reserved for ...

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the United States will withdraw from the Paris accord. After a fraught meeting with the other G7 countries, he unilaterally withdrew from the accords. This marks a decisive turning point in world relations, and shows the inability of capitalism to create a sustainable future for humanity on this planet.

For the comrades of the International Marxist Tendency, Marxism is the historical memory of the working class. In its struggle with the bourgeoisie, the victories, defeats, traditions, and hopes of the workers are distilled and synthesized into a revolutionary theory of action. This “unbroken thread” extends back in time, an uninterrupted line of thought beginning with Marx and Engels, developed further by Lenin and Trotsky, and taken into the modern epoch by those who have worked for world revolution since Trotsky’s death.

Alan Woods, editor of In Defence of Marxism, discusses Donald Trump's visit to the Middle East, which is taking place at a convenient time for the new president, who requires a distraction from the crisis facing his administration back home.

As reviravoltas diárias da vida sob o regime de Trump têm sua forma de fazer 2016 parecer uma lembrança remota. Mas, com o espetáculo de Hillary Clinton se juntando a #TheResistance e com a repentina demissão do diretor do FBI, James Comey, por Trump justo alguns dias depois de testemunhar ante o Comitê Judiciário do Senado sobre alegações de que ele teria influenciado a eleição, todas as camadas da sociedade estão fazendo uma séria reflexão sobre primárias, eleição e a trajetória que levou a este ponto.

The daily twists and turns of life under the Trump regime have a way of making 2016 seem like a distant memory. But with the spectacle of Hillary Clinton joining #TheResistance, and FBI director James Comey's sudden dismissal by Trump, just days after testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee over allegations that he may have influenced the election, all layers of society are doing some serious reflection on the caucuses and primaries, the election, and the road that led to this point.

We live in an epoch of instability, austerity, war, crisis, revolution, and counterrevolution. Sharp and sudden changes that erupt seemingly out of nowhere are implicit in the situation. Capitalism is at an impasse on a world scale and can no longer meaningfully develop the means of production or improve the quality of life of the majority. The crisis is expressed in every country and at every level of society, with intense polarization to both the left and the right.

To say that the American healthcare system is criminally expensive and convoluted would be an understatement.

In certain conditions, all things can turn into their opposite. Prior to the arrival of its latest resident, the White House had long been a symbol of the immense stability and confidence of the USA’s political regime. Today it stands at the centre of an almighty political crisis.

The Trump administration and the Republicans in Congress suffered defeat as their proposal to “repeal and replace Obamacare” disintegrated. Historically speaking, a new President has the most momentum in his first 100 days. Trump has been president less than 65 days—with no victories and now a major defeat.

In classic "divide and rule" fashion, Donald Trump seeks to drive a wedge into the working class. By giving tiny crumbs to a few and scapegoating others, he hopes to distract us from the real source of the problems faced by all workers: capitalism.

When Steve Bannon took over as the head of Trump's floundering, disorganized, and underfunded campaign, electoral victory seemed a dim possibility. The Republican establishment, in their panic, went into damage-control mode: prominent figures such as Mitt Romney scathingly criticized their candidate in public, while House Speaker Paul Ryan expressed that his priority was to preserve the Republican majority in Congress rather than putting effort into supporting the presidential campaign. The Democrats simply gloated, confident of their victory.

It's been a stormy week for America's CEO: a flurry of calls and meetings, a whirlwind of Tweets and press conferences, a blizzard of executive orders flying off his desk. In just a few days, Trump has set his stamp on US and world politics, economics, and relations. It was not mere hyperbole when the Marxists said that sharp and sudden changes were on the order of the day, that the process of crisis and class struggle was accelerating, that this was merely the beginning of the beginning of a new era.

Over 100 people gathered on U.S. Inauguration Day for the United Against Trump Town Hall held at Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. The event was hosted by a coalition of organizations led by the Canadian section of the International Marxist Tendency, Fightback. Others who supported the event included the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), Justice for Migrant Workers (J4MW), the Canadian Federation of Students Ontario (CFS-O), the Canadian Union of Public Employees Ontario (CUPE) and the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).

And so begins the Trump era: with worldwide protests, pessimism, and polarization.The carefully stage-managed inaugural spectacle had to be protected by 28,000 law enforcement officers. Militarized police kept people waiting for hours at vehicle checkpoints, going so far as to confiscate any fruit they found, lest the presidential motorcade be pelted on live television. In 2008, nearly two million Americans flocked to see Obama after his promise of "change we can believe in." In 2012, after four years of bitter disappointment, over a million turned up. Trump, who claims to have the support of a majority of Americans, Page 13 of 49