By John Beacham – Aug 11, 2020
- Contents
- A Biden win will trigger a conflict
- Billionaire dictators and racism
- Voting in 2020
- Trump and the ruling class
- Biden and the ruling class
- The role of the democrats in the american system
- Example 1: Pelosi enables the racists
- Example 2: Obama enables the racists
- Example 3: Let’s really think about the response to the pandemic
- Clash of 2021?
1. The 2020 election is just not that important in terms of solving the underlying causes of the many epochal crises we face as a people and planet.
2. A vote for Biden is not a vote against fascism. Things are much more serious than that! We must raise the level of our struggle against the system.
3. Trump is not the cause of the troubles. He is a symptom—in part, a catalyst.
The cause of the instability, the reemergence of white supremacy—inside and outside government—and the uprisings and protests for justice is the capitalist and imperialist system we live under and its decades long program of austerity, wars of aggression and violent state oppression.
The ruling class war on the people has reached a point in which people’s backs are up against the wall. The fight is on and no outcome of the 2020 election will bring peace. The ship has sailed. The train has left the station.
Armed racists marching on capitals. The youth shutting down cities and facing off with the cops. Armed racists and cops killing protesters on the streets.
Which side are you on? Joe Biden is on the side of the billionaires and the racists.
A Biden win will trigger a conflict
If Biden wins, which is a substantial if, the white supremacists inside and outside of government will surely go on the war path. Ironically, if the ruling class wants more stability at this point in history, they probably should have opted for Sanders!
Will mass incarceration, rapist, war criminal Joe Biden and his establishment administration stand up to the white supremacists inside and outside of government? That seems highly unlikely, especially since his entire political career has been spent in coalition with racists, bigots and war criminals.
That seems highly unlikely when Biden has spent his entire political career working with the capitalist class to enact the measures and policies that have helped to create, exacerbate and prolong the crises we face.
That seems highly unlikely when Biden’s party would rather use the pandemic as an election talking point than really fight to defeat the pandemic and really fight for pandemic relief.
What is highly likely is that the instability of the capitalist, imperialist United States will continue to grow. Whoever wins the 2020 election, the people will not have won anything substantial, and white supremacy and far right reaction are sure to grow if not dominate politics in the short term unless an organized independent working-class movement with revolutionary leadership emerges.
Fascism has organic links to the ruling class and the capitalist system in the United States. Racism is vital to the dictatorship of the billionaires. That is why, for example, the democrats always seek consensus with even the most reactionary republicans while going to war with the socialists within their own party.
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Think about it. Did the Obama/Biden administration stand up to the racist Tea Party or did they allow them to defeat immigration reform from a minority political position and take over the house, leading, eventually, to Trump’s victory and the victory of the open-up movement over the coronavirus response? They did!
How will voting for Joe Biden solve the environmental crisis, stop white supremacy, stop the pandemic (he’s not for universal healthcare) and stop world war 3 (he’s a war criminal)?
These interrelated crises must be solved in the shortish term. We have no choice in this matter. They will not be solved if white supremacy and reaction continue to have the upper hand. They will only be solved by a united international movement of workers and oppressed people. Joe Biden is not now, nor will he be, part of that movement. He will be an enemy of that movement. Status quo Joe.
Though many of the billionaires looked to other candidates or funded their own campaigns for a time because Biden’s campaign was a dumpster fire, they are beside themselves that it is Biden vs. Trump—that the elections no longer bring with them heightened expectations but only hysteria over another four years of Trump and a stifling pressure to, like Nina Turner said, “Eat shit” and vote for Biden.
In reality, the best outcome of the 2020 election would be the largest vote possible for a socialist third-party candidate. That type of vote would show that there are x number of people who will stand up to the system and reject capitalism and racism.
Billionaire dictators and racism
Both Biden and Trump are ruling class candidates.
Trump is trusted by less of the ruling class and more of a divider, while Biden is trusted by more of the ruling class at this point.
That’s not to say that a Biden administration and a Trump administration would manage the country in the same way, but the billionaires as a whole will continue to have a class ally in the white house.
