AOC attacked. Racist Trump Appeals to His Base. Pelosi Fights to keep Democratic Party a Capitalist party.

Chicagoans rally against ICE

Trump's latest racist and xenophobic assault on the four new Democratic Congresswomen and the pathetic responses from Democrats underlines the serious crisis facing the two capitalist parties and US society as a whole. Trump writes:

"So interesting to see 'Progressive' Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run," he said in tweets. "Why don't they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came."  "These places need your help badly, you can't leave fast enough. I'm sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!" 

So says the US president, himself a serial sexual predator. I took a friend up who simply described him as an idiot. But there are idiots that are not necessarily harmful. Trump is an idiot, but more important he is a racist, a misogynist and clearly a ultra right wing demagogue. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez  (AOC) was born in the US, a great part of the US, the Bronx. Trump's intention is to feed his Nazi base with these comments. He knows he is not popular.

I know people who tolerate Trump supporters but please consider that. Do not assume fascism cannot present more serious and organized dangers here. I am optimistic as the US working class is not as conservative as the mass media and many on social media make out. Remember, 100 million or so never voted in the last election. They are not absent because they are all right wing racists. 

I was talking with a friend the other day, a person of color who, in his frustration raised what it is about white people that they put this racist in office. He was a bit despaired. But "white" people did not; the undemocratic Electoral College did. Trump never even won the popular vote. Of the 100 million that opted out I would guess most of them are white. And I raised with my friend that he voted for Obama. Obama is a war criminal. He is a killer of persons of color himself. He increased Bush's murderous drone assassinations taking out many civilians in the process and look what he did in Libya not to mention the whole Yemen horror. Life and politics is complicated at times

I sympathize with many of my black friends that voted for Obama (not so much the white ones) as it was such a historic event to have a black man in the president's chair given the history of racial oppression in this country, but you don't get that reward without being trusted. Obama was very good to the US white racist ruling class.

The US working class is more diverse than ever before. The military is 40% minorities, women, gays, non whites etc. The US workplace is extremely diverse also, women in particular have flocked in to the paid workplace. The white working class has been savaged over the past period and the same conditions that made it easier for the white ruling class to draw them in to their camp on the basis of a "white race" are not there. We have to be careful, Starbuck's did not close all it's coffee shops for a day to provide phony sensitivity training after two black guys were asked to leave for nothing.  The mood to return to the former open racist aspects of US society is not out there in general. If it was the Starbucks bosses would have saved themselves some money.

The reason for the delay in a generalized mass movement in the US is the role not played by the heads of the workers organizations, the trade unions. At every step of the way the heads of organized labor defend capitalism when it goes in to crisis and that means at the expense of their own members and the working class as a whole. And what is obvious is that US society and the US political system is in extreme crisis. As we say often on this blog, the era in which the two parties of US capitalism, the Democrats and Republicans have dominated US political life is coming to an end. Trump has accelerated this process with his intense attacks on the working class, women, immigrants and people of color. 

The Democratic Party is unable to respond adequately to this offensive, an overconfident move by some of the more right wing sections of the US bourgeois that support Trump. Pelosi’s recent attack on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and the others has its roots in the extreme crisis engulfing US capitalism. It is a sign of the weakness of the present political system as the era in which two parties have governed US society for over a century is coming to an end. Pelosi’s assault on AOC is a sign of her weakness not strength. It is not out of hatred for black or brown women this is happening; Pelosi may or may not be a racist, this is not the issue. Any force or individual that opposes the horrors of US society and that challenges the present system and those who profit from it will face the most vile slanders, racist and sexist attacks and, as anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of US history, the possibility of extreme violence. Peggy Noonan, Reagan's former speech writer also launched a predominantly personal tirade against Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Ilhan Omar in particular in yesterday's Wall Street Journal; this is further evidence of the fear just a few left of center Democrats bring to the table in this era. Working class people should not just condemn racism and not fall prey to it from our enemies whether the right wing Republican or Democrats like Pelosi.

