Trump�s attempts to reverse the decline of U.S.

capitalism

In April 2018, the U.S. political world was shaken by the news that Paul Ryan, the
Ayn Rand/Austrian school-inspired Republican speaker of the U.S. House of
Representatives, would not be running for re-election in this year�s mid-term race.
Ryan claimed he was retiring at the age of 48 from politics �to spend more time
with my family.�

It is widely believed, however, that Ryan is retiring from Congress because he

fears a humiliating defeat at the hands of his Democratic Party opponent, the
construction worker, trade unionist, and �Berniecrat� Randy Bryce. Over the last
year, many of Ryan�s constituents were no doubt shocked to learn that their
handsome, genial congressperson wanted to take away their health insurance.

It seems likely that Ryan, who is believed to harbor presidential ambitions, plans
to lie low, make lots of money in the private sector, and count on the public
forgetting (with the assistance of the mass media) about his attempt to throw tens
of millions of people off their health insurance. At a later day, Ryan will be
poised to reenter electoral politics and ride a new Republican wave, perhaps all
the way to the White House.

But how could there be another Republican wave in the aftermath of the ever-growing
debacle of the Trump presidency and the self-exposure of the Republican Party on
the health insurance issue? To assume that a Republican comeback is impossible,
would be to ignore the lessons of the last great �progressive� victory in U.S.
politics�the election in November 2008 that brought into the White House the first
African-American president, combined with solid Democratic majorities in both
houses of Congress. However, at the end of Obama�s triumph lurked the racist Donald
Trump, backed by Republican majorities in both the Senate and the House.

But for now, increasingly optimistic progressives are once again rallying around
the Democratic Party, hopeful that the nightmare of the Trump presidency and the
Republican Congress will soon be a thing of the past. It is largely expected that
the Democrats will regain control of the U.S. House of Representatives�despite the
combination of racist voter suppression and gerrymandering that gives the
Republicans a built-in advantage. A Democratic Senate, though not beyond the bounds
of possibility in the event of a Democratic sweep, is considered less likely,
because only one-third of that body is up for reelection. And the senators up for
reelection in 2018 are disproportionately Democrats. So again, the Republicans have
a built-in advantage.

However, in 2020 in addition to a presidential election, there will be another

election for the House, plus one-third of the Senate will once again be up for
reelection. Assuming current political trends continue, progressives expect that a
Democratic president backed up by both a Democratic House and Senate will initiate
a new era of social reform for the U.S. starting in January 2021.

But this was exactly what was supposed to happen in 2009 when Barack Obama and a
Democratic Congress assumed office. Yet only eight years later came the nightmare
of the racist demagogue President Donald Trump backed up by a Republican Congress.
What will prevent history from repeating itself in the 2020s?