Headlines at the World Socialist Web Site today:
1. Answers from Socialism AI: What could Musk’s wealth fund?
This feature highlights selected questions and answers from Socialism AI—concise, clear and politically insightful responses to some of the most pressing issues of our time.
2. JD Vance calls for fascist unity at Turning Point USA conference
Republican politicians, far-right media personalities, Trump administration officials, Holocaust deniers and other white supremacists attended the AmericaFest conference held in Phoenix, Arizona, December 18-21. The gathering was the first major conference organized by Turning Point Action following the September 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA.
The roster of speakers at AmericaFest underscored its role as an organizing hub for the Trump administration and the Republican Party. Participants included Donald Trump Jr., House Speaker Mike Johnson, “border czar” Tom Homan, Republican fixer Roger Stone, Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, alongside numerous Trump loyalists and right-wing operatives.
As support for the Trump administration continues to decline due to its pro-billionaire, anti-immigrant and anti-working-class policies, the conference was marked by infighting among speakers over the future direction of the Republican Party and the “Make America Great Again” movement, once the increasingly deranged Donald Trump exits the White House.
In his speech, Zionist Ben Shapiro, founder of the Daily Wire, attacked Candace Owens, his former employee, and those he claimed refused to condemn her “truly vicious attacks,” including fellow AmericaFest speakers Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Megyn Kelly. Owens has asserted, without presenting any evidence, that Kirk was assassinated in an operation orchestrated by the French Foreign Legion and Israelis because Kirk offered tepid criticism of the Zionist state and its ongoing US-backed genocide.
Seeking to position himself as Trump’s political heir and unite reactionaries of all stripes behind his campaign, Vice President JD Vance was given the headline speaking slot on the final day of the conference, following the public endorsement he received from Erika Kirk as the Republican Party’s 2028 presidential nominee.
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Rejecting any “purity tests” within the MAGA movement, Vance declared that political unity must be maintained regardless of fascist, racist or antisemitic views.
“President Trump did not build the greatest coalition in politics by running his supporters through endless, self-defeating purity tests,” Vance told the crowd. “He says Make America Great Again because every American is invited.”
Invoking the death of Charlie Kirk, Vance warned against internal criticism of the far right:
I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or deplatform and I don’t really care. … The best way to honor Charlie is that none of us here should be doing something after Charlie’s death that he refused to do in life. He invited all of us here for a reason.
Vance repeatedly described Trump and Turning Point USA as “builders,” insisting that “winning requires teamwork” and that he was “honored to be on Turning Point’s team.” The purpose of this “team” is to serve as an umbrella organization among youth and college student Republicans, for the benefit of Christian nationalists, neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists and open white supremacists.
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In his speech, Vance appealed directly to white supremacists and gloated about the rollback of diversity programs, declaring, “In the United States of America you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”
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As support for Trump’s mass deportation operation continues to erode, Vance urged the audience to enlist directly in the immigration Gestapo:
“So go to ICE.gov/join because we are building an army of patriots and we need good people who care about the country to help us secure the border and do it even faster.”
Next to vendors selling hats in support of the failed coup of January 6, 2021, Customs and Border Protection (CPB) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents established recruiting booths.
Continuing Trump’s racist attacks on Somalis, Vance sneered, “Democrats are not sending their best. Omar Fateh was Ilhan Omar’s candidate for mayor of Mogadishu. Wait, I mean Minneapolis.”
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The ideological glue of Vance and the Republicans’ proposed American Reich is Christian nationalism. In a blatant falsification of American history, Vance declared, “the only thing that has truly served as an anchor of the United States of America is that we have been and by the grace of God we always will be a Christian nation.”
The United States was never founded as a Christian nation. The Constitution makes no reference to God, establishes no state religion, and explicitly prohibits religious tests for public office. The First Amendment bars Congress from establishing religion altogether.
This separation was not accidental. It reflected the Enlightenment foundations of the American Revolution, which rejected divine right, clerical authority and religious establishment in favor of reason, law and popular sovereignty. Leading figures of the founding generation were openly hostile to clerical rule and orthodox Christian doctrine. Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the Declaration of Independence, rejected the divinity of Christ and compiled his own edited version of the Gospels, stripping out miracles, the resurrection, and any claim of Jesus’s supernatural status in order to emphasize moral teachings alone.
