The State of US Imperialism in 2024: More Desperate, Rapidly Dying
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
In early March, President Biden gave his annual State of the Union (SOTU) address, and just as we stated in 2023, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle US Country Chapter decries Biden’s SOTU as, “a hollow statement far removed from the everyday experiences of the common working person.” Biden tried to compare this moment in US history saying, “This is no ordinary moment. Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today.” But the reality is that the crisis we see today is a result of the very ordinary cycles of crises of US imperialism - just far more desperate and rapidly dying. In fact, the US regime is wracked by economic crisis, intense ruling class rivalries and a people rising up against open support for genocide abroad and utter state neglect of the masses at home.
While Biden tried to keep up the image of the Democratic Party as a defender of progressive values and national unity, sounding more like a campaign speech than a report on the status of the US, his speech instead reflected a government and society ready to burst. Both Democratic and Republican parties represent factions of the US ruling class, and any support given to progressive causes by either side is an attempt to placate the masses into supporting their overall anti-people and profit-oriented policies that are at the root of our problems.
Disempowering Women
We saw it play out first in the realm of reproductive freedom and women’s empowerment. Biden slammed Republicans for gutting legal access to abortion over the last few years and defended what he called “the power of women.” But Biden’s own economic policies have done little to address the gender wage gap in the US and the fact that ⅓ of US families live below the poverty line with nearly 58,000 reported houseless families, drowning more working women into the destitute position of working multiple jobs and raising struggling families as state welfare protections are wiped away by the neoliberal privatization schemes of both parties.
It is indeed a crime against the people that half of US states now illegalize abortion and physical attacks on abortion clinics have doubled in the last two years, but this primarily impacts working women, especially women of color, and both parties’ policies have made these women’s lives more destitute over the years. The Democrats may now have a woman vice president, but they cannot hide the fact that their economic policies have drastically increased the power of multinational capital and have stripped the power of 99% of the country’s women to lows unseen since the 2008 financial crisis.
The Economy: The Facts Speak a Different Truth
Regarding the wider issue of the US economy, Biden’s attempt at political showmanship led him to declare, “I inherited an economy that was on the brink. Now, our economy is literally the envy of the world.” Putting aside this nationalistic rhetoric, let’s take a look at the truth behind the facts.
What Biden Said
The Truth Behind the Facts
“Fifteen million new jobs in just three years”
These are mostly part-time without benefits, and one worker may need to have three of these jobs just to get through the month.
“A record 16 million Americans are starting small businesses”
These small businesses are ever more dependent on loans from big banks, while their products are marketed through monopoly corporations like Amazon and Walmart, doing nothing to alter class power in the US.
“More people have health insurance today than ever before”
Insurance premiums rose 4% last year and are projected to raise another 4% this year, while monopolization of the health industry has made it easier to deregulate health costs.
“We finally beat Big Pharma”
Biden worked with pharmaceutical lobbyists to deregulate the industry in the 90s.
“The racial wealth gap is the smallest it’s been in 20 years”
The class wealth gap has been rising nonstop, and the least paid workers in the US are undocumented migrants who probably weren’t even included in Biden’s statistic.
“Wages keep going up.”
The federal minimum wage is still $7.25, and jobs that receive tips are a meager $2.13 minimum.
“Inflation keeps going down.”
In just this past year, prices of electricity increased by 3.6%, gasoline increased by 3.8%, rent increased by 5.8% (despite Biden’s claim that “we’re cracking down on big landlords”) and food increased by a staggering 21%.
“Instead of importing foreign products and exporting American jobs, we’re exporting American products and creating American jobs right here in America, where they belong.”
The only example given was Biden’s previous pet project, the CHIPS and Science Act, which nevertheless subsidizes multinational semiconductor companies like the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), Samsung and Intel to build subsidiaries within the US. Even further, while this act hides behind rhetoric of “economic recovery”, its true purpose is a desperate attempt for the US to control global microchip production in the arms race with China.
Biden touted his policies “have attracted $650 billion in private-sector investment in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, creating tens of thousands of jobs here in America.”
His billions of dollars in clean energy investment came in large part to the US’s hosting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation fora last year that attracted multi-millionaires and billions to rewrite international trade, labor and environmental laws to better suit their investments, and that ILPS mobilized people in the thousands against.
“We are cutting our carbon emissions in half by 2030”
Biden’s 2023 approval of the Alaska Willow oil project, the Mountain Valley fracked gas pipeline and many other fossil fuel projects will cause irreparable environmental destruction and delay transitions to cleaner fuel.
