Opinion | Farrukh Abadi
The Democrats have suffered a resounding defeat. Losing the electoral college and the popular vote in the presidential election, as well as losing control of the Senate and possibly remaining without control of the House, in a sense it can be said that the Democrats’ wish came true—they didn’t have to deal with the Trump takeover they predicted, but were instead defeated by their own hands. The rejection of Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party in the popular vote is, as a recent editorial on The Worker put it, the “just desserts” of a Party that campaigned on “joy” in the midst of carrying out a genocide abroad and deepening the economic crisis domestically.
While it was widely predicted—including by The Worker—that the election results would be far closer than what transpired, with both parties primed to contest the election results in the event of their narrow defeat, the significant losses of the Democrats has made it impossible for them to do so and they quickly conceded.
Causes of Defeat
Various monopoly news outlets are pointing out how the failing economy is in large part to blame for Harris’s defeat. The vacuous confidence exuded by the preferred candidate of the billionaires stood in stark contrast to the reality faced by working people in the country, a “joy” more closely reflecting the record profits of billionaires rather than the mass layoffs and increasing exploitation of workers. Under the guise of being pro-worker, the Biden-Harris administration used the state bureaucracy on several occasions to put down workers’ struggles for the benefit of the monopolists, most recently with the Boeing strike suspiciously ending on election day and the longshoremen strike delayed until January.
The Democratic Party also expressed shock as to why their support among Black and Latino voters was slipping—after all, former Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson said that Black people would be voting for the Democrats for “200 years” after he passed civil rights legislation. Blaming everyone but themselves, the Democrats pinned it on misogyny, with Obama accusing Black men of not “feeling the idea of having a woman as president”. But what did Black and Latino people gain from a Biden-Harris presidency? More police and vigilante lynchings, more deportations, and the deepening of US imperialism underpinning the mass migrations to the US.
The US-Israel genocide of Palestinians was another sore spot for the Democrats, who attempted to win the votes of those among the Palestine Solidarity Movement despite providing more funding to Israel than any previous administration to escalate the genocide. The administration’s political ploy to place an arms embargo on Israel if it did not allow “aid” to Gaza was rejected as too little, too late, another cynical and opportunist campaign promise that would not materialize.
The Harris campaign tried hard to emulate the Republicans in the hopes of winning more votes than them, playing the strongman—having the “most lethal” military in the world, being “tougher” on crime, being “tougher” on the border, being more pro-Israel—while accusing Trump of being the strongman, and campaigning with Republicans and inviting them to join her administration. In the end, the faux-Republicans were rejected for the real deal, and the Democrats are left with their failing strategy to outcompete the Republicans at what they’re best at.
Harris Concedes to Alleged “Fascist”
Roughly two weeks after calling Trump a fascist who is “increasingly unhinged and unstable”, Harris congratulated Trump on his victory and promised to “help him and his team with their transition” and a “peaceful transfer of power.”
Likewise, Biden, who claimed that Trump is an “existential threat” to “American democracy”, and had made fear-mongering around Trump the cornerstone of his failed campaign, was quick to congratulate Trump and invite him to the White House.
Former President Barack Obama shared a similar message after campaigning for Harris for months: “In a country as big and diverse as ours, we won’t always see eye-to-eye on everything. But progress requires us to extend good faith and grace—even to people with whom we deeply disagree.”
What else do the Democrats propose be done to counter this “fascist” threat they allege, besides “good faith and grace”? In addition to voting, Harris encourages her supporters to “wage [this fight] in quieter ways: in how we live our lives by treating one another with kindness and respect, by looking in the face of a stranger and seeing a neighbor, by always using our strength to lift people up, to fight for the dignity that all people deserve.”
After campaigning against the end of “democracy” and the rise of “fascism” for the last year, it is clear that the Democrats are both unable to counter fascism and never really believed their opponent to be a fascist in the first place. “To the young people who are watching, it is okay to feel sad and disappointed. But please know it’s going to be okay,” Harris told the crowd in her concession speech.
The Democrats treat the question of fascism dangerously, which is in turn regurgitated by the various revisionist organizations that group around them as a recruitment tool. They are quick to conflate ultra-reactionary populist elements with fascism, which provides cover for actual fascists by obfuscating what it really is. In terms of the methods they promote for dealing with fascism, such as a peaceful transition to fascism and using democratic and nonviolent means to counter it, they are preparing the masses for non-resistance in the face of the growing reactionization of the state. The representatives of the bourgeoisie teach that the result of fascism is feeling sad, and if you treat your neighbors with kindness and respect then fascism will be defeated.
Rejection of the Electoral Farce
The growing hysteria and barefaced lies employed by imperialist politicians, who paint the electoral process as a mortal struggle—with each cycle said to be the last—only to quickly concede for a “smooth transition” are fueled by the various crises the imperialist class finds itself enmeshed in and can only continue for so long. The desperate tricks aim to get more participation in an electoral process that already has less participation than most other countries. But the paternalism and electoral blackmail can only last so long; only so many election cycles can be said to be “the most important in our lifetime” until the farce wears thin, unable to hide the deteriorating material reality of working people.
This is already apparent in this election cycle—although Trump is winning the popular vote, he has received roughly the same amount of votes he did in the 2020 presidential election, when he lost the popular vote by 7 million to Joe Biden. The loss of votes for the Democrats this year did not go to third party candidates either, which saw similar numbers of votes in 2020. The conclusion to be drawn then is that the Democratic Party has increasingly alienated people with its miserable policies, losing roughly 10 million votes compared to the last presidential election.
Things will get worse under Trump, but things have gotten and would continue to get worse under Harris, too—that is what it means for imperialism to be in decomposition: more concentration of wealth and power at one pole and greater misery among more people at the other. What determines if things get better is not imperialist politicians, but the growing and rebellious masses that conquer and defend their demands under revolutionary leadership. With Trump’s victory, the situation is better primed for this, and revolutionaries must act as a lever among the masses to ignite this discontent and lend it organization and objectives, both for the realization of immediate demands and the strategic conquest of power.
