Why I Won't Vote Democratic in 2004 [View All]

[durutti]

A few months ago, I would've said that I'm voting for whomever wins the Democratic nomination in 2004. I've since reconsidered.

The U.S. is pretty much a one-party state. We have two factions of the Business Party. There are differences between Democrats and Republicans, but they're small differences -- especially in comparison to the differences between parties in other democratic states.

The Democratic Party has never been the "party of the people". It began as the party of Southern agricultural wealth; it competed against the party of Northern industrial wealth. It continued this way until the Great Depression, when significant sections of the party were won over to liberalism.

However, it's easy to overestimate this turn. Large parts of the party remained as the always had been. And the "liberal" New Deal reforms were themselves not intended to change the system, but to preserve it. At the time, Socialists actually won seats in Congress; membership in radical parties was increasing exponentially. The labor movement was becoming more powerful. The New Deal reforms served to pacify these tendencies.

The labor movement was also co-opted. The bosses of the AFL-CIO became collaborators with the bosses. In addition, they campaigned against immigrants and espoused a disgusting racism.

After World War II, Democratic "liberals" became avid Cold Warriors. The union bureaucrats stood 100 percent behind them.

In the 1970s, the Democratic Party began to drift further to the right, gradually becoming more supportive of neoliberal "globalization". Later, the Dems would adopt welfare "reform" and other cuts in social spending as pet issues.

What is the Democratic Party today? The party of capital punishment, more cops and more prisons, the drug war, NAFTA, WTO, FTAA, GATT, MAI, the Kosovo war, the Iraq war, the bombing of Sudan pharmaceuticals plants, welfare "reform", HMO empowerment, the PATRIOT Act, gargantuan military spending, and "compromise" with the lunacy of the hard right.

Why the rightward shift in the Democratic Party? There are a number of reasons. For one, in order to compete with the GOP, the Democratic Party has increasingly had to rely on corporate contributions and wealthy candidates. The consolidation of the corporate media has created an effective propaganda machine for the rich.

But even if we could successfully implement comprehensive campaign finance reform, and even if we could break up the media giants, it would mean little. In a capitalist society, the employing class has the most power, by definition.

What I mean by this statement is that if confronted with reform proposals they disapprove of, capitalists would merely have to disinvest, either refusing to invest at all or investing in another country.

This tactic has been employed successfully by capitalists in Latin America, and also in Scandinavia, where such "capital strikes" were employed to dismantle the established welfare states.

In summary, electoralism is a dead end. It cannot be successful. Nothing short of social revolution can alter our current course.

Is there any point in voting or running for office at all, then? Yes. Campaigning for office and voting for candidates should not be considered a means to affect change; but rather a means to popularize marginalized views. When leftist candidates run for office, when they give newspaper interviews, when they appear at debates -- they're exposing people to views that normally aren't seriously considered. And when people vote for them, it forces some recognition of those views.

With all that said, I'm endorsing Walt Brown of the Socialist Party USA for President in 2004.

Please don't flame me. :-)