No ballot for the 2022 elections will show “democracy” running against “fascism,” yet that is the choice behind many of the issues and candidacies to be voted on.
The Road to Real Democracy explains that the heart of the midterm election battles of 2022 is the struggle of the American people to survive climate disaster, pandemic, inflation, rent gouging, police violence, denial of reproductive rights and economic uncertainty. As automation and artificial intelligence push more and more workers out of the economy, the ruling class is no longer willing to fund the government programs necessary to keep people alive. It has no more need for the democracy that people use to fight for these programs and it is moving step-by-step to dismantle it.
One of their strategies is to use elections to have their activists take over state government. At its most extreme, the “independent state legislature” doctrine would then give state legislatures dictatorial power over the election process. Meanwhile, the fight for people’s immediate needs is beginning to confront these growing threats to democratic rights needed to build their struggles.
“Public health is under attack like never before,” declares our article Shooting the Messenger.” Those organizing a social base for fascism are mobilizing against public health workers. As one example of a national trend, in California 1,500 cases of harassment of public health workers were registered in one year with 222 people leaving their jobs as a result. Fully 53 percent of public health workers qualified for a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis or had symptoms of mental health illness over the previous two weeks in a recent poll.
The “public” interest should be foremost in public health services even if that requires unpopular but necessary emergency measures. Disease prevention and promotion of community health not only prevent needless deaths, but they are also cost-effective. Science should serve the public interest and not the enrichment of pharmaceutical and other profit-driven interests.
Hurricane Fiona, making landfall in Puerto Rico on September 18, took lives, shut down the power grid and impeded access to drinking water for the vast majority of people. Behind Puerto Rico’s Stormy Weather: Naturalized Social Disasters and the Profit Logic of Capitalism presents an analysis from the front lines of the growing political polarization between neofascist forces and a growing popular movement to defend the people and the island itself.
The media, pundits and politicians blamed the catastrophe on nature. But it was decades of neglect of the basic infrastructure and services for workers which crippled the response to this storm, just as happened when María took thousands of lives five years ago. Both nature and humanity have been exploited for gain. We need to learn from their experience and forge alliances with revolutionaries there.
The Political Resolution of the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA) concludes that the ruling class is merging the power of the State with the corporations to create a new fascism, guaranteeing the dominance of the new speculative economy which emerges as technology disrupts the old jobs and industries. They are also preparing the mass base for a politically violent fascist movement.
The attempted coup of January 6, 2021, the violence and visibility of white supremacist groups and the packing of the Supreme Court are parts of consolidating a fascist mass base. However, as more workers fight for their basic necessities, a growing number are understanding that they are members of a class and need solidarity against a ruling class whose interests are contrary to theirs.
The intersection of street rebellions and elections make them schools for social consciousness. Revolutionaries patiently help their class work toward a common understanding and actions, such as creating a third party. In the long run, workers cannot secure either their basic needs or real democracy without transferring the means of production from private property to public ownership.
November/December 2022 vol.32. Ed6
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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