The midterm elections were a massive war for ideas, as a record $16.7 billion was spent on the 2022 state and federal elections alone. Ruling class propagandists spread the lie that “resistance is futile”: corporate overlords were destined to take over all branches of the government and tear up American democracy for the working class, including especially the rights of women and pregnant people and BIPOC and LGBTQ communities.
But led by Gen Z youth, the people voted anyway. 2022 voter turnout was outstripping the midterm record set in 2018. Voters rejected aggressive corporate messaging that they could not fight for both social and economic issues at the same time. They rejected anti-abortion policies in five referendums, and also rejected the nonsensical claim that pro-corporate politicians had better economic policies.
The real question about better economic policies is for whom – the billionaires or the working class? As Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman said, his victorious campaign was based on women’s right to choose, raising the minimum wage, health care as a fundamental human right, and standing up to corporate greed.
Finally, voters rejected the flood of anti-crime and pro-police narratives. They rejected the lie that crime is caused by Democrats, as if red states did not have higher crime rates than blue states. They especially rejected the Ku Klux Klan-inspired message that conflates crime with people of color. They remembered the lessons of the George Floyd rebellion: the working class is multiracial, and an injury to one section of the working class is an injury to all.
The working class defeated many of the worst pro-Trump fascists, although the next generation of fascists – Kemp, DeSantis, and Abbott – were victorious in the South, in part based on the new voter suppression tactics. Workers laid ahold of the ballot not just to secure elected positions, but as an organizing weapon. While many pro-corporate Democrats faltered, the size of the pro-socialist “Squad” in Congress nearly doubled. This is creating the terrain and the conditions for the larger struggle in 2024, including the fight for election results to be respected. The battle for basic needs of the millions cast aside by the corporate economy is intersecting with the fight to reconstruct democracy. We are step by step beginning to organize and understand that we are a social force. Together we have the power to overturn this dying system and to build a new one.
November/December 2022 vol.32. Ed6
Published: November 10, 2022
This article originated in Rally, Comrades!
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