Sympathy for the Lesser Devil

 Most progressives and liberals consider Trump much like a surgeon views a malignant tumor. Cut it out and the patient’s health will improve. But the cancer is capitalism and it has spread to all parts (and parties) of the body politic. Excising Trump is no cure.

Bipartisanship offers what the economic elites like best, namely government policy based on no political principles whatever – not even the phantom principles of Democratic and Republican party platforms – all the better to directly serve the interests of corporate capitalism. The ruling class get on with the business of enriching itself without having to busy itself with actual government policy. Whether the Democratic or Republican parties identifies the “national interest” and “public good” with the needs of investors, bankers and shareholders for maximum corporate profit. Bipartisanship means the two parties working together to screw working people. Government under capitalism does not act to protect a “level playing field” to give working people a fair chance. 

 Corporate interests organize and contend for special favors, subsidies and tax advantages, privileged access to markets — all of which is bought and paid for in political contributions and other forms of (mainly legal) bribery to both parties. The Republican and Democratic parties, or, to be more exact, the Republican-Democratic party, represent the capitalist class in the class struggle. They are the political wings of the capitalist system and such differences as arise between them relate to spoils and not to principles. With either of those parties in power one thing is always certain and that is that the capitalist class hold the reins and the working class are under the lash. 

The Republican and Democratic parties are alike capitalist parties—differing only in being committed to different sets of capitalist interests—they have the same principles and are equally corrupt and are united as one in their subservience to capital and their hostility to labor.

The capitalists made no mistake in endorsing Trump. They know him well and he has served them well. They know that his instincts, associations, tastes and desires are with them, that he is in fact one of them and that he has nothing in common with the working class. And Biden is near enough alike in his support for the fundamentals of capitalism to pass for Trump’s twin brother. Both adopt the Wall street brand.

Trump and Biden are both good Republicans, just as they are both good Democrats. The Democratic Party are hopeful of success because of the personality defects of Trump rather than any merits of its own or virtues of Biden.

The capitalists are combined against you. Both Republican and Democratic parties are capitalist parties. There is not the slightest doubt about it. It can be proved in a hundred different ways. There will be no change as long as you continue to support the prevailing capitalist parties.

As long as the votes of working people are divided between the Republican and Democratic parties capitalism has nothing to fear, as both these parties are its equally subservient tools. Whichever of these parties is in power capitalism has nothing to fear. As a matter of fact there is no real difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. Both are supporters of the existing competitive economic system and it is now very difficult to distinguish a Republican from a Democrat by any policy that he or she favors or opposes. Regardless of what some high-profile liberals and progressives might claim it is not going to make a vital difference to the country whether the Republicans or the Democrats win this year.

The World Socialist Party knows neither color, gender nor race. It knows no aliens among the oppressed and downtrodden. It is first and last the party of the workers, regardless of their nationality, proclaiming their interests, voicing their aspirations, and fighting their battles. People are turning with loathing and disgust from the Republican and Democratic parties under whose past administrations appalling conditions have been brought upon the people. The message of socialism, which, for many years  was spurned by these people, increasingly falls today upon eager ears and receptive minds.

Unlike the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties, the World Socialist Party position is a plain and simple declaration of principles. They were not framed merely with a view to winning votes. There is no ambiguity; no evasion, no attempt to compromise and no effort to maintain the miserable fiction that the interests of labor and capital are identical. The working class will obtain little relief through defeating Republicans simply to elect Democrats in their stead.

The World Socialist Party is the only party of the people, the only party opposed to the rule of the plutocracy, the only truly democratic party in the world, the party of an awakening working class. The education, organization and co-operation of the workers, the entire body of them, is the conscious aim and the self-imposed task of the World Socialist Party for the socialist commonwealth. The World Socialist Party, in short, proposes to place the workers in possession of all the wealth they produce