The spectacular 2020 victory over Donald Trump-style American fascism was a sign and a testament to the irresistible strength of the social movement when it engages in the electoral arena. The desperate 2021 moves by state legislatures to suppress voting are further confirmation of that strength and of the real fear that it inspires in the ruling class.
The 2022 elections are the next “stress test” for our movement, and once again they will mark another vital watershed in American history. The 2022 elections will establish conditions for the upcoming 2024 elections that will very likely determine how quickly America may descend into open fascist dictatorship.
This is not just about control of Congress and the Senate. Many of the most critical issues we face are determined at the state and local levels, and the federal government itself rests on and depends on a vast network of state and local elected bodies. Critical decisions around Medicaid expansion, housing, incarceration, and reproductive rights are being made every day at the state and local level. The fate of voting rights and even federal elections themselves are actually frequently determined by state and local officials. The ruling class has increasingly rigged the system with gatekeepers so that we only get political candidates in either party who support ruling class power.
State and Local politics have become an important arena for fascists
In response to working class electoral victories in 2020, far-right extremists like QAnon followers, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers—along with Trump and Steve Bannon supporters—are focusing most of their energy on local government. Fully 222 people who participated in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack are either elected officials or currently running for office. Egged on by these far-right groups, school board meetings are being attacked or sometimes assaulted under the guise of “parents’ rights” to oppose mask mandates, so-called critical race theory, and LGBTQ issues, and candidates are running for election based on these platforms.
In Shasta County, California, a far-right recall of a relatively moderate Republican, fueled by Trump’s loss and mask mandates, has given militia groups a majority on the Board of Supervisors. In Colorado, armed members of the “United States Election Integrity Plan” were sent to voters’ homes in poor neighborhoods, especially those of color, where they demanded residents confirm their addresses and their participation in the 2020 election and accused them of casting fraudulent ballots. In The Nation article “The Town that Q-Anon Nearly Swallowed,” the attempt of right-wing demagogues to take over a small town in the Pacific Northwest is detailed.
Young and Progressive Candidates are Being Galvanized into Action
The rising threats to democratic rights are being challenged by more and more Americans. 2022 is seeing an explosion of progressive, corporate-free candidates running in local and state elections across the country, continuing a trend that started to take hold after the election of Trump in 2016. The organization Run for Something, which encourages and supports young progressives, has recruited nearly 100,000 people to run across 50 states, fighting for basic human needs. In Pennsylvania, young members of the state’s House created a student debt caucus. In Berkeley, California, young members on the city council helped to end single-family zoning for housing, and got police out of traffic enforcement. In Florida, young state representatives helped 45,000 Floridians get access to unemployment with the help of social media.
All across California – be it Yolo County, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Jose, and indeed any jurisdiction – candidates fighting for affordable housing, clean water, a fair criminal justice system, and health care are running for city and county government bodies, water board, district attorney, rent stabilization boards, the state assembly, etc. Oakland, California is in a fight for the future of its children and the soul of the city. When the developer-supported school board majority proposed the closing of 15-19 schools, unrelenting daily protest led by progressive school board members got the threatened number of school closures down to a fraction of that. This struggle of Oakland workers for freedom from want, from illiteracy, from inequality and injustice is inspiring new campaigns to replace representatives that have conspired to attack worker rights.
Congressional seats are also in play, including in so-called red states. In Texas, the young progressive Democrat Jessica Cisneros narrowly lost her primary race against the nominee while two of her progressive peers—Greg Casar and Jasmine Crockett—are in a good position to enter Congress after campaigns that emphasized raising the minimum wage and supporting Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.
Optimism and Young Voters
The ruling class – both the Democratic and Republican sectors – is feverishly spreading defeatism, discouragement, and passivity as the elections approach, in an attempt to depress voter turnout and ensure victory for open enemies of the people fighting for health care, housing, and education, and against mass incarceration and climate disaster. But as Rev. Barber of the Poor People’s Campaign has pointed out, we have no right to despair in the battle for democracy.
There is no basis for defeatism. As Ronald Brownstein pointed out, the massive momentum created by record turnouts in 2018 and 2020 can reasonably be projected to carry over into 2022. Between 2016 and 2022, the percentage of under age 30 voters has increased from one-third to almost 45% of the electorate. An estimated 17 million new so-called Gen Z voters will become eligible between 2020 and 2024. Gen Z voters are 49% people of color and fully 20% of them self-identify as LGBTQ.
Although they are almost universally anti-Trump, youth voters are not unquestioningly loyal to the Democrats. Only 40% of voters aged 18-34 approve of Joe Biden’s performance in office. Young voters are loyal to the life and death issues facing them as members of the working class: basic human needs, criminal justice and immigration reform, climate change, reproductive freedom, LGBTQ rights, and especially student debt cancellation. A growing section of the electorate is ready to dump Manchin, Sinema, Biden, and any other pro-corporate Democrats standing between them and what they need to survive.
Role of Revolutionaries
The role of revolutionaries in this moment is to rally the movement to double down on its electoral participation. This is the “evolution of the revolution.” From Oakland to Atlanta, the 2020 rebellion has never really stopped. It has spread from Black Lives Matter to reimagining public safety, defending public education, and fighting for economic democracy. Ruling class attempts to divide and disperse it with stupid campaigns like opposing “critical race theory” cannot succeed. Revolutionaries use every opportunity to point out that the ultimate aim is a peaceful cooperative society, but they always do this from the heart of the struggle for immediate victories. Their role is to connect the dots from here to there. As Frei Betto once said, those who do not participate in politics are condemned to be ruled by those who do.
July/August 2022 vol.32. Ed4
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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