Trump is determined to fight

I warned in my Thursday article, "The so-called Trump era is quite complicated" in response to the widespread observation that "the Trump era is coming to an end" after the Democrats gained the majority in the House and Congress. This complexity stemmed from the limits set by the transformations in the functioning and structure of the state within the scope of "Project 2025" under the direction of Russell Vought, Director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. Vought was building this project step by step towards establishing a “unified executive” (a one-man regime that gradually reduces the influence of checks and balances) during the Trump era. I was trying to make sense of these developments in the context of "fascism as a process".

In this context, Trump's first highly anticipated reaction to the election results came on Friday. Trump appointed Stephen Miller to replace Presidential Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles. This appointment should be read as a critical indicator, or even a declaration of war, regarding the policy that Trump intends to follow until the new Congress takes office and for the next two years.

SECOND MAN

The presidential chief of staff is the president's closest senior aide and is responsible for the day-to-day running of the White House. The chief of staff manages the president's time and information flow; coordinates policy agenda with staff and liaises with various departments and Congress on behalf of the president.

Often viewed as the “second most powerful person” in the White House, the chief of staff coordinates the process of getting the president's projects through Congress; Its powers and power are not limited to purely administrative matters; can directly influence the key policy agenda. So, who is Miller, whom Trump appointed as the head of the daily functioning of the executive (presidency), literally the head of internal affairs?

While he was Trump's chief advisor, Miller attracted attention with his hostility towards immigrants, his brutal practices, his great support and authority for the immigration police and Gestapo wannabe ICE, and his definition of Democrats as far-left and even communist.

Coming from an Ashkenazi Jewish family, Stephen Miller's worldview is reminiscent of Hitler's concept of "Weltanschauung". Miller defines “national community” as a culturally homogeneous whole; It sees those outside this whole as a security and sovereignty problem. According to Miller, “America is for Americans and only Americans.” The phrase he uses regarding immigrants, “We are being invaded,” depicts immigration as an invasion of the national community.

This discourse of Miller reminds us of the distinction between friend and enemy in the political theory of Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt. According to Schmitt, the enemy is one of the founding elements of the political community. The community defines itself against this enemy. In Miller's discourse, immigrants are not just a population to be controlled, but are part of the category of threat to national identity and political unity. Miller aims to remove all legal guarantees for this "enemy" by suspending habeas corpus in order to overcome legal obstacles to the deportation of immigrants.

Within this “Weltanschauung” Miller argues that the world is governed by “power, force and power”, that these are the “iron laws of the world”, that law, international norms, equality of sovereignty are subject to power relations.

Miller's worldview includes not only governing the current state; It necessitates re-establishing the national community by defining the enemy and centralizing the executive power that will realize this transformation.

Trump's appointment at the highest level of the administration's most racist, xenophobic person, who views the world from the perspective of "The strong do what they can, the weak endure what they can", in short, a fascist, shows that he is preparing to accelerate Project 2025, continue "fascism as a process", and fight with Congress.

The new Congress includes nine Democratic Socialists and, more broadly, about 130 progressive members. Will these affect the policies and resistance of the Democratic Party in increasingly difficult economic conditions, under the pressure of big capital on the one hand and the Israeli lobby on the other? Since the backbone of mainstream Democrats is very weak, the future of "fascism as a process" in the USA will largely depend on the resistance of this progressive bloc and the positions it will build within the class struggle.