Wall Street: the real “Bosses of the Senate” (Cartoon originally published in 1889)
The Republicans are coming, the Republicans are coming! This is what we hear from the Democrats every election season—and quite frankly, poor and working-class people have grown tired of it. Of course, we understand with complete clarity how bad the Republicans are. We know the results of their militaristic, Wall Street program and how their party provides a home to a whole range of racists and anti-immigrant groupings.
But the Democrats’ election strategy—reminding the country of how bad George W. Bush was and the Tea Party is—reflects how little the Democrats themselves have accomplished during their two years in command of the federal government. We don’t need to go over the long list of unsolved problems or broken promises from the Democrats. Just look around; nothing has changed.
If the Republicans regain control of Congress this year, it will not be because the population has suddenly shifted in a conservative direction. It will not be because a whole new sector of the population has become rabid racists and been won over to Tea Party politics. It will not be because Obama went too fast or tried to do too much.
Quite the opposite. Just as when Obama was elected, millions of people are still suffering from the inescapable contradictions of capitalism and are fed up with politics as usual. In 2008, that sentiment translated into hope; this year it has translated into a frustration that is fully justified. The Democratic base will stay home, while the right-wing ideologues, smelling blood, are in high gear.
The frustration among the Democratic base should not be cause for alarm for revolutionaries and progressive people. It is not our job to restore confidence in a big business party that has repeatedly failed to deliver.
Our priority remains the same: to organize a fight back from the very bottom of society. Whichever corporate party is on top at any given moment is ultimately out of our control and of secondary importance.
The capitalist electoral system is a sham. It is a system rigged to ensure the domination of the tiny ruling class of Wall Street bankers, corporations and big-business owners over the vast majority of people in the United States—the working class. As such, the electoral system cannot be the final arena of struggle for the working class. In other words, we can’t solve our problems at the ballot box, although that is what we are taught to believe.
Nonetheless, the attention of many workers will be drawn this year to the mid-term elections. Millions will vote, and those who do not directly participate are forced to listen closely, because the corporate media focuses on the elections constantly. This year is no exception.
For that reason, the Party for Socialism and Liberation proudly offered a socialist alternative in four races in the 2010 midterm elections. A vote for the PSL is a vote for a new system, and against capitalist war, racism, bigotry and exploitation. (To find out more about our campaigns, visit VotePSL.org.)
Regardless of which pro-capitalist candidates win, the elections will sorely disappoint anyone longing for real change. Those who want a better life, a better world, an immediate end to the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, better wages for workers, free health care, and full economic and social equality for everyone will not get any of those things from the big-business candidates currently on parade.
For our part, the PSL wants a revolution, and we work hard to make it happen. We are involved in struggles—both large and small—that affect our class. From the anti-war movement to the fight for immigrant rights, from struggles for affordable housing and health care to combating racist police brutality, from the movement for women’s rights and LGBT equality to labor and union struggles—the PSL is at the forefront of the class struggle. We are comprised of militant, working-class organizers and leaders, and we’re looking for all the fighters out there who want to join in.
