LRP on the need to vote for the lesser evil to defeat Trump
Posted: Tue Oct 22, 2024 7:08 pm
Detroit/Seattle Workers’ Voice mailing list
October 21, 2024
On the coming election
There is a reactionary wave in a large part of the world, including the growth of far-right, anti-immigrant, and neo-fascist parties in Europe. Trump’s MAGA, white supremacist offensive is part of this wave, and a second Trump presidency would be a major encouragement for it, and an orgy of right-wing revenge. One would think that the entire American left would be vigilant against this. But a major sign of the deep crisis in the orientation of the radical left is that it is badly split on this. Our view of the coming election was expressed earlier (see “The importance of voting for Harris in the coming election”, https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-241014.pdf ). Below is a similar view by the League for the Revolutionary Party. - Joseph Green, Detroit Workers’ Voice
Defeat Trump – Vote for the Lesser Evil And Prepare to Mobilize Against the Republicans’ War on Democracy & Both Parties’ Imperialist Crimes!
October 14, 2024 by the League for the Revolutionary Party (Excerpts)
This year’s election confronts working-class and left-wing voters with a stark choice. ...
On the one hand, if Trump’s Republicans regain power they are literally promising that blood will flow in the streets. ...
On the other hand, Kamala Harris’s Democrats are the party whose betrayals of their supporters paved the way for Trump’s rise. ...
We know that the Democrats are not champions of the working class and oppressed people. The Biden/Harris administration’s support for Israel’s fascistic government shows their contempt for democracy and human rights abroad, and their McCarthyite smears and police repression of protests in solidarity with the Palestinians indicates that they are prepared to stomp on many democratic rights at home. Nevertheless, one need not hold any illusions in the Democrats to see that they have a stake in the preservation of key rights that working-class people need. A Republican victory threatens to take those rights away; the Democrats, for their own reasons, defend them. That is why socialists must advocate voting for Democrats to keep the Trumpists from power. ...
Confronted by this crisis, however, the socialist left is as divided and disoriented as ever, with significant elements arguing against encouraging a vote for the Democrats and offering a disparate collection of rationalizations for their position. Rather than recognizing reality and proceeding from the interests of the working class and oppressed, some begin with abstract principles – in this case, the myth that Marxists never support bourgeois candidates. [6] Others recognize that Trump’s Republicans are indeed the greater evil but refuse to take responsibility for stopping them, on the grounds that supporting the lesser evil always compromises the left and leads to the greater evil anyway. But this argument is only true so long as one ignores the historical examples that contradict it, not least of which is that the Bolsheviks used the “lesser evil” tactic for years, when there was no viable workers’ candidate, to buy time to build their strength as a prelude to revolution. ...
Nevertheless, some leftists are so opposed to the Democrats that they go so far as to welcome the possibility of helping Trump win. Thus Cornel West’s Justice for All Party, Jill Stein’s Green Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) are running their own presidential campaigns, and these have the potential to siphon enough votes away from the Democrats to cost them the election. It is no wonder that these campaigns are being actively supported by Trump and the Republicans. Cornell West is “one of my favorite candidates,” declared Trump, and “I like [Jill Stein] very much” too, adding in explanation “You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%.” Their campaigns are receiving support from Republican donors secretly donating to their campaigns and Republican activists collecting signatures to get some of them on the ballot.[8]
... shockingly, in a recent speech introducing Jill Stein at a campaign event, Kshama Sawant, well known for having been elected to the Seattle city council as an open revolutionary socialist, proclaimed such an intention. She hopes to achieve something “historic” – punishing Kamala Harris and the Democrats for their responsibility for the Gaza war by focusing their efforts on the state of Michigan and its large Arab and Muslim population – in order to hand Trump the presidency![9]
No matter who wins, mass actions like protests and strikes will be essential to fight the ruling class’s attacks at home and abroad. So will political action in elections, where working class and oppressed people can come to see the need for their own candidates and their own political party, to challenge both parties of capitalism and imperialism. …
Full text of the D/SWV item is at https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-241021.pdf.