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Vance’s invocation of a mythical “Christian nation” serves as ideological cover for authoritarian rule, the erosion of democratic rights, and the fusion of state power with religious reaction. It is a central component of the broader fascistic program advanced at AmericaFest and Turning Point as a whole, which seeks to replace constitutional principles with a techno-fascist dictatorship.
The ability of Vance and the Republican right to mount these attacks on American history is inseparable from the pernicious role played by the Democratic Party and its upper-middle class constituency. For decades, the Democrats have abandoned any defense of historical truth or democratic principles, replacing them with race, sex and gender-based identity politics aimed at dividing the working class and blocking the development of a socialist movement rooted in a shared history of class struggle.
The spearhead of this campaign was the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which advanced the reactionary claim that the American Revolution was fought to preserve slavery and that “white supremacy” is the foundational force of American history. This narrative systematically erased the Enlightenment origins of the Revolution of 1776 and denied its progressive content, including its challenge to monarchy, aristocracy and religious authority, articulated in the immortal declaration that “all” are created equal and deserve “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
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The task confronting the working class is not the embrace of nationalist myths or racialist falsifications, but the reclamation of its own revolutionary history and the development of an independent, conscious socialist movement.
3. Sweden’s right-wing government strengthens repressive state powers in the name of fighting crime
One of the most significant measures is the proposal to lower the criminal age of responsibility from 15 to 13 years old—making Sweden an outlier not only in Europe but even compared to most US states.
4. Macron seeks to break impasse over France-New Caledonia agreement
Macron is seeking to push through an agreement that maintains the Pacific colony as a state within the French Constitution.
5. New Zealand firefighters continue nationwide strikes
The World Socialist Web Site spoke with firefighters who have held multiple one-hour strikes in opposition to pay cuts, faulty equipment and understaffing.
6. The Gelfand Case: Trial and conclusion
This lecture, delivered by Don Knowland, an attorney for Alan Gelfand, covers the trial of the Gelfand case in March of 1983 and the unsuccessful suit by the Socialist Workers Party to impose the costs of litigation on Gelfand and his lawyers. It was given to the 2025 Summer School of the Socialist Equality Party (US) on the history of the Security and the Fourth International investigation....
7. Pabloite Left Bloc seeks to demobilize Portuguese workers after mass 1-day strike
In their role of holding back struggles and demobilizing workers, the trade unions also receive key support both from the Stalinist PCP and from the pseudo-left grouped around the Left Bloc (Bloco de Esquerda).
8. Spanish imperialism at crossroads over Trump’s escalation toward war on Venezuela
As the Trump administration accelerates war preparations against Venezuela, the response of Spanish imperialism has been extraordinarily muted.
US imperialism is engaged in acts of naked criminality. Air strikes off the Venezuelan coast have killed over 100 people in deliberate attempts to destabilize the country, forcibly change its government and grab its oil and other resources.
These provocations have escalated in recent weeks. The US has seized two Venezuelan oil tankers, imposed a de facto naval blockade on the country’s energy exports and assembled its largest regional military presence since the 1962 Cuban Crisis, with around 15,000 personnel, 11 warships, including the USS Gerald R. Ford, alongside destroyers, amphibious assault ships, cruisers, fighter jets and armed drones. This massive buildup leaves no doubt that the US is preparing for war.
Yet Madrid has largely withdrawn from public comment, even though the “Venezuela question” has for decades occupied a central place in Spanish politics.
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The heavily circumscribed response of Madrid is motivated by concerns that war with Venezuela will undermine the interests of Spanish imperialism and a recognition that this is the explicit aim of the Trump administration.
Trump’s latest US National Security Strategy makes explicit that US foreign policy aims to preserve US global dominance. Latin America is singled out for renewed subjugation under a Trump-style corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, directed not only against China and Russia but also against rival European powers, including Spain.
In 2015, around 100 Spanish companies operated in Venezuela. Spain was the second largest European investor after the Netherlands, with direct investments exceeding €20 billion. While this position has suffered due to US sanctions against Venezuela and the ensuing economic crisis, Spanish capital still seeks asset preservation and future access.
Spain’s core interest remains oil. In 2023, Venezuela exported about $4 billion of crude globally, with roughly 8.8 percent going to Spain. Spanish imports rose from around 1.4 million tonnes in 2023 to about 1.7 million tonnes by mid-2024, largely tied to Spanish energy giant Repsol’s debt recovery arrangement with Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA. Repsol is owed around $1.65 billion and has sought US authorization to recover hundreds of millions of euros’ worth of oil under sanctions exemptions.
