From NOEBIE.net
I don’t have a lot to say yet on the technical or political aspects of this year’s Presidential Election. I think that we will learn a lot once data on Hispanic voters can be parsed.
Like many, I am relieved that we will have someone in power who is more competent, better mannered, less buffoonish, and less overtly racist and sexist.
If someone is expecting a Biden Administration to be anything more than that, though, I am afraid that they may be disappointed.
Open Secrets reports that Biden is near to raising $1 Billion in the most expensive election in history.
The 2020 election is more than twice as expensive as the runner up, the 2016 election. In fact, this year’s election will see more spending than the previous two presidential election cycles combined. The massive numbers are headlined by unprecedented spending in the presidential contest, which is expected to see $6.6 billion in total spending alone. That’s up from around $2.4 billion in the 2016 race. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden will be the first candidate in history to raise $1 billion from donors. His campaign brought in a record-breaking $938 million through Oct. 14, riding Democrats’ enthusiasm to defeat Trump. President Donald Trump raised $596 million, which would be a strong fundraising effort if not for Biden’s immense haul.
Source: 2020 election to cost $14 billion, blowing away spending records • OpenSecrets
There was a brief moment after the election in 2008 where I was worried that G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney would refuse to leave office. When the fears proved unfounded, I chalked it up to paranoia.
This year, I just don’t know. It’s hard to say whether it is sad, or fortunate, that we have come to the point where we have so little confidence in the health and veracity of our public institutions. I suppose that it may be both.
In any case, if folks’ fears about this are realized this time around, the notion of a nationwide general strike to keep the current occupant of the White House compliant is appealing.
Unions Are Beginning to Talk About Staving Off a Possible Coup – Labor Notes Reports: “Therefore, be it finally resolved that the Rochester Labor Council, AFL-CIO calls on the National AFL-CIO, all of its affiliate unions, and all other labor organizations in the United States of America to prepare for and enact a general strike of all working people, if necessary, to ensure a Constitutionally mandated peaceful transition of power as a result of the 2020 Presidential Elections.”
Read More: https://www.labornotes.org/2020/10/unions-are-beginning-talk-about-staving-possible-coup
Each year at the annual Socialism Conference in Chicago, a sort of personal theme seems to develop early on for me. This year, questions around the topic of “the party” bubbled up on the first night. Paul D’Amato spoke about developing “infrastructures of dissent” in a session titled What kind of party do we need?
I posted this comment the next morning on Facebook.
It seems to me that once you say the word “party” people in the United States immediately think “ballot line.” I’m still not clear in my own mind what “party” would mean in real world practice apart from that. Will be looking for some resources on that question while I’m here.
There was an excellent session the next morning called Prelude to Revolution: May of ’68 in France. Sherry Wolf said that the happenings of that May exposed “the limitations of spontaneity and political eclecticism.” The message is that a party of the workers will be needed to lead from radicalization to revolution. I tried to better envision that party. What does it look like? What does it do? Does it participate in elections? If so, how does an organization committed to revolution, not reform, compete within the framework of a system that is reformist (at best) by its very nature? What is the role of the party right here and now? What should be its organizing principles?
I was able to catch up with D’Amato that afternoon and bend his ear for a bit on the topic. As he described the party as he saw it, I asked if it would compete in elections. He didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely!”
He recommended this article on Marxists and Elections from nearly twenty years ago, and I did find a lot of it helpful. Still, there was one question that nagged me. If the electoral activities of the independent party of the working class would be mainly aimed at raising working class demands, challenging and exposing the current government and political economy, and winning over workers to the need for revolution – how is that posed to constituents when seeking office? “We want your vote so we can become part of this system of government, because this system of government is so fundamentally corrupt that it has to be dismantled.” It seemed to me sort of like speaking to a mechanic who wants your business, and the mechanic saying “This car is really irreparable. You need a new car. It can’t be fixed. But you should bring it in to me anyway.”
If the end goal of the party is revolution, and that’s not being hidden, why should a worker who is not yet convinced of the need for revolution support the candidate of such a party? What would that party pledge to do once in office?
Todd Chretien’s Saturday session on the Vanguard Party, Democratic Centralism and Workers’ Revolution was a helpful review of theory and history, and the discussion that followed highlighted the distinction between the more or less orthodox Marxist view (as described in Todd’s talk and Paul’s article linked above) and the view of socialists (including many in DSA) who take a more flexible approach when it comes to the question of how to participate in elections.
