By Malcolm Suber
What is the American public to make of the impeachment inquiry taking place in Washington, DC? Daily we are tantalized with the prospect of some government “whistleblower” finally producing the “smoking gun” that will nail the criminal Donald Trump. The Democrats promise eventual evidence of Trump’s “high crimes and misdemeanors,” never mind the criminal U.S. wars that have seen 44,000 U.S. bombs dropped in the first year of Trump’s presidency. The Democratic Party leaders and their backers know that the Republican majority US Senate will not vote to remove Trump from office. Instead Trump is being given the opportunity to pose as the victim of the Democrats who failed to nail him during the Russiagate investigation. To his base of true believers, Trump is fighting the Washington establishment who seek to undermine his plans to put “America First” on the world stage.
The U.S. working class has more pressing problems than Trump’s crooked attempt to pressure the Ukrainian government into investigating his rival crook Joe Biden. We should follow the lead of the workers and oppressed in Puerto Rico, Chile, Sudan, Honduras and Haiti. They have all taken to the streets to demand the resignation of their corrupt bourgeois governments. Millions of Puerto Ricans took to the streets to demand #RickyRenuncia and a change in government followed. Millions in the U.S. can do the same by demanding #TrumpResign.
The U.S. imperialist ruling class regime requires endless war abroad and intensified state repression at home, both of which are rooted in white supremacy and the arousal of hatred for non-whites. Democrats are carrying out an impeachment inquiry that casts doubt on Trump’s loyalty to their program of war mongering. This lets the Democrats tout their pro-war and anti-Trump credentials, all while skirting the real problems of income inequality and cuts to social programs such as food stamps and Medicaid. Just like Russiagate, Pelosi and the rest of the war-loving Democrat leadership have united to condemn Trump for pressuring a foreign power to interfere in the so-called “democratic” U.S. electoral process while the suppression of working class and oppressed voters continues to rise across the country.
Millions of Puerto Ricans took to the streets to demand #RickyRenuncia and a change in government followed. Millions in the U.S. can do the same by demanding #TrumpResign.
To support this impeachment inquiry is to suspend our knowledge that the U.S. is a sworn enemy of both Ukrainian workers and domestic whistleblowers.
The Nazi-loving regime in Ukraine receives direct U.S. government support. Recorded phone conversations between U.S. State Dept officials reveal that the top U.S. ambassador to Europe Victoria Nuland actively promoted the violent opposition forces which took power in the 2014 coup that toppled the Ukrainian government. The Obama/Biden government helped turn Ukraine into a failed state beholden to international finance capital and the rule of Nazi hordes. At home, the Obama administration prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than any other administration in US history.
The current probe into the quid pro quo call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the height of hypocrisy. The truth is Trump’s brazen bribery upsets the capitalist ruling class who would prefer that the oppressed masses not know how these gangsters operate. Both Republican and Democratic Administrations have used the State Department and the CIA to influence international politics to benefit their individual electoral positions. The imperialist U.S. government has staged coups, invasions and proxy wars abroad, all to secure a world safe for US investments in capitalist exploitation.
The current efforts to impeach Trump allow the US ruling class and its politicians in Washington, DC to ignore the needs of the working class and the poor. Guaranteeing a living wage, ending mass incarceration, jailing racist police, addressing the climate catastrophe, ending imperialist war and opposing capitalism are all off the agenda. By exposing their hypocrisy—much less their own dirty deeds—the Democrats have only improved Trump’s chances for re-election. Revolutionaries and forward-looking workers shouldn’t be put off course by this political theatre. We should focus on educating the working class that our only salvation is organizing class struggle for our own interests, not those of the U.S. imperialist ruling class whether they fall into the camp of Pelosi’s Democratic Party or Trump’s Republican Party.