Full text of LRP statement including footnotes is at http://www.lrp-cofi.org/statements/defe ... 14-24.html. <>
October 21, 2024
On the coming election
There is a reactionary wave in a large part of the world, including the growth of far-right, anti-immigrant, and neo-fascist parties in Europe. Trump’s MAGA, white supremacist offensive is part of this wave, and a second Trump presidency would be a major encouragement for it, and an orgy of right-wing revenge. One would think that the entire American left would be vigilant against this. But a major sign of the deep crisis in the orientation of the radical left is that it is badly split on this. Our view of the coming election was expressed earlier (see “The importance of voting for Harris in the coming election”, https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-241014.pdf ). Below is a similar view by the League for the Revolutionary Party. - Joseph Green, Detroit Workers’ Voice
Defeat Trump – Vote for the Lesser Evil And Prepare to Mobilize Against the Republicans’ War on Democracy & Both Parties’ Imperialist Crimes!
October 14, 2024 by the League for the Revolutionary Party (Excerpts)
This year’s election confronts working-class and left-wing voters with a stark choice. ...
On the one hand, if Trump’s Republicans regain power they are literally promising that blood will flow in the streets. ...
On the other hand, Kamala Harris’s Democrats are the party whose betrayals of their supporters paved the way for Trump’s rise. ...
We know that the Democrats are not champions of the working class and oppressed people. The Biden/Harris administration’s support for Israel’s fascistic government shows their contempt for democracy and human rights abroad, and their McCarthyite smears and police repression of protests in solidarity with the Palestinians indicates that they are prepared to stomp on many democratic rights at home. Nevertheless, one need not hold any illusions in the Democrats to see that they have a stake in the preservation of key rights that working-class people need. A Republican victory threatens to take those rights away; the Democrats, for their own reasons, defend them. That is why socialists must advocate voting for Democrats to keep the Trumpists from power. ...
Confronted by this crisis, however, the socialist left is as divided and disoriented as ever, with significant elements arguing against encouraging a vote for the Democrats and offering a disparate collection of rationalizations for their position. Rather than recognizing reality and proceeding from the interests of the working class and oppressed, some begin with abstract principles – in this case, the myth that Marxists never support bourgeois candidates. [6] Others recognize that Trump’s Republicans are indeed the greater evil but refuse to take responsibility for stopping them, on the grounds that supporting the lesser evil always compromises the left and leads to the greater evil anyway. But this argument is only true so long as one ignores the historical examples that contradict it, not least of which is that the Bolsheviks used the “lesser evil” tactic for years, when there was no viable workers’ candidate, to buy time to build their strength as a prelude to revolution. ...
Nevertheless, some leftists are so opposed to the Democrats that they go so far as to welcome the possibility of helping Trump win. Thus Cornel West’s Justice for All Party, Jill Stein’s Green Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) are running their own presidential campaigns, and these have the potential to siphon enough votes away from the Democrats to cost them the election. It is no wonder that these campaigns are being actively supported by Trump and the Republicans. Cornell West is “one of my favorite candidates,” declared Trump, and “I like [Jill Stein] very much” too, adding in explanation “You know why? She takes 100% from them. He takes 100%.” Their campaigns are receiving support from Republican donors secretly donating to their campaigns and Republican activists collecting signatures to get some of them on the ballot.[8]
... shockingly, in a recent speech introducing Jill Stein at a campaign event, Kshama Sawant, well known for having been elected to the Seattle city council as an open revolutionary socialist, proclaimed such an intention. She hopes to achieve something “historic” – punishing Kamala Harris and the Democrats for their responsibility for the Gaza war by focusing their efforts on the state of Michigan and its large Arab and Muslim population – in order to hand Trump the presidency![9]
No matter who wins, mass actions like protests and strikes will be essential to fight the ruling class’s attacks at home and abroad. So will political action in elections, where working class and oppressed people can come to see the need for their own candidates and their own political party, to challenge both parties of capitalism and imperialism. …
Full text of the D/SWV item is at https://www.communistvoice.org/DSWV-241021.pdf.
Full text of LRP statement including footnotes is at http://www.lrp-cofi.org/statements/defe ... 14-24.html. <>