Once again, conservative social-democratic Democratic politics in the US has failed to attract the support of large numbers of the working-class. No wonder. Bernie Sanders offered a more progressive social-democratic alternative for the Democrats, but even that was too much for the Democrat establishment, which used its machine to prevent him winning the nomination, and handed it to Biden, who is more or less a repetition of the failed politics of Clinton.
Sanders offered US workers something like the progressive social-democratic policies of a Harold Wilson, but also tainted with thee same kinds of economic nationalism of Corbyn. Sanders offered the equivalent of an NHS, but also promoted economic policies of protectionism not too different from Trump that place the burden on to foreign workers rather than at the door of capitalism. Yet, even this was too radical for the Democrats. In the middle of a pandemic, they could not even offer US workers the equivalent of an NHS, but merely offered further tinkering with the inadequate and deeply flawed Obamacare, an offer that would undoubtedly have involved prolonged haggling in Congress and the Courts. Despite the massive showing for the Left in the party, Biden chose the right wing Kamala Harris as his running mate, ensuring that, if he wins the Presidency, but doesn't live through it, given his age, the Right will continue to exert their control.
As things, stand, the race for the Whitehouse is too close to call. Biden appears to have flipped Arizona, Nebraska and Wisconsin, and will probably win Michigan. With about 1.5 million votes to count from Pennsylvania, mostly from the big cities of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, he could still win there despite being currently 700,000 votes behind.
What again is clear, though, is that the big win that the Democrats should have had, is not now going to come. The exit polls show that by far the biggest concern of voters was the economy, with COVID a long way behind. The US economy got smashed as a result of lockdowns, as has happened elsewhere. As I said some months ago, it was obvious that Trump would blame Democrat governors and legislatures for the severe damage done to the economy, as a result of lockdowns. That is what he did, and it has worked. Biden was supposed to be trying to win back the votes of industrial workers, but at the same time as those workers are losing their jobs and incomes on a massive scale as a result of the same kinds of idiotic lockdown strategy that is being implemented in Britain, and other parts of Europe, Biden came along and promised those workers that he would make the position far worse, by introducing even more harsh lockdowns across the country!
This is an example of remote, middle class politicians who see life through a middle class prism whereby no one really has to do any work, but can simply sit at home working from a computer, or who can simply draw in increasingly worthless paper money, printed by the government and plucked from the Magic Money Tree. Even if Biden does win, the insane nature of those politics means that US workers will have to prepare to fight, because one way or another, those politics and economic policies will lead to disaster, and as always it will be workers that will be called upon to pay the price, as they were in 2008, when huge levels of austerity were implemented, to pay back borrowing that was only a fraction of what is now being undertaken.
More, immediately, its clear that Trump is following the fascist playbook. he has been preparing to claim victory, and to say that his opponents were trying to steal the election for months, if not years. he has primed the armed fascist gangs to come out on the streets to back up that claim, just as he has stuffed the Supreme Court with his stooges, to rule in his favour, however ridiculous their judgements might have to be to bring that about. If its clear that Trump has lost, as the votes continue to be counted, but he uses the Supreme Court to stop votes being counted, the US workers should call a General Strike demanding that even the basic principles of bourgeois democracy be upheld. In those conditions, the judges would soon find a way to reverse their decisions.
But, Trump, will also mobilise his supporters against US workers. The support for Trump, as with the support for the Tories in Britain coms down to the fact that since the 1980's, the size of the petty-bourgeoisie has increased considerably. It is amongst that layer that all of this reservoir of support for reaction is derived, and it is mobilised against the working-class. US workers will need to develop their own defence squads, and democratically controlled militia to face down the fascist and racist gangs that will mobilise to try to put Trump back in the Whitehouse in a similar way to what happened in the 1920's with Mussolini.
The Democrat establishment will, of course, baulk against any such action. They will continue to argue for conciliation and placing faith in the same courts that Trump has stuffed against them, and at the same time that workers and black and Hispanic workers are being murdered on the streets by both racist cops, and fascist gangs. It shows again why US workers need to build a socialist alternative to the Democrats, which remains a bourgeois party tied to the interests of US capital, just as Labour remains a bourgeois party in Britain, tied to the interests of capital.
But, if Trump does win, which the closeness of the vote indicates could happen, then US workers even more need to prepare to fight, because a second Trump term will see him double down on all of the reaction of the first term, especially given the complete failure of the Democrat establishment to present a credible alternative to him. If Trump wins, he will double down on his populist economic nationalism, which will be also bad news for Europe, as it will further embolden the economic nationalists in Britain and Europe too. It will mean that Trump will embolden the fascists and racists, securing even greater control over the levers of the state, thereby undermining the main bulwark against him, used by the dominant section of the ruling class. It means that the US will have become a Bonapartist regime where the state and governmental power is fused into the hands of the President, and with also the Supreme Court in his grasp. This will be a thoroughly reactionary form of Bonapartism, intent on turning the clock backwards.
If Trump wins, even more will it become necessary for US workers to create their own defence squads and militia to defend themselves from Trump's goons. It will be necessary for workers to develop their own self-organisation and self-government on an accelerated basis. They should begin to create factory and workplace committees, organising all workers whether unionised or not; they should create neighbourhood committees, not just as democratic bodies in opposition to local councils, and legislatures, but as fighting organs, ready to defend working-class communities.
As with the need to clear out all of the right-wing deadwood from the Labour Party in Britain, so its necessary to do the same with the Democrats in the US. Socialists have a crucial role to play in explaining to all of those new forces drawn into political activity in the last few years exactly what has happened, and how it shows the inadequacy of the bourgeois workers' parties like Labour and the Democrats. It requires socialists to build their own democratic organs of struggle, in which free and open debate can take place, which probably means bypassing most of the existing Left sects, which represent an obstacle in the path of such development, as their sectarianism, means they cannot get away from continually placing their own party building activities ahead of building an effective united front.
If we can build the existing workers organisations by the activity of the left within them, all well and good, but we should recognise that, as with Corbyn's suspension, the Right in these organisations will not allow that to happen willingly. They will attempt to close down and expel the Left, if they are successful, and if they can't do that, they will simply split these parties taking as much with them as they can. At some point, we will have to build a mass alternative to them, but that time is not yet.
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