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FROM KINDERGARDEN TO REAL WORLD  
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Paul Garver
December 3, 2024
Chartist
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_ If DSA can graduate from the kindergarten playground to the real
political world, it can make a major contribution to putting the
interests of the inclusive and diverse working class onto the national
political agenda. _

, US Election 2024 results by County \ Credit Wikimedia CC - Born
Isopod

 

I expected a narrow Democratic victory followed by months of chaos.
Instead, Trump won a decisive victory in the Electoral College,
winning the national popular vote by 50-48 %, while the Republicans
won narrow majorities in the House and Senate.

I had not accounted for how ineptly the Democratic Party would wage
the Harris campaign. Instead of building upon a rather well staged
Democratic National Convention [apart from the criminally stupid
refusal to allow any pro-Palestinian Muslim to speak], and upon a
clear Harris victory in her only debate with Trump, the Democratic
presidential campaign reverted to the disastrous formula of the failed
2016 Hillary Clinton campaign.  Billions of dollars raised from major
donors were wasted on ad campaigns on the theme of Harris [normal] is
not Trump [weird].  Harris campaigned alongside Liz Cheney and other
renegade Republicans, celebrities, and billionaire supporters, tossing
out only a few scattered pro-working-class proposals and messaging. 
She also moved to the right on immigration, border controls and
policing.   Nonetheless, few Republicans crossed over to support
her, while some eight million traditionally Democratic voters did not
bother to cast Presidential ballots, even while most ballot measures
supporting reproductive rights, increases in the minimum wage and
other progressive measures passed even in “Red” states.

In this election, Normal did not defeat Weird. Trump won every one of
the seven “battleground” states to which both sides dedicated most
of their campaign appearances and advertising budgets. Whereas the
ongoing genocide in Gaza played a role in Michigan, where Trump
carried the heavily Arab-American city of Dearborn, which normally
votes strongly Democratic, by 42%-36% over Harris with Green Party
candidate Jill Stein at 18%, every battleground state showed lower
voting participation by all demographic groups who usually make up the
Democratic base – young, African-American and Hispanic people.

Exit polling reflects that most Trump voters cited economic factors,
mainly increased costs of food and rents, together with inadequate
income.  About 2/3 of Americans report living paycheck-to-paycheck,
with no substantial savings.  Net working-class incomes, which rose
briefly because of government payments during the pandemic, quickly
fell again when these measures were cancelled.  Polls also indicate
that Trump won a slender majority of all voters with incomes under
$100,000 while Harris won a similar majority of voters with incomes
over $100,000.  The level of formal education played a similar role,
with higher educational levels leaning to Harris and lower levels to
Trump.   This suggests an ongoing de-alignment of the major
political parties, with Trump receiving a lot of his support from
voters dissatisfied with the economic and social status quo and the
national Democratic Party saddled not only with incumbency, but with
defending an unsatisfactory status quo.

Voters belonging to union households voted Democrat by about 57% to
43%.  In general, union members have been able to compensate for
price increases with higher negotiated wages. It was probably more
salient that many unions canvassed and campaigned hard among their
members to vote Democratic, because of the Biden administration’s
better Labor Board appointments.

Not surprisingly, in the weeks since the Democratic defeat, politicos
and pundits have been playing the “blame game”.  There seems to
be a concerted effort in establishment media to ascribe the Democratic
defeat to the “Woke Left” influence on the Party. These pundits
advocate moving to the “center”, which may include throwing
immigrants, Muslims, trans people, and other targets of MAGA
propaganda under the bus in the hopes of placating Trump. However,
there is no evidence that this “strategic retreat” would work out
well for the Democratic Party in the short or longer term.

For half a century most Democrats have “hunkered down” when faced
with major challenges from the Right rather than offering serious
resistance.    The assumption is that the electorate will tire of
right-wing ineptitude and that the pendulum will automatically swing
back to them. This is a dangerous path now.  Unlike Trump’s first
term, when he seemed to be surprised by his electoral victory and had
no plan for governing, the MAGA movement is better prepared to seize
power.  Trump has already announced the appointments of a series of
right-wing ideologues to his cabinet, many drawn directly from the
authors of PROJECT 2025, with the intention of permanently cementing
an authoritarian regime in place. Concrete plans for mobilizing the
military to carry out mass deportations are already being made, and
under the direction of extremist billionaire Elon Musk lists of
thousands of civil servants to be dismissed and replaced with Trump
loyalists are being compiled.

So far congressional Democrats seem unprepared to resist. 52
Congressional Democrats initially voted along with virtually all
Republicans for granting the incoming administration the right to
arbitrarily close non-profit organizations that it declares to be
associating with “terrorists.”   This failed to reach the 2/3
super-majority necessary under the rule then in practice, but
reintroduced under normal rules, it passed the House again, this time
with 15 votes from Democrats.  Patterned on Orban’s creeping
proto-Fascist regime in Hungary, the legislation is intended initially
to shut down pro-Palestinian organizations, but Left and progressive
movements rightly fear that any organization that angers Trump will be
targeted as well.

Senate Democrats are also wavering. Only 19 Democratic Senators
supported resolutions introduced by Bernie Sanders to apply existing
US legislation to Israel that requires that the US suspend military
assistance to regimes guilty of serious human rights abuses. The
Sanders initiative was supported by many unions and progressive
organizations who are normally part of the Democratic Party’s base.

In contrast, most Left organizations seem better prepared to organize
the fight to resist MAGA. More than 100,000 people joined a virtual
mass resistance call organized by the Working Family Party and other
allied organizations. DSA chapters across the country are reporting
large numbers attending orientation sessions, while its national
membership has begun to grow at an accelerated pace comparable to that
of 2016-17 following the first Trump victory. If MAGA is better
prepared to consolidate its Christian authoritarian regime than it was
before, DSA is also better situated institutionally than it was in
2017 to channel the energies of new members into effective political
and labor organizing. Despite (or even because of?) its ideological
diversity, national DSA is now better equipped with functioning
committees of experienced volunteers covering a wide spectrum of
issues that will be at serous play in US society in the coming years,
including defending migrant and refugee rights, trans rights, and
those of other vulnerable people targeted by MAGA propaganda. DSA
members are also building the ranks of unionized workers in many
unions, as well as electing more democratic socialists to office at
the local level, building a deeper bench to buttress the Congressional
Squad and Sen. Sanders.

All this may not be enough to withstand a determined attack on the
Left by MAGA, but if DSA can graduate from the kindergarten playground
to the real political world, it can make a major contribution to
putting the interests of the inclusive and diverse working class onto
the national political agenda. The Democratic Party has increasingly
failed to do this, costing it not only the election in 2024, but also
its longer-term status as a governing left-center party. The Left
disagrees on what to do about this accelerating de-alignment of the
working class, but cannot pretend it is not happening.

_Paul Garver is a member of Democratic Socialists of America._

_Chartist is the bi-monthly political magazine of the democratic
left. In honouring the Chartists of the 19th century, our idea of
democratic socialism is as much about the political movement and means
of mobilisation used to advance political ideas as it is about the
ideas themselves. Chartist seeks to provide a space for those who
subscribe to this broad ideal._

* Democratic Socialists of America
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* working-class
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* MAGA
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* Left strategy
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