In terms of what we know about the motives behind this last week’s attempt on Trump’s life, the situation is fluid. So far we have indications that certain factions within the ruling class, quite possibly including elements of the deep state, had involvement in this. That the shooter was a registered Republican, and that this happened shortly prior to the Republican convention, makes it plausible that the GOP’s neocon wing was trying to get rid of Trump so they could install Nikki Haley. It remains to be seen whether the CIA orchestrated this, but there are additional odd details that at the least implicate the Secret Service; it was obvious that the ones supposed to be protecting Trump had failed to do their job, and they failed in a way which strains plausible deniability. Keep in mind that even if the GOP’s neocon wing wasn’t involved, it still would have tried to nominate Haley had Trump died. Which gives this event great significance to our inter-ruling class conflict, regardless of what exactly the factors behind the attack were.
I’ll write more on this topic as additional facts come out. For the time being, though, several things are undeniable: that the predominant wing of our ruling class seeks to make this event disappear from our discourse, that an element exists within our ruling class which wishes it could have installed Haley, and that the media’s efforts at brushing aside the attack aren’t going to work on the bulk of the people. The narrative manipulation that’s going to truly be effective following this attack is the anti-woke psyop, which will greatly benefit from the widespread sense of solidarity with Trump. Though as I’ll explain, this new rise in anti-woke attitudes may ultimately work to the detriment of the imperial state.
Just the fact that this has created an irrepressible amount of discourse means the majority of Americans have set themselves up against the predominant will of the deep state. Going against the liberal efforts at downplaying and distracting from the assassination attempt by default puts these Americans in conflict with the deep state’s primary elements. They’re trying to police the discourse in a particular way, and this isn’t working. What communists need to do is find the revolution-compatible elements among the masses who’ve rejected these liberal discourse psyops, and bring them into our project for defeating U.S. imperialism. That’s my takeaway from these developments: our best course of action is to make it clear that we stand against the deep state, showing the people that we’re trustworthy allies and leaders during this moment.
I describe the ruling class faction that’s been downplaying the attack as the deep state’s “predominant” wing because despite the signs that the shooter was aligned with and enabled by certain parts of the deep state, we’re mainly seeing the imperialist media fight against the backlash towards this violent act. The neocon Republicans and the Secret Service may be giving us reasons to suspect they had a role in this, but it’s apparent that what’s happened has made the deep state’s narrative managers uneasy. (Either that, or the other ruling class elements were also involved in the attack but are now trying to mitigate the blowback from it.) It doesn’t benefit the liberal technocrats for the country’s people to suddenly be paying close attention to the intelligence centers, and to the ruling institutions that are supposedly so unified and stable.
This attack has exposed contradictions and conflicts within the ruling class that the technocrats would prefer to remain out of the public’s focus, which is why many Democrats have been trying to counter the speculations about this event with their own conspiracy narratives. Plenty of them see it as their best option to try to convince the public that Trump staged his own shooting; other liberals are instead taking on a pseudo-neutral way of discussing it, refusing to describe it as an assassination attempt or blaming Trump for the shooter’s actions.
The vast majority of Americans who are politically engaged have not been swayed by these liberals, and we’re going to see further evidence of this when Trump likely wins by a massive margin. This invigorated and expanded MAGA base isn’t the main demographic which communists need to reach; our biggest potential source of support exists within the plurality of Americans who are alienated from bourgeois politics. To win the class war, though, we must demonstrate to this highly engaged element that we’re principled on resisting the deep state. Which means inserting ourselves into the inter-elite conflict that this attack has accelerated.
Even if all the different wings of the deep state were united in wanting to carry out the attack, the Democrat-aligned wing is now trying to reduce the backlash because it’s scared of where this could lead. Which places the neocon GOP faction at odds with the Democrat faction. One side wants to exploit the violence to further the anti-woke psyop; the other side wants everyone to simply forget about this, and focus on Project 2025, January 6, etc. Leaning into anti-wokeism is now the best option of the Republican Party, which is about to take on the role as the chief facilitator of U.S. imperialism. And the Democratic Party and its adjacent intelligence agencies are fine with the anti-woke psyop, but only if this anti-woke backlash can be controlled.
Because of the assassination attempt, a backlash that initially was controlled is taking on a life of its own, threatening to produce instability that our ruling institutions can’t manage. This has given many Americans greater potential to come towards a revolutionary consciousness. It’s also made the different factions of the ruling class become more suspicious of each other, and therefore less effectively able to carry on their rule. It’s even made certain elements of this class more liable to join with the revolutionaries. Whether the narrative managers succeed at solidifying their narrative control, and turning the anti-woke sentiments in an anti-communist direction, depends on how well communists can intervene. On how good a job we do at connecting with the people who are angry about wokeness, and clarifying to them that communism is not wokeism but in fact the thing which can truly defeat the deep state.
To do this, we need to take advantage of our enemy’s strategic weaknesses. The parts of the deep state that wish Trump had died are in a place where they feel constrained. They’ve embraced the anti-woke psyop because this is their best hope for maintaining narrative control, since Americans have become so tired of wokeness and the Democratic Party has become so unelectable. And the anti-woke psyop has great potential to advance their agendas, but there’s always been a danger of it backfiring. If too many Americans start opposing wokeness in a way that leads them to ask questions about our ruling institutions, like is happening now, then the narrative managers have lost control.
Had Trump been assassinated, this backlash would of course have been even greater, but the neocons would have been able to install Haley. In that timeline, Haley would have taken on a truly Hitlerian role, carrying out wars with actual competence and purging the Americans with dissident views. It would have been the darkest possible path for our ruling class, one where our only hope is in preparing for the most drastic and desperate types of resistance. But because Trump lived—and these forces can’t try to assassinate him again for risk of provoking unbearable scrutiny—we’re going to have more options. We should still prepare for that most dire mode of struggle, but we also have an opportunity to leverage the fissures within our ruling class.
If Trump hadn’t survived, we would have seen a scenario where the Haley-aligned Republican Party turns against its own base for being too anti-establishment, and takes away the freedoms of the MAGA activists along with the communists. This Nazified version of the GOP would also be going after the Libertarian Party, the MAGA politicians who oppose Ukraine aid, and the other forces within bourgeois politics that aren’t loyal to the new cold war agenda. That’s the insane reality our situation: the highest members of our ruling class would launch an unrestrained assault against all who challenge them if they could get away with it. And though that faction hasn’t gotten the massive victory it would have gained had Trump died, the attack in itself has been enough to raise awareness of this reality.
So many Americans have gotten a sense that the dominant forces within their government are trying to do something unhinged; something that would give Americans of essentially all political orientations, from MAGA supporters to Libertarians to communists, a strong reason for uniting in resistance. We’ve been getting closer to such a point regardless, with our government persecuting Black revolutionaries in preparation for a much wider purge. Which means we have a good chance at significantly expanding the anti-monopoly united front, and unifying the forces that are at odds with the deep state. In the overwhelmingly likely scenario that Trump wins, Trump will be allowed to fail, and to not meet his mandate for defeating monopoly finance capital. Then communists, should we put in the work, will fill the anti-establishment role that MAGA can no longer dominate.
Because the bullet missed, finance capital has gotten the worst possible outcome from this attack. It’s both failed to restore the GOP to its more solidly neocon state, and come to face a vast rise in proto-revolutionary consciousness. Its best hope is to corrupt this consciousness, and convince the disillusioned Americans that their enemies are China, Iran, Palestine, and communism. Communists within my tendency will do all we can to bring these masses towards the correct path, and to leverage the inter-elite conflicts which have just been greatly intensified.
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