By Urs Hecker, January 2025
A few weeks ago, the new US President Donald Trump celebrated his inauguration.
Surrounded by billionaires and representatives of the US bureaucracy, he announced his racist, sexist and nationalist program for the rich. Just one day before, at the official victory party of his election campaign, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, gave the Hitler salute twice on stage. After his inauguration, there was a flood of authoritarian decrees passed by Congress, representing an in this millennium unprecedented attack on the rights of the socially oppressed. These attacks are very similar to those we could face in Germany under Merz or a future AfD government. So what is their impact and how can we fight back?
Attacks on migrants
Once again, migrants from Latin America are a key target of Trump’s attacks.
A national emergency has been declared on the border with Mexico, which means that the military can be used against immigrants in the future. Images are already going around the world of migrants in despair at the border between the USA and Mexico. The reason: Trump has simply blocked the app that millions of people used to legally make appointments to cross the border. These people often gave up everything to obtain a US visa, only to be turned away at the border despite having an appointment. This cruelty shows once again that “legal” immigrants are also affected by the attacks of the right and the hypocrisy of those who deny this and claim that it is only about “illegal immigration”. In addition, Trump wants to abolish another key right of migrants in the USA: Citizenship by birth. This will disenfranchise entire generations of descendants of today’s migrants, who can now remain second-class citizens in the USA forever. But we have to see whether the whole thing is legally valid, as citizenship by birth is a historical cornerstone of US society that will not be easy to cut down.
We are facing something similar in Germany. Apart from the fact that citizenship at birth has never existed here, the major parties are also calling for a tightening of the deadly EU border regime and a restriction of citizenship. Among other things, the CDU is calling for people with dual citizenship to be expatriated if they commit two criminal offenses. This opens the way for the deportation of German citizens and creates two classes among them: the “natural Germans”, who are safe citizens forever, and those who can lose their rights again.
We therefore demand internationally:
-Tear down border fences and walls! Open borders everywhere for everyone!
-Full citizenship rights for everyone in the country in which they live!
Attacks on trans and inter people
Trans people are also heavely under attack by the new president and can probably expect even worse in the future. For example, Trump said at his inauguration: “In the future, there will only be two genders in the USA: Man and woman” and instructed authorities to only recognize male and female gender entries.
Furthermore, in future, the chromosomes or “sex at conception” will determine which gender people have. This not only denies the reality of trans and inter people, it also takes away their right to determine their own body and gender and opens the door to further criminalization. At the same time, we can expect an increase in anti-trans and anti-queer sentiment worldwide and therefore further attacks on trans people and their rights.
The situation is similar in Germany, for example when Friedrich Merz calls for the Self-Determination Act to be withdrawn or the AfD wants to abolish same-sex marriage.
Instead we demand:
-Self-determination over one’s own gender identity: for the right to free and unbureaucratic access to official name and civil status changes! Against being forced to state your gender in official documents!
-For self-determination over one’s own body: For the right to free and unbureaucratic access to medical gender reassignment!
-Fully legalize intersex: Prohibition of medically unnecessary, cosmetic
genital operations on children!
Nationalism and authoritarianism
These attacks are embedded in an increasingly aggressive nationalism, which sometimes appears ridiculous from the outside, and a growing authoritarianism. The Panama Canal should be “reconquered” and Panama is openly threatened with a military attack. In a future conflict with China, this is intended to ensure secure control over this important shipping route, but also means that internal criticism can be suppressed through nationalist furor. The announcement that the Gulf of Mexico is to be renamed the “Gulf of America” seems ridiculous and yet should be taken seriously. This act is of course only intended to distract Americans from the real problems in the country by creating a purely symbolic conflict with foreign countries. Authoritarianism is also already on the rise in the country and is the other side of the measures to enforce the attacks on the oppressed groups. As mentioned above, the military is being unleashed on migrants at the border. In addition, Trump has announced that the death penalty will be enforced more strictly again and also wants to “ensure” that individual states have enough means of killing available. This measure will again primarily affect Black and other racially oppressed people. In addition, the civil service is to be placed more directly under the control of the president and civil servants can be dismissed more easily. An even greater expansion of repressive measures is to be expected in the future.
In Germany, too, the increase in repression is a trend towards a shift to the right, as we can see from the attacks on the Palestine Solidarity movement, as well as intensified attacks against anti-fascists and climate activists. The bourgeois state, whether in Germany, the USA or other Western countries such as Britain, is increasingly relying on autocratic measures and punishments to enforce its domestic and foreign policy goals against criticism.
We demand against this:
-Stop all imperialist intervention! USA and all other imperialists out of Latin America!
-Abolish the Police: Instead of internal rearmament, invest in education and social welfare at the expense of the rich!
Right-wing politics is the politics of the rich
The fact that Trump was surrounded by the richest people in the world at his inauguration illustrates what must have been clear to us: The politics of the right is the politics of the rich, the capitalists. We also see this when Trump pulls out of the Paris climate agreement again and declares an energy emergency to get even more fossil fuels out of the ground. This policy, which attacks the livelihoods of us all, obviously serves the American oil industry and the rest of the capitalists, who can hope for lower electricity prices as a result. Furthermore, an incredible 500 billion is to be invested in private AI infrastructure, which of course serves the tech billionaires on Trump’s side, but is also intended to give the US a advantage in the international battle with China. Further massive tax gifts to companies are planned. For example, Trump announced in Davos that all companies should produce in the USA and receive “the lowest taxes ever”. The costs of this will be borne by workers and young people if, for example, the already shitty education system is getting even worse as a result of new social cuts. One method of weakening future resistance to this is the attacks now being carried out by the Trump government. The racism, nationalism and queerophobia spread by the government weaken and divide young people and the working class. The disenfranchisement of migrants means that they are less and less able to participate in economic and political struggles. In Germany, too, one social cut after another is being made in combination with racism. After a no increase of the „Bürgergeld“ (social welfare for unemployed people) despite inflation, the CDU is now threatening to cut it completely for hundreds of thousands of people, while in Berlin the CDU and SPD carried out massive cuts in the youth and cultural sectors.
Don’t despair: build a youth movement!
Given the scale of the attack, the (supposed?) strength of the right-wing and billionaire government and the terrible impact on those affected, it’s hard not to despair. Many of us have been shocked over the last few days and felt powerless and disbelieving. In Germany, too, the shift to the right seems to progress without any brakes and is threatening the living conditions of us young people.
But isolated and shocked in front of the screens, we don’t realize one thing: organized together, we can develop incredible strength! A movement of young people and workers that is anchored in schools, universities and companies can stop the shift to the right. For us as young people, this means that we have to organize ourselves where we have to be every day: Schools. This is where we can reach other young people the best, this is where we feel the effects of the shift to the right the most, this is where we can create an anchor for a future movement. Mobilizations like the one against the AfD in Riesa (huge protests against the parties national conference) show that tens of thousands of us are ready to fight!
Such a movement has to be also international and develop perspectives and strategies together in order to stop the international shift to the right and the major attack by the capitalists. So even if we must first defend ourselves against the local attacks of the rich, these all have the same cause as responses by the rich to the global crisis of capitalism. We can only win if we confront the rich on a global scale with a response from workers and youth to the crisis! This response should take up the allready mentioned demands against social oppression and authoritarianism and combine them with social demands:
-Self-defense committees and anti-discrimination offices at school, university and workplaces against social oppression and discrimination!
-Joint antiracist and economic struggle: Refugees into trade unions!
-Hundreds of billions for education and social welfare at the expense of the rich, instead of for armament and as tax gifts to billionaires!
