To commemorate the first 100 days of his second administration, would-be dictator Donald Trump held a rally in Warren, Michigan, at the Macomb Community College Sports & Expo Center. The arena, which can seat up to 5,000 people, was never more than half full.

In what has been virtually ignored by the corporate media, more people rallied outside the venue in opposition to Trump and his attacks on immigrants, students, federal workers and democratic rights than cheered him inside. Outside the arena, people carried handmade signs denouncing the steamrolling of the Constitution and Trump’s aspirations to be an American Führer.

According to the latest polling, Trump is well below water. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos Poll released this week found Trump’s approval rating at 39 percent, the lowest 100-day approval rating for any president in the last 80 years.

Similarly, an NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll released this week found that only 42 percent approve, while over half, 53 percent, disapprove. Nearly half of those surveyed gave Trump an “F” failing grade, with strong majorities, including 57 percent of “independents,” disapproving Trump’s attacks on immigrants.

At the rally itself, an insulated and delusional Trump presented a picture divorced from reality. In his typical campaign-style stream of consciousness, the 78-year-old con man repeated, for 90 minutes, many of the same lies he has been spewing for over a decade.

After falsely claiming he won the state of Michigan “three times” in presidential elections, Trump said he came to Michigan “to celebrate the most successful first 100 days of any administration in the history of our country.”

Defending his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and the disappearances of immigrants and students for thought crimes and tattoos, Trump repeatedly cast all immigrants as rapists and murderers. Invoking the white supremacist “Great Replacement Theory,” Trump claimed that the “last administration engineered a massive border invasion, allowing gangs, cartels and terrorists to infiltrate our communities and rape and murder our citizens, and that is being nice about it.”

Trump boasted of his efforts to end birthright citizenship, inscribed in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. He said:

I banned all welfare to illegals, and I signed an order that will end automatic citizenship for the children of illegal aliens. No citizenship.

Listing his “accomplishments,” Trump noted that “within days of taking office, I signed the Laken Riley Act.” This legislation was fast-tracked by the Democrats to provide Trump with Congress’s stamp of approval to carry out his mass deportation operation. Forty-six Democrats in the House and 12 in the Senate joined with every Republican present to advance the legislation, which allows the immigration Gestapo to detain and possibly deport immigrants who have simply been accused—not convicted—of a crime.

Defending the disappearing without due process of hundreds of men to the “terrorism” gulag in El Salvador, Trump boasted that the “worst of the worst are being sent to a no-nonsense prison in El Salvador.” He followed this up by playing a video montage showing the men, the majority of whom have never been convicted of a crime, having their heads shaved and their bodies shackled before being imprisoned.

Following the playing of the video, the 2,000 or so lumpen elements in attendance broke out in a chant of “USA! USA! USA!”

Trump then brought out his own Joseph Goebbels, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. Miller claimed Trump is “fighting the drug cartels. He’s cutting your taxes. He’s cutting wasteful spending. He’s draining the swamp. He’s standing up to the radical left. He’s standing up to the communists.”

Trump chose to hold his 100th day rally in Warren, a working class suburb of Detroit, largely due to the support the United Auto Workers bureaucracy, led by President Shawn Fain, has given to his trade war and militarist agenda. The trade union bureaucracy, led by Fain and the Teamsters’ Sean O’Brien, has fully embraced Trump’s economic nationalism, which pits worker against worker in a race to the bottom while the multinational corporations reap the profits.

The antidote to the poison of nationalism proffered by Trump, the unions and the politicians is the international unity of the working class against all capitalist parties and the profit system they defend, which is driving humanity towards climate catastrophe, fascism and World War III.

It is not just the nationalist trade union bureaucracy that has embraced and normalized Trump’s return to the White House. Prior to his rally in Warren, Trump was warmly greeted when he arrived in Michigan by Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

Less than five years after Trump-aligned fascists hatched a plot to kidnap and kill Whitmer for enacting—in response to mass worker walkouts—limited measures to stem the spread of COVID-19, Whitmer shook Trump’s hand as they jointly celebrated the fact that Selfridge Air Force Base will be getting a new mission, which includes maintaining a fleet of 20 F-15 fighter jets.

Asked by Trump to speak at a military event at the base, Whitmer obliged. Dressed in combat fatigues, she said:

I am really damn happy we are here to celebrate this recapitalization at Selfridge. It’s crucial for the Michigan economy, it’s crucial for the men and women here, for our homeland security and our future, so, thank you, I am so, so, grateful that this announcement was made today. And I appreciate all the work, thank you.

Whitmer’s genuflecting before Trump is not an aberration. The Democratic Party is not opposed to Trump’s trade war and eventually world war agenda. This is why Whitmer, alongside California Governor Gavin Newsom and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has given Trump praise, support and votes as he carries out their shared policy centered on slashing social spending in preparation for war.

In contrast to the chummy sentiment expressed by Whitmer and other Democrats, outside the arena in Macomb County, home of the so-called “Reagan Democrats,” thousands rallied against Trump and the oligarchy. This has objective significance. In the last month, several nationwide mass protests have drawn millions of people opposed to Trump, centi-billionaire neo-Nazi Elon Musk and the plans for dictatorship.

This growing mass movement based in the working class, not the phony Democrats and two-faced bureaucrats, is the real opposition to Trump. The historic task before workers, students and all those opposed to fascism is to imbue this movement with a socialist program aimed at uniting the international working class against the capitalist system of war, dictatorship and inequality.

This program will be advanced by speakers from all over the world at this Saturday’s International May Day 2025 Online Rally. Register today for the rally at wsws.org/mayday25.