A Way Forward

Sanders sought an image of himself more as a vehicle for new left-wing politics as his motivation. No such movement materialized, however. The Democratic Party, like the Republican Party, is the Party of Capital. Bernie Sanders said he used the Democratic Party to get media coverage for standing for president as he saw what happened to Ralph Nader in the past and how today the Green Party is side-lined by the media. Those supporting Sanders no matter what party he is in will now ponder where their support will now go. 

Biden is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He has been saying that he is a progressive for political expediency. Biden’s political record is not one of someone who throws himself into passionate causes for social justice and human rights. Facing threats from climate change, he supports moderate regulation. He supported legislation for a border fence in 2006. She supported regime change in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, and the impact of such policies has been catastrophic. Biden has taken money from lobbyists. She supports maintaining the death penalty. He supported bailing out Wall Street.He also clings to the Affordable Care Act, which represented a windfall for health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as an adequate substitute for a Medicare for All system. Biden’s track record goes against everything Sanders' activists have fought for. The mainstream corporate media endorses his “pragmatic” (lower your expectations) message that minimizes the ongoing crisis felt by the millions left behind without health care, unemployed or stuck in low-paying jobs, facing mountains of student debt, and all the other pervasive disparities.

 A powerful socialist party should be the conduit for change. Mass protests and shut-downs have often been aimed at the wrong target. Many are able to see through the ideological mystification of American politics. The Republicans are deeply divided with Trump anti-Republican on many issues. He is a protectionist  – believes in tariffs and other restrictions, which spits in the face of the Republican free-trader. At the same time, he goes over the top with the racism, sexism, and bigotry fostered and used by the Republicans over the past few decades. And he has a lot of support particularly among white lower-income men and women, but not limited to the

Meanwhile, the Democrats are also seriously divided. A great deal of the party base, young people in particular, seek change, while the Establishment want the status quo. Biden’s claim to support but even here it may be eroding. There’s a lot of talk, a lot of people who say they  would not vote for Biden under any conditions…

Bernie’s main point is that the policies of BOTH the Republicans and the Democrats, with all the “free trade” agreements and favorable treatment of the rich banks and corporations – policies that have just served to make rich people richer and put more Americans in deep trouble

In other words, the common thread for both Sanders and Trump supporters is the deep anger and frustration of people in the country. 

The main difference seems to be that the pro-Trump supporters seem to blame immigrants, people of color, Muslims, “uppity” women, foreign countries such as China. While the pro-Sanders progressives blame rich and the politicians they have bought.

It is clear that Joe Biden is not as progressive he claims to be and that he has consistently supported the agenda of corporations. Socialists are “progressives”. We are not anti-development. We want development, but not at any cost. We want that every person should get equal education and healthy life. We want dirty rivers and lakes to be pollution free. We want wastelands turned green. We want that everyone should get clean air and wholesome food. Technology should work in harmony and cooperation with nature. This is our model of development. Socialists seek to build unity for without unity, we cannot fight and we need to learn from struggles of others. 

Unlike much of the Left, the World Socialist Party of the United State (WSPUS) has opposed the traditional radical opposition to the incumbent presidents (e.g., anti-Nixon, anti-Reagan, anti-Bushes or anti-Clinton, anti-Obama and anti-Trump) arguing that the enemy of the working class is the entire exploitative social system based on ownership of the means of the production, not the presidents elected to run that system, as such opposition fosters the illusion of "better presidents" rather than an understanding of, and opposition to, the entire economic system based on an owning minority employing a non-owning majority to produce its profits. The fact is that the president serves at the pleasure of the U.S. ruling class. Nevertheless it has not shied away from exposing their lies and hypocrisy. 

The problem is not the billionaires but instead the ownership of the means of production by the capitalist ruling class. And the problem is not “greed,” but instead the way the capitalist system works, to channel all productive efforts into the creation of surplus value, called “profit” by capitalists. One of Marx’s great discoveries is that this process is guided by the social relations (including the property relations) that are the heart of capital, and not by the subjective desires, avaricious or otherwise, of individual capitalists. In other words, the problem is capitalism, not greed. The solution is to create a real break with capitalism. Marx demonstrated that the subjectivities of capitalists–and everyone else–are rooted in social processes, though nothing deterministic can be said about this. Perhaps some capitalists are “nice, caring people,” or whatever. On the other hand, in what they participate in, capitalists are indeed bad people to a one, so let it not go without saying. They need to be dealt with, as part of breaking with capitalism.

We are up against the compulsion of the U.S. capitalist ruling class to compete in a vast global market with no ethical concerns whatsoever, other than profit accumulation “by any means necessary.” In attempting to extend the welfare state with relatively mild reforms, or in the case of at least trying to make corporations and capitalists simply pay taxes at the low rate they are already charged, the odds are stacked against workers.

America is divided into two distinct and opposing camps, the one side having little to say for itself other than that it owns everything and that it will use every means in its disposal to hold on to the ownership of everything. On the other side we can only hope that people will begin to question and challenge this “ownership,” and how it could conceivably be that a relative handful of people own everything and exert tremendous control over the lives of billions. The job of socialists is to provide such critical tools and terms necessary for dissecting this situation.