The biggest difference between Trump and Biden is that Trump uses the office to compete with other rulers while Biden, like Obama, will try to facilitate a unity of the rulers.
Trump opportunistically yields racism to build power. Biden opportunistically uses Trump’s racism to win an election in the interests of the 1%.
Make no mistake, the imperial ruling class that allows Trump to keep the office even though he is using it to build a fascist following and coalition hopes that a Biden victory would lead to a pacification of protest and rebellions so that they can right the ship, continue to strengthen their grip on power and focus on aggression against China, Russia and the rest of the world.
Make no mistake, the billionaires would rather racist cops, armed racists and homeland security goons rule the street than a mass movement against capitalism any day of the week. That is why, as an emerging white supremacist coalition, or movement, has shockingly brutalized, killed, kidnapped and locked up protesters, there has been no attempt by the powers that be to shut this movement down.
And shut down it must be, or it will continue to grow.
Voting in 2020
For my part, I will not be voting for Trump or Biden. They are not my candidates and thinking that Biden will listen when (if) we protest—I don’t care what the billionaires, Angela Davis, Bernie Sanders, Carl Davidson or Bob Avakian say—is utter naivete and a complete misunderstanding of the political system we live under.
Do we really think the billionaires flocking to Biden’s campaign during these increasingly turbulent times is anything other than an attempt to quiet us down?
Not to mention his segregationist, sexist and war criminal history and present, Biden has spent his entire political career belittling, shushing, lecturing at and telling black people, immigrants, women, LGBTQ people, workers, etc to shut up. Remember Anita Hill?
We will not go down on our knees. We will not shut up or be pacified!
Trump and the ruling class
Though Trump is seen by most billionaires as a bad to very bad manager of the capitalist system with too many horrid gaffs, heinous statements and bad policy decisions, many billionaires are very happy with his escalation of the wealth gap through tax cuts, deregulations and more.
To them white supremacy, the suffering of workers, they are never central concerns. Their central concern is that the president helps them hold onto and increase their power and profits.
The main fact that we all must be aware of is that the United States is not ruled from the white house, but from the board room. The president is a figure head that has a significant role in policy making only because the ruling class has fostered a powerful, permanent and reactionary state (the FBI, Homeland Security, the CIA, an unelected and unaccountable judiciary and so on) and, overtime, greatly increased executive power in an attempt to centralize decision making in an era where greater democracy—never a friend to a ruling class—is the expected norm by the majority of people.
After all, real democracy—majority rule over the economy and government—is the end of the ruling class and their profit first system. Genuine democracy is not an election for a head of state.
Of course, the fascist character of the Trump regime is not what the ruling class would prefer—all things being equal. They do, however, prefer Trump over the growing movement against racism and capitalism.
The likes of Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have all shown that they are more than willing to unite with Trump. Gates, that liberal scion of the democratic party famously said—when it looked like Bernie Sanders had a shot—that he had not ruled out voting for Trump.
The ruling class consensus is vehemently opposed to any type of needed reformation or social democratic makeover of the system. No, their structural hold on power, greater than it has ever been, is not something they will give up without a real fight. That is why they closed ranks to stop the Sanders campaign.
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In fact, the real cause of the reemergence of white supremacy on the streets and in government is not the growing people’s movement for social and economic equality, but the complete rapacity of the bankers, oil and tech bosses over the last forty years that has created greater economic instability and forced workers and oppressed people to fight for their very lives.
The Sanders phenomenon and other newly progressive and democratic socialist elected politicians, even though they represent a hopeful but rather mild rebuke of this rotten system that lynches black people and vultures all the wealth while people needlessly die from the pandemic, are entirely unacceptable to the ruling class at this point—especially considering that there is not an organized independent working class organization or movement (including internationally) that threatens the status quo and would force them to deal with the social democrats.
The protests and revolts—of vital importance in terms of putting the system on alert and increasing the political consciousness of large parts of the population—have yet to find leadership or the correct political form that can challenge the status quo.