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More broadly, Spain fears that a US-led war, even one targeting a regime that Madrid has long sought to topple, endangers its wider economic and strategic position across the region.
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Spain is also one of the largest foreign investors in Latin America. Spanish foreign direct investment stock in the region is estimated at around €160 billion, nearly 30 percent of Spain’s total outward investment, concentrated in key economies, such as Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. At the same time, Latin American investment in Spain has risen sharply, reaching roughly €66 billion, or about 9.4 percent of total foreign investment, with particularly strong inflows from Mexico.
Spanish imperialism is too weak to openly oppose Trump’s war plans and its studied silence is in part maintained in the hope that, should war erupt, Spain will be granted a seat at the negotiating table and a share, however diminished, of the postwar settlement.
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Workers in Spain, Venezuela, the US and across Europe have no interest in imperialist war. Madrid’s cynical manoeuvring only underscores that opposition to war cannot come from any faction of the bourgeoisie or its pseudo-left accomplices. It must be forged independently by the working class in a common struggle against imperialism, based on an international socialist program to put an end to war, exploitation and the capitalist system that produces them.
9. Mamdani appoints Julie Su, who worked to suppress class struggle under Biden, to major economic post
New York City Mayor‑elect Zohran Mamdani has selected Julie Su, the former acting US Secretary of Labor under President Biden, as the city’s first Deputy Mayor for Economic Justice. Su’s appointment is the latest signal by the self‑described “democratic socialist” that his administration will be committed to protecting the corporate and financial elite against an increasingly restive and politically radicalized working class.
Mamdani’s campaign won popular support—especially among young people—by denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza, criticizing Trump’s dictatorial measures and promising relief from catastrophic housing and living costs. From the outset, however, Mamdani has done everything to appease the corporate and political establishment and disorient and demoralize his own supporters.
Su’s appointment follows Mamdani’s fundraising with billionaires, his White House meeting with Donald Trump and his decision to retain Jessica Tisch—the billionaire heiress who led the spying and provocation campaign against anti-genocide protesters—as New York Police Department Commissioner.
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Su served as California’s Secretary of Labor from 2019 to 2021 under Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom. After the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, she worked with the union apparatus to reopen workplaces and schools on a timetable set by business and state managers, subordinating the health and safety of workers, teachers and students to the needs of big business.
From the beginning of 2023 through the end of the Biden administration, Su served as the Acting US Secretary of Labor. As the World Socialist Web Site documented during the heightened labor struggles of 2023–24, the Department of Labor (DOL) under Su repeatedly intervened at critical points to bolster the labor bureaucracy, suppress strike momentum and preserve critical supply chains.
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Perhaps the sharpest expression of the anti-working class record of Julie Su and how she has collaborated with the DSA against workers was how she upheld the disenfranchisement of workers during the UAW’s 2022–23 officer elections.
In July 2023, Mack Trucks worker Will Lehman filed a lawsuit accusing the Department of Labor, Acting Secretary Julie Su and the court‑appointed UAW Monitor of effectively abetting the union bureaucracy’s suppression of millions of members’ votes in the 2022–23 direct election for UAW national officers.
Lehman charged that the UAW “failed to provide effective notice” of the election to its membership, resulting in a historic low turnout—fewer than 9 percent of over 1.1 million eligible members cast ballots—and that more ballots were returned as undeliverable than were actually counted. This evidence was central to his complaint that the election deprived members of the right to participate meaningfully in union democracy.
Instead of conducting a transparent, robust inquiry into mass irregularities, the Department of Labor (DOL) accepted accounts from union officials, delayed decisive action and produced findings that effectively papered over the scale of the disenfranchisement.
A federal judge was forced to chastise the department for its foot‑dragging and to demand compliance with judicial requests. Su continued to delay until the Trump administration took over. The result was a bureaucratic whitewash that defended the union apparatus rather than vindicating rank‑and‑file members’ democratic rights.
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As the record shows, the Department of Labor under Su and her Democratic Party predecessor functioned as an arm of capitalist governance, whose primary role in moments of class conflict was to work with the union bureaucracy to discipline labor, protect production and shield the economic order from destabilizing mass action.
These are the credentials Mamdani is seeking, knowing full well that he will confront enormous opposition from the working class as he betrays the aspirations of his voters and pursues his “partnership” with the fascist in the White House.