I continued to read and ponder after returning home from the conference. Eric Blanc’s article about the Minnesota Farmer Labor Party was intriguing. The history he outlined is being cited by many who oppose (or who are rethinking) the need for a “clean break” from the Democrats. This essay from Joe Allen presented some helpful perspective, as did the entire series at Socialist Worker discussing and debating the relationship of socialists to the Democratic Party in the wake of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s primary victory in New York.
So I read and thought, and asked friends for their ideas, but really couldn’t come up with a satisfactory answer to the Catch-22 outlined above – until it finally came to me during a meeting of local activists from Connect Kankakee as they were planning a rally to end ICE expansion in our county. A lot of the organizing effort was aimed at encouraging turnout for the event. It occurred to me that we don’t simply work for large numbers at events like this because we enjoy the company of a crowd. It’s a demonstration of power, represented in numbers. The size of the gathering is a representation to office holders in our county that our goals are priorities for the community. It’s also a message of comfort and confidence to those who are endangered by ICE, and to those of us who are organizing resistance.
One can look at elections in the same way. They are an opportunity to measure the proportion of strength for socialist ideas, and, as Engels put it, to “gauge of the maturity of the working class.” This seems to me a purpose that even those who have not yet been won to revolutionary consciousness could support. “We want your vote in order to stand up fearlessly to the powers that be, and to bring your voice, loud and clear, to the very halls of government.”
If you’ve read thus far and are now thinking “duhr,” please accept my apology. This seems like an obvious point in the present moment, but it truly did confound me until recently.
We’ll be discussing this issue at some length on the night of August 15th at our monthly Jacobin Reading Group meeting. Come join us!
Here is what won last night in New York’s 14th District:
This is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‘ platform. She walloped a long-tenured, establishment Democrat who spent $3 million dollars to try to stave her off. She did it on a shoestring, running openly as a socialist, and a “card-carrying member” of the DSA.
The lesson here is not that “progressives” can “run to the left” in Democratic primary elections and win. The lesson is that more and more people are ready to abandon the politics of “let’s be reasonable.”
Medicare for all? Yes, please. Guaranteed jobs? Why not? Abolish ICE? It’s high time, and don’t let the screen door hit you on the way out, fellas. Housing as a human right? Makes sense. Everybody needs a home. Good education for everybody? Green jobs? Stop putting an entire generation of young black men in prison? Of course.
Queue “Eli’s Comin'” and turn it up loud. Here’s to a new world.
Americans who want a more just, peaceful and habitable world face a dilemma when it comes to electoral politics. We know that people like Donald Trump and his insane clown party make things demonstrably and exponentially worse for everyone except the already wealthy and powerful. We also don’t want our resources and energy to get sucked into the black hole of Democratic Party politics, where social movements go to die. It’s also nearly impossible for candidates who share our values to get elected as third party or independent candidates.
To borrow an analogy used to explain the laws of thermodynamics, we can’t win, we can’t break even, and we can’t leave the game.
Here are some thoughts, and links, outlining the situation facing us, and what we can do.
We don’t want people like Donald Trump in power.
As much as it is possible to oppose the most abhorrent tendencies and candidates during election season, we ought to do so. The best example to follow was set by thousands of Chicagoans on March 11th of last year.
We should vigorously oppose these people as candidates and in office. We should recognize and draw attention to candidates or organizations that represent a dangerous departure from the status quo.
But we also have to oppose that status quo, for reasons of strategy as well as principle.
We must oppose the GOP, but we can’t let our efforts be coopted by the Democrats.
For many people, the election of 2016 was something of a watershed. We’re seeing thousands of Americans, perhaps even millions, who are engaged in activism for the very first time in their lives. At the Women’s March on Chicago January 21st, a sizable minority (if not a majority) were first time protestors, including my own mother-in-law, who is in her late 70s. Reports from the airport protests against the Muslim travel ban recount the same phenomenon. In the town where I live, a group of mostly first time activists is organizing itself. Attendance more than doubled from their first meeting to their second, with no actual attempts at recruitment or publicity. Enrollment into membership of the Democratic Socialists of America nationally has more than doubled since election night.