As utter poverty increases around the world due to the plundering acts of US multinational corporations, the masses at home are not spared from a similar fate. Biden tried to look like he was on the side of American workers even while his policies are actively hurting them. He brought United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain as his guest to the SOTU address, but failed to mention how he slammed unions throughout his entire presidency, calling striking railroad workers “terrorists” when they held a national strike for better wages and safety conditions. Biden was just trying to distance himself from the openly anti-union rhetoric of Trump to make himself seem less like a businessman. But both Trump and Biden have done their fair share to harm the labor movement, and at least $433 million is spent on union busting in the US every year.
Calls for Even More War
But the clearest rupture in Biden’s performance as President was not even mentioned until the end. Biden brought up Gaza by stating “This crisis began on October 7th with a massacre by a terrorist group,” as if the US-Israeli occupation of Palestine was anything less than a 75-year genocide in the making. He repeated long-disproven lies about Palestinian resistance fighters committing systematized sexual assault and hiding amongst civilians. He hosted as guests of the SOTU address American families of Israeli settlers held in Gaza but did not host a single Palestinian American whose family had been imprisoned or killed by the Zionist state. He bragged about “working non-stop to establish an immediate ceasefire,” despite obstructing every attempt at one at the UN. And for a final slap in the face to the people of Gaza, announced the US would build a “temporary port” to deliver humanitarian assistance. This is after the US ceased funding UNRWA, the UN agency that has supplied humanitarian aid to Gaza for years, an act that has assisted the Zionist occupation state in its genocidal tactics of starving the people of Gaza to death. Instead, the US led its own “airdrop” of a small number of aid packages from the sky into random parts of Gaza, a scene that resembled the feeding of animals at a zoo, and that ended up deadly as some packages killed Palestinians when their parachutes failed to open.
These facts were not lost on Palestinians and their allies who took to the streets in the thousands and delayed Biden’s arrival at the Capitol, or on those who held a 24-hour “State of the Genocide” event in Chicago, or by the small handful of progressive US Representatives who held “Lasting Ceasefire Now” signs as Biden was talking.
Palestine was just one flashpoint of US-led war mentioned by Biden. He bragged about US and British airstrikes against Yemen and took the opportunity to demonize Iran for supporting the Ansarallah movement, also know as the Houthis. He declared Russia to be the biggest threat to democracy and human rights in the world, ignoring over a century of US foreign intervention in other countries’ affairs, including Russia’s itself. He used this warmongering to acknowledge the Prime Minister of Sweden’s presence in the room and celebrated Sweden’s introduction into the NATO alliance that same morning. He also mentioned new military agreements with India, Australia, Japan, South Korea and the Pacific Islands, a dark omen amidst preparations for this summer’s Rim of the Pacific, the largest joint military exercise in the world. In truth, the celebration of NATO’s expansion and build up to war with China were some of the only talking points that garnered a standing ovation from both sides of the aisle, proving how war and militarism are the only uniting points for both parties trying to protect their class rule.
Migrants - The Ultimate Scapegoat
But some of Biden’s most viciously militaristic language was saved for the US-Mexico border. He praised his “toughest set of border security reforms we’ve ever seen,” that will “hire 1,500 more security agents and officers,” install “one hundred more high-tech drug detection machines,” and would “give [him] and any new president new emergency authority to temporarily shut down the border when the number of migrants at the border is overwhelming.” Migrant deaths doubled at the border in 2023 and it’s estimated over 11 million people live in the shadows without citizenship.
Biden has used migrants to win votes in Democratic-majority states through pretending to help migrants by being tough on Republican border state governors, but then turns around and joins in the anti-migrant policy-making himself to win votes in Republican-majority states. Once again referring to Trump, he declared “I will not demonize immigrants, saying they are ‘poison in the blood of our country’,” but then openly stated to the SOTU audience “how many thousands of people are being killed by illegals?” Like Trump before him, Biden has contributed to one of the most xenophobic anti-migrant atmospheres in recent history.
Both Democrats and Republicans Profit Off the Crisis! Defend Peoples’ Struggle and Fight for a Socialist Future!
To conclude, Biden stated “If the United States walks away . . . the free world will be at risk.” But the people of the world know otherwise. The so-called “United States” of US imperialism is the biggest threat to the free world.
Both the imperialist Democrat and Republican parties headed by Trump and Biden have had their chance to try and fool the people. In this election year, let us kick our mass agitation, organizing and mobilizing into the next gear and frustrate both Fascist Trump’s and Genocide Joe’s attempts to hold onto power and continue to profit off the crisis their entire class has created. This year, join the ILPS-US as we mobilize against the July NATO Summit in Washington, DC, the July Republican National Convention in Milwaukee and August Democratic National Convention in Chicago, and take to the streets in every city we have members on election day this November. The US is still a dying and desperate empire, and the only alternative is to unite with all of the oppressed and exploited, defend peoples struggle and win a bright socialist future for humanity and the planet!