10. US seizure of China-bound tanker near Venezuela escalates US conflict with Beijing
The latest seizure has escalated the US conflict with China, making clear that Washington’s renewed drive to dominate Latin America is not a retreat from the US conflict with Russia and China but part of a plan to create a resource base in the Western Hemisphere for global military conflict.
The vessel seized on Saturday, the Centuries, was carrying Venezuelan crude oil purchased by a Chinese trading company. On December 10, US forces seized the Skipper, a very large crude carrier headed toward Cuba. A third tanker, the Bella 1, refused to submit to boarding on Sunday and fled into the Atlantic Ocean, broadcasting over 75 distress signals as US forces pursued it in international waters.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian denounced the seizures as “a serious violation of international law” at a Monday press briefing in Beijing, adding that China “opposes all unilateral bullying.” China is the largest importer of Venezuelan oil.
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The effective blockade of Venezuela is inseparable from the broader US campaign to establish dominance over Latin America as a power base for conflict with China. The National Security Strategy published by the White House last month announces a “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine,” explicitly aiming to restore “American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere” and deny China “the ability to own or control strategically vital assets in our Hemisphere.” The document effectively asserts US ownership over two continents—presented as “our hemisphere”—whose resources Washington intends to seize as a power base for confrontation with Russia and China.
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The US campaign against Venezuela comes amid US threats to annex the Panama Canal, which the Trump administration has presented as a critical global chokepoint that China must be prevented from accessing.
As part of the drive to seize control of “our” hemisphere, Trump has also demanded that Greenland, a territory of US NATO ally Denmark, become part of the United States. On Sunday, Trump appointed Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry as special envoy to Greenland. Over the weekend, Landry said in a post on X that he would seek “to make Greenland a part of the U.S.”
On Monday, Trump announced plans to build a new “Trump Class” of battleships as part of a “Golden Fleet.” Speaking from Mar-a-Lago flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and renderings of the proposed warships, Trump declared that “each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest battleship in the history of the world, ever built.” He claimed the ships would be “the fastest, the biggest and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” armed with nuclear-tipped cruise missiles, hypersonic weapons and laser systems. The first vessel would be named USS Defiant. Trump said he approved construction of two ships immediately, with plans for 20 to 25 total.
The Democratic Party has offered no opposition to Trump’s campaign of military aggression against Venezuela. Last week, the Democratic congressional leadership joined Republicans in passing the largest military budget in US history. The $901 billion National Defense Authorization Act received the votes of Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar.
11. CBS censors “60 Minutes” report on torture of immigrant detainees
Only three hours before it was set to be broadcast Sunday night, a “60 Minutes” report on the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador, used by the Trump administration to detain migrants from Venezuela, was blocked by the new pro-Trump executive in charge of CBS News, Bari Weiss.
This act of blatant censorship outraged the staff of the long-running program. The reporter who narrated the segment and interviewed survivors of the torture, Sharyn Alfonsi, sent out an internal memo Sunday blasting the decision as “corporate censorship” and a “betrayal” of sources who had “risked their lives” to testify about conditions in the prison.
A bootleg copy of the program segment has been made available by a Canadian journalist, though it and other versions posted were subsequently taken down, evidently by YouTube, which is owned by Google. The content makes clear why it was pulled, as it demonstrates the direct responsibility of the US government for the torture of prisoners, including regular violent beatings, sexual assault and brutal conditions.
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The leaked version of the “60 Minutes” segment is devastating. The courage of the men who testified is remarkable, as is the compassion of the students and human rights advocates who helped them, and the determination of Alfonsi and her team of journalists to bring this information to the public. The segment exposes the blatant lying and inhuman callousness of the Trump administration, particularly Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who traveled to El Salvador soon after the Venezuelans were imprisoned there to make television appearances on the supposed success of Trump’s anti-migrant policy.
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Weiss gave only the lamest justification to network staff after killing the broadcast, claiming it was only a delay to do more reporting, and promising the story would eventually run on “60 Minutes.” In a newsroom call at 9 a.m. Monday—leaked to other media outlets and then released by CBS—Weiss claimed that there was nothing new in the segment compared to reporting several months ago by the New York Times.
This is an outright lie, since the “60 Minutes” segment incorporates the findings of a Human Rights Watch report issued in November, which extensively documented torture at CECOT. Both the testimony of the former prisoners, and the evidence uncovered by a student team of human rights researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are new and important.
