In my view, Trump represented a fraction of American capital that had it's base in capitalists whose primary source of accumulation lay in the domestic market: this included small businesses as well as larger real estate enterprises, developers, hospitality operators, retailers, residual manufacturers for local consumption - but mainly in the commercial / trading sectors. This fraction - once described by the sociologist Oliver Cromwell Cox as "Main Street" has always been nativist, socially reactionary and isolationist. Their focus is inward, their political heritage runs back to the "Know Nothing Party" of the early nineteenth century. Conspiracy theory (because it is an effort to appropriate some of the insights of class analysis without admitting the - to them - scandalous insights of class analysis) has been their ideological mainstay, as documented in Richard Hofstader's old but excellent study of the paranoid in American politics. Since the GFC [global financial crisis] this has steadily merged with overtly fascist ideological currents to become a form of American fascism which has a lot of similarity to the kind of Herrenvolk democracy of settler states like the old Apartheid South Africa. (No surprise really, because the underlying historical fact of the US is it's founding as a settler and slave colony and its settler decolonisation as opposed to decolonisation by the conquered - a very similar history to South Africa).

Since the GFC the world has seen a remarkable and deeply disturbing reappearance of fascist ideology and tendencies. These tendencies have only been partially successful in gaining and holding power (except to date in Brazil), although they have exerted ideological influence on the more 'traditional' conservative regimes and parties. But the presence of proto - or neo - fascist in office in the US is and was of enormous significance and encouragement to these forces of reaction. The only reason that liberal democracy remains in place - although much weakened and enervated compared to say the 1970s - is that the larger capitalist class (more on them below) still see more advantages in it's continuation and in neo liberalism than the kind of protectionist beggar your neighbour economics of the fascist alt right.

I consider fascism an enormously dangerous and reactionary trend and I am overjoyed to see them get a kick in the goolies with the vote going against Trump.

That said, I don't think it is over. I have always argued that Trump will not go quietly and do his utmost to stay in on. This includes the string of legal challenges, a never ceasing media publicity campaign of refusing to admit defeat and questioning the validity of the election. It doesn't matter is these are silly, poorly conceived and defeated. He has increased his support base to 70 million people. And they will believe him. At some point he will call on them to act - for the 'militias' and other armed thugs to take to the streets. These are dangerous people.

It may happen earlier in conjunction with pressure to override the popular vote by the college. Indeed if enough chaos can be caused and the college frightened enough into some electors being 'faithless' it could still end up in the supreme court. And an argument could be made there that unrest and chaos necessitate a quick decision to calm the situation would aid an awarding of the election to Trump. My point is that it's not over yet.

This may not happen in the immediate future. It may only happen after the inauguration of Biden as a rebellion against what is perceived as an illegitimate government. Indeed even if Trump does go sullenly, it still won't be over. 70 million supporters won't melt away. The election loss will become their version of the "stab in the back" myth of the German right during the 1920s - the moment when their victory was 'stolen' from them by "November criminals". It will produce an intransigent, increasingly violent, increasingly irrational and revanchist force in US politics that will poison the well for years to come. Ideologically, it will be populist - taking on the anti imperialist language of the left, opposing the awful establishment of globalists, liberals and everyone they literally hate and want dead - and thus attract support. Conspiracy theory was always the socialism of fools and this will be no different. One of the interesting features of this American form of fascism is it's anti establishment rhetoric. In international affairs Trump has been quite happy to tear up alliances, or use them in huckstering fashion to extract money from allies, to reduce troop presences, to deescalate tensions with the so called enemies of the US (Russia, North Korea for example), to not intervene militarily, to cut back on the drone murder campaign. These actions all have their origins in the isolationist tendencies of the US right, as mentioned above. They have of course been welcome to some on the anti imperialist side of politics; and I have met a number of intelligent and well informed people with strong anti imperialist heritages who have been swayed by these facts to become Trump supporters. Often this has then been coupled with another anti imperialist heritage - deep and abiding suspicion of the actions and accountability (more correctly non-accountability) of the US intelligence and security agencies, Sadly this crosses over easily into the conspiracy theory of the "Deep State" and from there to an acceptance of the 'stolen election' theory.

Which brings me to the question of how that cross over is possible. Once again I go back to an analysis of the composition of the US capitalist class. I mentioned the domestic market aligned fraction that underpins Trumpism above, and mentioned Cox's description of them as "Main Street". Well, Cox also made the point that "Main Street" was often in conflict with "Wall Street" which in his analysis was that fraction of capital with much stronger ties to the world-market - large export manufacturers (which still exist as US headquartered multinationals, although the actual manufacture occurs elsewhere), finance and banking, and the transportation and logistics sector. These sectors are all tied to extracting surplus value along the entire lengths of the world spanning commodity chains, intent on standardising economic regimes to average down the costs of movement, processing and marketing while preserving strong differentials in wages. This is the fraction of capital that champions globalism, neo liberalism and when necessary imperialist adventures. And their interests in the US have been championed in the modern era by the Democratic Party, more so than the Republicans. So it is easy to see how a principled political opposition to US imperialism and neo liberalism can - in the absence of a strong political movement that is able to articulate and fight for working class interests using a proper class analysis of domestic and international events (and I most emphatically do not mean the kind of 'tankie-ism that pervades most left sects in which geopolitics substitutes for class analysis , and state regimes for classes, as was evident in the tragic betrayal of the Syrian people by so much of the 'anti imperialist' western left) - become absorbed in the neo fascism of Trumpism.

So while I rejoice in the potential booting of the fascist Trump, I take no pleasure in the election of Biden who represents a return to US imperialism, military interventionism, drone murders and global neo liberalism.