1. The potential use of emergency powers by the Trump administration to solve a manufactured crisis on the southern border is not only an abuse of presidential power, but also sets a dangerous precedent for the future. If allowed, what is to prevent Trump from employing these same powers to solve other manufactured domestic crises. Indeed, with a new Democratic majority in the House with oversight powers, speculation that Mueller will complete his investigation in February, mounting legal challenges, and the growing unpopularity of the wall, desperate actions by Trump wouldn’t be surprising. Meanwhile, he is filling top positions of the national security state with cronies who obediently march to his beat.

It is in this context that this manufactured crisis at the border has to be tucked into. Even if Trump doesn’t declare a national emergency and extra ordinary powers tonight, it would be naive to think that he won’t later. This would likely usher in a constitutional crisis and present a grave challenge to Congressional Democrats and the entire democratic coalition. And in such a moment — and such moments are rare in our country’s history — what is crucial to a democratic outcome is the actions of millions on the streets and in the corridors of political power. In other words, we should stay tuned and stay active.

2. The symbiotic connection between Trump and his base goes a long way in explaining the current shutdown. The Wall is totemic, elemental, and visceral for both of them. And in the present situation, each eggs on the other in their insistence that the government remain closed until Congress commits to build a wall on our southwestern border, despite the growing unpopularity of that position. But what is left out of this picture is the role of the Fire-Eaters on Fox, talk radio, and social media. In many ways, they pull the strings and fire the engines of this toxic marriage. When Trump is in trouble, he calls his pals at Fox, not on Wall Street. When he is off point, they get him back on point.

3. The biggest security-terror threat is white, male, and connected to alt-right social media sites. It isn’t immigrants crossing our borders. And according to the new report of NBC’s Julia Ainsley only 6 people who crossed the border in the first half of 2018 were on the terrorist watch list. Not thousands as Trump and his acolytes claim.

4. It isn’t an mystery why Trump almost manically, but not irrationally, fixates on his base. Without their rabid loyalty, he can’t so easily keep Republicans in line; he can’t count on their support in the likely event that Mueller has the dirt on him and his family.

Up to now, the fear of a primary challenge from a Trump endorsed challenger has kept restive Republicans at bay, complaining mainly behind closed doors. But if Trump’s base turns on him, that threat becomes an empty one. And Trump will find his presidency resting on very thin ice.

5. Last Thursday newly elected House speaker Nancy Pelosi and her Democratic Congressional colleagues took control of the House. The visuals were powerful, the message was on point, and the atmosphere was celebratory. All this could well herald a new day for the country and the beginning of the end for Trump and gang. The Democratic Party is increasingly becoming in a demographic sense a people’s party, especially if we have a modern understanding of the working class. And as for its political orientation, its center of gravity, in part because of its changing demographics and its newly elected House members, is shifting in a progressive direction.

The grounds for an electoral party of the left — always a tough sell — are disappearing.

6. The struggle against Trump and the extreme right isn’t a retreat from class politics. It is, in fact, its main vector. To think otherwise evinces a failure to understand that class politics aren’t abstractly constructed. Instead, they are a product of a concrete analysis of the particular alignment of classes and social constituencies at any given moment and the class and democratic tasks that arise from such analysis. And at this moment the main danger to the country’s future, not to mention the well being of our diverse working class, stems from the capture of the levers of power by Trump and the extreme right and their ferocious assault on democracy, broadly understood. It is only in this engagement that the working class takes care of its present and future.

Again, this isn’t a retreat from class, but an approach that is informed by the real and concrete challenges life presents. Class should never be turned into a hermetic category or the overarching determinant of politics in every instance or thoughtlessly bandied about to show off one’s working class credentials.

7. This article, “Bernie Sanders’ Ugly Campaigning is bad for Democrats — and Great for Trump,” raises some fair questions for consideration and discussion. I’m afraid though that some Sanders supporters have a hard time looking soberly and critically at some of the weak points of Sanders’ candidacy. His run for the presidency made them feel, after a long hiatus, that they had not only a voice in the larger political mix, but one that articulated a particular form of “class” politics that they supported. In this iteration, undefined elites in Washington and on Wall Street are vilified, economic issues are lifted up, and draining the swamp is the nation’s capital is job 1.

Meanwhile, the danger from the right is minimized, identity politics are dismissed as divisive, and the “corrupt” Democratic Party is trashed and no better than the Republican. Sounds militant for sure, but it is strategically mistaken and tactically bankrupt. Class politics of this kind provide no path to a better future. And luckily, most Americans and most of the left have chosen a different course of action to unshackle the country from the present Trumpian nightmare. 

8. To say, as some do, that today’s struggle isn’t left against right, but the bottom against the top is right in one sense and wrong in another.

It is right in that the main dividing line of present day politics isn’t between left and right. But it is wrong in its claim that the bottom against the top is the singular dynamic structuring politics.

What both characterizations miss is that the political process is much more complex at this moment. What we see is a political landscape in which an expansive coalition of people, classes, and social constituencies are arrayed and gaining strength against a right wing, white nationalist, anti-democratic authoritarian political bloc. The left is a part of this popular coalition, in fact a growing part, but it is by no means the singular or decisive player in this diverse mix.

9. I’m sometimes critical of the Communist Party, but one thing it didn’t miss was the rise of the right — a rise that reached a new stage with the election of Reagan in 1980. And then a long term player in U.S. politics. At the time, we correctly adjusted our strategic policy — pinpointing right wing extremism as the main obstacle to social progress — and tactical policy — laying emphasis on broad people’s unity, while rejecting the notion that the two parties were the same at the level of policy and social composition. By contrast, many on the left were not inclined in this direction, preferring instead to make only minor adjustments to this new reality. A general political offensive against the system in its totality.”