Without or even with reforms—which we should continue to fight tooth and nail for out of necessity—the protest and rebellions will grow in intensity. What we need is greater and greater until absolute independence from the establishment.
A system that gives us Trump vs. Biden cannot, ultimately, be reformed. It must be done away with. We need to fight. Really fight.
Biden and the ruling class
As I said before, Biden, because of his great subservience and trustworthiness, is the candidate of those in the ruling class who are hoping the system can be better managed and less threatened by the internal struggle for justice.
Biden is not progressive. History will remember people like him and Hillary Clinton as people who tried to thwart change, save the obsolete and oppressive american empire and lost.
He is not now nor has he ever been part of any movement. He is a career politician who is responsible for mass incarceration, the militarization of the border and the gestapo deportation machine, the war on civil liberties, the massive wealth gap, and so much more. He is a hawk—a war criminal. He is sexist, a rapist and a bully.
Progressive people hope his election will lead to a better outcome in terms of white supremacy and the war on immigrants, women, LGBTQ people—a better outcome in terms of the economy, workers rights, the pandemic and so on.
Let’s be frank. Whoever wins in 2020, the crises we are facing have been decades in the making. The Clintons, Obamas, Pelosis and Bidens (all very rich people, btw) of the world have not only done zero to help prevent the Great Crisis that is emerging, they have actively carried out policy that has greatly contributed to our problems. They have also, with the backing of the 1%, purposefully “capitulated” time and time again to the worst political forces in human history when they are not in power.
The democrats have, in fact, championed mass incarceration, wars for world domination, a war on the workers and the poor and so much more.
The role of the democrats in the american system
Let’s just talk in concrete examples. Here are three:
Example 1: Pelosi enables the racists
Donald Trump was stopped in his tracks and on his heels in the face of the largest protest movement in history in 2017. The wall was stopped. The Muslim ban was stopped. The attack on Obamacare was stopped, etc.
Then the democrats and the media pushed hard on Russia-gate and made the resistance over into a save america from the foreign menace spectacle circus of lies and dead ends.
In tandem, everything became about—as Trump bombed Syria, moved to overthrow governments in Latin America, cut taxes for the rich, loosened environmental protections, locked children up in cages and so much more—electing democrats in 2018. As a result, Trump, with less street resistance, went on a rampage that has greatly emboldened the billionaires, the cops and white supremacists.
Pelosi, the most powerful democrat in the country, called virtually everything Trump has done a distraction (including concentration camps for children), saying a democratic house in 2018 was the answer to everything. Has a democratic house prevented the pandemic, the Trump regime’s genocidal response and the accompanying economic crises from ravaging the country, Trump’s rule by fiat or anything else, really? No.
In fact, the right-wing has been emboldened in the wake of the 2018 electoral strategy. With little resistance, the armed racist open-up movement took to the streets and won. Republican officials joined the movement and opened up the states they controlled. Democratic officials relented to the pressure from the most reactionary forces in their states and opened up their states as well!
In other words, the 2018 electoral strategy of the democrats was a pandemic genocide enabler!
The irony is that the democrats would have served the 1% better—helped out the economy—if the country stayed on and extended the lockdown and got the virus under control!
At the same time, the Black Lives Matter movement has been brutally oppressed. How exactly has a democratic house come to the aid of the people during the uprising? They have not! Biden has even given his tacit approval of the repression against the uprising by using the same tired trope of violent protesters as Trump.
Expecting a Biden administration to do anything about white supremacy unless it is forced to by the militancy and strength of a mass movement is extreme wishful thinking. The protests in 2017 show how we can beat white supremacy. They showed the only way.
Remember, from Charlottesville to Boston to Chicago to DC to everywhere, the white supremacists were driven from the streets by mass counter-protests when they tried to assert themselves in 2017 and 2018. These protests were organized mainly by socialists and BLM and not the democrats who just wanted us to get out of the streets.
The democrats ignore, placate and join white supremacy. They do not oppose it.
Example 2: Obama enables the racists
In 2008 when Barack Obama was elected, he promised immigration reform. It didn’t happen.
