Photo: Electoral college map as of Nov. 6. Credit — Wikimedia Commons
The failure of the Democratic Party to respond to the needs of the working class led to the victory of Donald Trump in the 2024 election. For the last year, the Biden-Harris administration has embraced the political program of the right and prioritized support for Israel’s genocidal assault against the people of Gaza while stagnating wages and soaring prices have created vast hardship and suffering for working class and poor people in the United States.
The election was marked by a sharp reduction in voter turnout compared to the 2020 contest. Trump won both the popular vote and the electoral college, but his total number of voters is not yet greater than what he received in 2020. The vote for the Democratic Party candidate is still 14 million fewer than Biden received in 2020. Why did so many fewer people vote for the Democratic Party in 2024? Why were Biden’s approval ratings at historic lows? There are several important factors, some are explicitly political and others have to do with the Democratic Party’s failure to meet the economic needs of the people.
When Biden and Harris took office in 2021, the Democratic Party had control of the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. They failed to enact legislation protecting abortion rights or providing necessary economic relief for working-class families. In fact, they destroyed or canceled many of those programs. The Biden-Harris administration also canceled vital COVID-19 relief programs that had sharply reduced childhood poverty, provided relief for working class families, and maintained a moratorium on evictions. Soaring food prices and the cost of housing have drastically lowered the living standard for tens of millions of people in the United States. Only seven percent of voters said that they were “enthusiastic” about the direction of the country.
Millions of people in the United States have been in the streets protesting the Biden-Harris support for Israeli genocide. Instead of listening to these voices, the administration kept sending billions of dollars in bombs to be dropped on the Palestinian people. The Biden-Harris administration prioritized endless war in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere. They have been spending nearly a trillion dollars a year for death and destruction while millions of families in the United States are being decimated by hurricanes and other climate catastrophes and are unable to access flood insurance, wind insurance, and other necessary tools to rebuild their destroyed homes and communities. Kamala Harris campaigned endlessly with right-wing Republican Liz Cheney, embraced war criminal Dick Cheney, and embraced a super-hawkish military and foreign policy. In a failed attempt to win over Republicans, Harris further alienated young voters and significant sections of the Democratic Party base.
As Trump promoted a vile, anti-worker and racist hysteria against immigrant families, the Harris campaign joined in, demanding greater border security, restrictions on immigration, and even pledging to further build a wall that separates Mexico and the United States. Harris made no effort to counter the demonizing and dehumanizing attacks against immigrant workers. This failure allowed the anti-immigrant hysteria to grow and become a significant factor in Trump’s demagogic appeal.
The phenomenon of an anti-incumbent vote is a feature of contemporary global capitalist politics. Ruling parties recently have suffered setbacks and defeats in the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and elsewhere. The global capitalist crisis that began with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 has continued to inflict pain and suffering in all of the capitalist economies that put the maximizing of corporate profits ahead of the needs of the people. Thus, the crisis facing working-class people in the United States is deeply similar to that which is being experienced in all of the advanced capitalist economies. Incumbent politicians and political parties are being punished by the electorate, but the real problem is capitalism itself.
We reject the argument put forward by some liberals that the election of Trump is a sign simply of the reactionary backwardness of the population. This is false, and is just one more form of hand wringing by people who are unwilling to take up the challenge of eliminating capitalism and constructing a new, rational society that puts the needs of people and the environment ahead of capitalist corporations. Numerous progressive ballot initiatives succeeded even in states where Trump won. For example, in the 10 states where abortion rights were on the ballot, clear majorities were in favor in eight of them – with the only defeats in conservative-dominated Nebraska and South Dakota.
The Trump administration’s program is nothing short of a declaration of war against the working class. The so-called MAGA movement is part of a larger, global effort by the far-right to use racism and xenophobia to divide the working class. His focused attacks on immigrant workers are designed to conceal a billionaire’s agenda to wipe out the social and economic reforms that were the result of the struggles of the labor movement, the civil rights movement, women, the LGBTQ community, and the growing movement to protect the environment and save the planet. The unfettered rule of capitalist corporations is the real agenda. It is urgent that a new mass movement be built in defense of people’s political, economic, and social rights. At the same time, the Party for Socialism and Liberation believes that it is critical to build a mass, nationwide socialist movement to address the real problem, the capitalist system, which is unable to meet the needs of people and is addicted to militarism and war.
