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In a recent discussion, I asserted that Trump will start a war soon, most likely against Venezuela. Nobody agreed.

They all said that Trump is doing everything possible to achieve a regime change in Venezuela, but won’t go as far as starting a war.

Some of them took a military view and said that he doesn’t have enough troops – estimated at “only” 15,000 – ln the Caribbean. The other 2.1 million Americans “under arms” are reserves or are deployed elsewhere.

Others took a psychological view and said that Trump is a coward who likes to create chaos but doesn’t really have the courage to start an actual war.

And Trump could never face the international condemnation that has already begun, they said. The murders already carried out on the high seas were “trial balloons” that have already brought harsh criticism from abroad.

Lastly, people said that Trump could not risk any further deterioration in his approval ratings in the U.S.. Public opinion, in other words, will restrain him.

In summary, my friends say that Trump is attempting to “create chaos” and to bluff the Venezuelans into an uprising leading to regime change. But all of the above reasons, my friends say, will prevent him from actually making war.

I replied that their logic was understandable in normal times, but we are not in normal times. No one living today knows what to do with the situation in the United States, because we have never faced it. The best path to understanding is to look at other autocracies in other countries and from other periods, inexact as that may be.

Here is the Situation

Here is my description of the current situation. It will be followed by the unassailable conclusion that Trump is going to start a war before 2027 unless the restraining force of the American people grows exponentially higher than it is today. Most of my information comes from common news sources, mostly the Washington Post.

“As of Friday (November 14), there were seven U.S. warships in the Caribbean: the guided missile cruisers USS Gettysburg and USS Lake Erie; the destroyers USS Gravely and USS Stockdale; and the amphibious ships USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale and USS San Antonio. The Ford was nearby in the Atlantic with the destroyers USS Mahan, USS Bainbridge and USS Winston S. Churchill.” Wapo 11/15/25

Amphibious ships carry armed personnel, usually Marines, to foreign shores. Guided missile cruisers, aircraft carriers and destroyers are just what they say they are. The United States is the greatest military power that the world has ever seen. As their world economic hegemony diminishes, and whatever goodwill they might have enjoyed is thrown away by Trump,  military power is all they have left.

The Trump Administration raised the bounty on the President of Venezuela to $50 million. “Operation Southern Spear” has blown up a number of boats and killed their passengers. Trump asserts, without any evidence, that they were all carrying drugs from Venezuela to the United States. Hardly anybody with any knowledge agrees.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation announced in October that the Venezuelans had foiled a “false flag” attempt to blow up the U.S. Embassy. Newspersons here discounted the report. The U.S. State Department suspended operations at its Caracas embassy in March 2019. If the embassy had been destroyed with any loss of American life, Trump would have had a welcome excuse for military action.

NBC News announced that the U.S. Department of State has categorized Venezuela as Level 4: Do Not Travel due to crime, civil unrest, etc. They proclaimed that Americans should not travel to Venezuela and that they should avoid the Venezuela-Colombia border.

The Trump Administration has already sent armed troops into several cities. He told a meeting of top military leaders that they might be practicing on the U.S. citizenry. Partly because of Trump’s disdain for morality and law, his approval ratings have been falling.

Even though newspersons focused on Trump’s disappointment at not winning the Nobel Peace Prize, it actually went to a certain Maria Corina Machado. Machado has been a long-time advocate of U.S. intervention in Venezuela. On November 14, an article ran in the Washington Post describing how she is lining up corporate leaders with promises of privatization and protection of American corporations as they raid Venezuelan wealth, especially oil.

In November, in spite of gerrymandering and myriad schemes to undermine the election process, Republicans were humiliated at the polls. Democrats and pundits began predicting a Blue Wave of victory against Trump in 2026.

How Do I Know Trump Will Create a War?

There are several good arguments and one unassailable one. Begin with American presidents in history. Most of us can’t name them all, but we can name the “important” ones like Washington, Jackson, TR Roosevelt,  Franklin Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. All of them were warriors. More recently, Bush the First tried to portray himself as tough by invading Iraq, but was criticized for pulling back without achieving regime change. His son learned the lesson, re-invaded oil-rich Iraq, and enjoyed two relatively strong terms of office. Iraq and Venezuela, by the way, are famous for their oil reserves.

But no one can understand today’s situation in the U.S. simply with domestic examples. Our present situation is entirely new. Look, instead, at other countries and other times. Trump is a fascist and all fascists are military leaders. Fascism doesn’t just define its relationship to the populace. It also defines its economic policies and its relationship to the rest of the world. Trump, so far, has followed in the footsteps of such notable fascists as Franco, Pinochet, Mussolini and Hitler – except that he has not yet claimed the title of military leader.

For those who are unconvinced, I ask them to look at posts on social media. Many posts are already calling for criminal proceedings against Trump and the Trumpsters. Their disdain for morality and law has clearly put them into the criminal class. They know it. They see the same social media posts that you do.

If the Trumpsters were to lose power, they would be subject to criminal charges and would risk spending the rest of their lives in prison. Furthermore, they know it. They must, therefore, stay in power.

In order to stay in office and out of jail, they need a war to give them special powers, including the power to declare martial law and use the military against the populace. That’s why they have to do it.

No one has a chance of stopping them except us.

Will the Democrats save America from fascism or do we need a Workers Party? I think it’s the latter. The former, counting on the Democrats, has been tried over and over without success. Fascism in America has been a long time coming, and the many Democratic Party administrations of the past didn’t stop it.

The Workers Party idea isn’t new. It isn’t even American. Lots of other countries, with parliamentary system instead of two-party winner-take-all elections, have Workers Parties or Labor Parties associated with their union movement and pledged to the interests of the working class.