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Although the exact details of the censorship order are not yet known, the new owner of CBS, David Ellison, is the son of mega-billionaire Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle and a heavy backer of Trump. The Ellisons installed Weiss as editor-in-chief in October, in large measure to ensure a right-wing, pro-Trump and pro-Israel slant to the network. They also purchased Weiss’s stridently Zionist internet publication, The Free Press, for $150 million, a staggering sum for her, but pocket change for Ellison, whose fortune is estimated at $238 billion, making him the fifth-richest oligarch on the planet.
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The censorship of “60 Minutes” underscores the critical importance of the working class gaining access to the information needed to develop a clear understanding of the capitalist crisis and the dangers that it poses. In this, the role of the World Socialist Web Site is critical. The socialist press develops through the tireless exposure of the capitalist system and the struggle to educate workers and young people in the lessons of history, science and the class struggle. It is the spearhead of the struggle to build a mass revolutionary party of the working class, based on a socialist and internationalist program.
Once again United States Postal Service (USPS) workers across the country are being overwhelmed during the peak holiday season. This is the direct product of years of cuts and the so-called “modernization” drive aimed at making the Post Office “profitable” by reducing the workforce and shrinking the physical footprint of postal operations.
These conditions will not only continue but worsen until we organize independently to reverse job losses and fight for adequate hiring so that we can do our jobs safely and properly.
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The delays now occurring at these facilities are only the tip of the iceberg. They have become commonplace over the last several years, following the introduction of the “Delivering for America” scheme under former Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. Two years ago, the Rank-and-File Committee warned that the program “seeks to transform the USPS from a public service, which used to pay decent wages and pensions, into an entity beholden to shareholder profits, with a super-exploited, Amazon-style workforce.”
This misnamed program has led to massive, weeks-long delays across the country. Prominent examples include the Richmond, Virginia S&DC during the 2023 holiday season, where time-sensitive cancer screening results and other critical mail were delayed for weeks. In the Houston area, during the same period, delays lasted for months, with officials cynically blaming absenteeism, the weather and “equipment failure.”
Workers report that facilities are being overwhelmed by Amazon packages in particular, with the Post Office functioning as a virtual last-mile delivery contractor in large parts of the country. Workers say management routinely prioritizes the delivery of Amazon packages over other forms of mail, in violation of the USPS’s legally mandated Universal Service Obligation.
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The new Postmaster General, David Steiner, is a former board member of FedEx. Whether or not he still plans to sell off some or all of the USPS, Steiner has continued to subordinate public service to the profit motive. He has boasted that the US Postal Service eliminated 12 million work hours this year and aims to eliminate another 12 million next year. During the peak season, USPS hired only 14,000 seasonal workers, far below historical norms.
In other words, fewer and fewer workers are being forced to do more and more work. The result will not only be more lost and delayed mail, but more injuries and more deaths.
Union officials have refused to do anything to defend postal workers. APWU President Jonathan Smith recently posted a “season’s greetings” video that might as well have come from management or HR. He did not mention a single issue workers are facing and instead patronizingly told us that we are “important.”
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The Postal Workers Rank-and-File Committee reiterates our demand for adequate staffing. To serve the public, postal workers must be able to do our jobs safely and without exhausting and dangerous overwork.
We demand workers’ control over staffing levels, as well as control over safety and working conditions and enforceable measures to prevent harassment and abuse.
These demands can be enforced in the same way workers have always won gains: through mass, coordinated action. They will never be taken up by the union bureaucrats and can only be fought for by workers ourselves.
This is why we have formed the Postal Worker Rank-and-File Committee. We call on postal workers to found local committees at post offices and distribution centers across the country, made up of trusted rank-and-file workers and excluding management stool pigeons. The committee will help establish lines of communication and develop a common strategy.
13. Workers Struggles: The Americas
Argentina:
Bolivia:
Canada:
Winnipeg, Manitoba meat processors set to vote on contract
Honduras:
United States:
Colorado ski patrol workers authorize strike as talks deadlock
Educators in suburban, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota school district vote 98.5 percent to strike as health insurance costs skyrocket
Uruguay:
Public employees protest unpaid wages
14. Free Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist, Bogdan Syrotiuk!
The fight for the Ukrainian socialist and anti-war activist's freedom is an essential component of the struggle against imperialist war, genocide, dictatorship and fascism.
