All wars are based on lies. Lies are considered legitimate instruments of war. It is no different when the capitalist class wages the class-war. Elections aren't necessarily everything, but they do matter. Political parties throughout history are associations of individuals and groups organized to defend specific class interests. They seek political power to best defend and advance these interests. Elections pose the question as to which class will rule society. The Democrats and Republicans, without exception, represent the ruling rich of the U.S., individuals who control wealth and private property. They can choose a dullard or a genius or a movie actor as their presidential candidate, or a black man with liberal credentials or one of their own, a member of the idle rich. The carefully orchestrated charade is to convince a wary public that it is their choice, that the contrasting ideas presented are important, that at least some of the candidates have character, and that they are tough, honest, experienced, and capable of leading the country. And most important, the aim is to convince the vast majority that the result would be "change," a relief from the present misery and a path to a better future. Socialists counter that the better life offered by the ruling class’s standard-bearers cannot be achieved in the framework of capitalism. And, in fact, all the injustices that so many recognize as a reality in today’s world—racism, poverty, endless war, climate change, sexism, massive cuts in health care, education, attacks on pensions, jobs, the mortgage foreclosures, and a lot more besides - are inherent in the capitalist system itself.
The thing about the lesser evil argument is that there is no way to prove it. No one has a time machine that could rewind us to 2000, give Al Gore the presidency, and see if he too would have invaded Iraq. No one has a machine that will take us see what John McCain would have done in Afghanistan to answer the question of who was really the lesser evil, him or Obama. Nor can we take the time machine and go forward in time and see what Obama and Romney have done differently to determine the decision of who was the lesser or greater evil. Its all just a guessing game.
For all its democratic claims, the election campaign serves mainly to obscure the truths about our unequal, unsustainable society. Its prominent feature is the absence of any real choice.
At every election, we're always told that if we don't vote for Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dumber will be elected so we should hold your nose and vote for Tweedle Dum. Already, Obama is shifting his campaign from from "Yes, we can" to a "No, we won't but they will" He will ask voters to forget all the compromising and policy reversals that have marked his presidency because the other side would be so much worse. This is the same cynical approach to electioneering that has turned off voters for generations yet it is a strategy that often works. We tend to forget that the lesser evil is still an evil. Supporting the lesser evil has not been an effective strategy. In the end, politics of fear has delivered everything that we were afraid of.
Union leaders and intellectuals are once again trying to corral workers into voting Democrat on November 6th. They argue that they want a friendlier face across the bargaining table, private-sector unions seek labor law reform and pubic-sector unions want spending projects to keep jobs so are enmeshed in Democratic politics and see support for the Democrats as essential to getting things done. But the relentless decline in union membership is evidence that labor's attempts to solve its problems through mainstream politics have failed. The pay-to-play politics of the unions pouring money into the Democrats' campaign coffers has produced practically nothing to show for it. Because the Democrats have not delivered the goods on promises to workers, the bureaucrats have found it increasingly difficult to deliver the votes of their members to their Democratic “friends.” And, at the same time, the labor misleadership has been unable to convince their Democratic Party “allies” to do something—anything at all—that would make it easier for them to deliver the votes of their members. That is the situation the AFL-CIO hierarchy now finds itself in. Union leaders appear more committed to the Democratic Party—identifying “labor’s agenda” with Democratic victories—than they appear to be to the demands and needs of their union members. They are trying to dance around the fact of Obama's lack of sympathy for workers and their unions. Too often the trade unions have done little to resist encroachments upon their rights and working conditions. No major protests, no mass strikes. Instead, they waited for their so-called friends in the Democratic Party to "help" them out. Its been a long wait and they are still waiting! Despite the lack of influence inside the Democratic Party, US labor has not stopped its unconditional support for them, revealing the nature of the union bureaucrats in charge. Our strength lies not in our ability to influence politicians, but in the fact that an organized working class doesn’t need them.
The Democrat's credentials for being “the party of the people” stems from its “Golden Age” of the 1930s during the Great Depression with Rooseveldt's New Deal when a number of social reforms were passed, involving public works and Social Security programs. Later, in the 1960s we had the “Great Society,” where Democratic administrations inaugurated Medicare and the “War on Poverty,” and Civil Rights legislation again identifying the Democrats with reform. It’s true that Democratic governments have helped to create some social welfare programs, but so have Republican governments (Was it a Democrat who brought the troops home from Vietnam, ended the draft, lowered the voting age to 18, set up the Environmental Protection Agency, established the first federal affirmative action program, and set up the Occupational Health and Safety Organization? No, it was Richard Nixon). These reforms have paralleled (and often lagging behind) similar moves in all developed capitalist countries. In the period of economic boom following the Second World War, all capitalist countries, regardless of ideology of the party in government, increased spending for education and employment, health and housing, - programs considered necessary to boost the productivity of labor. And more importantly, many social reforms were the result of working-class struggle from below.
