Building on black lives movement

By Paul Garver

Since my last article on U.S. politics in The Chartist was printed [#302, Feb. 2020], the coronavirus pandemic followed by the Black Lives Matter protests has been reshaping the political terrain.

The ongoing pandemic is damaging Trump. His bumbling ineptitude and narcissistic callousness are on full display every day. The societal consequences of the economic crisis triggered by attempts to control the pandemic are devastating with no end in sight. Trump’s chief argument for reelection had been the relatively strong economy, and Trump is now promoting over-hasty measures to revive the economy by relaxing safety precautions. The pandemic is therefore raging out of control in those rural and small-town areas controlled by Republican politicians too much in thrall to Trump’s willful ignorance and denial of science. 

The widespread and persistent Black Lives demonstrations throughout the country, led by young people of all races, are showing the power of the streets to shift popular attitudes on race and force politicians at all levels to promise reforms in policing.  Progressive insurgents have been defeating middle-of-the-road Democratic incumbents in recent Congressional primaries.  In a New York district, African-American educator Jamaal Bowman decisively defeated Eliot Engel, a darling of the Democratic establishment, who was endorsed by Hilary Clinton and heavily funded by pro-Israel and both Democratic and Republican political action committees. Another African-American progressive insurgent Mondaire Jones won a primary election for an open seat in a predominantly White New York suburban district, while Black Lives Matter insurgent Cori Bush defeated an entrenched Democratic incumbent in Missouri.

“Squad Members” and DSA members Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib easily won their reelection primaries.  It is now likely that the current Squad of four in the House of Representatives will be expanded to at least ten members after the 2020 elections. Despite the panicked negative responses from the institutional Democratic Party, the balance of power is clearly shifting towards the Left in the U.S. House, which is likely to have an expanded Democratic majority.

The fundamental tenet of Sanders campaign was that millions of new, marginalized and younger voters would be drawn into the electoral process, which did not happen. However It now appears that the massive and sustained Back Lives Matter Protests are being accompanied by a strong Left electoral surge, at least in major metropolitan areas.  It remains unclear whether Biden can harness that surge. In general, younger and poorer people do not vote in the same proportion as older and wealthier persons. This partly explains why Biden defeated Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries. 

Sanders may have withdrawn prematurely from the Presidential race.  The pandemic is dramatically demonstrating the defects of employer-based insurance by threatening tens of millions of newly unemployed with loss of their health coverage. The costs of Medicare for All and a Green New Deal jobs program pale in comparison with the huge sums of money now being poured into financial and fossil fuels corporations as temporary bailouts. By withdrawing from the Presidential race, Sanders failed to accumulate enough committed Democratic delegates to ensure that the positions of his supporters would have direct influence on the Democratic Party 2020 platform. 
 
Sanders quid pro quo was to enter into negotiations with Joe Biden to create “unity” task forces to shape the Democratic Party’s platform.    The six task forces were Climate Crisis/Environmental Justice, Criminal Justice, Education, Economy, Health Care and Immigration. The Sanders and Biden campaigns each appointed a co-chair plus four additional members {Biden] and two [Sanders] for each task force. The recommendations of those unity task forces were made public in early July. In general, they would provide a comprehensive domestic framework for a decent social democratic party, although compromised short of more ambitious progressive goals like Medicare for All, Green New Deal or free higher education. 

However, the Democratic Party policy committee is already watering down these task force recommendations. In any event few people actually read long form party platforms. What the electorate will be made aware of is how the candidate and the campaign present their proposals. Left to his own advisors and devices, Joe Biden is likely to follow the Hilary Clinton model by lying low and stressing the defects of Trump rather than propose any sweeping or comprehensive alternatives.  As in 2016 this is thought by Democratic pols to be the “safe” strategy for defeating Trump in 2020.

Most leaders of progressive movements and unions, following Sanders, are endorsing Biden. Less from enthusiasm but as the only available alternative to Trump’s re-election. However, we cannot know yet whether sufficient numbers of their members and followers can be motivated to overcome the twinned difficulties of the pandemic and voter suppression hurdles to actually register and vote in November. 
Most of the voting is likely to be through absentee mail-in ballots because of the pandemic.  Physical polling places, particularly in African-American neighborhoods, have been closed down, forcing long lines at those still open. We do not know the full impact of a shift to mail-in voting.  Trump is opposed to its widespread use even though he and most of his advisers vote absentee themselves. But in general, poorer people still face more difficulties in voting by mail as well as in person.

In any event the most potent electoral tool of the Left had become door-to-door canvassing in lower-income neighborhoods and communities.  This has become almost impossible due to the pandemic. But that has not hindered good performances by progressive insurgents in Democratic congressional primaries. Effective use of social media helped bring out tens of millions to the Black Lives Matter protests throughout the country, where tables were set up to register and inform voters. It could encourage voting as well by young people as well.

Defeating Trump electorally is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for preserving democracy and advancing democratic socialist ideas. It is even possible that Trump will not willingly vacate the White House following a narrow defeat. He has dozens of ways to discredit and contest the vote, by claiming fraud and by plying upon the slow process of counting challenged and absentee ballots. Trump also has a Supreme Court majority that could award him a dubious electoral victory in a close election as it did for George Bush in 2000.

Even if Joe Biden wins the Presidential race, Republicans will continue to block any serious progressive legislation if they continue to control the U.S. Senate. A Democratic majority in the Senate is needed to block Trump if he is reelected and to pass any vitally needed legislation if he is not.

There are only marginal indications that Trump’s core support bases are crumbling.  He is still supported by a plurality of White male voters, by most Evangelical voters and by virtually all Republicans. The Trump administration is doubling down on those repressive and regressive measures designed to fire up that base – anti-immigrant and refugee, militarization of police forces, restricting reproductive freedom, encouragement of religious-based bigotry, destruction of environmental protections, etc. 
 
Trump’s re-election remains possible. The arcane rules of the U.S. electoral system permit an electoral victory by a popular minority, like Trump won in 2016. Republican legislatures and politicians at the state level are enacting targeted measures to discourage and deny voter participation, particularly by persons of color and younger persons.  The Supreme Court continues to tolerate these anti-democratic practices.

Elections of course matter mostly because they register ideological and political trends in the electorate. The defeat of Sanders in the primaries, countered in part by a growing number of state and local electoral victories by the Left, suggests that, while the democratic socialist movement is increasingly relevant to U.S. politics, it is relatively strong only among younger people [of all races], those with some higher education, and concentrated in larger cities and university towns.  To become a major force in national politics the democratic socialist left has to become convincing and credible to other broader constituencies as well.

This poses a major challenge to the democratic socialist movement in the USA, and in particular to the Democratic Socialists of America [DSA], its largest and fastest growing organization. As a “big tent” organization that every month takes in hundreds of young people from all socialist backgrounds and none, DSA can do little more than provide a political education framework for local DSA groupings that vary widely from place to place. DSA does not have a single strategic direction or mandate as clear as [for example] the small but admirably focused Justice Democrats. However, DSA is alive and energetic, and its members are learning to organize at the grassroots in hundreds of local chapters.

I became politically active in the late 1960s and early 1970s through the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements. We never managed to align our immediate demands with a long-term strategy for achieving political power.  Part of our problem was that we young people felt isolated and alienated from most existing authorities, including the Communist and Socialist parties. Today we are working that this tragic failure to connect between Left generations is not going to happen this time. The wonderfully sustained and widespread multi-racial Black Lives Matter demonstrations build about the achievements of the civil rights movement, and give us hope that together with a sustainable Left electoral and organizational building strategy we can build a political movement capable of contesting for power.