“In this election, with this time, we’re going to have to pick one or the other. It’s kind of like picking chairs on the titanic. I’d rather have other options.”
“Neither one of them are watching out for us. They seem like they’re so involved in themselves. That we, as a people, don’t matter anymore.”
These statements made by laid off steelworkers in Ohio to a 60 Minutes interviewer right before the election capture the mood of Americans across the country. Millions were mobilized to vote for one or the other candidates, feeling as if they had been set adrift, unable to trust or believe in the candidates they were given, with nowhere else to turn. Faced with voting for one of the “twin evils” as one worker remarked, they either stayed home, threw their lot with the third party candidate, or held their noses and voted for one of the two main party candidates.
Yet these millions of disaffected workers, suffering from everything from permanent job loss to foreclosure, to massive college debt, know they are facing a different world. As one worker said, “The American Dream of a good job you have your whole life, a home, a family and kids, a pension, and retirement at a decent age” is all gone. After one of the most divisive campaigns in American history, the ruling class has made temporary progress toward its goal of insuring the working class does not unite against them. It fought to divide the class along color, gender, faith and national lines. It has measured how far the American people will go toward accepting a fascist political ideology. In the coming weeks and months, the Trump administration will reveal its agenda, but as with his opponent, we can be sure it will not include redressing the grievances of the American working class.
Our cover “After the Elections: Which Way Forward?” shows how this election shined a light on the stark differences between the interests of our class and those of the ruling class. In an economy of robots, big data and smart technology, human labor is no longer needed. Yet those same advances offer the potential of a society that can provide everyone with all they need. The first step is to unify around our common class interests and to begin to act in those interests.
The remaining three articles in this issue are drawn from the August 2016 political report from the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, which analyze the elections and offer revolutionaries a perspective on the root cause of our problems, a vision of what’s possible and a strategy to get there.
“Political Crisis Today like No Other in American History,” shows how political parties have come and gone in America, reshaped and realigned to meet the needs of the economic system. Today, the new labor replacing technologies are changing the game, opening up the possibility of creating a society where everyone can have their needs met and no one has to go without. This is giving rise to a growing political crisis. The ruling class is fighting to maintain private property at all costs, while the working class in its desperate search to secure its means of survival can only obtain its ends through a complete transformation into a cooperative, communist society.
“Rise of a Fascist Movement Makes Unity of the Class More Urgent,” shows us this rising fascist movement has to be viewed and understood within the lens of this new situation. Fascism is no longer based in an abstract ideology, but is based in the objective changes in the economy. The article examines how the so-called “left” and the “right” of the ruling class is objectively fascist. The State cannot disengage from the corporations and no one in the ruling class is advocating that. Their real target is the political system and the substitution of one State form of rule for another that will allow the full scope of private property interests to operate without restriction. This is so regardless of who is in the White House.
“Still Searching for Redress: Millions Seek New Vision,” shows that the millions of people who got involved in the elections in the hopes of resolving their problems are not going to go away simply because their candidate did not win. The American workers, even those who voted for Trump, will soon learn the bitter lessons of current realities.
The article further explains how the growing fight for the basic demands of life is challenging this fascist movement. Regardless of who they voted for, millions of workers are in fact fighting for a new society, where food, shelter, water, education and a cultured existence does not depend on the ability to pay. Visionaries are already describing this new society. The advances of the new technology provide the means of achieving it.
The force of these unrealized demands is – and will continue – to exert relentless pressure on the political system. A practical, political fight for a new America is underway.
November.December Vol26.Ed6
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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