Robert Reich: The Green Party is a Trump Front Group.

 

Reich with Bill Clinton

Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
GED/HEO
9-13-23

Here we go again. A Third Party Candidate will help Trump win says Robert Reich in his column in the US Guardian earlier this week. Reich is one of the former Democratic Party machine operatives that brought us NAFTA as former Labor Secretary under Clinton. Bernie Sanders, the forever socialist who has his entire life caucused with the Democrats agrees. Things will be terrible if we don't support the war Biden. For a socialist, he doesn't have much faith in the US working class.

Biden, the Senator from Du Pont, the fella who just ensured legislation was passed overnight that denied workers the right to strike (isn't that sacred for Democrats?) and forced them to accept a contract they already rejected, will save our Democracy apparently.

In over 50 years in this country I have heard this argument before. "Whether they intend to be or not, third-party groups such as No Labels and the Green party are in effect front groups for Trump in 2024." says Reich adding  that, "The reason they’re all front groups for Donald Trump is that the upcoming 2024 election is likely to be nail-bitingly close even as a two-way race between Trump and Biden."

I don't know anything about the No Labels party other than it sounds silly and whatever weaknesses the Green Party may have, it certainly is not a front for Trump and it's insulting to even suggest it. And these elections are always nail bitingly close. The two Wall Street parties divide the electorate up in to red states and blue where each have the winning game in the one or the other, so campaigning there becomes superfluous. Then they fight over a couple of states that will decide the outcome. 

In 1980 (40 years ago) I remember being told we were facing World War Three if we didn't vote for Jimmy Carter, the guy who began the deregulation binge that Reagan, his opponent in 1980, continued. I was literally told this, and the liberals gasped with relief when Mitterrand won in France and went backwards after that. If we didn't vote for Mondale in 1984 Reagan would win a second term and it would be a catastrophe. Well, Reagan got his two terms and in 1988 the fear was that if George Bush senior, the former VP under Reagan won, we'd suffer if we don't vote for Dukakis. Bush won of course and the point is, we suffer no matter which of the two Wall Street parties is in power. That's why it's called voting for the lesser of the two evils.

All during this period, strikes in states or cities where Democrats dominated were crushed or blocked by them.  Perpich the Democratic Governor in Minnesota was no friend of the Hormel workers, members of Local P9 of the UFCW and Wilson Goode (of Move fame) threatened to fire sanitation workers that didn't return to work in their strike in 1986, this was one year after my local Afscme 444 struck. There were huge strikes in the 1980's as sections of organized labor moved in to struggle against the Reagan offensive. The British Miners strike was facing the same forces against Reagan's co-thinker Thatcher. These strikes like the one at Hormel were defeated primarily through a combination of the bosses and the trade union hierarchy.

Any time there is a party or candidate on the ballot that isn't a Democrat, accusations of this kind occur. A vote for the Green Party for example is a vote for the Republican. It is a vote for Bush, or a vote for Trump. But isn't this undemocratic? Surely a person has the right to vote for whichever party or candidate they feel represents their interests. A Green Party voter for example could just as easily argue that if all those that vote Democratic Voted Green it would be a greater deterrent to the right than voting Democrat and losing. As it is, no matter who wins, the Wall Street candidate gets in. 

This political wasteland, the lack of any serious alternative to the two big business parties, is why millions of Americans simply don't bother to vote at all. Close to 100 million opted out in the 2016 national election.

Why would people bother to vote? Very little changes when it comes down to it. This similarity between the material gains, or lack of them between the two parties, is one of the reasons social issues tend to dominate. Abortion rights, religion, prayer in schools, guns or no guns, sexual identity, all these issues take center stage as people line up on one side or the other as on the basics------ jobs, shelter, transportation, health care, housing, public services, whether one can feed the kids or pay the rent-----crucial social issues, will pretty much remain the same or get worse.

