Hold Your Applause: Again!
Yesterday, I argued that the arrest of Prince Andrew is not a victory for justice, nor is it a meaningful challenge to the structures of power that oppress the many for the benefit of the few. It’s just another dispute among the ruling class, a squabble over who gets to plunder with impunity.
The real crimes: sexual assault, colonialism, the extraction of wealth, the imposition of austerity, the maintenance of neocolonial domination all remain untouched.
The monarchy, like all institutions of inherited privilege, persists not because of its moral legitimacy, but because it serves the interests of capital and the state.
He didn’t get arrested for enabling a predator or propping up empire.
He got popped because he fucked with someone else’s profit. He shared investment secrets.
That’s the crime that matters to them.
And now we see the same shit with Trump.
His tariffs, which threatened the profits of the corporate elite, were finally struck down by the Supreme Court. But his wars? His sanctions? His brutal immigration policies? His environmental deregulation? All of which have caused immeasurable human suffering. Those face no meaningful consequences.
The system moves only when the interests of capital are at stake.
When it comes to the lives of ordinary people, especially those in the Global South, there is only silence, complicity, and the cold calculus of imperialism.
Consider the global impact of Trump’s policies (these are the things we urgently need to stop):
Military Aggression and Destabilization:
Escalated tensions with Iran, supported coups and interventions in Latin America, and expanded drone warfare in Somalia, Yemen, and Pakistan, each of these actions reinforcing U.S. hegemony while inflicting devastation on civilian populations.
Economic Warfare:
Imposed crippling sanctions on Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, not to hold regimes accountable, but to assert U.S. dominance and punish nations that resist the dictates of Wall Street and the IMF. The result? Starvation. Medical shortages. The immiseration of millions.
Immigration Terror:
Weaponized ICE to terrorize immigrant communities, separated families at the border, and slashed refugee admissions, policies designed to scapegoat the vulnerable while reinforcing the racial and economic hierarchies that underpin capitalist exploitation.
Climate Sabotage:
Withdrew from the Paris Agreement, gutted environmental regulations, and accelerated fossil fuel extraction, all in service of corporate fossil fuel profit, while condemning future generations to ecological collapse.
Global Health Neglect:
Undermined international cooperation during a pandemic, hoarded vaccines, and defunded global health initiatives, exposing the brutal reality that, under capitalism, human life is subordinate to the accumulation of wealth.
In both cases, Prince Andrew’s arrest and Trump’s impunity, we witness the same dynamic: a system that polices the crimes of the powerful only when those crimes threaten the stability of the ruling class itself. The rest of the world’s problems? Not bugs in the system. Its features.
So, hold your applause.
Sit the fuck down.
This is not justice. It is the illusion of justice, a spectacle designed to pacify the public while the machinery of empire and capital continues its relentless march. The real struggle isn’t for the punishment of individual elites, but for the dismantling of the systems that produce and protect them.
Until then, we’re just watching the powerful rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic while the rest of us drown.