More on Alabama Elections

Richard Shelby

By Richard Mellor

Afscme Local 444, retired

In our previous post on the situation in Alabama we pointed to numerous factors that led to it. The growth and diversity of the working class and the “…increased consciousness and power of women workers, especially African American women workers who turned out in massive numbers to put down Moore.”

We wrote that, “It is possible that we can say today that the most conscious section of the US working class at this time is the African American women workers.”  But we have also stressed that this is a global phenomenon, and an, “… important feature of the class relations world wide” Over 50% of the world’s factory workers are women as they enter the workplaces of the world in unprecedented numbers.

We also touched on another important issue that so often gets buried in the US where identity politics tends to trump the class issue (pun intended). The state’s senior Senator, Richard Shelby came out against Moore two days prior to the election. Shelby announced that he could not vote for Moore due to the accusations against him by women who he said he believed. Shelby admitted that he had already cast an absentee ballot and for a different Republican and called on Alabama voters to do the same. ”the state of Alabama deserves better” he stated. Some voters interviewed after the election said they voted for a popular football coach.

Elections are about casting ballots, but the bourgeois do not stay out of them, as the repeal of the “Bathroom Bill” an anti-LGBTQ bill in North Carolina showed.  CEO’s of some of the nation’s largest corporations including, Apple, Marriott, Facebook, Lyft, Levi Strauss, Yahoo, YouTube and IBM opposed the law (80 companies at least) and threatened to pull out of the state, including North Carolina’s largest employer, Bank of America. Had the law not been repealed, it was estimated it would cost the state $3.76 billion. This was influencing an election one might say.

We had written previously that a “..strategic section of the bourgeois in Alabama through their mouthpiece Shelby, the senior Senator, came out and openly opposed Moore.” This is another factor that must not be ignored. Shelby is a representative of this section of the bourgeois that recognizes the harm that the religious fanatic and sexual predator Moore brings to the state.

Alabama is a relatively cheap labor right to work state trying to attract capital investment and modernize. “Alabama’s aerospace and aviation industry is recording a landmark year with a major haul of project announcements that bring the promise of international prominence to communities and workers across the state.”, the Alabama Department of Commerce boasts on its website. The state drew in almost $4.2 billion in capital investment in 2016 with foreign direct investment (FDI) accounting for  $1.57 billion of it.

Alabama Bus Manufacturer

Mining and steal production are also important Alabama industries as well as poultry and agriculture and tech and transportation manufacturing has a presence. Airbus, that began production in Alabama in 2015 is producing four aircraft a month as of this quarter and other manufacturers from around the world are looking to invest in Alabama. Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Honda and Hyundai already have a significant presence in the state which has had an impact. Wage growth in Mobile County is up 18.5 percent in five years, in an area where the cost of living remains remarkably low. In 2015 Forbes.com made Mobile the top-rated “midsized city” for manufacturing growth, almost all of it was driven by foreign-owned corporations.

This is another aspect to the eventual defeat of Moore and the reason for Shelby’s statement two days before the vote. He is the state’s senior Republican and mouthpiece of industry, and not just aerospace, auto and others, "To outside eyes…”, Howell Raines writes in the New York Times December 16^th, “…..Senator Shelby is an unlikely rebel. As his states most senior Republican, he reliably supports the business establishment, the banking industry and his favorite pork barrel cause, the University of Alabama."

Shelby’s appeal had an effect. Jones beat Moore by more than 20,000 votes in a race in which some 22,000 write-in votes were cast. Some Alabama voters said they went with revered football coach Nick Saban rather than Moore

This is what occurred here and why socialists should have called for a vote for Jones. (This does not mean supporting the Democratic Party as a road to socialism. See the previous statement on this issue. Alabama Elections Serious Questions for Socialists) All these factors played a role in Moore's defeat. It is also important to recognize that the more serious elements of the US ruling class don’t give a damn about Jesus. They care about profits and more of it. This is what Alabama is to them and why there has been changes in the states economic situation and along with that, its workforce.

As is Trump, Roy Moore was and is a liability, an obstacle to development. He is not good for business. He is not good for the capitalist class.  A friend and comrade pointed out in reference to the Moore victory that,  “One of the few meager benefits of a bourgeois democracy that we get to be consulted now and then over our choice of enemies.” But it’s also important to remember that the bourgeois participate in elections as well and not just at the ballot box.  That intervention came with Shelby's appeal.

The defeat of Moore as we wrote previously, is another defeat for Trumpism. It becomes more obvious that for the big bourgeois in the US, Trump has to go. They are in a crisis politically, they are unsure exactly how, but go he must. As for Moore, had he won, he may well have been removed by other means not unfamiliar to the US ruling class.