US

The first few months of Donald Trump's return to the presidency have been dizzying and unsettling. From the attacks on public servants, universities, and students to the almost daily announcement of new tariffs and the slashing of a great many Federal programmes, it is difficult to just keep up with the latest news let alone to make sense of it and understand the broader context and implications of what is happening. Although most focus on the Trump regime's increasingly authoritarian tactics and his xenophobia and imperial rhetoric, usually comparing it to past anti-democratic and fascist moments, what is often ignored is how deeper transformations of capitalism and our everyday lives may serve as the material conditions that made Trump's political tenor and success

US power has organised the expanded reproduction of global capitalism over the past 70 years and continues to do so. Much ink is currently being spilled over its decline. Commentators are debating whether US decline is inevitable or overstated, whether it is proceeding rapidly or steadily, or, indeed, whether it is in decline at all. In this blog post, I want to think about US dominance not in these quantitative terms, but, rather, venture an assessment about its changing character. I will first outline how I understand the term ‘US empire’. Second, I will offer some speculative remarks about the current directionality of US empire amid generalised capitalist crisis. And, third, I will reflect on how radical struggles for gender and sexual freedom have historically taken shape in relation to the character of US empire, and what that means for queer and trans struggles today.