[Marxism] Elections and Empire: An Analysis of the US Presidential Elections

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To Appear in Liberation (India)

Elections and Empire: An Analysis of the US
Presidential Elections

The outcome of the recent United States (US) elections
has been a shock not only to a significant section of
the US population but also to millions world over.
John Kerry, the presidential candidate of the
Democratic Party, conceded to George Bush of the
Republican Party even before the election
improprieties were investigated. This is the same Bush
whose administration supported a coup in Haiti,
attempted a coup in Venezuela and invaded and occupied
Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the official
results, Bush won by more than 3.5 million popular
votes and received more than 270 state electoral
college votes.

The Election
The President in the US is elected based on an old
system of electoral colleges with each state
representing electoral college votes. The candidate
who gets the most votes in a state almost always gets
all the electoral college votes and in this election
the winner needed 270. This election was mired with
reports of numerous election improprieties. Long lines
at voting booths discouraged people to return, in
several democratic dominated areas votes were cast for
Kerry and counted for Bush, and several counties
(equivalent to districts) announced results where Bush
got 10 times more votes then were even cast.
Especially in Florida and Ohio, the two key states
that ultimately determined the winner, there were
numerous incidents of African American and immigrant
voters being disenfranchised. 46% of Republican
challenges of voter registrations in an Ohio county
were against African American voters, a traditional
supporter of the Democratic Party. It is estimated
that 2 million of the total votes in 2004 were voided
or thrown away, especially in minority areas. Hundreds
of thousands of provisional ballots have still not
been counted.

In minority dominated areas, scare tactics included
filming people entering the polling booths with the
threat of arresting them for pending traffic
violation. To top it all in one election office the
counting was done without any observers because of an
unknown ?terror threat.? The Kerry campaign and the
Democratic Party did not want to challenge
improprieties, although they had an army of lawyers at
hand. They did not even fight for the Democratic Party
voters and, so, one cannot expect them to challenge
the systematic disenfranchisement on principle. It was
clear before the election, through reports in the
financial press, that they did not want to see the
legal challenges of 2000. Injustice was not the issue
but instability was and Kerry, as always, dutifully
did what is best for the country?s elite. Just for the
presidential election the two parties spent about $ 2
billion and the ?campaign contributors to the
candidates [were] looking more similar than ever ?
Bush and Kerry now share 4 of the 10 largest
contributors.? [2]

The Issues
On almost all of the major policy issues the two
parties of imperialism and big business have worked
together. Historians such as Zinn have called this
consensus as the ?bipartisan consensus? [6]. Kerry,
after voting for the war, opportunistically called it
an ?error of judgement? and was always contending to
be a better ?Commander in Chief?. He wanted to do more
than Bush in Iraq and elsewhere to extend the empire.
Kerry wanted to not only send more troops to Iraq but
also to modernise the US military to address the
?modern threats of terrorism and proliferation?. This
when more than 80% of the Democratic convention
delegates were against the war. Bush and Kerry both
had very similar stands on Palestine, Venezuela, North
Korea, Iran, and Cuba. After all, the US ruling class
only gains by maintaining and expanding an imperial
foreign policy. Bush introduced and Kerry voted for
the Patriot act, which is a major violation of
people?s rights. Both Kerry and Bush oppose a
nationalised healthcare system and support the union
busting Taft-Hartley act. Having said that there are
some differences, such as Kerry?s support for abortion
rights. These differences exist because of pressure
from a large section of organized labour, minorities,
environmentalists, women?s groups and oppressed
groups. The Bush administration on the other hand
energised the Christian right by opposing abortion
rights and gay marriage. The absence of a movement in
Southern and Midwestern US combined with a
conservative ?values? crusade helped Bush with the
election.

A section of the ruling class has become disheartened
with the Bush Administration because of its
incompetence in managing the empire. Bush Sr. managed
the first gulf war much better and it was actually
?profitable? because other countries ?paid? the bill.
This Iraq war has been extremely expensive and has
already cost about $ 200 billion and there are no
signs that the ?escalating costs? can be shared. The
aggressive foreign policies of pre-emptive strike
combined with the fiscally irresponsible
multi-trillion dollar tax cuts and subsidies for the
rich people and corporations have produced huge budget
deficits for the foreseeable future. The infamous
speculator George Soros wrote a book ?The Bubble of
American Supremacy: The Costs of Bush?s War in Iraq,?
and contributed millions of dollars and campaigned
openly for Kerry [5].

The US economy is under severe stress because of the
budget deficits, current account deficits and trade
deficits. Currently the dollar is weakening, pension
plan bankruptcies are increasing, social security is
in turmoil, and the economy continues to lose jobs.
The financial press has reported that several
billionaires as well as CEOs of major financial MNCs
have become very discontented with Bush. Clinton was
much more cost efficient and effective in ensuring oil
supplies from Iraq with his financial embargo. But
Bush has made it amply clear that now that he has the
mandate to pursue a more aggressive domestic and
foreign policy, he will. Thus, more plunder, butchery
and destruction abroad and greater economic disparity
at home.

