You have to hold your nose at this one. Source: Guardian.com |
Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
2-15-20
Here
we go again in the topsy turvy world of US (bourgeois) politics. As I pointed
out in an earlier post, if Donald Trump has accomplished anything good at all
it is that politics, the political parties, the 2020 election and, gasp!
Socialism is being talked about everywhere. Trump is so toxic, such a wrecking
ball, that for some it’s unbearable to imagine waking up on November 6th
with this degenerate still in the White House.
The
complete bankruptcy and rottenness of the US political system, the end of the
era during which the two parties of US capitalism ruled unchallenged, is coming
to an ignominious end and we can thank Trump for helping that process along; not
through sheer brilliance but just by being Trump.
As
I pointed out in an earlier post, the Democrats can hardly be called an “opposition” party. It is, we must not
forget, the most powerful capitalist party on the planet and along with its
Republican cousin, the reason some 100 million U.S. voters refused to
participate in 2016. But this former party of the slaveocracy will not go
quietly.
The
process of elimination for the Democrats has begun and the first two, Iowa and
New Hampshire, states hardly reflective of US society, have put the Social
Democrat Sanders and the small town mayor Pete Buttigieg in the spotlight. I think we can say that Biden is finished,
and Elizabeth Warren did not fare well either although she’s not out.
Desperate
to keep Sanders from being the party’s candidate in November the Democratic
National Committee, the party’s governing body, finds itself between a rock
and a hard spot. Outside of Sanders and a lesser extent Warren, the Democrats
have little to offer the US electorate and, like the Republicans, is mistrusted
by the vast majority of US workers and middle class. Any maneuver to keep Sanders out would
undermine the party and the system further even if it was legal. What’s
trending now in today’s parlance is “Vote
Blue No Matter Who”. The Democrats
color is blue, Republican red. This is how bad it is.
But
within the space of a few days I think that the Democrats have found their
candidate in the billionaire Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York
City. Bloomberg is worth some $62 billion and is financing his own
campaign. He is a former Republican so
he will have many connections among the old school Republicans who want Trump
out of the way as he’s so disruptive and bad for business, As Peggy Noonan, a
more sober representative of US capitalism says, “…a New York Republican is essentially a Democrat with boundaries.” I’m
not sure Giuliani fits that description but no matter. Noonan
goes on to praise Bloomberg in the
Wall Street Journal while Holman
Jenkins goes after him a little reflecting some serious tensions among the
Republicans
The
DNC cannot abide a Sanders nomination at the party conference in July, although
some polls have indicated that he could beat Trump, and they don’t believe
Warren could. It’s hardly likely that Buttigieg will do well among black folks
given his history and Klobuchar is not likely to last. I reckon they think Bloomberg
is their best chance to get them in to the White House in November. Bloomberg
has deep pockets. He has donated $300,000 to the DNC and has spent $90 million
on House Democratic races in the last year and a half and has no doubt
contributed to many officials, mayors and other Democratic Party figures’
campaigns who make up the superdelegates.
Another
important pointer is that the DNC has changed the rules that make candidates
eligible for the next round of debates. The party scrapped what was referred to
as the grassroots donor threshold, which has required candidates in every other
debate to receive donations from tens of thousands of supporters to participate
as well as have a certain percentage in the polls. This would have excluded
Bloomberg because he is financing his own campaign and plans to spend $1
billion maybe more. He spent some $300 million in the first month or so of his
year.
Despite
spokespersons for the DNC claiming the change in rules has nothing to do with
Bloomberg, the US voting public and the vast majority of Americans in general
will not believe it. It will confirm the already existing view that the US has
the best democracy money can buy.
Bloomberg’s
previous support as Mayor of New York City for “Stop and Frisk”, that gives the police increased power to harass
and target youth of color in the streets, is a bit of an obstacle but it is
likely that will be overcome. A prominent Black Christian leader, AR Bernard,senior Pastor at the Christian Cultural Center, had Bloomberg at his church where
he apologized for his support of this racist legislation and his remark when asked
about it Bloomberg responded saying, “Yes, that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And
the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the
wall and frisk them.”.
I
read this morning (I started this last night) that some major
Obama donors will be holding a fundraising event for Bloomberg on February
the 18th and addressing the gathering will be Steve Benjamin, the
first black mayor of Columbia South Carolina and Kimberly Peeler-Allen who
heads Higher Heights described as a “…national
organization building the political power and leadership of Black women from
the voting booth to elected office.” Surely Oprah will join the fray at
some point. Bloomberg will woo his class allies in the black community, the
small black bourgeois and the petit-bourgeois seeking to strengthen their
position in capitalist society. Whether he can beat Trump of course is another matter.
In
actuality, Bloomberg is the Democrat’s perfect candidate except he’s Jewish of
course, not the problem it once as. Being a Zionist is also OK with the
Democrats. With the absence of an alternative, an independent left alternative
or party of the working class based on the unions, our communities and other
working class organizations, marginalized sections of US society have used the
Democratic Party as the only vehicle open to them. It is also the political
party of the trade union officialdom that will most likely continue to support
it. “now is not the time” “We must get rid of Trump then we can ….”. and
so on.
If
I am correct that Bloomberg is the man, this will intensify the division inside
the party and hasten a split that should have occurred long ago. Sanders is
hugely responsible for that failure along with organized labor’s leadership and
the leadership of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) that has thrown
the organization behind Sanders who, if he stays true to his word, will support
a Bloomberg candidacy. I was talking to a few youthful members of DSA last week
and the confidence that bordered arrogance of these mainly white these middle
class youth was too much even for me. There was very little understanding of
politics, the unions, and an overestimation of the their ability to take over
the Democratic Party, a Wall Street machine, and make it work for working
people.
I
have said in discussion with friends and co-workers over the years that the
Democratic Party came to be seen and has been to some extent, the party that
cares more for workers and the poor etc. But in my view, is it not simply that
the Democratic Party was in power during the two greatest social upheavals of
the US working class in the 20th century, the formation of the
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) and industrial unionism, and the
Civil Rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s that followed that gave it this
role? The Black Revolt showed the real
face of Apartheid America and its brutal racist regime to the world, something
had to be done, concessions made. At the same time, the colonial revolutions
were taking place as British direct rule was being evicted from its colonies in
Africa and Asia. In other words, the
working class internationally and at home is the force that brought political
concessions and in the U.S. that meant opening some previously closed doors to
a section of the black population strengthening the black middle class.
I
feel the need to make one comment about preachers. All groups in society have
class divisions and we know this in our gut despite the obsession with identity
politics aimed at suppressing the class question. There are no workers here,
just middle class, rich and poor.
Among
the black population just like every other, there is class division. There is a
chasm between the preachers and heads of religious organizations that will
support Bloomberg and receive healthy rewards for it and the working class
black churches. In the black communities there are thousands of small churches
that have working class congregations. When I ran for Oakland CA city council I
spoke at a couple of them; I am not religious but I felt at home and welcomed
there. In my workplace two of the leading fighters in the union were also
preachers or very active in their churches. Bloomberg will not be seeking their
endorsement and the best of them wouldn’t give it. Just like any organization,
the unions included, there are con men and women, but not all.
I
could be wrong in my views here but if objective conditions, the facts on the
ground change, then it is important we change with them, Being right all the
time is not a virtue.
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