USA: cautious hope or potential despair

JVL Introduction

A useful summary of the huge divide in the USA (reflected in many other countries too, of course).  Mamdani’s win in New York with lines to witness his inauguration, a “… project was produced by a massive grassroots organising effort”  Just two days later, while most in the USA were sleeping (literally rather than metaphorically) Trump’s coup in Venezuela too place, an action “… conducted with virtually no attempt to persuade the public or manufacture consent. One promised greater dignity for Americans; the other offered them only the pleasures of vicarious domination and the infliction of suffering on faraway others. One gestured toward the possibility of a new politics to produce a more fair and optimistic future, (t)he other was an eerie echo of that past, a violent pantomime of an era of American imperial expansion that had long been declared over. But both will reshape the domestic political contest that looms ahead: the 2026 midterms.”

As outlined here Trump’s first year has not gone well and Mamdani has set himself clear goals and all eyes will be on him, with many powerful brokers willing him to fail.  There is much work to do but the contradictions are there to see; rumour has it that some Venezuelans celebrating Trump for the downfall of Maduro have been rounded up by ICE, some of the poorer people who voted for Trump’s “America First” and “for the working man” agenda now find themselves without the food stamps they desperately need to feed their families.  The future is uncertain and dangerous and what happens in the USA already affects us all.

We shall be keeping a watching brief as well as working with our US colleagues whenever we can.

LL

This article was originally published by The Guardian on Mon 5 Jan 2026. Read the original here.