All of these are healthy signs for the beginning of a mass movement with the potential to truly transform our society. Democrats seem to have taken note, and many have begun to show up at the protests, to make public statements in support, and to adjust their strategy and tactics to draw energy and power from the nascent movement into their party. Many of the new activists that I’ve met see a realignment of the Democratic Party as more than just a worthy pursuit. It is their main goal. There’s already a focus on the 2018 mid term elections, and on Bernie Sanders’ down-ticket strategy, as if electoral politics within the Democratic Party is a viable path (indeed, the only viable path) to political power.
Here’s why this poses a danger, and why people who are committed to positive social change ought to be on guard.
The Democrats have a long history of repelling attempts at realignment to the left. The DNC’s reaction to the Sanders campaign was described by some as almost an “autoimmune response.” Recently, Kim Moody of Labor Notes wrote about the massive impediments currently facing folks who seek to reform America’s “second party of capital.”
Here’s a real life example of how things can break bad. In 2011, the people of Wisconsin took part in the largest sustained workers’ resistance movement in American history. When their newly elected Governor, Scott Walker, tried to destroy the public employee unions, tens of thousands of people flooded into Madison, making it impossible for the state to continue with business as usual. For awhile, it seemed as if the people would prevail, repudiating Walker and his GOP cronies in the Wisconsin Legislature, and turning back the attack on workers’ rights. The energy got funneled into a recall election effort, and by January of 2012 more than 1 million signatures to recall Governor Walker were submitted to the state Government Accountability Board. When the election was held that June, Walker prevailed over Democratic candidate Tom Barrett with 53% of the vote. The Democrats had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and Walker’s position was stronger than it had been to start with. Also, he was even more obligated to the Koch Brothers and other corporate interests who funded his campaign during the recall election.
We also need to resist the temptation to support Democrats as the lesser of two evils, mainly because it undercuts our credibility with the masses of people who have not yet been won to our way of thinking, but who have seen enough of candidates like Hillary Clinton to know that they offer no real solutions to our problems. We can’t be honest brokers of information, committed to the truth, if our default position is that any Democrat, no matter how distasteful, is preferable to any Republican. In other words, our support should be reserved for those candidates that we can support unreservedly.
What about independent or third party campaigns?
The most successful third party Presidential candidate in decades was Ralph Nader. He received 2,882,955 votes nation wide, less than 3% of the total votes cast, running as the Green Party nominee in 2000. The most successful independent candidate was Ross Perot, who got about 8 1/2 percent in 1996. These numbers do not inspire hope.
Seth Ackerman recently did a marvelous job of explaining the implications of ballot access laws and party structures across the United States. To make a run outside of the two major parties, even for local or state elections, is beyond daunting.
Yet the prospects of a candidate not beholden to corporations and other reactionary interests being elected as a Democrat are equally dim, as the Kim Moody article mentioned earlier makes clear.
When we put all of our hopes for change into who we elect, we are meeting the enemy on their field of strength, and our field of weakness.
Some things are overdetermined. The money, the laws, the media, disenfranchisement and voter suppression, party structures – all of these factors paint a bleak picture when it comes to electoral politics. So we would be foolish to sink the bulk of our energy and resources into the electoral process.
On the other hand, elections do have consequences, and they also offer a rare opportunity to get people thinking when we already have their attention.
It’s a rigged game, but we can’t opt out.
A friend of mine who was in SDS back in the day tells a story about the election of 1968. He and some of the comrades were in Union Square leafleting on election day, encouraging people not to vote in the contest between Humphrey and Nixon. The message was “Don’t vote. Boycott the polls. A big abstention sends a message, too.” The response from passersby was nearly unanimous. “Don’t vote? What kind of a choice is that?”
Election campaigns are one of the times when even people who aren’t very “political” tend to pay more attention. Regardless of the candidates involved or the outcome, it’s an opportunity to advocate, to inform, to educate, to hold up a mirror to our society, to point to a vision of a better one, and to generally propagate our ideas. In some cases, it is also an opportunity to actually attain some measure of political power within the system, on those occasions when we are able to succeed in electing folks who will represent our ideas and platform.
Okay. So if we can’t win, we can’t break even, and we can’t leave the game, what can we do?
