Opinion | Tommy Johnson
It has been said that the 2024 election is nothing more than a contest for who can be the most reactionary representative of the US ruling class. Yemeni rebels have called it a contest between Zionists, a statement that resonates deeply with the US Palestine Solidarity Movement. In two recent televised events—the presidential debate and Biden’s solo press conference—the country has witnessed superficial arguments blown up to disguise how similar both candidates are in their competition for the award of best at oppressing the world.
This corresponds to a controversy in the Democratic Party over the clearly–decomposing Biden’s frequent mistakes and overall lack of clarity. His age being taken as the only prohibitive factor in his election bid speaks nothing of his miserable politics. What it does do, however, is expose in plain sight the growing political crisis of imperialism manifesting inside of the Democratic Party.
At the heart of the political crisis among the imperialist ruling class, be they Democrats or Republicans, is the hard fact that they are, as a class, unfit to rule any longer. Biden and Trump are both the perfect embodiment of this fact, and the whole thing becomes clear in the extreme, farcical, and cynical character of the elections.
It has become a recognized fact that both candidates are widely hated by the American people. These two shameful and miserable creatures are the best candidates the ruling class can spoon out, and the people are fed up with it. Monopoly media runs headlines like Bloomberg’s “Voters disliking both Trump and Biden are at Historic High”, ABC News’s “Have Americans Ever Hated Two Candidates More than Biden and Trump”, and Jerusalem Post’s “Both Trump and Biden Unpopular Options for 2024”. Some who vote and strictly side with one of the imperialist parties tend to find their candidates unappealing but see them as the best bet for stopping the rival candidates, whom they happen to dislike even more. This is the context in which the current problems for the Democrats manifest. On one hand they fear senility costing the race, while on the other hand they can find no one more reactionary and have nothing else to offer. It is a pigsty of their own making.
The unpopularity of both men will not affect the close numbers in the election, nor prevent the results from being hotly contested by either side. Biden’s age—or Trump’s personality for that matter—are not going to be enough to compensate for the ultra-partisan approach taken by those who still believe the farce of US elections. No debate or press conference is going to change this, so neither party sees need to improve. Whoever wins the elections, the working people, the exploited and oppressed, will continue to lose.
The imperialist ruling class, which stands at the controls of the entire state, are parasitic and decomposing. They make their living from our labor and the plunder of the world and cannot but enter deeper economic and political crisis. They need the elections to lend legitimacy to their rule and have been unfit to rule for a long time.
Biden’s solo-news conference, meant to be a show of his strength and alertness, was again a clear example of naked imperialist aggression. “America cannot retreat from the world, we must lead the world” is one such example. The repeated pandering to a “strong border” shows his hatred for workers of the world. “We are the indispensable nation,” the warmonger vomits, revealing the fact that the US imperialists see all other nations as dispensable, in fact as mere pawns for crushing and plundering.
The farce worsens as the “most qualified” Biden referred to Trump as his vice president and Putin as the president of Ukraine. “Working class people still have [sic] need help”, the president reminded us, and asks, “have you ever seen a more successful conference?” He doubled down on the Democrat claim that the economy is improving, a slap in the face to the working class. “I’m not anti-corporate” he insisted, boasting of high corporate profits. No Biden speech would be complete if he did not pander to bourgeois unions, whose leaders live fat off a slice of corporate profits for keeping the workers in line. For us, the working day gets longer and our checks buy less.
It has become clear to a great number of people that this or that minor policy difference can no longer cover up the diminishing quality of life at home anymore than it can wipe away the bloody footprints of US imperialism around the world. Opposition to imperialism must be manifested in the clear fact that the butchers are no longer fit to rule. Real opposition cannot be realized in capitulation to the less hated of the hated, but in genuinely working class politics and love for the people on a global level—that is to say, internationalism—and this can only be expressed in the conscious and active boycott of the 2024 elections. We cannot endorse this decrepit and evil system any longer. The old society is corrupt, it must be destroyed and replaced along with the ruling class and its state. The sooner we realize this, the sooner we can get to work.
