As part of the Party for Socialism and Liberations’ intervention in the 2008 bourgeois elections, PSL members traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, to petition to gain ballot status for the upcoming November presidential elections.
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It was heartening that in Utah, known as a bastion of conservative politics, many people were willing to sign the petition and actually quite excited to see a progressive socialist campaign taking place. Salt Lake City is relatively liberal and progressive compared to much of Utah, but people at the event came from many different parts of the state.
The La Riva/Puryear campaign’s position in defense of LGBT rights, against the war in Iraq and in support of meeting human needs was received with great enthusiasm by the mostly young crowd of LGBT people and their allies over the weekend. Many expressed strong support for the right of third parties to be on the ballot, implicitly or explicitly criticizing the two-party model of “democracy” that dominates U.S. politics.
Utah’s LGBT community has faced a particularly fierce, reactionary attack. In November 2004, a constitutional amendment passed in Utah banning same-sex marriages. The LGBT community has a concrete understanding of the need to fight back and challenge a power structure that is determined to keep people oppressed and isolated.
Many people expressed their solidarity with a campaign that intends to take on not only the Bush Administration and the Republican Party, but also the equally pro-war Democratic Party. While some were unconvinced that any alternative to the two dominant capitalist parties was possible, many more expressed a profound desire to break with the Democratic Party and form a genuine peoples’ movement.
The La Riva/Puryear campaign sees its successful petitioning efforts to gain ballot status in Utah as one more step in its campaign for revolutionary change. PSL members look forward to campaigning in Utah and around the country, exposing the sham of bourgeois elections and building a movement for socialism.
