Nearly one month into the new year of 2025 we have a new president already casting clouds over the promises and expectations of the blue-collar friendly, peacemaker tone of his campaign. Along with jobs and an end to paralyzing inflation, he promised an end to the war in Ukraine. Impressively just before taking office, he forced Israeli leader Netanyahu into a temporary peace deal with Hamas in the Gaza strip.
Then on inauguration day Donald Trump peopled the podium behind him with union-busting billionaires. Not much later he was criticizing Russian leader Vladimir Putin for his “ridiculous” war in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Israel, with little opposition from the new president, continues its bloody rage on the West Bank and in Lebanon even if its guns have stopped firing in Gaza for the time being.
The roundup of undocumented migrants in the U.S. has begun as Trump promised even though there seems to be dissension within his inner circle as to which migrants are desirable and which are not.
Labor South is following these issues, and as it reported after the November election, the working-class voters who elected Trump are also watching. After being essentially ignored and taken for granted by the Democratic Party for decades, workers in the United States show no inclination to return to the party once gloriously helmed by Franklin Roosevelt. As they now jostle for space among all those Republican billionaires, they must remember they have the power to elect and to defeat.
Will Trump revert back to traditional Republican instincts that always favor the managerial class at the expense of workers? Will he truly push for peace if Putin decides he doesn’t like Trump’s terms?
Meanwhile the failed Democratic Party continues to flounder in the wake of its devastating losses last November. Its own billionaire backers are unlikely to pursue the path Bernie Sanders tried to carve out a few years ago. More likely it will move even more to the right on economic issues. On other issues its malaise deepens as it comes to term with the long overdue death of identity politics. It couldn’t even rely on the abortion issue to pull it over the top. What’s left?
Trump’s greatest promise is change. He says he’s the man to make it happen. The Deep State abhors change, and it has formidable powers to resist it. For all his bluster and big talk, Trump now has the opportunity to show the world the stuff he’s made of, who he really is. The world awaits.
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