A Socialist Campaign For The US Elections - Part 2

A model for the US elections could be the Socialist Campaign For Labour Victory that some on the Left, including myself, established in 1979. Obviously, conditions in the US are different, and so it can only act as a framework, a conceptual model, rather than a blueprint. Moreover, the recent events in the US mean that certain elements of that model have to take precedence. There was no doubt that, in 1979, if Labour won the election, the Tories would concede defeat, despite the fact that it was known that some sections of the ruling class had discussed a coup against Harold Wilson's government, some years before. But, today, in the US, we have Donald Trump openly preparing the ground for refusing to accept the election result, by measures including stuffing the Supreme Court with his toadies, using the Presidential pulpit to describe postal ballots as voter fraud, warning that a Democrat win will lead to violence in suburbs, whipping up racial hatred against black and Hispanic voters, and all supported by his promotion of white nationalist and fascist gangs of heavily armed thugs.

In 1979, the left was of course, aware of the potential of a coup against even a moderately radical Labour government, but the main threat of violence came from the fascists of the NF, whose members moved seamlessly back and forth into the Tory Party, and its right-wing organisations like the Monday Club, the Young Conservatives and Federation of Conservative Students, as well as into other right-wing groups such as the National Association for Freedom. The NF, as with conditions in the US and Britain today, was, however, backed up by a racist police force, which on every occasion came to the defence of fascist thugs, whilst locking up anti-fascists for resisting them. The US is different, today, in that one element of the SCLV model, the establishment of Workers Defence Squads, has already been developed to a material degree in the US, with the creation of Black armed militia groups, in response to the actions of the right-wing militia, and heavily armed, racist cops. That means that the emphasis on a socialist campaign for the US elections, must give far more weight to this demand for the creation of workers' and black defence squads, and socialists must stress the need for the labour movement, in the US, in creating such defence squads, to actively seek to join them with the Black militia groups, and to ensure that they are democratically controlled. Socialists operating in every Democrat Block Committee, should begin to establish democratic organs of struggle, able to join with local Black Militia to confront the fascists, as Trotsky describes in The Action Programme for France.

Channel4 News, along with investigative journalists, have found that in 2016, the Trump campaign, obtained computer data on virtually every voter in the US.  Some of this was uncovered in the investigations into the activities of Cambridge Analytica and its other front organisations, which also played a role in the 2016 UK EU referendum.  Channel 4 News found that this data was used to specifically target certain Democrat voters - overwhelmingly Black voters - to deter them from voting.  In fact, the Republicans have used a wide range of means of voter suppression to prevent Black and Hispanic voters from even being able to vote.  Trump's manoeuvres, now, in the courts are part of this same process.  But, where that is not sufficient, its almost inevitable, given how Trump has whipped up hysteria, that his armed supporters will try to physically prevent Black and Hispanic voters from voting.

It seems inevitable that the fascists, backed up by the racist cops, will try to prevent socialists, and even just Democrats, from campaigning in the elections. The imposition of lockdowns of social and political activity is already doing that. The lockdown has been one of the greatest recruiting and strategic tools there could ever have been for Trump's re-election.

It will be necessary for Black and Workers Defence Squads and militia to be prepared to stop the fascists attacking campaigners, as well as their inevitable attempts to prevent postal balloting, and voting by blacks and Hispanics at polling stations. The conditions of the election means that no result is likely on the day, and could be as long as a month before its announced. Trump, backed with tens of thousands of heavily armed militia, and a Supreme Court of his own creation, will try to steal the election, by declaring victory on election day, in the spirit of all such prospective dictators. That means that any socialist campaign must be geared to such an eventuality. The Democrat establishment response to that will be to try to get US workers to respond peacefully, and rely on lawyers to fight it out in the courts. That would be a disaster. As Trotsky puts it, in the Action Programme,

“All the police executors of the capitalist will, of the bourgeois state, and its cliques of corrupt politicians must be disbanded. Execution of police duties by the workers’ militia. Abolition of class courts, election of all judges, extension of the jury for all crimes and misdemeanours; the people will render justice themselves... 

...We refuse to spread the criminal illusion that a capitalist government can actually proceed to the disarming of the capitalist bands. The exploited must defend themselves against the capitalists. 

Arming of the proletariat, arming of the poor peasants! 

People’s Antifascist Militia! 

The exploiters, who are but a tiny minority, will recoil before the unleashing of civil war; the fascist and reactionary bands will lose their audacity only if the workers are armed and lead the masses.” 

Socialists, in the US, must be prepared for the fact that even progressive social-democrats like Bernie Sanders, as well as reformist democratic socialists, will baulk at such actions, as they inevitably try to fight an extra-parliamentary enemy by remaining entirely within the constraints of bourgeois democracy. Such an approach would be disastrous and lead to the victory of the reaction. But, millions of American workers, will see for themselves, at first hand what is happening in their communities. It will be up to socialists to prepare them, in advance, for the inadequate response not just of the Democrat establishment, but also of these other bourgeois representatives of the workers. 

In fact, those conditions, if the socialists organise themselves appropriately, and avoid the sectarianism that has often plagued sections of the Left, will be able to make great strides forward. Now is not the time to stand aside from the main organisation of workers inside the Democrats, but to double and redouble activity at the grass roots level of the Democrats, to turn those local committees outwards to engage directly in action on the streets in support of communities under attack from fascist gangs and racist cops. Now is the time to also, thereby, draw in those activists from within the oppressed communities to revitalise moribund Democrat political structures, and to create the conditions for the establishment of a real fighting Workers' Party. 

In that respect, too, socialists have to take notice of the development not just of the Black Militias, but also the return of the Black Panther Party. Socialists should offer to join in a United Front with the Panthers for the purpose of fighting the fascists and racists.

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