The Democratic Party is a capitalist party representing the interests of the American ruling class. Major business groups “invest” in the party’s candidates. Corporate money funds the party. Business-backed think tanks advise Democratic candidates and governments. It’s therefore understandable why the Democrats in power have behaved in no fundamental ways differently from the Republicans. Every level of the Democratic party machine depends on business interests. Because it can count on support from labor unions and from prominent leaders of civil rights and women’s right, the Democratic Party has preserved an image of standing for reform. But at the same time, it remains as committed to capitalism as ever. The Democrats agree with the Republicans on all fundamental questions—even if they disagree on certain specific policies. If Republicans argue that social programs should be cut, Democrats agree that such programs must be cut to demonstrate “fiscal responsibility”, for instance, but not cut just as sharply or deeply. If Democrats campaign for slightly less regressive tax programs, they and the Republicans concur that tax breaks for the rich will stimulate investment. If they disagree on a particular use of military power, they are nevertheless both committed to extending U.S. influence around the world. In reality, the differences that separate the Democrats and Republicans are minor in comparison to the fundamental commitments that unite them. For the bosses, the arrangement is ideal: Two capitalist parties help to uphold their rule, one masquerading as the friend of labor and the poor. But for workers, every election presents a choice between a mugger holding a knife at your throat for your wallet , or the one who says he is your friend as he dips your pocket for the wallet. Democrats and Republicans: two alternatives, neither of them desirable. Democrats and Republicans are cut from the same cloth. If one party falls out of favour with the voters, there’s always the other one – with predictable policies – waiting in the wings.
The Republicans, who are relatively open about their support for big business. They take pride in cutting taxes for the rich, giving away billions in corporate welfare. They preach free market principles and argue that what is good for the capitalist is good for all Americans. They also look for support from the more conservative sectors of the working class. The Democratic Party, which originated in the nineteenth century as the party of the Southern slaveholders, plays a different kind of game to the Republicans. They take mass struggles for social change off the streets and into the safe confines of bourgeois politics. They use populist rhetoric and adopt some modest demands of the social movements into their official programme. Once the Democrats demobilize these movements, they implement the same policies as the Republicans. This strategy often makes the Democrats even more effective at carrying through unpopular agendas than the Republicans. Due to the party's liberal image, there are some things that the Democrats can get away with the Republicans can't. Ending welfare is one of them. It’s the good-cop-bad-cop routine of electoral politics. The outcome is inevitable in either case. They will pursue policies that may produce some minimal reforms for workers and the oppressed, but only as a by-product of its historic role to save the capitalist system from its own excesses in order to preserve the status quo.
One thing you can't blame Obama for is the slavish silence of the liberals and the Left in its refusal to raise any critique of Obama. Far from encouraging the growth of opposition movements, a Democratic presidency can actually retard the development of opposition. This is a particular danger for the anti- war movement. Obama has dispatched troops around the world yet anti-war opposition to these adventures has been was virtually nil during his first term. One key reason for this was Obama's ability to sell military intervention as “humanitarian intervention.” The anti-war movement is weaker and less visible today despite the fact that more Americans support its positions than ever. Those who try to convince working people today to vote Democrat once again aim to make us accept responsibility - and thus being demoralized tomorrow - for the real policies Obama will implement once he is elected. The point is that lesser-evilism as a strategy has succeeded -- succeeded in making American politics more and more right-wing, more and more "evil". It has succeeded in lowering people's expectations. Obama was the "lesser-evil candidate and wrapped himself in the anti-war mantle. By 2011 Obama the president was waging war on six countries (Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yemen), asserting the right to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process and continuing policies of indefinite detention and warrantless surveillance. Many now deem Obama one of the most militarily aggressive American leaders in decades, while liberal groups such as MoveOn have fallen silent on the issue of illegal wars and war crimes. Referring to Mitt Romney as “Mr. 1%,” is a subtle way to imply that Obama is the lesser evil and represents the 99%. For Occupy, the danger of being sucked into the Democratic Party as its purpose becomes supporting a party that is in the pocket of Wall Street, instead of ending the tyranny of Wall Street.
Challenging capitalism demands a class and political struggle that starts with the realization that the Democrats are part of the problem, not part of the solution. The future of humanity depends on building a movement that once and for all ends the rule of a tiny elite and replaces it with the rule of the majority. The task of socialists should be to break illusions in the capitalist system and its politicians—not to strengthen those illusions. It follows that the first task of socialists in the U.S. today is to reject any support for Democratic candidates, no matter how “left-liberal” their rhetoric sounds. But once socialists reject the Democratic Party, they must pose a clear socialist alternative. For revolutionary socialists the issue in capitalist elections is not campaign promises program or the individual character or personality of candidates or the candidates they run against. Indeed, there is but one issue that concerns us when it comes to electoral politics and that is working-class independence. Change from below is the only change we can believe in. Choosing the so-called lesser evil only makes things worse. Socialists therefore, whenever possible in the electoral arena, and in everyday practice, pose a working-class alternative to the rule of the minority capitalist elite. We are advocates of real majority rule, rule by the people themselves in their own name and in their own interests, a socialist society free from oppression and exploitation.
History shows that the given level of consciousness is not a static and changeless thing. Class consciousness is steadily influenced by the shifting state of objective reality and the way people see themselves—that is, whether as isolated individuals as most now do, or as a social class with common interests that are in diametrical opposition to the interests of the capitalist class. The big question is what will change how masses of people think, and therefore, how they act, and what they fight for? Indications suggest that today’s deteriorating global economy and the changes now unfolding in the world are having their impact and causing a transformation in consciousness in America and the world. The class war goes on. And there will always be those among our class that will remember the lessons of defeats, as well as the victories. And most importantly, there will always be those who will go back into the history of class struggle that in order to know what must be done next, we must know what happened before. That’s always the way that the lessons of the past are kept alive and serve to guide the ongoing generations of workers. The task of the companion parties of the World Socialist Movement is to do everything it can to facilitate and accelerate this part of the historic process, admittedly realising that the present limitation of the WSM is to a largely educational function.
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