Democratic Debates. No Change in Political Fundamentals. Just Appearances

The US edition of the UK Guardian reports on last night's Democratic Party debate. The headline reads, "No country for old white men: Kamala Harris leads changing of the guard."

Unfortunately, on the substantive issue, that the Democratic Party remain the party of capital and Wall Street and that the capitalist system with its racism, exploitation and global plunder continues, there is no changing "the guard" just that the guard become younger and a little different in appearance. There are others wanting a piece of the action.  You can read the article I refer to here.  

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired

The liberal British newspaper, The Guardian has gained tremendous popularity in the US where the mass media is so conservative. It shows the thirst for more left leaning liberal social democratic views. But, as with the title of this article above, it descends deep in to identity politics so rampant here in the US. It's not to say that one's identity, what color, sexual orientation or race a person is doesn't matter or need special attention in a society based on class exploitation that uses our differences to divide us. It doesn't mean socialists or any social activist should focus on class and class only. The liberal middle class refers to this as class reductionism and it is often used by some not all, to undermine anyone that points to the issue of class as integral to capitalism and the struggle to overthrow it.

It is not accidental that Marx called not for academics of the world, gays of the world, transgenders or vegetarians of the world to unite. He suggested workers due to their special role in the system of production.  Certainly most of those who do not fall in to the old male, white and heterosexual category are also workers. So failing to pay special attention to racism, sexism, or the identity oppression of those who are not male old or white, and having no political program and strategy that can correct this, makes uniting the working class and the elimination of capitalism and class oppression impossible.

Of course, liberals have no intention of eliminating capitalism, only making it nicer, fairer, giving everyone the "level playing field" which is not possible and hard to imagine that any worker would think it. The Guardian is the voice of this predominantly middle class political current. It is a positive thing that people of color, gays, women and other specially oppressed sectors of society are struggling, and more successfully, to escape marginalization or their "special oppression", and that workers see in political figures, leaders in education, science, art, culture and especially in the trade unions and workers organizations, all the diversity that makes up humanity. (The liberal left, or to be honest, petit bourgeois left, will find fault in my use of the term "humanity" as a political weakness a product of my patriarchal nature). But their world view, that capitalism can be turned in to a just and fair system of production, that racism and sexism, war hunger and environmental catastrophe can be eliminated within the framework of capitalism, leads them to weaken further the struggle of the working class to change it and the working class is the only force that can change it.

But for this political current the working class doesn't exist, certainly not as a force for change that can govern society. Moses Mayakiso, the South African union leader said at the founding of COSATU that they didn't simply want to change the color of the face of the exploiter, but the system of exploitation itself.  In the approach of the left liberals like the author above and the Guardian in general, the complete absence of the class question, while filling the predominantly white middle class liberal audience with sheer joy, does not really threaten the white racist, male dominated US ruling class as well. The main criticism though, is that it is politically conservative and fails to give any serious explanation of why society is like it is. It is as pro-capitalist as Fox news in the end.

The leaders and public figures in society looking more like the many faces of society in general is a good thing.  But age is not bad. Though it appears that the author certainly thinks so and expresses it because he cannot attack capitalism as he supports that too, albeit a friendly more humane capitalism. Capitalism with rules as Elizabeth Warren says.

Being white is not bad, it is not the main problem in society. If you are an older worker, a male, and white and you fight oppression and injustice and especially capitalism, this is positive. But the author cannot describe the most important aspect of society, class exploitation. So he champions a lawyer, a prosecutor of working class people in a society with a racist justice system. He chooses her because she is a woman and a person of color. Kamala Harris got where she is (a meteoric rise the Guardian describes it) as a member of a major capitalist party, one of the world’s most powerful, and the only political party in history to have dropped nuclear bombs on urban centers.  As a prominent member of this Wall Street institution she is vying for the head of the world's most powerful and most violent capitalist state by sending many young workers to jail or punishing them in one way or another. She proved to the racist justice system and its primarily white male capitalist power structure that she could be trusted; that she was tough on crime, especially black crime and black youth. I saw her in action as an assistant DA in Oakland. For workers and middle class people that are staunch Democratic Party supporters or who genuinely believe that the only position they must take in 2020 is to vote Democrat, Elizabeth Warren is by far the best choice. She is the most honest and sincere of the Democratic Party candidates. 

I am a member of DSA and unfortunately DSA could offer a real alternative to the two Wall Street parties but is supporting Sanders which is a huge mistake and likely to harm DSA as time passes. 

See: DemocraticSocialists of America: Support for Sanders a major mistake.

This is what happens when the class issue is buried under the mountainous weight of identity politics. What a person’s political views are, how they see society, what their program for change is and what that change might be is all put aside to warm the cockles of the liberal heart.  That it offers no solution to the working class, cannot eliminate racism and sexism and other means of social control from above, and in fact divides us further, matters not to this political current. Workers, if we matter at all, are there to be led.