Trump's claim to oppose the establishment on behalf of the working people is pure demagogy. He owes his own career as a billionaire real estate and casino mogul, media celebrity and presidential candidate to the very forces -- the financial elite, the corporate media and the political establishment -- that he now falsely claims to oppose.
But the Clinton campaign does not even attempt to respond to Trump's social demagogy, because it is tied by a thousand threads to the corporate and Wall Street oligarchy. Clinton is running as the designated successor of Barack Obama, responsible for the largest transfer of wealth from working people to the financial elite in history.
Unable and unwilling to offer the slightest hint of genuine social reforms, the Democratic Party seeks to fight Trump on the most banal and bankrupt level. While his sallies against Clinton strike home because her corruption and role in the establishment are so self-evident, her campaign is unable to generate any genuine enthusiasm or support, particularly among young people.
Instead of a genuine exposure of Trump, the Democrats have substituted political provocations of a reactionary character.
The Clinton campaign, warned of the impending release of masses of politically incriminating documents by WikiLeaks, sought to preempt this exposure by denouncing the leaks as a conspiracy engineered by Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. Clinton is appealing for support from sections of the Republican Party, above all the neo-conservatives of the George W. Bush administration, responsible for the war in Iraq, the widespread use of torture and other crimes.
The anti-Russian campaign has been combined with an effort to demonize Trump for a series of purported sexual offenses, with a barrage of video and audio recordings, together with the testimony of alleged victims.
The Democratic campaign and its media allies are using methods similar to those the ultra-right employed in its efforts to oust Bill Clinton from the White House in the 1990s. They are seeking to stampede public opinion with increasingly sensationalized material. These methods degrade political discussion and distract popular consciousness from the real issues in the election.
It would be wrong to conclude that masses of people are attending Trump's rallies and supporting his campaign because they want a fascist solution to their problems. He is drawing support because, from the rotten miasma of official politics, including the self-absorbed identity politics of the Democratic Party, layers of the middle class and working class find nothing that appeals to them. Trump's appeal is that he is seen as shaking a collective fist at the political elites.
However, there is a real danger. If Clinton wins the election, the policies that she will pursue will only increase the anger and social discontent among broad masses of the population. Clinton would come to power as one of the most despised candidates in American history.
The election now just over three weeks away will resolve nothing. The critical task is to build a political leadership that can give a genuine, progressive expression to the interests of masses of working people. This is the significance of the Socialist Equality Party election campaign of Jerry White for president and Niles Niemuth for vice president.
In the aftermath of the elections, facing ever expanding war and increasing economic distress, masses of working people will look for solutions outside of the existing political structure. This solution must be provided by a revolutionary socialist movement.
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