Opinion | Tommy Johnson
The elections have shaped up to be what The Worker predicted, a worsening farce for both major political parties promising to get almost even numbers at the polls. This follows trends established for decades where neither candidate has much to offer, attempting to cover up their similarities behind superficial personality differences. Substantial threats to the image of both Harris and Trump persist, made worse by the economic crisis.
Kamala Harris, who has campaigned on an identical platform to the decrepit representative of imperialism and current president Joe Biden, has the only positive attribute of being younger with a sharper ability to swindle. Her campaign is nonetheless besmirched by the fact that she represents the party most responsible for the genocide of the Palestinian people. It is unlikely that the Biden administration will take a single step at reigning in their dogs in the Israeli state as tensions increase with Iran, especially considering that the Democratic Party has an established pattern of war mongering in its rhetoric and posture regarding Iran. More war, or an escalation of tensions toward expanding the existing wars, is not so favorable to the Democrats one month before the elections. Harris can no longer hide her bloody hands behind the veil of deescalation and the smart timing of the Iranian strikes on Israel make sure of it.
Domestically, the Democrats had built Biden’s campaign—which Harris inherited without any significant alterations—on the idea that they had improved the ruined economy they took over from the Trump administration. This lie has been felt at the checkout by every worker. The economic crisis, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, was not caused by the Trump administration but by a culminating crisis of overproduction. During such a crisis, the ruling class has to make certain attacks on the working class, first to force them to work longer hours at a faster pace to make use of the overproduced means of production. There is a hiring frenzy and the relative rise in wages is merely formal, it cannot keep pace with the capitalists’ desperate attempts to outrun their falling profits by price hikes. Following this, the capitalists then seek to stave off the falling profitability by getting rid of old machines that still have use in favor of new technology and mass layoffs. The pressure on labor is felt everywhere and strikes increase in frequency and intensity. The union bureaucrats tied to the aprons of the Democrats do everything they can to settle in the best interests of the boss without letting the mask of workers’ advocacy slip too far, and this is how they enter crisis. Unable to contain the grievances of the class, critical sections of the proletariat who suffered sharper contradictions cannot be as effectively restrained. The longshoremen have gone on strike, promoting a pandemic-era-like buying frenzy and confirming the economic insecurities felt by the broad masses. None of this is good for the image of the Democrats who professionally deny the economic crisis.
Donald Trump and his cohorts don’t fare any better. Trump received a boon from surviving an assassination attempt when he was campaigning against Biden, but the gains in image resulting from the first assassination attempt lasted only as long as a worker’s paycheck. The second assassination attempt was quickly forgotten in the monopoly media news cycle. Being the candidate that survived an attempt has not allowed Trump to outrun who he is and what he represents. His legal issues, which taint his image in the eyes of all but his already devoted followers, increasingly mount. Federal prosecutors are keen on this and have begun releasing evidence before the elections, in a likely attempt to sway middling elements back to the Democratic Party. Trump’s only selling point is his personality, which, while repulsive, still casts him as an “anti-establishment” candidate in the eyes of many who lack class consciousness. This condition guarantees a close race against an equally undesirable Harris. Both are identical in the sense that they swindle the working masses into temporarily supporting them at the polls.
Forcing this type of support is nothing less than asking workers to condone their own exploitation and the oppression and slaughter of the world’s masses. In response, the revolutionaries call for an active boycott of the ruling class elections, seeking to turn the voter abstinence of the majorities into a conscious act of rejection and rebellion. In order to be more successful in their work, the revolutionaries must struggle for unity under the ideology of the international proletariat.
