What's the difference?

Next year the election for the presidential office will be held. By the time it actually takes place, tens of millions of dollars will have been spent in the campaigns and uncountable amount of coverage carried by all the media for this most important political event in the land. Do any of the candidates offer anything that will help the working class and the fight for socialism? The experience of most people in the U.S. is that the outcome of past presidential elections has meant little in affecting their lives in any positive and basic way. This is one of the main reasons why participation in the elections has dropped steadily. Millions of people will not vote for any presidential candidate, as they know from the past that neither the Democratic nor Republican parties today have any fundamental differences.

Both of the two big political parties are the parties of big business, and their presidential candidates, while mouthing concern for the problems confronting the people, inevitably offer solutions that basically benefit the monopolies. Big business decisively influences the selection of the candidates, finances and directs their campaigns, and once in office, big business makes sure that their interests come first. Neither of the big business parties will ever bring fundamental change for the working people – this is something only socialism can do. The working class needs to capture the State machine and in order to achieve this end the working class must break from the two capitalist parties. American capitalism today is faced with many problems: the environment crisis, declining profits and competition with other capitalist countries. These problems have all severely aggravated a faltering economy, while massive social problems like racism keep piling up. The U.S. ruling class is in a quandary about what to do about this situation, but it generally has found common ground in promoting a conservative economic trend of austerity. The working class gains nothing by voting for the Democrats or the Republicans who both represent this general trend. Candidates represent the continuation of capitalism’s assault on the living standards and increasing war. The working class should not vote for either party. Instead, it should expose the Democrats and the Republicans as the parties of big business and show the similarities in their programs and what they mean for the working people. This non-support for any of the capitalist candidates will be a clear sign of rejection of their policies.  But encouraging a vote for one of the candidates as the lesser evil, given their similarity, will only weaken the working class’ efforts to develop its own force. This is why all working people should cast no vote for any of the candidates of big business.

Unfortunately, believe in the “lesser evil” straw man which is also pushed by corporate US media– if you don’t vote for your party’s candidate (Democrat or Republican) even though you don’t like that candidate, a more evil candidate of the other party will win, which herds the masses into continually voting against their interests. This makes it impossible for any change, since the Democrats and Republicans are funded by the same plutocrats and have basically the same desire to serve their masters over the public interest. Bill Clinton had no trouble passing NAFTA, Ronald Reagan’s unfulfilled dream.  Obama quickly completed the Bush bailout, burying Wall Street in an avalanche of government dollars. Obama received more funding from banksters in his 2008 election than any candidate for office in history. They knew they could count on him. Under both Democrats and Republicans, wages for the US working class have declined since 1973. Republicans do not really try to stop Democratic Presidents when they attempt to serve the oligarchs and plutocrats. While it’s true Republicans are nastier and would do nastier things if they could, they largely fail at major free trade deals, deregulation, privatization and the like, it takes a Democrat to get the job done.