The Democrats and Republicans both represent the interests of the billionaires. Some of the billionaires may have slightly different opinions that are reflected in their choice of which party to support in a given election, but they own both parties in an overall sense.

Would working families be better off with a Workers Party?

Here are few advantages:

* Independent political voice: A workers’ party would provide a platform for workers to voice their concerns and advocate for policies that directly benefit them, independent of corporate influence and the agendas of major parties.

* Addressing economic inequality: Supporters argue that a workers’ party would focus on issues like raising the minimum wage, creating living-wage jobs, expanding social safety nets, and holding corporations accountable for unfair labor practices, which they believe current parties neglect.

* Democratic accountability: A workers’ party, accountable to its members, would ensure that elected officials prioritize the needs of working people and fight for their interests, rather than being influenced by corporate donors or elite interests.

* Building class unity: A workers’ party can unite different segments of the working class and marginalized groups in a common struggle against the influence of the wealthy and powerful.

* Facilitating social change: Such a party could serve as a vehicle for broader social and political change by mobilizing workers and activists to challenge the status quo and push for a more just society.

Is a Workers Party the Best of the Alternatives?

Probably the prevalent hope for stopping fascism is reforming the oldest political party in the world until it gives up its billionaire base and embraces the working class. This is not a new idea. It has been tested time and time again and always failed.

What about just skipping the whole idea of an electoral party for workers and going straight to socialist revolution? This would be the hope of anarchists and amateurs. It has a lot of appeal for them but isn’t much more than a fantasy. Successful revolutionaries in other countries did not turn up their noses at electoral work, nor any other arena of struggle for that matter.

Is a Workers Party Possible in the Present?

Up to now, the answer to that question has always been “no.” The last successful third party was the Republican Party which grew because the Whigs had no solution to America’s division over slavery. Since then, the two billionaire parties have done everything possible to maintain the status quo. The legal barriers to a third party are formidable.

It takes a lot of money to win elections.

While romanticists imagine a working class that is united in its electoral preferences, practical politics tells us that it isn’t true. American workers are all over the map, and voters make their choices the same way they decide what commodities to buy – by emotion rather than reason.

But is it possible?

For a number of reasons, I think that the American Workers Party may have come into its time:

* A growing number of Americans believe that the Democrats fail to adequately represent the interests of the working class.  Witness the growing protest movement, with five million demonstrators on June 14, 2025 alone.

  • Low turnout in elections shows that people don’t really care for either party.
  • Progressive Democrats like Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett are being passed over for good committee assignments by other Democrats (Dallas Morning News)
  • Independent and third-party voter registration is growing, largely at the expense of Democrats  (NBC News)
  • Two major labor leaders, Randi Weingarten and Lee Saunders, quit the Democratic National Committee, saying it isn’t doing enough to “open the gates” and win back the support of working-class voters. (The Guardian)
  • A democratic socialist won the most votes in the first round of the Democratic Party primary for New York Mayor. He defeated billionaires and union supporters from the traditional wing. So called “moderate” Democrats attacked him during and after the election. They will run their candidate against him as an Independent! (Washington Post).
  • Political winners like Trump, Obama, and AOC have proven that they can raise money without the help of the national political party
  • People no longer get their information from the major parties. They get it from their phones, social media, etc.

Do these facts prove that a Workers Party is feasible? At the very least, the facts show that it is more feasible than it used to be.

Given that Americans are being forced into fascism, it’s time to develop an alternative.

“Tis the final conflict / Let each stand in their place…”

“Agrupemos todos, en la lucha final…”

The words to “l’Internacional” are ringing in my ears. The first 100 days of the Musk/Trump administration are only chaos to most people, but I think I have figured out a correct analysis, characterization, and prescription. I’ve been asking people individually if they agreed or disagreed over the past week or so. Nobody has outright agreed with me, but nobody has contradicted me, either. More importantly, nobody else has any kind of description other than “chaos.”

Here’s what I think: capitalism is in its death throes.

The ruling class, the owning class, the billionaire class, or the boss class as I like to call them, is thrashing about. Although the fascists achieved a majority in the Republican Party, they haven’t completely taken over all the bosses in both boss parties. And they are a long way from having convinced the majority of the American people. The bosses are clutching at fascism the way a drowning man clings to anything that he thinks will float.

Fascism, by the way, doesn’t float. It isn’t a viable way to run an economy. Slaves don’t make good employees. They tend to let the machines break and spit in the bosses’ food. If they try to run the American economy under fascism, they won’t last long. The only reason Hitler was able to hang on for 12 years was his early success in war.

So even if they manage to impose fascism, as they are clearly trying to do, they won’t have solved their problem. Their problem is world competition. Musk and Trump are offering to solve the problem by bringing all their so-called allies to heel (thus the crazy tariffs) and getting everybody to focus on defeating China (thus the effort to change Russia into an ally). Defeating China will require a nuclear war, and they know that. At the same time and for the same reason, they are offering to continue destroying the planet ecologically. To carry all this out, they need the absolute cooperation of all the boss class (thus the tax giveaway) and the total subservience of the working class (thus the moves to starve us into giving up). The result, if it worked, would be a temporary period of unstable fascism.

Long term, there are two possible outcomes: 1) America’s working class unites and puts an end to boss rule, which would effectively end capitalism worldwide 2) Not an alternative.

Either way, the system just doesn’t work any more. It is up to us to work for understanding, for unity, and for action to bring a bright new dawn for humanity. We need to hurry!

–Gene Lantz

I’m on KNON.org and 89.3FM in Dallas every Saturday at 9. My personal web site has been bothered by adware but seems to be working OK at last: https://lilleskole.us.