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LA Riots and the Musk-Trump Feud — Against the Stream

Against The Stream · 2025-06-12

Core Argument

The central thesis of this episode is that the Trump administration's escalation of immigration raids in Los Angeles represents a deliberate attempt to divide the working class along national and legal lines at a moment of deepening capitalist crisis. The raids are not primarily about immigration enforcement — they are a political diversion from Trump's failure to deliver on economic promises, and a weapon to drive down wages across the entire working class by terrorising its most vulnerable layer.

The episode argues that the spontaneous resistance in LA, while significant, lacks the organised working-class leadership necessary to transform defensive protests into a sustained challenge. The unions, tied to the Democratic Party, have refused to use their industrial muscle. The Democrats offer only a more polite version of the same repression — Biden deported more people than Trump. The real answer, drawn from the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in 1922, is to organise immigrant and native workers together in the same unions, fight for equal wages, and build an independent working-class political alternative to both capitalist parties.

The Musk-Trump feud is presented as a surface reflection of a deeper contradiction: Trump's coalition of working-class voters demanding better conditions and billionaire backers demanding tax cuts cannot be sustained in a period of capitalist crisis. The debt mountain — 330% of global GDP — means the system is entering a phase where the needs of capital and the needs of the electorate are irreconcilable.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in classical Marxist positions on immigration, the state, and capitalist crisis. The key theoretical reference point is the 1922 resolution of the Fourth Congress of the Communist International on the Eastern Question, which is quoted at length. This resolution argues that anti-immigration laws deepen national antagonisms within the working class and that the correct response is not moralistic defence of migrants but the organisational unity of all workers — immigrant and native — in the same trade unions, with the demand that wages be equalised upwards.

This is a deliberate rejection of both the liberal position (sanctuary cities, moral appeals) and the right-wing populist position (scapegoating). It treats immigration not as a cultural or ethical question but as a class question: capital uses the precarious legal status of undocumented workers to drive down wages and conditions for the entire working class. The solution is not border controls but working-class organisation that renders the legal distinction irrelevant.

The episode also draws on Lenin's analysis of imperialism to explain the material basis of migration. The destruction of Mexican agriculture by NAFTA, the wars and economic domination imposed by US imperialism on Central America, and the $3 trillion annual transfer from poor to rich countries are presented as the root causes of mass displacement. This frames immigration as a consequence of imperialism, not a cause of working-class hardship.

On the question of capitalist crisis, the analysis deploys a Marxist understanding of debt as a temporary postponement of crisis that prepares the ground for deeper crises — a direct reference to the Communist Manifesto. The debt mountain is presented not as a technical problem but as a symptom of the system's inability to generate productive investment, forcing it into ever more parasitic forms of accumulation: share buybacks, speculation, and state subsidies for billionaires.

Conjunctural Relevance

The episode is tightly connected to the immediate conjuncture of June 2025. The specific events discussed are:

  • The LA raids: Federal agents from ICE, Homeland Security, and the FBI conducted heavily armed, warrantless raids on workplaces in Los Angeles, targeting undocumented workers in a demonstrative manner designed to terrorise communities. This is the first time since 1965 that a US president has sent the National Guard into a state against the governor's wishes. 2,000 troops were deployed to California — more than the US has in Iraq and Syria combined — alongside 700 Marines from Camp Pendleton.

  • The resistance: Protests have been ongoing for six days, with 10,000 people blocking a major freeway on Sunday. Community neighbourhood patrols have formed, and some detainees have been snatched back from federal agents. However, the movement is described as spontaneous and leaderless, with no trade union calling strikes or mobilising membership.

  • The political theatre: Governor Newsom and Mayor Bass have denounced Trump while the LAPD — under Democratic control — has carried out most of the repression, including rubber bullets, tear gas, and a curfew. The episode argues this is a choreographed confrontation: the Democrats are saying "our repression is better than Trump's repression", not opposing repression itself.

  • The Musk-Trump split: Musk has publicly attacked Trump's budget bill as a "disgrace" and threatened to launch a political party. The episode situates this in the context of Trump's impossible balancing act: he promised working-class voters lower prices and better conditions, and billionaire backers tax cuts. In a period of stagnant growth and a $34 trillion national debt, these promises are mutually exclusive.

  • The debt crisis: The episode cites a Financial Times article on the mounting pressure on bond markets. 40% of OECD debt must be refinanced in the next three years. Japan recently failed to sell all its bonds. Interest rates have risen. The global debt-to-GDP ratio stands at 330%. The episode warns of a "long drawn-out depression" as debt servicing crowds out productive investment.

Where the Argument Continues

The episode deliberately leaves open several threads that are developed elsewhere in the Against the Stream and Spectre of Communism corpus:

  • The question of the trade unions and the Democrats: The episode argues that union leaders tied to the Democrats are incapable of leading a fightback. This is a recurring theme. The broader argument about the need for a revolutionary party in the US is developed in episodes on the 2024 election and the nature of the American state.

  • The debt question and fiscal dominance: The episode promises a dedicated show on "zombie companies" and the addiction of the system to cheap credit. This connects to broader Marxist analyses of fictitious capital and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which are treated in more theoretical depth in Spectre of Communism episodes on capitalist crisis.

  • The question of programmatic demands: The episode raises the demand for legalisation and organisation of undocumented workers, and for the repudiation of the national debt and nationalisation of the banks. These are not developed in detail here but are part of the RCI's transitional programme, which is elaborated in the organisation's founding documents and in episodes on the minimum and maximum programme.

  • The question of the National Guard: The episode notes that the National Guard in California is disproportionately composed of Black and Latino working-class people, and that there are discussions among troops about whether to obey orders. This thread — the potential for fraternisation and insubordination within the armed forces — is a classic revolutionary question that the RCI has addressed in episodes on the military and the state.

Connections

  • The Fourth Congress of the Communist International (1922), Eastern Thesis: The direct theoretical source for the episode's position on immigration. The resolution argues for the unity of immigrant and native workers in the same unions and against anti-immigration laws.

  • Marx and Engels, Communist Manifesto: Referenced for the argument that capitalism overcomes one crisis only by preparing the terrain for deeper ones.

  • Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: The theoretical framework for understanding the imperialist roots of migration.

  • Marx, Capital, Volume 3: The analysis of debt as fictitious capital and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall underlies the episode's discussion of the debt mountain, though it is not explicitly named.

  • Other Against the Stream episodes: The episode on the French government collapse, the episode on the 2024 US election, and the promised future episode on zombie companies and cheap credit.

  • The article on marxist.com by the Revolutionary Communists of America in LA: Referenced as the on-the-ground report from the protests.

Key Quotes

  1. "The main problem with these protests, which were big on Sunday, about 10,000 people came out on Sunday, blocked the main freeway. The main problem is that this has been very spontaneous. There's no leadership."

  2. "There is only one way to successfully counter the capitalists' intention to go over to the offensive. The immigrant workers must be admitted into the existing trade unions. At the same time, the demand must be raised that the wages of migrant workers be brought up to the same level as the white workers' pay."

  3. "The Democrats say, 'Oh, we don't want the National Guard.' Well, in practice what they're saying is, 'We can deal with these protesters with our own police. Our repression is better than Trump's repression.'"

  4. "Trump was brought to power through an uneasy coalition which cannot be maintained in the long term of working-class people who've been promised better conditions... and his billionaire friends who've been promised tax cuts. You cannot have the two things at the same time in a period of capitalist crisis."

  5. "The combined household, corporate, and state debt around the world is 330% of the world's GDP. This means that everything that's produced in the world in goods and services in one year, debt represents three times that. And that prevents the development of the capitalist economy."