A.D. Nachalo
Former President Donald Trump held a rally near Detroit as the leading candidate for the Republican Party. Appealing directly to the big bourgeoisie capitalists and attempting to secure the workers vote through tricking them to unite with the boss and his interests, Trump declared that “the American worker never surrenders.” The former President’s speech was based mainly on the rhetoric of national chauvinism in an attempt to turn the workers anger away from the owners of the industry and direct it to the workers in other countries.
Trumps speech continued with empty promises of “protecting our workers, protecting our wages… protecting our industries.” It is only fitting that such promises were made at a non-union sector of Detroit’s auto industry that is not on strike. It was not enough for Mr. Trump to attempt to rally the most backward non-union workers with vulgar jingoism—he directly resorted to making the enemy of the working class out to be anything else besides the ruling class. He decried current President Joe Biden as “surrounded by radical leftists, Marxists, fascists” and “left wing crazies that will destroy our country.” Desperate to get some workers on board he resorts to scare tactics and other demagoguery regarding environmentalism.
President Biden, no less desperate, had fewer words as he spoke at a United Auto Workers picket line. Biden claimed the auto workers “saved the industry” and “gave up a lot” when the companies were in trouble after the 2008 economic crisis. His main line of argument is to defend the surrender of the unions in the acceptance of bad contracts and to hope for generosity from the capitalists. Logically this means workers suffer the brunt of the crisis while the boss gets richer and richer. This is Biden “siding with” workers.
Both the President and former President pretend to have an interest in wage increases for working people and rely on the mythology of the “middle class.” Wages are not secured by promises of government officials, or the generosity of capitalists, they are won in class struggle, class against class. Anything else is a trick to get a few working class votes.
In the US, the percentageof voters plummets along the lines of income, those making the most money vote the most, and the workers making very little vote the least. Having one of the lowest voter turn out rates of any modern country, US workers along with the unemployedand the poor know very well the futility of voting and have lost interest. A 2020 poll commissioned by NPR and the Medill School of Journalism shows that the majority of non-voters don’t vote because they don’t believe that it makes a difference.
The main thing for presidential candidates is to secure as many working class votes as they can to legitimize their management of the exploitation of workers and the plundering of the world while at the same time sidelining the struggles of the people by presenting an illusion of democracy. Under capitalism, there is only democracy for the ruling class and dictatorship for the rest.
