Genocide Joe has, eventually, stood down as the Democrat candidate for the Whitehouse, despite the fact that it has been clear for at least a year that he was not in full control of his faculties, and was gifting the election to Trump. The reason the Democrat establishment ignored that, and pressed ahead with his nomination, was always relatively clear, and has, now, been confirmed. They knew that if Biden stood aside, it would open the door to a political debate and struggle, inside the party, over which they did not have full control, as seen in the last two elections when they had to pull out all the bureaucratic stops to prevent Bernie Sanders getting the nomination. By leaving it until last minute, just as with the selections of Labour MP's, it put control in the hands of the party machinery, allowing them to by-pass even the limited party democracy.
By waiting until what is, for US elections, seen as the last minute, before Genocide Joe stood aside, it has avoided any internal political debate and struggle, based around alternative candidates, and means that they were able to just effectively impose Holocaust Harris as their chosen candidate, instead. In reality, of course, there is plenty of time to have a democratic selection process inside the party, to select a candidate, because the election is not until November. As some US commentators have noted, in Britain and other European countries, the election campaign is conducted in just six weeks, meaning that the Democrats really don't need to have chosen a nominee until around the end of September.
The reason, the Democrat establishment is saying there is no time, is because that plays into their hands of saying they must simply crown Holocaust Harris as their candidate for elected US Monarch, again indicating the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy. Indeed, the reason that the US electoral system has, historically, been such a prolonged affair, is simply a reflection of its, actually, undemocratic and sham nature, in which what really counts is money, and the backing of powerful sections of the US ruling class. The nature of primaries, as a means of selecting candidates for parties removes the real power of rank and file members of the party, enabling anyone who simply registers as a supporter of the party, to have a say in the selection of the candidate, including people who, actually, support the opposing party! It means that, in a system where the political differences between the two parties are minimal, a long election period reduces it to a slanging match of personal insults, and accusations, conveyed via very, very expensive advertising campaigns.
As an indication of that, in the first 24 hours, after Genocide Joe stepped aside, Holocaust Harris received $100 million in campaign donations. Its all a Kabuki Theatre show version of democracy. In 2020, Harris was a potential candidate, but only managed to secure around 2% of support from Democrats (about like Liz Kendall against Corbyn in 2015), and there is no reason to think she would have done better in an actual competitive race, this time. The Democrat establishment knew that. In fact, she would undoubtedly have done worse.
Although, the narrative is being presented that Harris's position, on the genocide being committed by the Zionist state against Palestinians, is better than that of Genocide Joe, the reality is that she has been stood alongside him all the way through it, as have other leading Democrats, not to mention all those European leads, like Scholz, Van Der Lyen, Macron, and Starmer, whose actions quite clearly, now, as a result of the findings of the ICC and ICJ, amount to them being guilty of war crimes. Of course, none of them will ever be hauled before the court to answer for that, again demonstrating the sham nature of bourgeois-democracy and the so called international rules based system.
The Democrat establishment may be able to convince a sizeable number of Democrat voters, over the coming months, that Holocaust Harris should not be held accountable for the war crimes committed by Genocide Joe, as they scramble, now, to get the votes of Arab and Palestinian Americans, but they would never have been able to convince the rank and file members of the party of that, as many of them, already refused to vote for Biden in selection meetings earlier in the year.
As Starmer found, in Britain, and as Macron found in France, their bet that these voters would hold their nose and vote for them, rather than see a Sunak or Le Pen elected, failed. Macron's party got smashed, in the European elections, and has only been saved in the subsequent Assembly elections by a rotten bloc, Popular Front, that stood down candidates in support of them, in the second round, thereby, undermining its own position in the coming months, and ahead of the next Presidential elections.
In Britain, Starmer's reactionary nationalist, Blue Labour performed worse than Corbyn's Labour, in terms of votes, in 2019, which was supposed to have been the worst performance since 1939. Compared to Corbyn's Labour, in 2017, Blue Labour obtained a third less votes, and lost 6% points of the vote share (a drop of around 16%). Even in those seats it targeted its activity, Blue Labour either lost votes, or barely increased them, compared to, even, 2019. Compared to 2017, in every seat, almost without exception, it lost votes, and vote share compared to Corbyn's Labour. It was only the intervention of its fellow reactionary nationalists of Reform that split the Conservative vote in half, which enabled Labour to win. In every seat, add together the Reform and Conservative vote, and Blue Labour would have lost, reducing its overall position in parliament, again, to worse than that of Corbyn's Labour in 2019!
So, clearly, the Democrat establishment need to have time to put billions of dollars into propaganda, to sell the line that Holocaust Harris is not just the lesser-evil compared to Trump, but that she had a better position on genocide in Gaza than Genocide Joe. She didn't, and doesn't, and there is no reason to think that as President there would be any real change in position. There will be no ending of the massive arms supplies to the Zionist rogue state, no recognition of the genocide it is undertaking, and so on. And, as Owen Jones has pointed out, the line is being given that the issue over Biden was his senility and mental state, but the reality is that he was and is a monster, just as much as Putin, or Xi, or any of the other imperialist butchers around the world.
As Genocide Joe had said decades ago, if Israel didn't exist, the US would have to have created it, as it is the means of US imperialism exerting its will across the Middle-East. From the early 60's, the only reason that the Zionist state has continued to exist, is because US imperialism has enabled it to do so, and, indeed, to expand in line with its Zionist, colonialist nature. US imperialism is not going to demur from that position, now that the Zionists are on the brink of wiping out the Palestinians, much as the US did with the Native Americans, and British colonialism did with the aborigines in Australia, in the 19th century.
But its not just that Holocaust Harris is as responsible as Genocide Joe for US support for the Zionists, she is also responsible for all of the other policies of Biden during that period. In supporting Harris from attacks by Trumpists, Democrats have praised her role in jailing illegal immigrants, for example! There is no reason to think that Harris position on immigration will be any more progressive than that of Biden., and the same applies in a whole range of other anti-working class policies implemented by Biden-Harris over the last four years.
The Democrat establishment have also played the identity politics card. How will it look to oppose the first black, woman candidate they protest, as though colour and gender have anything to do with the politics of the candidate. As I wrote at the time of Obama's victory, in 2008, anyone expecting him to improve things for black Americans would be sadly disappointed. That hasn't changed, and Harris record, as a prosecutor was pretty appalling in that regard too. Again, for anyone deluded by the claims of the identity politics argument, I give you the examples of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, in Britain, or currently, Marine le Pen, and Meloni in Italy.
This shows why workers in the US, as elsewhere, need an independent, revolutionary party of their own.
No comments:
Post a Comment