Recalling the full story behind the opportunism of the Obama administration and the democrats from 2009 to 2016 and beyond is very, very important. It is a truth that must become our truth.
In 2006 and 2007, the United States witnessed the largest protests in its history up until 2017. Millions of people, over and over, marched to defend immigrants, for equality for immigrants and for a path to citizenship (immigration reform). At the time, those marches effectively shut down federal legislative attacks on immigrants.
The leadership of the rebublican party, the democratic party as a whole and the public were now for immigration reform. Immigration reform won Obama the 2008 election! The democrats won the white house and congress. They swept into power and could have passed any bill they wanted to. They promised immigration reform. It did not happen.
In 2007, the democrats and Obama said to the movement: let’s win in 2008 and then we can pass immigration reform. Obama and the democrats, road to power on the backs of the immigrant rights movement which mobilized to get out the vote.
The 2008 election also saw the Republican party teetering on collapse. The attacks on immigrants and the protest movement drove latinos out of the republican party.
A small minority of virulently anti-immigrant legislators—backed by racist Tea Party street protests that filled the vacuum ceded by the immigrant rights movement and the democratic party were allowed to scuttle immigration reform.
Buoyed and emboldened by the Tea Party success at defeating immigration reform and by the lack of democratic party resistance, the racist Tea Party took over the house in 2010.
The democratic party could have smashed the racist wing of the republican party—and maybe even the republican party—by taking definitive action on immigration when they had power and the backing of the vast majority of the population. Instead, the democratic party is responsible for the rise of white supremacy and the election of Trump just as much as any other entity.
Example 3: Let’s really think about the response to the pandemic
Is the genocidal failure of this system during the pandemic really all Trump’s fault? Of course not!
Let’s go over the timeline:
The pandemic emerges. The Trump regime carries out genocidal policies with no national plan. Most republican governors do the same. Some dem politicians, governors eventually do some good things. Curve starts to flatten in some places. The Trump army—some armed—descends on state capitals. Dems capitulate. Dem governors start opening up to soon. Pandemic escalates.
At the precise time when the democrats could have continued to carry out pandemic measures that might have swung the public will in the right direction through actual successes they did not stand up. They capitulated to a minority movement of white supremacist pandemic deniers and the Trump administration.
Feeling emboldened, a growing fascist coalition of armed racists, small business owners and middle-class professionals, some billionaires, parts of the armed state and Trump are violently attacking and killing protesters.
Again, will Biden stand up to this growing faction of society that is organically and historically linked to the ruling institutions of this country—institutions of which Biden is a lifelong servant, promoter and defender. You tell me!
The democrats serve the one percent, the ruling class which has always partnered with movements like the pro-business open-up movement when they need a counterweight to a people’s movement. Don’t be fooled. Biden would choose Trump over BLM any day of the week. That is his concrete history.
The times are serious. There is still more then enough time, but fascism could ascend to power unless we fight it in the streets, workplaces and schools.
The Clash of 2021?
While the day could have some consequence, nothing that happens on election day 2020 will alter the fact that large parts of the population will continue to seek political change. The political extremities are growing. The elites have no united will to solve the runaway crises of greed, environmental destruction, war for empire, racism and so much more.
2021 and beyond will be an era of greater clashes and, ultimately, a battle over the future of the planet. Fascism will continue to grow. It is an existential threat because capitalism is an existential threat. The people’s movement for justice will not be stopped and the ruling class will seek to hold onto their power through greater state violence and repression. The fascists will be incorporated into that violence and repression organically and likely in some kind of coordination with the state.
Our job is to be ready. To be organized. To be in highly disciplined movements and organizations that understand the nature of a system that can only be fixed through a socialist revolution.
The ruling class, the capitalist system must be overthrown. The sooner the better.
John Beacham
John Beacham is a college teacher, a union member and an anti-war/social justice activist. He was the Midwest coordinator of the PSL campaigns for president in 2008 and 2012. He is currently the founder of MASS ACTION Podcast & Publication.mass-action.org
