https://themilitant.com/2020/02/22/crisis-deepens-in-democratic-party-in-fight-over-nominee/
Crisis deepens in Democratic party in fight over nominee
article
BY TERRY EVANS
Vol. 84/No. 8
March 2, 2020
The crisis wracking the Democratic Party is escalating amid debate over
selecting a candidate capable of preventing what the party considers
“unthinkable”
— President Donald Trump winning reelection in November. And their
debate over what kind of ideology to run on is getting sharper. None of
this presents
a way forward for working people.
Only the Socialist Workers Party ticket, Alyson Kennedy for president
and Malcolm Jarrett for vice president, and the over 20 SWP candidates
backing it
across the country, present a course forward based on a working-class
line of march.
Democrats supporting Bernie Sanders want to make the party — that acts
to defend the interests of the U.S. imperialist rulers — more explicitly
socialist
in name. And he has been winning a plurality in the party’s 2020
caucuses and primaries so far.
Centrists are stepping up efforts to stop him. Some hope Michael
Bloomberg can use his billions to buy the nomination and still appear
“progressive,” despite
his record as a Republican New York City mayor who targeted African
Americans with “stop and frisk” policing.
Bloomberg is reportedly considering Hillary Clinton — who called
working-class Trump voters “deplorable” in 2016 — to be his running
mate. Bloomberg shares
her low opinion of the abilities of working people. “I could teach
anyone, even people in this room, no offense intended, to be a farmer,”
he told students
at a University of Oxford business school meeting in 2016. But to get a
job in today’s hi-tech economy, “you have to have a lot more gray matter.”
Sanders and others on the party’s left think the only way for the
Democrats to win is to run on a platform of democratic socialism, of
reforms to regulate
capitalism while keeping the bosses in power.
The middle-class left is coalescing around Sanders’ campaign. A group of
anarchists, Stalinists and Democratic Socialists of America leaders
wrote an open
letter to the Green Party urging it not to run for the presidency and to
back whichever Democrat ends up with the nomination — to stop Trump. The
Party
for Socialism and Liberation says its presidential candidates won’t run
in “swing states,” where they say the Green’s vote in 2016 cost Hillary
Clinton
the presidency. They’ll back Sanders there if he gets the nomination.
The schemes of Sanders and the left — like Medicare for all — are a set
of ideas to ameliorate the worst effects of capitalist exploitation. But
this isn’t
what workers need — nicer exploitation — but a course to combat the
bankers, bosses and their capitalist system, to build their own party, a
labor party,
to fight for political power.
Sanders has defended capitalist rule at home and imperialist interests
abroad. He voted for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and
endorses the rulers’
hatred towards the Cuban Revolution. He demands Cuba’s workers and
farmers get rid of their government and “move towards a more democratic
society,” Washington’s
code words for overthrowing the socialist revolution.
In fact, neither Trump nor any of the Democratic hopefuls offer anything
for workers. All are billionaires themselves or firmly committed to the
system
of the ruling rich.
Democrats consider Trump a special breed of illegitimate and evil
president. They continue to search for new ways to oust him, overturn
the 2016 election
and prevent him from running in November. Rep. Adam Schiff, a central
leader of their failed impeachment drive, accused Trump of a new “abuse
of power”
Feb. 11 — following the president’s tweets about a reduced sentence for
his former associate Roger Stone.
Much of the legislation passed by Democrats in the House is purely aimed
at embarrassing the president, not at passing laws that could provide
some relief
for working people. The toothless War Powers resolution passed Jan. 9
had the stated purpose of preventing Trump from using military force
against Iran
without congressional approval. But House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi
insisted the resolution be nonbinding, saying she doesn’t want this
gesture to be
“diminished” by Trump being able to veto it.
The working-class road forward
All the candidates seeking the Democrats’ nomination complain that the
uptick in jobs and the U.S. economy still leaves millions of people
struggling,
because of the president’s policies. Trump, on the other hand, speaks as
if his administration has directed a “great American comeback” and happy
days
are here again.
But workers and farmers don’t need convincing about what we face — we
know that only too well from our own experiences. The question is what
to do about
it, for a working-class road forward.
The Democrats share Trump’s blindness to the capacities of working
people to fight to change our conditions and an unwillingness to ever
consider that
those whose labor produces all wealth should run society.
They too view workers as too stupid to be trusted with making any
important decisions. These have to be taken out of their hands, by
having their rights
cut back or being “nudged” until they vote the right way.
Only the Socialist Workers Party and its presidential ticket of Kennedy
and Jarrett call for organizing workers to fight for higher wages and
better working
conditions today. They point to the capacities of working people to join
together in their millions and to transform ourselves as we engage in
the kinds
of struggles necessary to take power into our own hands.
Many workers recognize there are more jobs today and sense we have more
room to stand up to the bosses and still find another job if we need to.
After
years of declining real wages and worsening conditions, they are looking
for how to use union power effectively and advance working-class
solidarity.
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IN THIS ISSUE
Front Page Articles
list of 6 items
• US flu outbreak toll caused by for-profit ‘care’ system
• Assad regime offensive in Syria brings devastation
• Crisis deepens in Democratic party in fight over nominee
• SWP campaign: Back workers’ fights for better wages, working conditions
• ‘Asarco wants to take everything away,’ strikers say, build Feb. 24 rally
• Sign up to go on May Day Brigade to bring solidarity, learn about Cuba
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Feature Articles
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• ‘Cuban Revolution taught us to go where we’re needed in the world’
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Also In This Issue
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• A debate: Marxism and the fight against Jew-hatred
• SWP candidate talks program with Black farmers in Georgia
• Eyewitness to Iran protests: ‘They lie, trample our rights’
• For second time in 2 months, CP oil train derails and burns
• Chicago judge throws out Gerald Reed’s acquittal
• Walmart turns loose its robot delivery cars
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Editorials
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• Join Asarco strikers at Feb. 24 rally!
list end
On the Picket Line
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• Airline catering workers stage nationwide protest
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Sam Harris
“Tell a devout Christian that his wife is cheating on him, or that frozen
yogurt can make a man invisible, and he is likely to require as much evidence
as anyone else, and to be persuaded only to the extent that you give it. Tell
him that the book he keeps by his bed was written by an invisible deity who
will punish him with fire for eternity if he fails to accept its every
incredible claim about the universe, and he seems to require no evidence what
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― Sam Harris,