In terms of elections, we need to move away from the “tail wagging the dog” sort of approach where we merely choose from among candidates offered to us. We should determine our own platform and programs, decide who will run for office from among our own numbers, decide whether they will run as independents or on one or another party ballot line, work hard to get them elected, and hold them accountable to the group once they are. The Ackerman article referenced above concludes by outlining a model for this sort of effort nationally. The standard by which we ought to discern whether or not a campaign is a good use of resources has been best stated by Jen Roesch. “Will directing energy into an electoral campaign help to give confidence, advance and project existing struggles and the broader resistance, or will it act as either a substitute for those struggles or a drain on limited resources?”
In situations where we currently have less (or perhaps little) influence over who is on the ballot, we can still use the occasion to hold up a positive vision for society. During primary season in 2016, I supported Senator Sanders, noting that every day he was “out there railing against the corporate stranglehold on our lives” it was “another opportunity for people to wake up and to feel a sense of what might be possible if thoughtful, decent people came together in large numbers to demand thoughtful, decent government.” During the general election, I supported the Green Party’s Jill Stein for similar reasons. Among the candidates still in the race, she best gave articulation to the ideals of peace, justice and equality. I found that to be of value, despite understanding that she was not going to win the Presidency.
In short, I think we need to keep a great deal of flexibility, work to build strong and durable organizations, and approach each election cycle with an examination of what is most likely to move our work forward given the circumstances of the moment.
For now, the bulk of our energy will likely still be spent outside the realm of election campaigns, and I think that’s as it should be.
Our first priority is to organize with others on the local level to work on initiatives that will make lives better in our own communities. These projects should be practical, winnable, should emphasize solidarity, and should increase our numbers, our level of organization and our confidence. The projects may, or may not, involve interaction with elected officials, election campaigns and the formal political structure.
Secondly, we should connect our local efforts with those in other regions (nationally and globally) through affiliation with other established organizations.
Finally, we should look for opportunities (and create opportunities) to bring the struggle onto the field of electoral politics. But we should do so with an eye toward building our own organizations, secure in the knowledge that we can’t elect our way to the kind of society and world we want anyway.
Participation in elections offers an opportunity for organizing, provides a platform to speak truth to power, forces other parties to defend their views, and presents a visible measure of the strength and maturity of the working class. These are the things we should bear in mind when deciding what to do about elections.
Like many Americans, I’m still trying to process the news. I won’t try to describe my thoughts or feelings at this point, but I wanted to share some links that have been helpful to me.
Thomas Frank writes for The Guardian: Donald Trump is moving to the White House, and liberals put him there.
From the folks at Jacobin: Politics Is the Solution
From Socialist Worker: How could this monster win?
Be kind to each other today, people.
Here are my last words ahead of the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election. I cannot, in good conscience, celebrate a Clinton victory tomorrow evening. I will, however, certainly celebrate Trump’s defeat, and will dance on his grave if ever given the chance.
For all of my apparent cynicism to people who don’t know me well, I will also celebrate the election of a woman to the Presidency. I was an early supporter of Patricia Schroeder for the Democratic nomination nearly thirty years ago. It’s about freaking time.
I am proud of my vote for Jill Stein of the Green Party again this year. She has held up the vision of a more just, peaceful and sustainable society. This is an alternative that went without mention from either of the major party candidates.
I do not hope for a continuation of the sort of petty partisan conflict that has so characterized this election cycle. But I do hope (and pray) that in the coming months we shall see a heightened state of unrest. I intend to continue to do my best to foment it. It is in struggle that we become conscious. And it is way past time for all of us to wake up.
I’m thankful to Chris Maisano for crafting together this statement on electoral strategy for the American Left, and I’m proud to have added my signature to the statement, along with 74 other DSA comrades.
But if we want to move beyond the cycle of mobilization and retreat that dominates left electoral activity in the US, we have no choice but to build our own political formations, as difficult as that will be. They will have to do what all parties do – run candidates for office, particularly in states and localities where competition between Democrats and Republicans is low. Considering the many institutional barriers to effective independent politics, they will also have to launch fights to change ballot access laws and other measures aimed at maintaining the two-party duopoly.
Read the full statement here: Give The People What They Want: DSA Members on 2016 and Beyond – Democratic Socialists of America
The Trump campaign is producing an alarming level of fear and anxiety among children of color and inflaming racial and ethnic tensions in the classroom. Many students worry about being deported, according to a report from the Southern Poverty Law Center.
My own daughter has related that some of her classmates are worried about their families being deported.