Trump's latest xenophobic assault on the five Democratic Party Congresswomen has forced a response from Pelosi who again accused him of wanting to make America "white" again. She stresses our diversity and calls for unity; color, race, sexual orientation are the issues, never class or class politics.  The racist and xenophobic attacks on Omar, Cortez and the others are a tactic, a by product of the real war against their mild political positions by most standards. This reflects the tenuous hold the two parties of capitalism have over the US electorate and the US working class in general. Some 57% of Americans want a different political party from the Republicans and Democrats, significant proportions support some form of socialism. There is a general feeling of disgust at the two capitalist parties and a strong desire for a change. Pelosi and company do not want this anger to find organized expression, rather, as is normally the case with movements, they wish draw this anger in to the Democratic Party where it will die suffer a slow death.

With the absence of any real lead from the heads of organized labor resistance has been delayed. It's shameful their collective silence as children are ripped from their parents and thrown in to camps and cages where we have witnessed numerous deaths. But the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) that has grown from only 6,000 members a few years ago to 60,000 today, has an opportunity. The leadership of DSA has endorsed Bernie Sanders which as we have said, is a serious mistake. The DSA leadership overwhelmingly supports remaining in the Democratic Party. Both these decisions will harm the DSA in the future.  Aleaxandria Ocasio Cortez and other DSA members that are on municipal bodies or in Congress should abandon the Democratic party as millions of workers have done and fight within DSA for DSA to help build a generalized movement against the capitalist offensive and run candidates.

DSA has almost half the members of the British Tory Party which is the oldest capitalist party in the world and it's 160,000 members will be voting for the next UK Prime Minister.  DSA has the resources to help draw together the numerous forces and groupings that are fighting back against the capitalist offensive, the fight against racism, the women's movement, the environmental activists, and so on.

The teachers/educators strikes and protests have opened up a new era within organized labor, a door that the present union leadership would like to close but this leadership is not able to ignore the successes that these struggles achieved. These struggles using their militant approach and by-passing the union leadership have made gains. This demolishes all the arguments of the labor hierarchy that gains cannot be made in this period and concessions have to be made to the corporations and their capitalist system. These are the arguments the labor hierarchy have used to suppress rank and file attempts to fight back. We can't win, we can't strike illegally, workers are too backward too scared, too whatever. DSA can assist these new movements and militant methods to grow and link up with other struggles and in this way build a national campaign of resistance and this campaign can run its own candidates and build a workers party.

This Blog continually points out and opposes the refusal to fight of the labor leaders. And that this refusal is because they see no alternative to capitalism, they have comfortable positions within capitalism and they fear their own members and the working class more than they fear the bosses. While pointing this out we would like to suggest to union locals and regional bodies that they should take a stand against the policies of the union leaders. Union members should move resolutions to locals and regional bodies about the policies of the union leadership and how they have failed and are failing and present an alternative. These can be distributed to members in advance and members asked to attend and give their views. Social Media can be used to build for these meetings and also to discuss the policies of the union leaders. Pass resolutions and mobilize against them. Invite activists from the Teachers and Educators movements to speak at these meetings and explain how they made their gains.

Union locals and regional bodies should also discuss and issue statements opposing Trump's and Pelosi's attacks on AOC and her associates. These bodies should suggest to AOC and her associates that they should not confine themselves to opposing Pelosi and Schumer and company on the issue of racism and sexism and immigration. They should extend their opposition to these people who run the Democratic party to their support for capitalism and their support for the capitalist class and their opposition to the working class and our interests. Pelosi and Schumer and co are class conscious. They are determined to keep the Democratic Party a party of the capitalist class. They will wreck it rather than allow it to represent the working class. It is futile, worse than futile to imagine that the Democratic party can represent the working class. Union locals and regional bodies should call on Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and her associates and DSA to leave the capitalist Democratic Party and build the alternative we explain, a mass party of the working class, and run candidates for 2020 on this basis.  

Seeing Trump's racist calls for anyone that criticizes US government policy to leave the country or go back to where they are from (this would mean the Bronx for Ocasio Cortez) got me a little fired up so I apologize for a quickly penned response to it. But we should recognize the dangers and not be complacent. We should also be clear that the "broken and crime infested" countries that Trump is referring to are predominantly Central American and are also home to many of the immigrants trying to apply for entry here. The conditions that Trump refers to are the product of US government policy. Just ask a Marine Corp General:

“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

-->