"It’s possible the rulers may take steps to try and achieve some
economic stability, but they won’t touch the underlying crisis and it
will not last."
Wise words.
Clinton banked on the old formula that the Left Wing would have no
place to turn except to the Democrats. Surprise! Not much of a Left
Wing these days. And the scattered Working Class turned in their
confusion, which had been fostered by the Empire's Media, to the
smart-mouthed Pied Piper, and danced along behind him believing he was
leading them to a Utopia. Ignoring that this Champion was the epitome
of the greed driven Ruling Class, they covered their eyes and ears and
sang, "Happy days are here again..."
Man, are they in for a big surprise.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/12/16, Roger Loran Bailey <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://themilitant.com/2016/8044/804402.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 44 November 21, 2016
(front page)
Election reflects effects on workers of capitalist crisis
BY MAGGIE TROWE
After confidently predicting that Democrat Hillary Clinton would take
the presidency Nov. 8 and heaping scorn on workers who turned out to
hear her challenger Republican Donald Trump, big sections of the
propertied rulers and their media outlets, pollsters and pundits were
stunned by Trump’s victory.
The outcome came as no surprise, however, to millions of workers tarred
as “deplorables” by Clinton. “‘Deplorables’ Rise Up to Reshape America,”
read a Wall Street Journal headline hours after the election.
Millions of workers have grown frustrated and angry by the impact of
years of smoldering depression conditions on their lives and refusal of
any party in Washington to do anything about it. They don’t buy
President Barack Obama’s assurances, echoed by Clinton, that “America’s
economy is not just better than it was eight years ago — it is the
strongest, most durable economy in the world.”
Most workers face a sharply different reality — high unemployment and
underemployment, speedup and unsafe working conditions, and an epidemic
of opiate addiction and other social disasters arising from the moral
and political crisis of capitalism.
“Far from representing a sweeping victory for the right, Trump’s
election shows the impact of years of capitalist crisis on working
people,” Alyson Kennedy, who ran as presidential candidate for the
Socialist Workers Party, told the Militant Nov. 9.
“There is a hunger among workers for a way forward. Before the election
and after, the SWP is focused on talking with workers on their
doorsteps,” she said. “Many respond to our call for uniting workers to
organize unions, oppose Washington’s wars, support a woman’s right to
choose abortion, defend immigrants from attacks and oppose attacks on
Muslims and mosques. They are open to what we say about ending the
capitalist dictatorship and establishing a workers and farmers government.”
Vote doesn’t reflect workers shifting to right
Trump won despite his demagogic attacks on immigrants, Muslims, women
and others, not because of them. He tapped into working-class
discontent, running as an “outsider.” He defeated 16 opponents for the
Republican nomination, attracting crowds of workers in the hard-hit
industrial states by talking about the working class and the grinding
crisis they face.
“If we had 5 percent unemployment do you really think we’d have these
gatherings?” he asked.
He won the election in part by being seen as the lesser evil by millions
of workers in the Midwest and elsewhere who are Caucasian and who voted
for Obama’s promise of “change” and didn’t get it.
In his victory speech Trump demagogically pledged to “fix our inner
cities and rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, schools,
hospitals. We’re going to rebuild our infrastructure” and “put millions
of our people to work as we rebuild it.”
It’s possible the rulers may take steps to try and achieve some economic
stability, but they won’t touch the underlying crisis and it will not last.
The Clinton camp and the majority of the ruling-class media, oblivious
to what most workers face, said the interest in Trump was the reaction
of racists and rightists. But Trump’s election doesn’t reflect a shift
to the right in the working class. Above all it reflects workers’ search
for change from years of depression conditions and wars, seen through
the distorted lens of the bourgeois elections.
Trump appealed to African-Americans, saying, “I will be your greatest
champion.” He won 8 percent of the African-American vote compared to
Mitt Romney’s 6 percent four years ago, while Clinton won 88 percent,
down from 93 percent Obama won in 2012.
Clinton’s backers placed great hopes in a big turnout by Blacks
frightened about Trump. But many remember the Bill Clinton
administration championing laws that increased incarceration rates and
“ended welfare as we know it,” disproportionately affecting workers who
are Black.
Workers distrusted both candidates
Both candidates were viewed with distrust by the majority of workers.
Exit polls showed 71 percent who voted believe those without papers
working in the U.S. should be offered legal status, 68 percent are
bothered by Trump’s treatment of women, and 73 percent are angry with
the federal government — all wings of it.
Many didn’t like Clinton’s attraction to the use of U.S. military might
abroad — from Libya to her call for the Pentagon to enforce a no-fly
zone in Syria, risking a conflict with Moscow.
Both capitalist parties have been and remain divided and in crisis. Many
Republican officials and candidates refused to back or vote for Trump.
The Occupy Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party, led by
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and former presidential candidate
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, will be emboldened by the election returns.
Campaigning for Clinton at Iowa State University Nov. 5, Sanders had no
comment when Kaleb Vanfosson, president of the Students for Bernie club,
was forcibly removed from the stage after saying that there was no point
in voting for Clinton.
As has happened four other times in U.S. history, it looks like Clinton
actually won the majority of votes. But the U.S. electoral college
system means that Trump carried enough states that a Clinton challenge
in any one of them wouldn’t make a difference. The Republican Party,
with all its divisions, will control the presidency and both houses of
the bosses’ Congress on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, 2017.
Related articles:
Socialist Workers take party to working class
SWP deepens door-to-door discussions with workers
‘NY Times’ asks SWP supporters to vote for Clinton
SWP campaign fund over the top!
Build the SWP, the party workers need
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