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DONALD Trump's US presidency reveals the underlying class dynamics, contradictions, and the intensification of neoliberal policies cloaked under nationalist rhetoric encapsulated in the 'Make America Great Again' (MAGA) slogan. The most significant features drastic cuts in government spending, aggressive downsizing of federal departments, and shutdowns of the Trump presidency illuminate how the US state apparatus is serving the big bourgeoisie at the cost of the working class, in line with a scientific critique of capitalist governance.
The massive reduction in federal spending, led by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has targeted welfare, regulatory, and humanitarian agencies such as the United States Agency For International Development (USAID) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). The layoff of nearly 10,000 federal employees by early 2025 dis-proportionately impacted probationary and lower-level workers, illustrating Marx's view that the bourgeois state's programs are expendable when not directly facilitating capital accumulation.
While DOGE claimed $160 billion savings, analyses indicate that mass layoffs and operational dislocations actually offset much of these gains and caused accounting manipulation to exaggerate cost-cutting. These moves typify neoliberal 'austerity' tactics that shift burdens onto the working class and erode collective bargaining, health, and social safety nets -haklmarks of capital's structure violence.
Trump's administration and DOGE led aggressive efforts to essentially dismantle whole agencies, including USAID and the CFPB, both targeted for either termination or radical downsizing. This is consistent with Lenin's thesis in 'State and Revolution' that capitalist states, during periods of economic crisis, seek to shrink or eliminate functions that provide oversight or redistribution, further concentrating class power in the hands of the capitalist elite. The deferred resignation program offered by the United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) served to quietly offload state workers under the guise of 'efficiency', while securing funds and perks for higher-level bureaucrats.
This is a classic example of how the capitalist agenda plays out in the functioning or lack of functioning of the government, especially during times of economic crisis.
On October 1, 2025, the US Federal Government entered a shutdown which has since become the longest ever in US history at midnight, after the US Congress failed to pass appropriations legislation for the 2026 fiscal year, which began that day. The shutdown resulted in the furlough of roughly 900,000 federal employees and kept another two million working without pay. Albeit temporary, the shutdowns of federal activities, executed through the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB) pausing grants and loans, left critical social programmes without funding and millions without access to insurance and basic support. It is an deliberate attack on the social foundations underpining working class life and a further extension of the 'dictatorship of the bourgeoisie' as the state is weaponised to protect wealth and minimise public accountability.
Trump's policies traditional right-wing tactics-tax-cuts for the wealthy, expansion of tariffs, suppression of welfare with a shift toward state capitalism, including direct governament stakes in private corporations. Despite protectionist rhetoric, these moves do not benefit workers but reinforce the dominance of monopoly capital and the state's fusion with big business. The loyalty scorecards for American companies and aggressive consolidation of political and economic control exemplify the transformation of the bourgeois state into an open tool for capitalist interests, far removed from any democratic or popular mandate. What we are witnessing is the vehement defense of capitalist class Interests via austerity, bureaucratic downsizing, and state-enabled corporate consolidation--all at the expense of working people and democratic norms.
It was amidst tish utter social, economic and political chaos within the US that the mayoral elections for New York City were held. Against this backdrop, Zohran Mamdani - the self-professed "Democratic Socialist"-ran a campaign centered on affordability, economic justice, and progresalve reforms. His top priorities inchuded universal child care for all children under five, free and frequent city buses, and opening a city-run grocery store in each borough to lower food prices and combat food insecurity. He was also a vocal critic of the genocide in Gaza. Major economic proposals Included a rent freeze for rent- stabilised apartments, requiring the constriction of 200,000 new affordable homes, and raising the minimum wage to $30 by 2030.
Mandand's platform also included making the City University of New York (CUNY) tution-free and introducing a city-run pilot for affordable groceries like Maveil Stores introduced by the LDF government in Kerala decades back. He advocated for significant tax Increases corporations and Individuals earning over S 1 million, aiming to fund his ambitious public service programmes.
This this why Trump himself attacked Mamdani, labelling him as a communist. People who were assiciated with progressive movements and stood for social justice in the US have been witch-hunted as 'Communists' since the days of McCarthyism in the 1940's and 50's. The term is equivalent to the Indian right wing's usage of 'Urban Naxals', to discredit and vilify those who align with and work for the marginalised and oppressed in our country .