The Paralysis
As the US election fever increased, a potent disease
called ABB (stands for Anybody But Bush) spread like
the plague amongst the US progressives. It caused
severe paralysis amongst the progressives and sapped
the much-needed energy from the anti-imperialist and
working class movement. From the Communist Party of
the USA (CPUSA) and Green Party to the major labour
unions, in various forms and degrees, supported and
organised for a candidate of the ruling class, John
Kerry. Numerous celebrities such as Michael Moore and
Bruce Springstein also jumped on this bandwagon. It is
impossible to address their myriad reasons for
supporting the Democratic Party but it was clear that
they all had illusions about what a Kerry victory
would mean for the progressives. A glance at Kerry?s
record as a Senator or the role of the Democratic
Party in imperial wars was completely ignored. Both
the Republican and Democratic parties have had a long
history of working together for imperialism and big
business. This bipartisan consensus can only be
ignored at the peril of the movement.

Some progressive people nostalgically talk about the
gains because of the Democratic Party. This is wrong.
Gains of civil rights, women?s rights, and labour laws
have all been achieved through the long and arduous
struggles of the people. An important lesson of the
Vietnam war, the bay of pigs invasion of Cuba, and
Korean war is that they were all carried out by the
Democratic Party administration. Recently, Clinton
attacked the people of Cuba, Iraq, Kosovo and Columbia
with a combination of economic and military weapons
from the imperial kitty. Clinton also attacked the US
working class with welfare reform and North American
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

The trade union leadership of most major labour unions
in the US have long been hand in glove with the
Democratic Party. The Service Employees International
Union (SEIU), the largest union, budgeted $ 65 million
for the Kerry campaign. The American Federation of
Labor- Confederation of Industrial Organizations
(AFL-CIO), which SEIU is part of, also mobilised 5000
fulltime staffers and 225, 000 volunteers for Kerry.
The harbinger of the American left, The Nation, has
increasingly become the mouthpiece of the Democratic
Party. After the elections, an important columnist for
the Nation, Katha Pollitt, wrote, ?I also don't want
to hear carping criticisms of John Kerry. Given that
he is a fallible mortal, he was a pretty good
candidate? [4]. This is the Kerry who was endorsed by
the establishment favourites such as the New York
Times and The Economist.

Consumer activist and independent candidate for
President Ralph Nader organised a more principled
campaign on issues. Nader was attacked by the left who
had been inflicted with the ABB paralysis for stealing
votes from the other progressive candidate, namely
Kerry. Nader only uses his personal charisma to stand
for President and he does not represent a mass
movement. Post election he is not actively involved in
building a grass roots movement for radical social
transformation. Workers World Party, a Marxist
Leninist party, has been in the forefront of the
anti-imperialist and working class struggles in the
US. They fielded candidates for President and Vice
President on a socialist platform.

The Struggle
The success of the US progressive movement lies not in
winning elections when the entire system prevents
people from participating, but in furthering the
progressive cause by building a powerful movement that
challenges the basis of plunder and exploitation of
the people. The progressive forces have to start to
organize the workers and endeavour to join the
anti-imperialist movement with the working class
movement. ?The united proletarian front and the
anti-fascist Popular Front are connected by the living
dialectics of struggle; that they are interwoven, the
one passing into the other in the process of the
practical struggle against fascism? [1]. The
Democratic Party cannot be part of the fascist front
as it is actively colluding in the attack on working
people inside and imperial war outside. They fully
supported the Patriot Act, Iraq war, Afghanistan war,
Haiti coup, tax cuts for the rich, and other major
policies of the Republican Party.

The 2004 election cycle also witnessed the emergence
of a militant section of the labour movement that
disagreed with AFL-CIO?s leadership support of the
Democratic Party. They asserted themselves in a
Million Worker March on October 17 in Washington right
before the elections. They were endorsed and organised
by several major local branches of the AFL-CIO and
anti-war organisations like International Action
Centre, Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER)
and United for Peace and Justice. They appealed to the
working class that ?We face a system in advanced
crisis and decay driven to impose wars for cheap labor
and the resources of the most impoverished in the
world? [3].

Challenging the paralysis of the progressives these
militant workers asserted ?We know that, regardless of
the outcome of the elections, the war machine, the
corporations and the banks, will seek to impose their
plans for death and devastation.? This march was
inspired by the Martin Luther King?s poor people?s
march. Shortly before King was killed, in May 1967, he
said that ?We must recognize that we can?t solve our
problem now until there is a radical redistribution of
economic and political power ? We must see now that
the evils of racism, economic exploitation and
militarism are tied together ? you can?t get rid of
one without getting rid of the others ? the whole
structure of American life must be changed.? The US
needs a progressive movement that is not seduced by
the parties of the ruling class. A movement led by the
working class for a radical social transformation to
end exploitation and imperialism.


Notes

1.      Dimitrov, G. Unity of the Working Class Against
Fascism, Aug. 13, 1935. Dimitrov, Georgi Selected
Works, volume 2, Sofia Press 1972, pp. 86-119
2.      Lewis, C. The Buying of the President, Harper
Collins, 2004. [www.publicintegrity.org]
3.      Million Worker March [www.millionworkermarch.org]
4.      Pollitt, K., ?Mourn,? The Nation, November 22,
2004.
[www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20041122&s=pollitt]
5.      Soros, G. [www.georgesoros.com]
6.      Zinn, H., The People?s History of the United
States, Harper Collins, 1995.






                
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