Sanders: The loyal Democrat

Bernie Sanders is calling for a vote for Joe Biden to avert catastrophe and fascism despite Biden's squashing of workers' democratic right to strike. On the other hand he's calling on the US population to support the auto workers if they go out on strike. No warning that Biden would do the same to the auto workers that he did to their class brothers and sisters on the railways. We know he would as this industry is so important to the US economy and profits. The Biden Administration is in the thick of all the major labor disputes at the moment, including the West Coast dock workers and the entertainment industry, all in attempt to soften any militancy that might arise out of prolonged talks. Despite hundreds of thousands of unionized workers on strike or in disputes at the moment, we hear nothing. Another opportunity knocks here. But profits must not be harmed.

Sanders had his chance, and I have to say, I wish he would just sail off in to the sunset. He played a positive role there for a minute. He had an opportunity to break from the Democrats and quite possibly take some of the more left wing types like Ilhan Omar, and others with him. It's hard to say, but a left alternative could have been born. He let down thousands of youth and disgruntled voters who thought he would offer something different. 

Sanders never mentions that we are in this mess because workers have no political party. As Tony Mazzochi used to say in the 1980's, the bosses have two parties and we have not one. At very least Sanders could raise this issue, that there is no way forward through the Democratic Party even as he calls for a vote for it. It would give workers food for thought. The era of the domination of these two parties over US political life is coming to a calamitous end and there's no mention of any other way out.

US society is in social, political and economic crisis. The two most powerful capitalist parties in the world offer no choice to the US working class (and the world) other than two aging behemoths of a dying era; one a degenerate serial sexual predator. Both parties cannot appeal to the millions of disgruntled workers that have abandoned the political process because US capitalism has nothing to offer them. Better let sleeping dogs lie.

In this situation, an authoritarian, a "strongman", a degenerate like Trump  can appear the best bet, can be seen as the alternative to the old status quo. He has already proved this to be the case. It's a dangerous situation and what do do about Trump is posing a problem for the US ruling class. 

This crisis, a result of the unraveling of capitalism on a global scale, is what it is due to another failing and that is the leadership of organized labor that I have referred to as The Dogs That Don't Bark. On all issues of importance they defer to their friends in  the Democratic Party; anything but taking the helm themselves. With the resources at their disposal they could offer a real alternative to the status quo but that thought terrifies them; where would it lead? Chaos is their answer to that question.  

Organized labor has given billions over the decades to the Democratic Party machine and supplied labor power as well. This stifling bureaucracy and the thousands of full time staff it employs to ensure its concessionary policies are maintained, bears much of the blame for the present situation including the rise of Trump.

Sanders, even while supporting Biden himself,  could point to this failing and urge the rank and file of organized labor to confront this leadership and its pro-market policies and their failure to build a political alternative despite having the resources to do so.

Sanders is a prisoner of his own consciousness, his view of the world. Like the trade union hierarchy and most critics of the market, they can only go so far and wish for the good old days of the Post War Boom that laid the material groundwork for the "American Dream" that was never a dream for millions of US workers. They plead with the bosses to be less aggressive. They argue for a fair and egalitarian capitalism where profits should be equally shared with the workers that create them. It's just greed in the abstract and character flaws that are the problem  and appeals are made to their "better" nature. Thank you Engels for Socialism Utopian and Scientific.

But capitalism isn't a "fair" system. Like any class society, it is based on exploitation. There's nothing wrong with fighting for reforms, in my view it is how we learn and draw conclusions about society and how it works. But understanding that social reforms, especially in this era, are unlikely and at the best very temporary, is the key.  For workers, demanding what we need to live a decent life, not what politicians and the "experts" in academia think are realistic is all that matters. We know what we need.

Relying on our own strength and the unity of the working class in the economic struggles and the political arena as the means to achieve these goals is crucial if we want to move forward.

But the road to a democratic socialist world, a world federation of democratic socialist states is a very short one these days and time is short also as environmental catastrophe, and possible nuclear disaster are realities we can't ignore. Take too many steps and we are over the edge of the abyss. 

I am convinced the US working class will step forward and enter the fray in a major way, the crisis of capitalism will demand it, so in that way I am optimistic. But there are no guarantees in this world and, either way, the road ahead is going to be a rocky one.