The administration has referred to those arrested on Jan. 6 as “political prisoners.”

Trump’s characterization of his fascist buddies as being “political prisoners” is deeply ironic considering that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, First Combatant Cilia Flores, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and countless immigrants are being held against their will in concentration camps across this decadent country.

This kind of theft under U.S. capitalism is not new.  Only the forms have changed. Throughout the history of the United States, the ruling class has always used their system to enrich both themselves and their allies at the expense of the working class. Trump’s own hero, President Andrew Jackson, perfected this with the Spoils System, which enriched his political party and a ruling class drawn from both the North and South, that profited directly from the enslavement of Black people and the genocide of Indigenous peoples.

During the Gilded Age (a period between the late 1870s to the late 1890s), the same dynamic played out openly. The ruling class flaunted their power and openly admitted that the system was in their pocket, placing their allies in any office they desired, including the presidency.

The Teapot Dome scandal (1921-1923), Watergate, and countless others all follow the same pattern. So when we look at Trump’s $1.8 billion slush fund, we must recognize that it is capitalism itself, the same system that empowered Jackson and others, that is now openly allowing the funneling of money to other reactionaries.

An article by Linda Qui disproved the claims made by administration officials concerning the slush fund not being anything out of the ordinary.  She cited that in a congressional hearing on May 19, Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, conceded that the fund announced this week was “unusual.” (New York Times, May 20)  In the same article, Adam Zimmerman, a University of Southern California law professor, stated: “The president is suing himself and compensating other people for legal claims that have not been identified from people like that. We don’t know. We just haven’t seen anything like that.“

The justification for all of this came from the president himself, who claimed these actions were necessary because of the “mistreatment”of his friends and allies under the Biden administration. While working people face rising rates of homelessness and unemployment, the administration is manufacturing grievances to justify looting public funds.

This is not an accident.  It is historically rooted in the structure of capitalism itself where the more profit the ruling class extracts, conditions worsen for the people. And as the capitalist crisis deepens, it produces the squeezing of the working class, the theft of their tax dollars and the continued funding of the oppression of the Global South in order to keep the whole decadent global system on life support.

So what must the people do ? The answer is to build a revolutionary people’s movement, one that is grounded in the material needs of the people and takes seriously the struggles they face.

People are becoming radicalized because of how the Trump administration and the ruling class are impacting their lives. The workers and oppressed are beginning to recognize that this system was never built to meet their needs first and foremost. And if allowed to continue unchecked, the capitalists will commit even greater crimes. That is why the working class must organize to build a revolutionary movement to radically change this destructive system.